Hello everyone!

Wow, it's been so long since I've been on here, I've been working and travelling in the US for nearly 3 months now & have no had a chance to get on here at all. Hope everyone here is doing well.

It has been an amazing experience so far but very challenging as well. I am now very close to alopecia universalis - I have but a few random body hairs left. I wear a wig most of the time.

I started off my travels working at a summer camp in Maine. Meeting so many new people at once during staff orientation then having to reveal I have no hair & wear a wig was very daunting but no one seemed to really care, which was good. Meeting all the kids was even more daunting. But they were great about it. I had an amazing group of girls in my bunk, aged 11-12 years old. They asked lots of questions and we even had show and tell with my wig, then it really became a non-issue. I slept bald and even wandered around my bunk bald, but I usually had my wig on when I was teaching (I was a gymnastics teacher) or at other activities so all the other kids probably didn't knwo about my hair.

I really am glad I have a freedom vacuum wig though because I'm not sure how could have managed any other wig. Sure, it gets quite hot but I know that it will never ever come off & I can wear it in a pony tail to get it off my neck. Throughtout the course of my travels, I have swum, done gymnastics, gone on theme park rides, gone to the gym and probably other things I can't think of right now without having to worry about losing my hair. I am getting more comfortable switching between bandanas, wigs and bald now. I still feel quite self conscious without hair though. I have swum and wakeboarded bald though and whitewater rafted, snorkelled, hiked etc. in a bandana.

After camp finished, I spent some time in New York by myself, staying at a youth hostel. I was worrying about what to do about my wig but none of the people I was sharing with really blinked a eyalid at the fact I slept bald & then got up and put a wig on.

After New York, I did a 2 week tour where we spent a lot of time in a van & camped most nights. I ended up not wearing my wig most of the time on this trip so everyone knew. It was ok though, the hardest thing actually ended up being how to safely store my wig in the tent & how to carry it safely with me on the van! It was a very eventful trip - we've had hospital visits (thankfully, not me), hurricane evacuations (we were in New Orleans as Gustav was about to hit & evacuated at 1am then drove for 13 hours) and other dramas. It was also A LOT of driving, whole days in the van at times, but I've seen quite a lot & had some fun. The tour has just finished and I am now in Miami soaking up the sun - either with wig or without.

So while alopecia has made some things while travelling more difficult, I am coping (not all that well at times but on the whole, pretty well). Now I am contemplating where to head now and my biggest worry is running out of money, not my hair for once!