hair loss – Still Life, Beyond Cancer

Wanna See My New Tattoo?

April 2, 2021April 23, 2021Sandee McGlaun

When you lose all your hairs, including brows and lashes, to chemotherapy, your complete hairlessness becomes a visual cue to others that you are ill. It’s possible to pass off a bald head as an intentional style statement, though rarer for a woman than a man, and of course you can cover baldness with wigs and hats and scarves. But once the rest of those hairs go, especially the brows, something about your face looks off. You’d think in an age of mask-wearing the absence wouldn’t be so obvious, but it’s precisely the swath of face exposed between headscarf and mask where something is missing. Minus eyebrows, you tend to look sick, even on days you feel good.

It is, I imagine, a little like being pregnant, in the sense that you’re undergoing an immensely intimate corporeal experience that displays in profound outward bodily changes. Others–even strangers– often take those changes as permission to make comments or ask deeply personal questions. Thankfully no one seems inspired to reach out and touch my head the way they do an expectant mother’s belly, but it’s still disconcerting when someone stares a little too long, or starts offering me reassurances, or sharing their own cancer story.

So it was with much joy and not a little relief that on Tuesday, I had my first eyebrow tattoo session.

My tattoo artist, Jordan Kantor, was recently featured in an article in *The Roanoker* magazine

I am lucky to live literally around the corner from an amazing cosmetic tattoo artist, Jordan Kantor, of Skin Care Consulting. Kantor works in two sessions, six weeks apart. Her work is detailed and dimensional, the results amazingly realistic. The process was a bit uncomfortable, a feeling somewhere between having your brows plucked over and over again and repeated bee stings. But it was bearable, and worth it. I’m still in the early stages of the healing process–like any tattoo, there will be some flaking and settling of color, and of course, there’s a second session planned specifically because we may decide there needs to be some tweaking. So far, though, I’m thrilled. In fact, it’s hard to describe just how different I feel when I pop into the bathroom or walk past my dresser and catch sight of my face in a mirror–and I have eyebrows again! My face looks almost…normal! Each time, the sight feels like a small miracle.

Perhaps that sounds like an overstatement, but something that creates a sense of normalcy in a body that often no longer feels like my own, functions as I expect it to, or looks like the “me” imprinted in my mind, is a real gift. My face no longer immediately telegraphs–to me or others–“this woman is ill.” It’s a profound shift in my headspace, for which I am deeply grateful.

I won’t say I missed my brows more than my natural breasts, but I will say that it’s easier to fake natural boobs with implants than it was to fake eyebrows with any of the various products I tried. And brows play such a key role in how we read emotions and identify faces. An artist friend of mine told me that whenever he paints a portrait, he starts with the eyebrows, because they are so expressive. Steve was talking to me a couple days ago and said, “Your face is so much more expressive with your new brows!” The tattoos really are a game changer.

So this week, I’m celebrating art. Jordan is an artist, and I am happy to be one of her canvases. My only regret is that I didn’t get my eyebrows tattooed a couple of years ago when I first considered doing it to boost my natural brows. If I had, I wouldn’t have had to spend the last ten months without. I look forward to seeing how my new tattoos develop over time, and doing lots of raising and furrowing and flexing in the meantime.

Have Yourself a Hairy Little Christmas

December 18, 2020December 19, 2020Sandee McGlaun

I’ve uttered several things in 2020 I never thought I’d say. “Wait, do you have your mask?” “What time do you want to Zoom?” The most surprising, though, is this: “I really miss my nose hair.”

I’ve written previously about how hair becomes a signifier of health (or lack thereof) for cancer patients, and during my first round of chemo-induced hair loss, I explained why I missed my pubic hair the most (something else I never thought I’d declare, much less publicly, but there you go). One of the main points of the latter piece was that, as much time, energy, and money as many of us spend trying to remove them, the hairs on our human bodies do indeed serve a purpose–beyond creating and supporting an entire hair-removal industry.

Most of the time, if you hear anyone mention nose hair, it’s in the context of getting rid of the excess by trimming it. You can even buy instruments dedicated expressly to that purpose. Before you get too zealous in said pursuit, however, you might want to read on.

One of many options to tame your nose hair

Remember the “sudden snot”? At a recent appointment, both my regular doctor and nurse practitioner were unavailable for my scheduled pre-treatment consult, so I saw another NP in the office. As I was filling her in on my history, I mentioned the “sudden snot” problem I’d developed, and told her that despite taking a regular antihistamine, it hadn’t abated.

