I've always hated my head.

It is a giant pumpkin head.  Hats don't fit.  My football helmet had to be specially ordered.  I learned how to sense when topics were getting close to something about heads or head size and developed the coping mechanism of how to make jokes about myself quickly before anyone else could.

In 1988 I started cutting my own hair - learning styles that seemed melon-head friendly.  Ultimately tight sides and a flat or spikey top proved best suited for the task.

I experimented with facial hair a good bit, but about 5 years ago settled into a fountain-like soul patch that suited me well - I loved it, and it worked with the spikey hair.

About a year ago, A-A first appeared on my face and slowly spots grew towards my patch.  I shrunk it, and dyed it, and my derm gave me hundreds of steroid shots, but we couldn't win and I gave up and shaved (resignation - part one).  I then explored permanent removal of all facial hair - even did a test spot under my chin (OUCH!) and ultimately decided A-A was going to completely decimate my beard anyway, so I let it go.

Then, last fall I grew my hair out a bit for a part in a play (Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice).  It was fun to have a little hair again, and I didn't want to give up my stage identity, so I kept it around through the holidays after our eight show run concluded in early December.

My kids, my tennis team, my wife, and my nieces all asked when the spikeys were coming back - - I was on the fence, but I finally decided to prepare for the cut.  I started moving the locks around before cutting and was stunned by seeing a quarter size chunk of scalp.  Then another just back from the first, only bigger.  I grabbed a mirror and started looking around - - - I found a tennis ball size spot on the top back of my head, along with 2 others.  WTF!!!!!  How did this happen so quickly.  How did no one notice and say something.  WTF!!!!!  I've been in to see two different derms and have tons of creams and am diligently applying 2x/day in the prescribed rotation.  But more spots are coming - and the existing ones are growing - and hair is coming off everywhere.

I am now resigned that I will be bald soon.  I will take matters into my own hands before long and shave it all off (resignation part deux).  Good news is that I probably stand a better chance of being cast as the lead character if I audition for You're a Good Man Charlie Brown.

It's just that I've always hated my head.  And now I have to deal with it in an incredibly intimate way.  I don't have a nice small, oval peanut head like so many strikingly handsome bald guys have.  Mine is misshapen with bony outgrowths and just plain gigantic.  Happily I can wear hats to work most days (General Counsel for software company) - and I have been doing so for several weeks now even though I can cover up about 90% of them right now with careful spray, gel and blow dryer work.

Maybe if I didn't have my head issues, it wouldn't bother me so much.  A good friend of mine is battling cancer with a better attitude than I have about this - - - how shitty and selfish of me is that!?

Happy to have found this forum and now to have written my first ever blog post.  I guess I wrote happy twice in this, so that is something.