I've just done something that I've never really thought about before. I've donated my hair to charity to help people who face losing theirs to various medications - the people that spring most easily to mind are cancer patients (read: Superheros) undergoing chemotherapy and radiation.
To give you a bit of background as to why I decided to do this, it's worth pointing out that I, selfishly, initially wanted only to help 1 person in particular.
My younger cousin has recently been diagnosed with Paget's Disease and will shortly be undergoing all of the horrible medication cycles associated with The Big C. As you can imagine, one of the first things that initially worried her was the potential to lose her hair through having the treatment, and so, in her typically proactive, upbeat and positive way, she got on the case with 'Project Wig' almost immediately. I won't tell her story for her, you can read more about it below.
Pause at that point and take one step back to a couple of months ago where, at a Charity Day at work, I won a voucher to have my hair cut and blow-dried at a local salon. It's not my usual salon, so I didn't really think too much about using the voucher until a couple of weeks ago when I decided that I could probably do with a bit of a pre-Autumn spruce. I remembered the voucher and, like a light bulb going on, an idea came to me. I sent my cousin a message to ask if I could donate my hair for use in her wig. Because she's so on the ball, talks around her wig are already in progress, but she said 'why don't you donate your hair anyway?'. I thought about it and thought 'why not?'. It won't be of any use to me once it's cut. And so began the process of researching where and how I could go about doing this.
One company, who will remain anonymous for the purpose of this specific blog post, was a no-go immediately for their discriminatory policies and, after looking through the remaining few, I opted for The Little Princess Trust. This charity provides real hair wigs for children suffering with hair loss and was the only one I came across which doesn't pay you for your hair. I don't know why, but being paid for hair that I'm donating for someone else to benefit from made me feel a bit uncomfortable, but to each their own. I'm not in a position to stand in judgment, but personally speaking, it's just not for me.
Having carefully washed, but not conditioned, my hair as per the donation guidelines on the morning of the cut, I made sure to pack my plastic bag to put the hair into straight away and off I trotted after work to the salon. Turns out, they're old hats at this and even offered me a plastic bag of their own! My stylist had a brief conversation with me about why I was doing this and what I wanted my eventual cut to look like. She then said to her colleague, 'Please can you grab me the clippers?'. GULP. Clippers? Aren't those used by men to shave their heads?? I remained silent, because these people know what they're doing, right? RIGHT?? I just sat back whilst she took a razor to my hair.
She hesitated before she started and looked at me and said 'You don't seem bothered by this at all!', to which I replied that I wasn't. It didn't phase me in the slightest. Why? All together now... because 'it's just hair'. It'll grow back and, with any luck, I'll be able to do this again next year.
And I was right... she knew just what she was doing!
And so it is that a voucher won at a work Charity Day enabled me to Pay It Forward to a deserving charity who will be able to make use of something that I'd have ordinarily referred to as 'only hair'. Even if I didn't already like the word so much, I'd still call that serendipity.
For me, at this moment in time, it is 'only' hair... and for a newly discovered reason, I'm incredibly grateful to be able to say that.
For more information on my cousin's journey, please take a look at her blog by clicking here.
UPDATE: 6th October 2016
Today marks the first day of Sarah's treatment as well as her birthday! Not a nice way to spend your birthday, but as I've said to her, if anyone can get through their first treatment with a smile (and red lippy) on their birthday, she can!
I received this a couple of weeks' ago, which was a nice surprise.
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