“My Inner Poodle-Thoughts on Hair and Loss”

My mother told me that when I was a baby, I didn’t develop much hair for a long time. What hair I did have at that time, was blond. That would later change. Looking back on my childhood photos, I see that when my hair finally grew in, I had lots of frizzy curls on my head. As a toddler with big blue eyes, it was cute. But as I grew and needed haircuts, my mother decided that my hair couldn’t be styled much. There was no point in wasting money going to a beauty salon. She took me, instead, to the barber shop for what was called a “poodle cut”. Little did she know this would traumatize me for all of my youth. I would ask myself, “Why wasn’t I pretty enough to go to a beauty salon like other girls?” That barbershop and the name, “poodle cut” set me on a course of low self-esteem for a long time.

Having curly hair always set me apart from most girls. Why couldn’t I have pigtails that look normal instead of two bushes on the side of my head?! Why couldn’t I wear my hair in a “bob” like my girl friends?

On top of that, my hair wasn’t beautiful, thick curls. My hair was fairly thin and very frizzy. You have to know how to cut hair like that in order to give it style. But in the days of my youth, well, who knew that? I just had the so named “poodle cut”.

When I was in high school, I was not a beauty nor was I cute, just attractive. However, just being attractive, did not enhance my self-image. I was so self-conscious of my hair. I never wanted to go swimming in GYM class. I spent hours before bed setting my hair on huge rollers. The next day I would be “ratting” it up with a comb and using cans of hair spray. Anything to make my hair look like my girlfriends. My hair resembled a shellac helmet on my head.

It all changed, when I turned thirty, and decided to get my nose done. With a different look to my face, suddenly my curly hair didn’t seem so bad. I still styled my hair with a hairdryer and a roller brush and hated when the humidity destroyed the style I created, but suddenly my hair seemed softer. Wavy was not too bad with my new nose. Or so I believed. It was the beginning of “my look”. It was like the curtains opened on a stage and introduced a whole new person. Here I am!

Eventually, I left Chicago and moved to Los Angeles where it was less humid and found a French hair stylist at a Beverly Hills salon that knew how to cut and style curly hair. I always thought the French understood hair better. That’s probably not the case, but I thought so.

The big change occurred after a trip to a Yoga retreat where I met a woman who also lived in Los Angeles. Her curly hair was crazy and wild and I loved the style. I found out who cut her hair and made an appointment with her stylist as soon as I got back to LA.

He was unconventional and never liked working in a salon with others, so he opened his own small shop. Perfect for me as I liked unconventional. He understood how to work with hair like mine. I loved that. Now my hair was not only cut to manage my curly frizzy hair; it celebrated it. This became my unique look for years to come.

Over the years, some people have said to me “Oh, I could really see you in a shorter hair style, but I said, “NO”. I liked my wild and curly hair. As I color my hair, when the roots started to grow out, the curls hid those imposing roots very well. I could go for months without redoing the color. When I woke in the morning, I basically fluffed it up. My “inner Poodle” had finally become a friend.

Along with the way I created my dressing style, I had found my “My Look, my style”.

When I moved to France and I married my French guy, he would sometimes, jokingly say he had his own lovely French Poodle. Suddenly poodle, no longer had a negative connotation for me. I also found a French stylist in Paris that truly understood what I wanted in a haircut. She was expensive and I no longer had a huge salary to really afford her, but I went to her anyway. It was “my look” and I had to preserve it! Then she retired. Mon Dieu, how could she do that to me.

For my remaining years living permanently in France and for the future summers spent there, I went from stylist to stylist. Some were better than others. But I watched them like a hawk while they were cutting my hair. They had to maintain “the wild and crazy”.

As I aged, the look that I developed helped me maintain a certain youthfulness. But then “shit happened”.

Can you say Pseudomyxoma Peritonei. What a mouthful! It’s a rare cancer of the appendix which results in mucinous deposits in your abdomen. It sounds gory and it is. The treatment involves surgery with chemo added to my abdomen for 90 minutes. It’s called HIPEC and the surgeon said it is “the mother of all surgeries” Scary stuff, let me tell you. Hearing the big C is bad enough, but the treatment sounded worse than the disease.

