Hair

Now as I said before we were told by the consultants that Billy would definitely loose his hair.  It wasn't something he had really been bothered with before.  He never had much hair at all until he was nearly 2 when he had his first haircut.  I used to keep in quite short because he liked it that way and he looked quite smart.  I used to take him to the barber and they did a grade two back and sides and longer on top. 

He was quite upset when he was told his hair would come out.  I saw him looking at other children on Piam Brown who had lost hair and it seemed to bother him a lot.  When my dad said he would shave his off to match Billy's when it came out he was inconsolable.  He just kept crying and saying don't take my hair away.

Everyone who came  in to visit always asked the question would he lose it.  I had to tell them out of earshot yes he would.  I decided that when his started coming out I would dye mine bright colours.  A couple of my friends said they would do the same to support Billy as well.  Billy was at that age where kids say things without thinking and I was worried what this might do to him if another child said something about his hair.  It seems quite a minor thing with what else he was up against but I didn't want anything making it even harder for him.

The first morning we were home something was on the TV about hair and it made Billy upset and question things again. Right well there was only one thing for it.  I packed him up into his buggy and off we went to town.  I told him we were going to find some bright hair dye, he could choose whatever colour he wanted and I would dye my hair so people would look at me and not him.  He loved this idea so we went into town and into the shop I knew had the brightest colours and biggest range of different colours to choose from.

There was a colour chart and this made Billy smile, they had almost every colour of the rainbow from pink to blue to red to yellow.  I was lucky as i had blonde hair which should take the colours well.  We chose a bright pink, called cerise for me and Billy asked if he could dye his blue.  Well as it was probably going to come out anyway i thought what the hell if it makes him feel better then we will do it!

We went back home with our amazing colour dyes and I put mine on, I left it the required time and then off it came! Wow it was bright.  I loved it, Billy loved it. I was 100% sure that no one would be taking a bit of notice of Billy's hair when mine was cerise pink.  Billy changed his mind as he was a bit scared of having his dyed but it didn't matter.

From day one I was very pleased of my hair, it was a small thing I could do to make Billy feel better and that was the important thing, trying to help him anyway I could by helping him feel happier.  When we went out and about I got some comments, the vast majority of them positive but once I explained why I had done it everyone was full of praise.  I always remember one older lady in sainsbury's saying to me she loved my hair and she wished she was young enough to do it.  When i told her why I had done it she was so lovely it overwhelmed me.  It just showed how little things could really touch people.  It was also a great conversation starter and I spoke to lots of people I probably would never have done.

My friends who said they would also do it were first of all a tiny bit annoyed for me doing it without them but once I explained why they totally understood.  People didn't really notice Billy and how he was looking just me which was the reason for doing it.

As the months went on I had pink hair, blue hair, purple hair and red hair.  People began to look and see what colour I had gone now.  Billy even plucked up the courage to dye his blue before it all fell out on the second period of intensive treatment.  Billy still says to this day that my hair was lovely and sometimes it even matched my dresses. 

It was a small way of us getting through this awful time and i must admit that it made things a slightly bit easier for us, its easy to look back at the pictures now.  I had to change my hair back to blonde when I went back to work which I hated, I really wish work would have let me keep it, after all I had a really good reason for it!  Especially at the time Billy had no hair at all.  But I think our plan worked, the whole time only 1 child commented on Billy's hair, or lack of it but most of them commented on mine!

It must have helped at school a bit, I didn't have to explain to new parents as others did when they asked about the crazy hair colour woman!  One positive thing that we found that worked for us and when he is given the all clear believe me I will be taking time off work and the pink hair will be back!