She nodded. “Some of that is probably just your body’s normal production of mucous,” she said. “But you’ve likely lost all your nose hair, so there’s nothing there to hold it back or slow it down.”

My mouth gaped inside my mask. “Oh my god, of course!” I said. “Of course!” I’d never thought about the fact that we have hairs in our nose, that that hair is functional, and–given that my body has emptied every other known follicle since I’ve been on Sasquatch–that my alopecia would extend there as well. It was a revelation. If light-bulbs really did appear above your head when the light dawns, I would have had a full-on Rockefeller Christmas tree over mine.

As it stands, I have a full-on faucet on my face. So. I really miss my nose hair.

I really miss my eyelashes, too, and not just out of vanity. Eyelashes are also functional. You don’t realize how effective an early warning/blocking-foreign-object system they are until you don’t have them to signal, for example, that the edge of your mask is about to creep up and scrape your eyeball, or the edge of your headscarf about to droop into it. Then there’s the act of trying to put on eyeliner without an eyelash line to stop you from jabbing the pencil right in. If a particle of something does get into your eye, you have no lashes to grab and pull your lid out to try to help blink it away. Don’t think you do that very often? Betcha do it more often than you realize.

I also miss my eyebrows. Profoundly. That was true the first time I had chemo, too, and it’s related more to appearance than function. I’ve referred before to the research that shows eyebrows are a key feature in making us recognizable. Losing my eyebrows–far more than losing the hair on my head–makes me feel like I’ve lost something fundamental in what makes me look like me. It feels like losing my face.

No one manufactures replacement nose hairs, but in terms of brows and lashes, there are almost as many products on the market to replace them as there are to remove those hairs less desired. (We probably need to have a longer conversation with ourselves as a species about our strange pre-occupation with good hairs versus bad hairs….) Since my face is currently a blank canvas, well, why not test out a few?

First up: eyelashes. When I was modeling, I occasionally wore fake eyelashes, the basic kind that use eyelash glue. I never found them difficult to use, and I liked how they bulked up my natural lashes, especially in photographs. Now there are magnetic lashes with tiny magnets along the lash line; you swipe on a magnetized eyeliner to which the lashes stick. Even more recently, the company Moxielash has debuted lashes that use silicone as the sticking agent.

I tried both. The liner that came with the magnetic lashes is black, liquid liner. If you think drawing straight, even lines with liquid liner is tough when you have your own eyelashes to guide you, you can imagine how many times I drew on my eyeball. And it’s nigh impossible to draw the liner or place the lashes right up against the eye (your natural lash-line is usually the guide, and fills that space). So even if I manage not to poke myself, I end up with a thin skin-colored gap that’s further highlighted by the dark liner and lashes. The clear liner that comes with the silicone lashes tones down the contrast, but the gap remains and makes fake lashes, even styles labelled “natural,” look extreme. It’s a lot of drama for a visit to the doctor’s office.

I’ve had more luck, after considerable trial and error, with eyebrows, at least if I subscribe to (and I do) the adage that brows should look like sisters, not twins. Twins are not happening. I started with a “Tattbrow” pencil, which mimics the look of micro-blading, but it’s a bit too dark. I ordered some stencil stickers but found them unwieldy. For a while I used a reusable plastic stencil and brow powder in “dark blonde” by Senna. It doesn’t really give the look of individual hairs and wears off more easily than I’d like. But it’s easy to wipe off and try again on those days when my first attempt results not in sisters but in fourth-cousins thrice removed.

Most recently, and a bit by accident, I found and purchased the somewhat inauspiciously named “Eyebrow Tattoo Stickers.” Temporary tattoos that stay in place for a couple days, they’re going to take a little trimming and some practice, but they’re promising. I also got myself some sparkly bling to play with. Might as well put the canvas to good use.

I was reassured a couple weeks ago when Steve and I watched a live-stream concert of Scottish folk musicians, and one of the women, Inge Thomson, had a face and head like mine. I don’t know the cause of her alopecia, but she is bald and sans eyebrows and lashes, and she looks fine–not alien, not weird. Lovely, in fact. So I’m trying to find ways to stop with the before/after comparisons of my own face–which is what gets me into trouble–and embrace and enhance my new look with minimal prosthetic additions.

