Well, I am a writer of sorts, if you've been reading and browsing along this site. I have jumped into this site feet first and I feel more at home sharing things here regarding my hair loss than I have anywhere ever.

Normally I spend my weekends off work watching TV or reading books or cleaning house, but so far I have spent my ENTIRE Saturday on this site browsing, commenting, and welcoming everyone that I have seen! I keep a regular blog on blogger and MySpace, with MySpace probably being the one that is the most updated. You can see it at http://blog.myspace.com/kastababy or check the whole site out at http://www.myspace.com/kastababy.

I usually have a lot to say; however, I find myself in the unique situation of having so much to say that I hardly know where to begin. So with that being said, on this blog I will take a new approach.

I am generally a very honest, very open person with nothing to hide. So if you have a question about how I have dealt with certain situations in my life when dealing with alopecia, please ask it here. I will be more than happy to answer your questions and use them to guide, advise, and educate, and perhaps entertain as well.

I will conclude this first entry by revealing what I fear the most in my life with alopecia:

I fear that because we know so little about this condition, and because so little money is spent researching it and developing long-term treatments solely for alopecia that work -- and by work I mean that something you can take long-term and not have to worry about whether or not your hair is going to fall back out the moment you stop using it -- that my nightmare of my beautiful nieces and nephew, who I love more than anything in this world, developing alopecia of any kind. I fear this because in my gut I know that this condition is hereditary, and it is passed along the line somehow, although I can't exactly trace the link, because to my knowledge I am the only person in my family that is affected. I fear that my niece Michaela, who is so much like me, will one day wake up to find a piece the size of a dime missing, and I wouldn't be able to bear watching her hair go piece by piece, knowing what the future would be for her as a child with alopecia, and being powerless to stop it for her.

I am tearing up again, because I am so happy to have a place to share these fears and know that someone understands this fear. I am tearing up again because I feel the cracks in the dam that I have built up around my true emotions regarding alopecia and how it has affected my life, and I know that I should do something to direct the trickle before it becomes an uncontrollable flow....

Please feel free to comment on what you think, and I look forward to writing for you all!