The worst part is losing your hair

It feels like forever since I've had hair of my own. It hasn't been that long, only since June 29th 2012. Now, usually I am really bad with remembering dates of things that happened, but I will never forget the day I lost my hair. It was also graduation day. Since no teenage girl, who is graduating, wants to walk across the stage completely bald, we had prepared for this moment by having a wig on standby. I just wasn't emotionally prepared to handle it yet.

It all started coming out slowly on Monday, and by Friday it was pretty much all gone. I remember having so many family members over for grad, and I was taking way too long in the bathroom after my shower. My mother so graciously knocked on the door and asked if everything was ok in there. It wasn't ok, I was balding, and I had already spent more than 30 minutes just sitting on the floor wrapped up in a towel crying.

That's right, you read it right. Happy go-lucky, always smiling Brooke was crying, and it took me so long to finally open the door and tell my mom what was happening. I wasn't ready for the world to see me with no hair on my head, I wasn't ready to be stared at, or given sympathetic hugs. I just wasn't ready for any of this to start happening yet. All I wanted was just a little more time. One more day (well, actually 4 more days) with my hair was all I needed. I just wanted to walk across that stage and get my diploma before the reality of having cancer finally caught up to me.

I am so incredibly thankful for 6:8 photography's Kevan Wilkie and Duane Clemens. When Kevan saw me at the hospital, and we told him about losing my hair for grad, he conspired with his partner Duane and these two wedding photographers (who also did our grad photos!) came to my rescue. They had rounded up someone to do make-up, someone to do hair, and someone to let me borrow some outfits for a photo shoot while I still had hair left on my head! They took pictures of me in my prom dress with my walking partner, and some other amazing pictures around town. I had spent almost 4 hours doing photos with these guys and I had never felt so pretty in my entire life.

So I did say to a lot of my friends "if I lose my hair for grad, I may as well show up in a half black and half white wig" and not too many of them believed me. I did wear a blonde wig that was close to my previous hair colour for commencements, but we all went home to change for prom just after. This is how I showed up to my prom. Half black, half platinum wig.

It didn't take me long to learn that I could easily have a lot of fun with this. I could be a different girl every day of the week, heck, with all the wigs available I could be a different girl every day of the year!

Even though I always talk about the positive side of being bald (like using waaay less shampoo lol!) I still have days where I miss just having my own hair. It's starting to come back in, and it is a lot softer than it was before,  but it just seems to take too long to grow.
I've been saying to some of the newly diagnosed girls who stay at the Ronald McDonald House in Vancouver that you can prepare for the day as much as you want. You can tell yourself over and over again that it is going to happen, and there is nothing you can do about it. Once it starts happening though, be prepared for the shock of a lifetime. There are things in life we just need to let go of, and for me it was the last few strands of hair. It took me just over a week of looking like Dobby the house elf from Harry Potter to get rid of the last new strands. But until then, I absolutely love having my head rubbed!!