I AM kind of excited that I can make pearl “eyebrows” to match my shiny new boots if I want 🙂

Still, vanity is one thing, functionality another. I do miss my nose hair. This holiday season, be kind to your hairs. They are a gift, and they are doing more for you than you might imagine.

Now, please excuse me while I go find another box of tissues.

Hair’s an Update

September 11, 2017Sandee McGlaun

Hello, friends. It’s been a while. 🙂

I’m glad to say my hiatus is mostly a result of lots of good things going on, combined with an awareness that I still need to apportion my energy. My June reconstructive surgery went well; I’m overjoyed to have soft-ish implants in place of those bricks they call tissue expanders. My hubby Steve and I had a nice beach week at Emerald Isle, and I returned to work at the beginning of August, where my colleagues have been welcoming and supportive. There’ve been some hard things, too. We lost our sweet dog Imoh suddenly and unexpectedly to kidney failure in July. I have one more minor surgery to go yet, chemo brain is real, and I still have to do some combination of physical therapy, yoga, and/or self-massage daily to address range-of-motion limitations and prevent lymphedema.

That last is the other reason I’ve been writing less: now that I’m back at the office, spending a lot of work hours at the computer, my neck and shoulder lock up within a few hours. I have to ration my desk time, a frustrating scenario for a writer. I like to think my tales here do some good, that they offer a kind of window into a world that too many of us have (or will have) a need to understand. And I fear that because I stopped posting, I may have reinforced the idea that the cancer story ends when treatment is done and the rogue cells are vanquished. I (along with every other survivor) probably wish more fervently than anyone that that were true. I would love to “get back to normal.” But I’m still trying to figure out what “normal” looks like.

Consider: at the last check-up with my medical oncologist, I teared up talking about some trifling symptom—a headache, a knee that kept popping—that had worried me briefly. He nodded, and said “After what you’ve been through, for a while, everything that happens to and with your body, you’ll think— ‘It’s cancer.’ That’s normal.”

Process that for a minute. That’s normal.

It’s hard, then, to know what to say when you get an email that includes a genuine, well-intentioned “hope you’re feeling 100%.” It feels cranky and self-pitying to reply, “Well, actually, my doctors keep reminding me that it takes 18 to 24 months after the last major treatment or surgery to get back to baseline.” Or what to think when a colleague asks “How are you? Really, how are you?” and when you begin to answer honestly—you’re good, but still have another surgery ahead and some big decisions to make—she interrupts and says, “But you’re here, you’re good, you look great, you’re healthy.” More than once I’ve felt chastised, like I’m supposed to be so grateful to be alive and cancer-free, I’m not allowed to have any other feelings about the losses I’ve endured. Or if I do, I’m not supposed to talk about them.

The messy truth is that oftentimes people don’t really want to know the messy truth.

I think these kinds of responses are motivated by the same basic impulse: people want a happily ever after story. They want it for the person who’s been ill, because they sincerely care about that person and wish them health and happiness. But they also want it for themselves, because it’s reassuring. If my mortality no longer seems to be under immediate threat, they aren’t reminded of their own when they see me. None of us has to think about just how close we stand, every day, to the brink.

Maybe that’s why my still-short hair confuses and unsettles people. After chemo finished last October, my hair began to grow back by late December, but remained somewhere just shy of peach fuzz until February. As it filled in, people commented, “Your hair’s really coming back!” My returning hair was seen as a proxy for restored health. When I finally had enough for a haircut, I opted to keep it pixie short. With my range of motion issues, and more surgery on the horizon, spending half an hour with my arms lifted above my head every day to style it would be painful if not impossible. It was much easier to manage it short. Besides, I thought it looked kinda cute.

But friends and colleagues, especially those I haven’t seen in a while, continue to comment on my hair growth, often with puzzlement or concern. Most know that treatment ended some months ago. There’s an unspoken question under their words: if everything’s okay, shouldn’t I have more hair by now?

I’ve come to wonder if there’s yet another reason I’ve kept my pixie. Since I don’t, nor do I want to, go around flashing my scars, it’s the primary way I have to telegraph to people that things have changed for me, permanently. That I am still processing through this experience physically, mentally, and emotionally, and I will be for a while. That there really isn’t any “getting back” to normal; “normal” is different than before, something I’m still negotiating, still learning to navigate.

