Click on an image to hear each person's story.
Cancer is the one disease that has so permeated our society and our culture that just by saying its name we evoke emotions and memories.
Click on different products to learn more about the options for dealing with hair loss during treatment.
Even if you’ve never had cancer, it has touched your life in some form. It’s everywhere. It’s in our communities and our histories. It’s in movies and music and art. Still incurable, cancer remains an enigma – ancient, deadly and horrifying.
For those directly affected by cancer’s madness, one of the most devastating side effects is hair loss.
Like our hair, cancer – in all its forms – is a force within our lives. Everyone has hair. Everyone has been affected by cancer. And both shape our identities in different ways. The way we style our hair can express who we are, while cancer becomes the label by which others identify us.
One way cancer changes our identity is through hair loss. Hair gives us a choice. Cancer steals that freedom. And losing hair because of cancer is different for each person – no matter if they are a man or a woman.
Cancer rates is the second leading cause of death in America, and over 1.6 million people will be diagnosed with some form of cancer in 2016. Doctors and researchers alike continue to search for a cure, and although they have come a long way since cancer’s discovery, there is still much to be understood. This year alone, 700,000 young adults will be diagnosed with cancer, which was the leading cause of disease-induced death among those ages 17-39 in 2011.
And although each person is diagnosed individually, their diagnosis affects others in their life. They too experience pain, heartache and struggles.
Although many people shrug off hair’s importance in their lives, hair still has direct ties to identity, culture, power and barriers. For women in particular, hair remains something we battle with constantly. Something that makes us feel beautiful. Something that cripples us. Something that seems to define our femininity. Although men are more likely to be diagnosed and die from cancer, women especially struggle with hair loss, which forces them to re-examine themselves and their feminine identities.
Alison Trope, a professor of Communication at the University of Southern California, is one of the millions of people diagnosed with cancer. Although she has finished chemotherapy and radiation, she still has decisions to make in regards to her future. Her breast cancer metastasized and spread to her liver, where some of it still resides.
Once Trope started treatment, she decided to shave her head instead of watching her shoulder-length, blonde hair fall out slowly over time. Even though she recognizes that hair and its ties to femininity are social constructs, she says that it was still shocking to look into the mirror every day and see a different person.
“Perhaps, part of the change in your hair or your face or whatever is that sort of visual exterior manifestation of that idea that you can’t go back [after cancer],” Trope says.
Trope further explains, alongside other women, her experience losing her hair above.
Explore this image to learn more about how chemotherapy causes hair loss, according to Mayo Clinic.
I remember it clearly. My wet, long, brown hair dripped down the back of my Winnie-the-Pooh nightgown – my favorite. My father’s hands would steady the top of my head gently as he combed through my curly tresses. I was patient and quiet. He was cautious.
He’d turn to my little sister, Lizzy, next and take care with her barely-there, blonde hair. She was about two years old and her hair still hadn’t fully come in.
In 1999, my father looks at a toy catalogue with me and my sister, while we snuggle on the couch at our home in Friendswood, Texas.
My daddy, Charles Clark, stands on a boat in Sydney, Australia in August 2000. Here, he has already started chemotherapy and has begun to lose his hair.
At a family party, he fixes a toy for my three-year-old sister sometime in 2001.
My sister, my daddy and I visit my grandmother's house to celebrate his 38th birthday on Feb. 10, 2002.
Hover over the photos to learn more.
My parents’ mutual divorce with no restrictions in 1999 had my sister and me spending the night at his house often. Our lives fell into a specific schedule that had us bouncing between two homes, school and karate practice. At my Daddy’s house at least, bathtime was one of our rituals. Paul Mitchell shampoo and conditioner – the original. Quick warm baths. And hair combing.
This ritual continued even when my daddy lost all his hair to Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma.
In August 2000, I started kindergarten and daddy went to the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, for work and for fun.
He’d always wanted to go and he promised to bring back Lizzy and me something fantastic. He was gone two weeks, and he came back with stuffed animals and a bald head.
His thick, dark brown hair that was so much like my own was gone, and in its place was a temporary tattoo of the American flag.
From then on out my family’s life was changed. My father explained it simply with his scans.
“There’s a baseball-sized tumor between my heart and left lung,” he explained in much less detail. He said his hair had started falling out while he was in the shower and just shaved it off. All of it. It was easier this way. And he’d be all right.
