Breast cancer diagnosis, hair loss. Hair replacement!
It was July 12, 2011 when I felt a golf ball-sized egg in my left breast in the evening. Three days later, on July 15th, I was diagnosed with breast cancer and was let into the weekend. Everything disappeared in a thick fog. I was 26 years old and had breast cancer. What just happened didn't happen to me. That wasn’t my life. Daily doctor visits followed. Clarifications, examinations, the first operation. Chemotherapy started a week later. "This is the stuff that makes my hair go out," I thought. There was no going back now. Everything happened so fast.
I have been working as a freelance Make-up Artist in Hamburgsince 2005 . My job was to make people look good. A job that is about beauty, a flawless complexion, full hair, thick eyebrows and long eyelashes. I knew what was coming and looked openly towards the whole thing. Then I would just wear wigs, which I had already done at parties before. I was also able to put on make-up, it wouldn't be that bad - I thought.
But the moment it started, I ran my fingers through my hair and suddenly held a tuft in my hand without realising that I had "pulled out" the hair, came much too early and hurt. The same evening I took the razor in my hand, sat in the hallway in front of the mirror and started shaving my bald head . My friend kept the whole thing on photo and video firmly. A blatant moment. A very interesting moment. Somehow liberating. It was even fun! True to the motto "Now it doesn't matter anyway" I first shaved characters into the short pages, then an Iro, then everything was gone. Everything except for the dark brown color on my scalp. Of course, I had to try all hair colours again beforehand and the last color was a dark brown one week before the shave and this was now visible on my scalp.
A friend told me three weeks in advance that I could simply sew and wear the hair I use for shootings on a hat. Right! I even had a hat like this years ago. However, with synthetic hair. Doing the whole thing with real hair might be a good alternative to a wig. So I tinkered, researched and sewed in the following weeks, whenever I was well, because I was in the middle of chemotherapy until I finally had the "real hair band" as far as it can now be bought. Made to measure, comfortable to wear and customisable. There are various styling options, because you can do everything with your hair that you can do with your own hair.
Since I was wearing the " real hair bands " right from the start, I decided against a wig. Why should I pay a lot of money for a totally inflexible product made of synthetic hair, where firstly I had the feeling that I had a helmet on and secondly you can often immediately see that it is not your own hair. Of course it is a matter of taste and there are also very good wigs. For me personally, that was out of the question.
Even friends sometimes forgot that I was not wearing my real hair when we were out. The test finally passed the real hair bands when I came to the second chemo with long, blonde hair. The doctor who "connected" me and had already seen three weeks before asked me irritated after a short time: "Ms. Sieckmann, haven't you run out of hair yet?" Three weeks earlier I was wearing black short hair at the time.
Here is a before / after picture of me from my chemo days: