I have Alopecia Areata, an autoimmune condition where my immune system attacks my hair, stopping and preventing growth. As if my immune system didn't already have enough to do with it's normal job AND attacking my thyroid (hypoactive thryoid) and my joints (rheumatoid arthritis)!
Before we go any further, please know, I am not writing this so you can feel bad for me. I know that if I were to walk through a cancer ward in a hospital, any one of the chemo/cancer patients I imagine would much rather be simply losing hair than having to lose it due to chemo and cancer. I am sure they would be glad to be bald or balding alone than have to deal with cancer on top of it. I am grateful to just be losing my hair. It's as simple as that. I'm not sick. It's just hair.
However, it is getting worse. Before you couldn't really tell:
Nice photo, eh? Thanks Will for the great dino shot!
Now I'm getting this lovely view of my scalp:
I know, it's not big, but I can't cover it up like I can these:
Smile if the side of your head is bald!
So as for now, this is what you see. But if treatment doesn't work (painful steriod injections in my scalp...WHY don't dermatologists have numbing gel in their offices? I am getting to the bottom of that one for sure!) you just may be seeing a wig. Evelyn said I could have her hair if I needed it :) I am grateful I am not a boy, I would have to shave my head!
So please don't feel bad for me, but now you know if you are next to me and a breeze blows by and you get a glimpse of some major whiteness on my head, you can say to my kids: Yo momma's so bald, Mr. Clean got jealous! Or if you can think of a better joke, that would be okay too.
6 comments:
Hey...shaving my head isn't that bad.
i love love love you jess. so so so much.
Jessica, I love your honesty and vulnerability! My uncle also has alopecia, so I'm familiar with the disease growing up near him most of my life. If Hannah gets put in Mrs. H's class, you two could have a lot to talk about! Your confidence is a beautiful thing!!!
I love you dear friend, for your honesty, vulnerability, and sense of humor. I love you and will pray that your body will respond as it should. Sending a big hug your way!!!!
Thanks for posting this. Lovely what mortality can do to the body. I say that second sentence with a bit of sarcasm as I have not yet come to the level of acceptance that you have about unfair and unattractive things-that-can-go-wrong-with-the-body. Not that I'm glad you have to deal with this, but it's nice to know I'm not the only one that doesn't have a perfect body (even in the most basic things that most take for granted). I'm often repeating to myself the phrase I heard in one of the Mormon Message videos, "I am not my body." Thanks for sharing. Good luck.
Thanks for the encouragement/comfort is what I guess I was trying to say.
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