“Will I lose my hair?” I asked the surgeon. His answer, “most likely not”. Ok, I thought, I’m good here. What I didn’t pay attention to were the words “most likely”. Three months after my surgery I noticed that my hair was looking weird. The texture had changed and it was not holding the curl. It wasn’t exactly straight either. It was a horrid mixture of fizzy and straight. It was as if my hair was having an identity crisis…am I straight, am I frizzy? What was sure was that I was having an identity crisis.

I hadn’t noticed my hair falling out in the sink, hadn’t seen it on my pillow. How was this happening? I just survived a horrid surgery and was in remission, but I was suddenly faced with my hair coming out, breaking off. I was so sad and emotional. I felt tired, alone and old.

Everyone said to me, that going through a traumatic episode, causes you to lose your hair. “It will grow back”, they all said, trying to reassure me. I was beside myself reading everything I could on the Internet about hair loss. I researched and bought special shampoo and conditioner, silk pillowcases to sleep on, bamboo combs and a Manta brush for combing my hair. I looked into supplements, hair oils, putting collagen in my smoothie in the morning. The money I spent looking for the right combination to bring my hair back!

Finally, I went to a dermatologist. She confirmed that I did, in fact, have the alopecia hair loss that comes with trauma. But the news went from bad to worse. This particular alopecia set off another kind of hair loss (you mean there is more than one?). The second kind of alopecia is an auto-immune response and it is permanent. The dermatologist explained that this happens to many women of a certain age. She recommended a supplement that she said may or may not work. She also recommended Minoxidil for hair growth. But when I read about it, it said that I was in it for life. If I stopped using it my hair would fall out again. Not for me! I tried to take a more natural approach.

Losing my hair and finding out that it was a permanent disease was devastating news. It undid me. It changed how I looked at other woman my age. I started noticing that many mature woman do, in fact, lose their hair. And suddenly, it was like an invisible club was formed.

With some women, we talked and exchanged ideas. They confessed it bothered them too but didn’t know what to do about it. Some women had it worse than me and I felt sad for them as we commiserated together. Someone once wrote that “hair is elemental. It can define us, confine us, refine us, and when we’re faced with losing it, through age or illness, it can undo us.” I say, “Yes, to all of the above.” It is very emotional.

Many people told me to be happy and grateful that I was alive and doing so well after my surgery. I was. But being grateful is hard to achieve completely when you are told you have a rare cancer and you know that the surgery doesn’t cure you. The surgery puts you in remission. That alone was hard to wrap my mind around because this trauma continually hangs over your head each day. Only to be further reminded that my hair was abominable and that it was a permanent situation.

In July, my husband came with me to buy a wig. It was a sweet gesture; a kind gesture. It was a really nice wig and looked good. Everyone thought it was my own hair. But I hated wearing that wig. I wanted my own hair back. I suddenly wanted my poodle cut! After a few hours wearing that wig, I was ready to rip it off my head. When I had an itch on my scalp and scratched it, my entire hair helmet swayed on my head!

It’s been a year since my surgery and my hair is now manageable. It’s growing but the crown of my head is still too short and occasionally it stands up like a baby who has too much electricity in her hair. The curl is not the same, nor is the texture. But the wig is back in the box.

I changed my dermatologist to one I liked better and whose approach is not as radical. The last time she saw me, she said my hair and scalp were really healthy. “Whatever you are doing, keep doing it.” But I still have a lot of hair that gathers around the drain when I shampoo my hair. So, yes, I will keep on doing what I am doing hoping that my health continues and that maybe by the second year, I will look even better. Is it wishful thinking?

I feel like I’m having to relive my childhood trauma of sitting in a barber chair and getting a “poodle cut”. I had time then to define whom I would become and over the years I did just that. Can I do it again? Do I want to do it again? Ask me next year at this time.

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