I didn’t plan it that way, but I recognize now that my pixie cut is a kind of signifier. Maybe for myself, as much as anyone. It’s a reminder to be kind and gentle, with myself, and others. It’s a cue to take care of myself, to be patient with this long and often circuitous healing process.

Last year around this time, Steve, my father and I visited the first annual Sunflower Festival at Beaver Dam Farm in nearby Fincastle. It was a chemo weekend, but usually after a Friday infusion I’d have a reasonably good Saturday afternoon before the side-effects would hit hard. Sunflowers make me happy, and we had a good, but short, visit. This year Steve and I returned, and though the flowers themselves were a bit droopy due to lack of rain, it was sheer joy to stroll leisurely through the fields of their sunny faces, goofing around, sharing ice cream. Steve and I will celebrate our second wedding anniversary in a few days. For our first anniversary, we squeezed a trip back to the site of our honeymoon in between chemo treatments. I’ll happily supplant a fancier celebration with this year’s simple dinner at a local restaurant, accompanied by cancer-free body and the relative sense of peace in my heart.

I suspect that, eventually, I’ll grow my hair out, and take its color back again to the blond of my youth. But for now, if my pixie prompts me to spend less time in front of a mirror, and more time drinking in the wonders of this too-fragile world, it’s more than enough hair for me.

Photos taken at the second annual Sunflower Festival at Beaver Dam Farm, Fincastle, Virginia.

Heads Up! #8: Dad’s Gray Stetson

February 7, 2017February 8, 2017Sandee McGlaun

My father taught for well over forty years in the public school system; he started with a few years of high school in Texas, and then, for the bulk of his career, taught chemistry at a community college in Georgia. He’s retired now, and tomorrow is his birthday. In honor of the contributions he and all other smart, dedicated, and hard-working teachers have made to the education and growth of our young people, I’m featuring his vintage gray Stetson in today’s Heads Up! post.

The hat itself testifies to the kind of opportunity and success access to public education offers. My dad, Garry, grew up on a farm in rural Texas, and he was the first in his family to go to college. When he graduated in 1964 from what was then East Texas State University, his parents gifted him the Stetson as a graduation gift.

According to the receipt, still tucked in the box, the hat cost $12, the equivalent of around $94 today. After graduating, he put his degree right back to work in the service of educating others.

I remember him wearing the Stetson on occasion during my childhood. When I was in middle school, we discovered that it fit me, too. Both my father and I have (at least judging by the general inventory of the hat industry) unusually small heads. So it was a kick to discover that I could sport his Stetson.

Having grown up in the Southeast, I never had my parents’ bent for Western style (though I am partial to boots of all kinds). To give the Stetson a little feminine flair I added a (removable) floral band and paired it with a cozy blue wrap over a mixed calico-print dress and jeans.

According to the official Stetson website, the company was founded in 1865 by John Batterson Stetson, who, after traveling out west as a young man, returned east to open a hat-making shop in Philadelphia. His father had also been in the trade, and passed his skills on to his son. With an initial investment of somewhere between $60 and $100 (accounts vary), Stetson finally struck a chord with his “Boss of the Plains” design in 1869 and in 1870 purchased property for his own factory. After his death in 1901 and well into the 1950s, the company designed and manufactured a wide variety of styles, including hats for the military during the war.

When hats began to drift out of daily fashion in the 1960s, it was President Lyndon B. Johnson’s influence that encouraged the company’s turn toward Western styles. That proved a long-term lucrative market. Manufacturing moved to Missouri, and movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark helped keep the hats popular. The current Stetson factory is in Garland, Texas.

Changing up the band of my Dad’s hat to a narrow one in black, rust, and gold makes the Stetson the perfect accessory for a black poncho, jeans, and equestrian-style boots.

So here’s a hats off to all our educators, especially those like my Dad who’ve dedicated their entire careers to public education. Thank you for your service. We are indebted to you and will continue to need your wisdom, guidance, and strength.

And happy birthday, Dad! Thank you for the loan of your wonderful hat.

———————————–

Heads up!

