A friend overseas who is dealing with treatment for cancer wrote the following after I had shown her my head shave photos; “Thank you for sharing your photos and past history. It is helpful to share with people who have gone through some measure of this. I am supported by a lot of wonderful work colleagues and friends, but on the whole they have not had to contend with any of this in their lives and it is not quite the same.” I had explained the three reasons why my son, his close friend and I had shaved our heads for the Leukaemia Foundation Head Shave fundraiser in 2005, and how for me it was one of the most liberating experiences of my life. She had written it was quite liberating too! The three responses from others when I shaved my hair off was 1. you poor thing, I’m so sorry you have cancer, 2. wow, how brave are you to have such a short hair cut, and 3. that I was a lesbian. None of these things were correct at the time!

For a woman, caring for our hair is a bit like the love of clothes or shoes that some of us have, and many of us have spent a lot of time and money on hairstyles and products in our efforts to look as good as we can. Since shaving my hair off, I have never again bothered to colour my hair, or even worry about the grey ones coming through. I heard a nickname some friends used (lovingly?!) behind my back, ‘Snobby Bob girl’, because they thought my hair always looked perfect, and because I can be quite reserved, and when they first met me they wondered if it was because I was a snob! I have a friend who says she never blow dries her hair, and I simply think she is lucky that short hair suits her, and her hair looks quite thick, so it sits well without being stylised. Mine just sticks to my head, or sticks out, so I am now wearing a shorter bob style, which I can wear without blow drying and I’m slowly becoming happier with what my father calls ‘the lesbian look’! He is still very old-fashioned and thinks a woman should have flowing locks.

We all have our own way, and whether we admit it or not, I feel sure we all care about how we look. Naturally we all have our own opinion about what suits us and what we like. My eldest son came home after a haircut some years ago, and as he saw my face, he very quickly quipped, “I don’t like your haircut either!!!!!” In retrospect, I was wrong to have judged his style, and am glad he noticed my body language before I spoke, and had the courage to put me in my place. I’m going to share a photo of my son and I with our shaved heads, with a special friend Eliza who has given me permission to add this photo, and have been wanting for some time to go back to this style, maybe just a little longer, as the symptoms of dementia are making it more challenging to blowdry my hair. However, my husband hated it too, so I guess I’ll just have to send him off to learn how to blowdry it for me?!

This friends comment also highlights how valuable it is to share experiences with others, the good, the bad and the downright ugly, and how those experiencing the same kind of event or illness can support each other. I guess that is the value of support groups, and blogs, and the many other ways people join together to share a collective experience. When I lived in the country, the community was the support group, and most of the women shared their lives sitting around the kitchen table.  This is missing from most people’s lives often until retirement, as everyone works, and so there is a gap in our world, where often the emotional or other support is missing. I think that’s why I now love blogging and social media as it definitely fills the void of ‘real’ contact and interaction.