SPECIAL FEATURE
coping with hair loss
Though treatment-related
hair loss can be an emotional challenge, there are tools
available to help patients cope. By Diana Price
LAUREN ERDMAN WAS 19 YEARS OLD and a sophomore in college when she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. While her friends were studying for finals and going on dates, Lauren was facing down intensive chemotherapy treatments and the related side effects, including hair loss. "One of the first questions out of my mouth," Lauren says, de-
scribing her reaction to her diagnosis and prescribed treatment plan, "was 'Am I going to go bald? What's going to happen?'" Unfortunately, Lauren's care team at the time did not offer much information about what she could expect in that area. "Nobody talked to me about how hair loss would happen," she says. As a result, she was surprised when, almost as soon as she returned home after her weeklong inpatient chemotherapy treatment, her
36 cancer fighters thrive | summer 2012
long hair began to fall out. Pretty soon Lauren realized that she would need to cut it short and, ultimately, shave her head as her hair continued to thin and fall out. Despite her initial concerns over the impact of hair loss,
Lauren says that the experience of losing her hair as a result of treatment became empowering, as she took pride in her altered appearance and what it symbolized and embraced the opportu- nity to become truly comfortable in her own skin. As she learned to love the new image she saw in the mirror, Lauren kept a fellow cancer survivor in her mind. "I had an image in my head of a woman I saw at the treatment center: she was totally bald—no hair, no eyelashes—but she had makeup on, and cute clothes, and she walked with her head high. I said to my mom, 'That's
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