∼ Beautiful, quirky hats make me happy. The “Heads Up!” series is a reminder to keep my (still bald-ish) head up, to pay attention to the good in the world, and to encourage myself and others facing a tough road that it’s possible to find the fun in even the most challenging circumstances. ∼

Photos by Steve Prisley

Heads Up! #7: Cozy Cobalt Felted Wool

January 14, 2017Sandee McGlaun

Like much of the U.S., we recently had snow here in Southwest Virginia. I usually welcome snow, as it tends (at least here in the South) to make us slow down a bit and refocus our attention, for a day or two, on things like nature’s beauty, play, and family. The cold inspires gratitude for the warm shelter I call home, a gift denied to too many.

Our recent snow days–accompanied by single digit temperatures–seemed like the perfect time to feature my cozy cobalt felted wool hat, handmade by artist Sandy Stanton. I purchased the hat new back in September at the Asheville NC Homecrafts store, located in the Historic Grove Arcade in downtown Asheville. There were so many wonderful hats there to choose from, it was tough to select just one (I didn’t; I’ll be featuring my second purchase at a later date…). But I was immediately drawn to the beautiful blues of this hat, its primary cobalt accented by a band and flower knitted from an ombre-dyed yarn that shifts from jade to turquoise to cadet blue, into gray, brown, and finally cobalt at the flower’s center.

I gravitate toward shades of blue in my winter clothing, perhaps as a way of harnessing and transforming the emotional blues I often suffer in cold weather and its long, dark days. When so many other colors disappear from the landscape in winter, we are left with the blues: the crisp cerulean sky that reigns over the coldest days, steel-blue clouds signaling an oncoming storm, ice’s translucent aquas, the ethereal periwinkle of moonlit snow. Beautiful in their own right, these winter hues also recall the blues of kinder seasons: the robin’s egg blue of a cloudless autumn afternoon, a pewter horizon hanging over a sapphire sea, water lapping at the azure edges of a sunny backyard pool.

Occasionally snow days are an unwelcome interruption: they frustrate routines, delay travel, cancel our much-anticipated plans. But even when the clouds confound us, the thing about snow is this: it eventually melts. The storm will pass, the roads will clear. And as the world emerges from its white cocoon, the sky above will spread its wings, inviting us once again to delight in its fair, wide, beautiful blue.

Heads Up!

Photos by Steve Prisley

∼ Beautiful, quirky hats make me happy. The “Heads Up!” series is a reminder to keep my (currently bald) head up, to pay attention to the good in the world, and to encourage myself and others facing a tough road that it’s possible to find the fun in even the most challenging circumstances. ∼

Of All The Hair I Lost…

January 7, 2017January 7, 2017Sandee McGlaun

Of all the hair I lost, I missed my pubic hair the most.

I know a lot of people go to great effort and endure significant discomfort to remove the hair in their nethers. I briefly tried shaving once a few years ago, and I didn’t get the appeal. When after chemo my pubic hair shed alongside all the other hairs on my body (exception: seven eyelashes), I’ve never felt more profoundly naked.

hairless2 — Minimal eyebrows, maximum cheeks

Losing my eyebrows was a close second. When I was first diagnosed, I knew I’d lose my head of hair; I knew, eventually, I’d lose my breasts. No one warned me that, for a while at least, I’d also lose my face.

As a born blonde, my brows have always been light, especially in summer when they’re bleached by sun exposure. I usually fill them in a bit with a light brown pencil, lest it appear I have no brows. For the month or so that I did, in fact, have no eyebrows, I almost couldn’t recognize the pale, perpetually startled face in the mirror (an effect enhanced by my having the cheeks of a puffer-fish, courtesy of steroids). Eyebrows are a key factor in facial recognition, according to a 2003 study conducted by behavioral neuroscientist Javid Sadr: study subjects asked to identify fifty famous faces in digitally altered photos could ID the celebrity only 46 percent of the time when the eyebrows were absent. Small wonder my browless visage looked unfamiliar, even to me.

Losing the hair on my head bothered me least, which is probably why I never opted for a wig. I tried them on twice. The first time, I borrowed a short wig from another survivor so I wouldn’t have to take my new driver’s license photo bald. It was a very nice wig, but the weave was thick, and I’ve never had that much hair in my life. I felt like a fake.

Later, a friend of mine invited me along to visit her hairdresser’s wig shop in Lynchburg while she got a haircut. I found a few wigs there that I felt more comfortable in; they were constructed differently and better mimicked my naturally fine hair. I couldn’t decide if I should be comforted or alarmed that the one we all liked best was an angled bob—especially in gray.

