I often walk past Raquel (who when I don’t need her sits quietly on her stand in the bathroom) and tell her she’s a bitch for making my head itchy and hot and for giving me a headache by sitting snuggly on my head all day while I’m at work.

Raquel was with me on my recent road trip to the Victorian High Country and she was as boring as bat shit on the 13 hour drive! Not once did she make an effort to sing along to the new cd I bought especially for the trip, not once did she offer to drive to give my back a break and not once did she respond to the comments I made about the beautiful countryside or the quaint little cottages along the way.

Raquel was my first wig and she cost me $500 from Bonnies Wigs in the Adelaide Arcade, which has been helping women feel girly again since 1968. My girlfriend Tricia took me wig shopping and as soon as we spotted Raquel in the shop we both knew she was the one for me. I walked into Bonnie’s Wigs with hardly any hair and feeling like crap but I walked out of Bonnie’s Wig with a huge smile on my face and I felt like a million dollars.

Tricia and I then had lunch together and discussed life, work, our kids, we laughed about our beloved pooches and then went to Bupa to hopefully get some money back from the new wig purchase. We were expecting to get maybe $100 back from my health fund but within three hours Bupa had refunded $450 back into my bank account! So in reality Raquel is cheap tart who is only worth $50 so I’ve decided to replace her… Rapunzel is on her way from China!!

Yesterday was the first day I ventured out without my wig on.  Just over a month ago I would never have thought I would be hitting the hardware store without any hair!!  I sat in the carpark of my local hardware store for quite some time before I could step out of my car with only a scarf covering my bald head… its funny the things we take for granted until they are gone.

I felt very self-conscious, I left my sunglasses on and was desperately hoping I wouldn’t bump into anyone I knew.  The thing about any kind of disease which causes you to lose your hair is you feel naked without it.  It’s like rocking up to the shops butt naked and expecting people not to stare or wonder what the hell is going on in your life.

I have always taken great pride in getting good haircuts, having nice colours put on my hair and I never leave the house without make up on and my hair done but why is it that now that all my hair is gone I feel ashamed and embarrassed?  It’s not my fault this has happened, I haven’t done anything wrong!  There are plenty of people at my local shops who look like they’ve been dragged through a bush backwards and don’t even bother brushing their hair before they go out – but maybe that’s only in my non-affluent neighbourhood 🙂

I was lucky today because there were only four women in the garden section of the hardware store and all four women treated me as if I had Julia Roberts kind of hair – not like someone who appears to have cancer and has lost all her hair from the chemotherapy.

So as I walked about selecting new vegetable plants for my garden I heard this quote from The Help in my head… “you is kind, you is smart, you is important” and guess what – it really wasn’t that awful being out there in the big bad world without any hair because it doesn’t change who I am.