When Clare Boylan's hair started to fall out during chemotherapy, she decided to shave it off.
Two weeks before Christmas it began to fall out. At first I was completely grief-stricken. All the sorrows of my life seemed to gather in around this dismal shedding. When I woke in the morning, a sinister hairy nest lay on the pillow. If I ran my hand over my hair, I had hairy palms. And this wasn't even like normal hair. The strands that drifted seemed lifeless, dull and repellent.I went to London with my sister to order a hand-made wig. On the way to the wig-maker, we stopped for coffee. The cafe had a mirrored wall and I became aware that a customer behind me had lost interest in her book and was staring fixedly at the back of my head. I jumped up from the table, dashed into the loo and held a mirror to the site of fascination. Alopecia had set in - but only at the back. I wasn't just going bald, I was going old-lady bald. Mangy bits of hair draped the back of my skull and a large, sad, naked patch showed through. Oh, what treachery that one's front should present a creditable image and one's rear betray one so spectacularly.
It was only two days to my next chemotherapy session. I made up my mind to get my head shaved at once, before post-chemo exhaustion set in. Back from London, I headed into town to visit a hairdresser. It was the festive season. The salons were frenzied with women having their own lovely, luxurious locks frosted or fretted or softly curled. I tried hairdresser after hairdresser. None could fit me in before Christmas. I was about to give up and go home when I sighted the candy cane sign of a barber's shop. It was empty but for the barber, a stocky young man with one earring. "Can you shave my head?" I blurted out. "I'm on chemotherapy."
He put a hand on my shoulder. "I done it for my mother," he said in his Dublin accent. As the razor buzzed, he kept his hand on my shoulder. It was a gesture of infinite kindness.