My chemo had already concluded at that point, though, and I was hoping my own hair would soon return. Plus, it was hard to imagine asking my doctor for a prescription for a “cranial prosthesis” with a straight face—the term most insurance companies require for coverage.

Thankfully, my various hairs have begun to grow back, though the universe has had a great sense of humor about the order of things. The first place I detected stubble was on my legs, specifically my calves. Seriously? I thought. The first hair to come back is the hair I deliberately shave off several times a week?

Hair also began to grow “back” in places I didn’t remember having hair before. Like the front of my neck. Large downy patches on my cheeks. As a fine fuzz began to cover my scalp, tiny hairs also outlined the helix of each ear in a soft halo. I know most humans, women included, have a layer of fine facial hair, but I don’t recall mine previously having been quite so thick.

The verdict is still out on the color of my incoming head hair. My mother thought the initial peach fuzz looked light, “like the white-blond hair you had when you were a little girl,” she said. I wish. Steve thinks it’s brown. I definitely see some lighter highlights, but I’m guessing they’re gray. If I’m lucky, they’ll be that pretty, glinty, silvery gray some folks get. And texture is a real toss-up post-chemo: hair that was once straight often comes in curly; curly hair grows in straight. Since mine is maybe yet a quarter-inch long, the only texture it has at present is soft and fuzzy, like a velour jacket. My head seems to invite a lot of rubbing.

As my eyebrows have returned, I’ve stopped having to draw them on from memory (tricky to get even, easily smeared). They’re coming in the same light-brown, taupe-ish color they’ve been since college. It’s nice to see a glimpse of the familiar when I glance in the mirror, instead of a surprised alien.

And yes, it’s a relief to be less bare “down there.” I’m told there are wigs, called merkins, available for one’s nethers; movie stars sometimes wear them in nude scenes for a little extra coverage. But though I felt unduly exposed, I can no more fathom going to the trouble of attaching extra hair to my crotch than I can fathom enduring the pain of waxing it bare. Besides, according to an article by Ia n Lecklitner on the Dollar Shave Club website (oh, the irony), all of our naturally-occurring human hairs have an evolutionary purpose: eyebrows, in addition to identification, are “ergonomically engineered” to protect the eyes from moisture and debris; pubic hair helps to foil bacteria; head hair serves as insulation. So I’m glad, for the most part, that my follicles are up and at ‘em again.

Though I do wish someone could explain just what evolutionary advantage I’ve gained by having fuzzy ears.

Heads Up! #6: Vintage Sparkle

November 29, 2016December 1, 2016Sandee McGlaun

I celebrated a birthday at the beginning of this week. I think I can safely refer to myself as being in my “mid-forties” for one more year. The next time candles grace a cake for me, however, I’ll have shifted firmly to the “late-forties” category.

That’s okay. More than okay, actually. Being a breast cancer patient has given me a whole new perspective on aging. Growing older–having the chance to grow older–sounds pretty darn good. Aging has its challenges to be sure; even before I was ill, it had started taking me longer to recover from strenuous hikes, or late nights with friends, than it did ten or even five years ago. But given the various losses of mobility, energy, and dignity I’ve recently endured–and survived–I know I can cope with growing old. (And in the meantime, I better understand why old-timers sometimes feel cranky.)

Though I suppose any vintage hat that has retained attitude and elegance could serve to underscore the merits of aging, I thought this one especially apt: a gray felt cloche topped by a feather detail. It appears sedate at first, but a closer look at the crown reveals a colorful medley of pink, green, and black-and-white feathers underneath fine netting. The gray brim of the hat is ringed by a satin ribbon that might, in its youth, have been bright pink, but has since faded to a lovely mauve. A round rhinestone accent, though darkened a bit by time, adds sass and sparkle.

The hat is tagged as an “Evelyn Varon Exclusive.” According to Brenda Grantland in a comment on the Collectors Weekly website, Varon was a “French milliner whose designs were so popular that they were copied in the U.S. A March 11, 1914 issue of the Evening Post Page of Wanamaker News reports that the store was offering copies of hats designed by Parisian milliners Suzanne Talbot, Evelyn Varon, Jeanne Duc, Caroline Reboux and Paul Poiret.” Grantland also claims that Varon designed costumes for the original Broadway version of Pins and Needles, but I haven’t been able to verify that claim.

