Wig Shopping, Day #1

My friend and sister-in-law, Kathy Sue, came to visit today, with the goal of going wig shopping. I have been on the internet, looking at different sites, learning a little bit of wig language, and had only just a small idea of what I might be interested in.

We arrive at the Front Room Underfashions, which is a specialty shop for women--mastectomy undergarments, swimwear, hats, turbans, wigs, and such. We enter into a shop that has ladies fashions, handbags, and on the wall shelves, wigs. We joke about the very pink wig with a hat on top. I notice that there is a man in there, sitting and reading the newspaper, obviously waiting for someone. The employed person was sitting behind a counter on the opposite side of the room from him, and leaned around to see us. She came out around there to greet us. I introduced myself and KS, she told us her name is Crystal. An average size woman (with her own hair), nicely dressed, pleasant demeanor.

I told her what my situation is, and that I was looking for a wig, on the shorter side, with red tones. Ok, she said. We chose a couple off the shelf, and she invited us back into a "wig fitting room." Oh, didn't know there were wig fitting rooms. It was a comfortable room, larger print floral wallpaper, with a vanity and mirror, which had an embroidered dresser scarf set on it. I said to KS--hey, how'd they get Elaine's embroidered stuff?? There was an armoire maybe 4 feet tall, with the righthand side door open. Inside on the hanging bar, on hangers, were several , maybe 8 or so, undergarments. A full length slip, a body slimmer of some kind, maybe a larger bra, and several other items, I couldn't tell what they were. That wasn't my focus, but I did try to notice so I could tell you. There was a full length mirror mounted on the wall just to the left of the vanity table. A wooden parlor bench was between the mirror and armoire. All were of a darker wood finish, like a darker oak or walnut. Also on the vanity were a couple of wig brushes and pick and a large hand mirror. Crystal tells me the (matching) chair in front of the vanity is for me. KS sits on the bench facing me; I am facing both her and the full length mirror.

Crystal shows us the construction of the cap and teaches us about the construction and features of this particular wig. And puts, or maybe pulls, it onto my head. She fusses with it a minute, and I am watching Kathy's face. She is doing her best to not have any facial expression, but her eyes really want to bug out of her head. (Afterward, she said she was just trying to "experience the experience") I turned slightly and looked into the mirror: OH MY GOSH!!! Whoa!!! That's a lot of hair!!! My eyes are bugging out, and I'm not sure what I'm thinking about this whole thing. Wow. Then my hand migrates up and touches it, and starts to finger comb and fuss with it, and before too long, it starts looking like something I might have on my head. Wow. I never knew. The color wasn't quite right--a darker brown with gold tips. Maybe in a different color. I don't know, what's next??

Crystal was very patient, watching for my reactions, timing her comments and movements according to my and Kathy's responses to each new hairpiece. I think we tried on at least 10 different wigs. What we learned was that the red tones were very flattering to my skin tones, and Crystal said I had a "very versatile" face, meaning that I was able to wear several different styles of hair. We ruled out a few as soon as we had them on, but finally narrowed our selections to four. Crystal's advice was to not make a decision today. Think about all we had seen, to shop around, and wait until I see what I might really need because I may not lose my hair. Another concern I had was the hair color, if my skin tone changes with the chemotherapy treatment.

Prices ranged from maybe $135.00 to $640.00. Yo. No high end wig for me, being a temporary thing and all. (That's the hope, right??) Crystal logged our choices into their system so that we had that info. Looking back, it would have been good to have a camera and paper/pen to record that experience with. Now, it's mostly a jumble, as far as brands and styles and color combinations.

We left there and went to Ingham Hospital to pick up the medical records from my two surgeries. I was surprised to see that the size of the tissue removed from the re-excision was 4x3x2 cm. That's quite a chunk. No wonder the darn thing hurts. Then it was on to home, a bite of pork roast for dinner, and down to Jackson to tend Elaine. (we missed dinner, as we had spent 3 hours at the wig shop...who knew??) We got her tucked in, came home, visited, I wrote here, and am finally going to bed at 0230.

Whew. Thank you God, for Crystal and her kindness. And for KS and her strength--she put her arm around me outside the shop and asked if I was ok. I was surprised when my eyes filled. I took a couple of breaths and recouped. We stood in the warm winter sun, experiencing the experience.