Saturday morning and I am off to London to see the Rugby, England v Italy in the Six Nations competition. I am taking clients, one of which is an Italian so it should be a fun day out.

I have chosen to go on the train as the weather has been so bad in places yet as I sit on the train as a paying guest of Virgin Rail the view out the window is of a glorious winter wonderland. The sun is shining and the snow looks so inviting. The reality though is that it has been such a problem to so many people. Like so many things in life, looks can be deceiving and the reality is totally different to the initial impression.

This morning I shaved and showered as usually as soon as I had left my bed. I tell a lie, the first job I had to do was to take my Thyroxin tablet, a task that has become a daily routine. The shaving came next.

I love the feeling of shaving my head. It really is such a pleasure and it makes me smile to think back to how distraught I was when I first developed Alopecia and then the reality hit me that I was going to become bald.

I know that quite often I spend longer on the shaving of my head than I need to and that I don’t always have to shave each morning but my thoughts are that if I am going to be bald then I want a really smooth head. I also like my head to have a very clear shine. I think it looks better if a bald head has a shine to it, a glow of confidence or a halo of acceptance of how I am.

I move on from my head to my face. I love the felling of being smooth all over my face and head although on occasions I have left my face to grow stubble. It looks good and is a change but my favourite thing is to feel so clean fresh and smooth.

What is really strange at the moment is that my eyebrows have thinned out quite a lot and my eye lashes on my left eye have lost their colour. At first I thought that my lashes over my left eye had fallen out but on closer inspection I soon realised that they were in fact still in place but now were grey or white. My body is also loosing hair. Most of the hair has thinned out and in places I have hairless patches. On my legs there are a few places that are now hairless patches. Also on my abdomen I have one large hairless patch and one small patch. Most of my body hair is now white.

I have no fear of loosing my body hair, I just wish that if it was going to go then it would go and not linger. The waiting for anything is always far worse than the actual thing that you are waiting for. Get on with it is my motto.

In many ways I think it might be quite good being hairless. I have always been very hairy and it would certainly be a change. I have often thought that a smooth body would be nice, it would be so much easier to apply sun tan lotion and I would dry much quicker after a shower. I suppose that some smooth bodied men have thought about what it would be like to be hairy. Are we ever happy?????


After shaving I shower and enjoy the feel of the water splashing onto my freshly shaved head. As the temperature of the water is hot is makes some of the hair in the patches on my head to rise above the skin and I feel this as I shower so I reach for the shaver and rid myself of the hair that would ruin my smooth look. I am determined to be really smooth.

As I dry myself I then apply a splash of cold water to my head and face to complete the shaving process. This is then followed by a coat of aloe vera to my head. This moisturises the skin, it makes my head tingle and lets my head dry to a real shine.

I dress for the start of the day. A glance in the mirror confirms my satisfaction with my bald image. Have no fear it is there to be enjoyed.

I sometimes wonder how much the alopecia has affected me. It has certainly made me write more about my experiences, it’s as though I feel I have a moral obligation to let others know that I am positive about my situation. Either that or it is a therapy to ease the pain. If it is, then it is certainly working.

I know that I was certainly helped in my early days of having alopecia by fellow Alopecians that were positive. The last thing a newly diagnosed person needs is to be told that life with it is terrible. Well I am a living testimony to the fact that life is great and I am for ever grateful for what I have.