In any case, it’s fun to embrace a little touch of 1914 Paris right here in 2016 Virginia. Ooh la la!

Heads Up!

All photographs by Laura Wade Photography.

∼ Beautiful, quirky vintage hats make me happy. The “Heads Up!” series is a reminder to keep my (currently bald) head up, to pay attention to the good in the world, and to encourage myself and others facing a tough road that it’s possible to find the fun in even the most challenging circumstances. ∼

Heads Up! #5: Deep Purple

November 8, 2016November 9, 2016Sandee McGlaun

It’s a big day in the U.S. of A. today: after months (years) of wildly optimistic campaign promises, sometimes baffling debates, and too many social media meltdowns, the presidential election is finally here.

A big day deserves a bold hat!

This purple velvet beauty, trimmed in a sweep of iridescent blue, green, and white feathers (peacock, perhaps?) and a wide purple grosgrain ribbon, makes me think of the femme fatale in a 1940s film noir. The brim is low and wide, dipping below the eye on one side, giving it a bit of mystery and drama.

I find it pairs well with black and a bit of attitude.

Still, its bright hue and asymmetrical fold keep it from getting too serious.

Maybe we should keep that kind of balance in mind when we’re talking politics?

The hat was made by “Wesco.” There have been at least three different U.S. companies who sported that name, though it was not clear which of them were in the millinery trade. There are a number of other vintage hats on Etsy and eBay advertised as “Wesco” chapeaux, but no one notes any additional details.

It is a hat, then, with more mystery than history. On a day that’s making history for other reasons—the first time we have the opportunity to vote for a woman as a major party candidate for president—perhaps that’s just as it should be.

Heads Up!

All photos in gallery 1 by Margaret McGlaun.

Header photo and all photos in gallery 2 by Laura Wade Photography.

Heads Up! #4: Red Velvet Day

October 21, 2016Sandee McGlaun

This rolled-and-ruched red velvet cloche is one I found at an antique store and fell in love with immediately. Its hue falls somewhere between red and pink, depending on the light, and its organic folds and pleats are full of movement, even when it’s simply resting atop the head.

The hat is finished with one wide grosgrain band that wraps and encircles its narrow brim, and a second, doubled ribbon in the same shade that gathers the pleats on the right side of the back crown. The only tag inside indicates that it was “Union Made in the U.S.A.”

Sometimes I feel a bit silly or indulgent playing with my hats. I mean, I have cancer. I should be serious, right? Every day I’m reminded that energy and time are finite quantities, so I should use them wisely, yes?

Pish. Today is the only day we have. That makes it all the more important to embrace frivolity, joy, and superfluous delights, which really aren’t superfluous at all.

This topper’s bright color and sassy cheer, by the way, make it a great hat to mark two notable milestones: the conclusion of my chemotherapy, and the advent of the autumn leaf hues that are finally beginning to appear!

Heads up!

All photos by Laura Wade Photography.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

September 30, 2016September 30, 2016Sandee McGlaun

Once I knew I’d have chemotherapy as part of my cancer treatment, I assumed I’d be bald for a while. My oncologist confirmed that fact at my first appointment: “You will lose your hair,” he noted. I just nodded. It would begin to thin within a week or two after the first treatment, he said, and likely shed in earnest after the second round.

Before I even lost the first strand, the vision of my bald self that kept appearing in my mind’s eye was of one of the Precogs in the 2002 movie Minority Report, a sci-fi thriller set in Washington DC in 2054. The Precogs are three mutated humans with extra-sensory powers who spend most of the film floating in a tank, “previsualizing” crimes so that Tom Cruise’s character can arrest potential perpetrators before any heinous acts take place.

The Precogs—specifically the character of Agatha Lively, played by Samantha Morton—are pale, near-bald, and wide-eyed, and for some reason, every time I tried to imagine myself without hair, that’s the image I saw.

I’m not sure why, as my one previous near-bald experience involved neither liquid immersion nor futuristic crime-fighting. I got a buzz cut in my mid-thirties when, at the university where I taught in Georgia, I played the lead role in Wit, Margaret Edson’s play about a stiff-lipped professor of British literature who faces ovarian cancer. Actors typically shave their heads for the role, and I was game. I made the transition gradually, having my bobbed hair cut short, then shorter, finally shaving it down to a buzz.

