I come from a family that likes to laugh. We believe that humor can help heal whatever ails you (I don't mean to make my family sound like saints in all my posts, I just love them very dearly).

For a long time it was hard for any of us to find humor in what was happening to me. Here I was 12 years old going bald, crying myself to sleep or getting lost in this horrible spiral of depression.

I remember the day before I got my first wig. I was sitting in the living room at Mom and Dad's. My oldest brother Pat was there, and I was really depressed, thinking Alopecia had finally gotten the best of me. And my dad (who has always prided himself on a his long beard and long, thick hair) looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "Baby, I would shave every hair on my head if it meant you didn't have to go through this." My brother, in his serious and protective big brother way, said the same thing. It was a very somber time for my family.

But the day I got my wig, I made a comment "I have shampoo commercial hair," and something amazing happened. Mom, Grandma and Grandpa laughed. We were able to find a little bit of humor in something that had truly affected all of us.

When I returned from college that summer, I felt like a different person and realized the best way to come out the other side is to accept this is part of who I am and to have a little bit of fun with it. And being genetically accident prone, I've discovered there are lots of ways to have fun with this! People are slowly starting to understand my way of thinking although they're all kind enough to wait for me to initiate the wig humor.

So here few of my humorous wig stories where I found laughter instead of sadness:

• The summer after I got my first wig, I also bought my first car, and I spent hours vacuuming and cleaning it. One particular Saturday, I was organizing my CDs in the backseat and sat up really quickly and hit my head on the ceiling, when I leaned forward I could feel my wig moving, and when I looked behind me, it was hanging on the hangar hook, swinging freely in the window.

• I am a journalist for a community newspaper, which means I get called out to cover a lot of accidents. A week before my wedding, I heard about an injury accident on one of the major roads. I grabbed the digital camera and headed to the accident. I came up to a line of cars stopped for a train. And when the cars resumed, I waited my turn. Then I felt my car lunge forward and heard the loud impact from behind. I'd been rear-ended by a large van. I got out of the car to assess the damage and realized I had actually put my car in reverse instead of park... I was going backwards. I jumped in to put it in the right gear and went to put my hair behind my ears, which is a nervous habit of mine. But I realized there was nothing to put behind my ears. The impact was so great, it knocked my hair off my head, and I couldn't find it.. I got out and looked all around my car praying it hadn't flown out the window and been run over by oncoming traffic (It was my wedding hair, and I loved it). I got in the back seat and finally found it UNDER the driver seat.


Not every "my wig almost fell off" story is humorous. I pulled it off once with a blindfold in front of a bunch of peers who didn't know anything about me or my hair, and I was mortified. But all those peers were totally understanding. None of them said anything negative to me, and the people who were physically closest to me in the group worked really hard to shelter me from everyone else until I got things situated.

I've learned that if I don't let alopecia control my life, people will see me for who I am and not the girl who wears a wig. If I show people I'm OK with what I'm facing (even if inside I'm really not), then people will leave me alone. If I show self confidence in myself and the person God made me, people can't say anything to tear me down. Some days it's easier than others, but I know who's part of my life because they love me inside and out and who the fake people are, and I have the power to choose who I let in. I don't have to listen to the nay sayers, and I don't have to let them make me feel bad about myself.