At that point I’m sorry to say I lost my nerve. Though I didn’t take it all the way to bare skin, that experience helped prepare me for the prospect of being bald once I became a real cancer patient who didn’t have a choice in the matter.

My approach was pragmatic. As the doctor had outlined it, the timeline of my treatments meant I could retain my regular haircut through my parents’ 50^th anniversary party in mid-July. After that, a transition to a pixie cut would make the progressive loss less immediately obvious, and probably less traumatic. As I told an old friend at my folks’ gathering, I decided to relish, with intention, those last couple of weeks of having hair: I went a little brighter blonde than usual for fun, styled it deliberately each day, tinkered with a new curling wand I’d bought a month before. Once the hair was gone, my plan was to break out my vintage hats and scarf collection, and enjoy the inevitable simplification of my daily grooming routine with equal deliberateness.

Going…

Gone!

The first significant thinning took place while Steve and I were visiting my parents for the anniversary party, a week after my first chemo. When I got up to go to the bathroom during the night, there in the mirror, by the light of the nightlight, I saw a distinct shadow on my left breast, a darkening of the skin where the cancer was located. Instinctively I understood the shadow to be a concentrating of the chemotherapy drugs in the mass. The first significant cluster of hair strands shed into my hands as I showered the next morning. So, the drugs were working. That was good.

The next week my Roanoke stylist Brandy gave me the anticipated pixie cut, accompanied by a welcome mimosa. The pixie got raves, but it only lasted about a week. I let my hair come out on its own until it got patchy, then invited my girlfriends over for a head-shaving porch party. I cried as the hair fell away, but we laughed together, too, and I felt surrounded by love and support as they rallied around and Steve kissed my head, which now matched his. When a few days later my thirteen-year-old nephew showed up shorn and shaven, having cut his long hair off to donate to Locks of Love, I was overwhelmed with gratitude.

We match!

Girlfriends!

My mini-me

My daily routine has shifted dramatically. No shampooing or conditioning, which I expected. No blow-dryer or flat-iron. But also: no leg or underarm or bikini shaving. The number of products I use regularly has been cut by at least a third. The change has made me wonder how many hours of my life, how much of my money, I’ve given over to hair all these years. I feel more confident when I’m coiffed and styled, when I wear makeup, but the investment is bigger than I’d ever reckoned. Now I’m left wondering: is all the time worth the trade-off?

For a while I did a double-take anytime I passed by a mirror. Wait, who’s that woman with the short hair/buzz cut/no hair? I wore something on my head most all the time at first, even sleeping with a blue wool beanie (sexy!) like Pa in his cap, T’was the Night Before Christmas-style. After the hot flashes set in (another side effect courtesy of chemo), I was almost glad not to have a hat of hair closing off the handy heat-vent that is my bare scalp.

Compared to the prospect of permanent loss and alteration of my breasts, temporary hair loss is just that—temporary, and not so terrible. But there have been a few irksome moments. On our recent visit to Asheville, I spent a day at the Grove Park Inn Spa. As the attendant took me and another patron on a tour, she pointed out all the luxurious goodies we’d have access to in the showers: citrus shampoo and conditioner, body wash, shaving cream. I smiled ruefully. Well, yay for body wash. Just a few days ago I got an Ulta Beauty catalog-advertisement in the mail that made me shake my head. The cover advertised two events: a special promotion for October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the month’s beauty focus, “The Gorgeous Hair Event,” tagline “Every Girl’s Way to Good Hair Days.” The first fourteen pages of the ad are devoted solely to hair care products and tools. Then follows a two-page spread on Breast Cancer Research Foundation initiatives–two support options are getting a shampoo/cut or pink hair extensions. Someone did not think that combo through fully, methinks.

No one seems to mind the state of my head, really, though that day in the spa, I did get a few startled glances from other patrons when I first shed my headscarf. As I lay back in one of the pools, I imagine I really did resemble a Precog, ready to send and receive messages from the larger store of humanity. Across the room, a man with an artificial leg removed his prosthetic and slid into another pool; an elderly woman helped a frailer friend navigate stone tile steps. As I floated, listening to the underwater music, I gazed up through the skylight above me, watching the clouds shapeshift in the blue beyond. I had no predictions to make, for ill or good. I simply rested, my shiny head and healing body absorbing the truth of our shared imperfections: we’re all bald beneath our hair.

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