It wasn’t anything new, really. My Aunt Catsey, his younger sister, had also been diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin. She had also lost her hair, but being a woman, the loss of her hair was discussed in more detail among family members. She had a little brown wig for special occasions and a number of scarves. For my father, hair loss was shrugged off. He didn’t have any wigs just hats. And if the American flag tattoo doesn’t tell you – “I embrace this” – I don’t know what would.
When he would pick my sister up from preschool, all of her fellow 3- and 4-year-olds would crowd around his leg. His bald head was a marvel to them, and they begged him to let them touch it.
He would crouch down and bow his head. The kids would gather around and take turns rubbing his bald head. His head wasn’t always completely bald, though, and that was part of the fun. Between treatments, he would get a light fuzz. He’d lose it again. Grow it back. Lose it. And repeat.
With greedy hands, the preschoolers crowded around my father, who laughed and smiled at it all. I stood to the side laughing along, while my little sister shooed her classmates away. All smiles and joy – at least for those moments away from treatment.
But while the hair loss may have been simple, his cancer was not. My aunt eventually finished her chemo, went into remission, and received a bone marrow transplant. When her hair grew back in after treatment, it was as curly as Shirley Temple’s and a dark brown. Now, it has returned to its true form – straight and light brown.
My daddy, on the other hand, never had his hair grow back in. On Apr. 2, 2002, my mother picked me up from school and drove me home. While I blabbered on and on about how good I was all day, she drove silently. At home, she broke the news to me and my sister. He had passed away that morning from pneumonia brought on by his cancer.
My stepdad held me as I sobbed. Lizzy sat there quietly. At five years old, she didn’t fully understand what had just happened.
For many, hair is more than just hair. It promulgates one’s identity. It represents social and cultural barriers. It gives one freedom and choice.
For me, my hair is more than identity. It doesn’t determine who I am, but it represents an innate part of me. As just hair, I hate it and I love it. I’ve contemplated shaving my head in solidarity for my daddy and other family members, but have never actually gone through with it. I’ve bleached the tips, and only the tips, once. I’m afraid to change anything else because my hair – like my name, like my DNA, like so many other parts of me – reminds me of my daddy.
Hair may just be a mutable and seemingly simple part of our bodies, but in the end, whether we lose our own hair to cancer or some other disease, or we lose someone we love to it, hair connects us to parts of our health, our beauty and others.
Photo by: Catherine Clark
Colleen Keough is a professor of Communication at University of Southern California and a breast cancer survivor. Now in her sixth year of remission, she shares her cancer journey and her use of cold caps to keep her hair.
Photo by Catherine Clark
Alison Trope is a clinical professor of Communication at USC, where she specializes in media criticism. During her treatment, Trope has kept a blog with breast cancer survivor and fellow USC professor Judy Muller. Before Trope began to lose her hair, she chose to shave her head.
Photos courtesy of Stephanie Francois
Stephanie Francois is a biomedical engineer currently working in Boston. Francois also started her own blog to share her cancer journey and to have a place to express her frustrations and worries throughout treatment. Although she is now in remission, Francois will finish chemo by the end of 2016.
Photo by: Catherine Clark
Alicia Syres and Sue Ellen Casalenuovo work at the Image Enhancement Center at USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. Founded in 2002, the Image Enhancement Center is a boutique-style shop inside the hospital that sells wigs, mastectomy bras, gifts and other items for patients, their friends and their families.
Photos courtesy of Colleen Keough
Colleen Keough, USC professor of Communication, explains what a cold cap is and what it was like to wear one during her cancer treatment. She was able to get her insurance to cover it, and even though her hair thinned, it stayed for the most part. Cold caps, or hypothermia caps, were first introduced in the 1980s and can only be used in specific situations and with specific types of chemotherapy.
Visitors at the 47th Annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival were invited to decorate scarves for cancer survivors on Jun. 29, 2013. (Photo by Elvert Barnes Photography)
Some women and men, who lose their hair during chemotherapy, prefer to cover their newly bald – and oftentimes irritated – heads with some form of head covering. They may choose anything from a simple ball cap to a beautiful scarf.
Photo from Rogaine
Minoxidil is a drug found to reduce hair loss in men and women and a key ingredient in Rogaine. Although it hasn't been proven to prevent hair loss due to chemotherapy, past research has shown that applying it to your scalp can speed up hair regrowth.
Photo courtesy of Alison Trope
Some cancer victims shave their heads at the start of treatment in order to minimize the shock of losing their hair. Oftentimes, people decorate their bald head as a step further. Alison Trope, USC Communication professor and breast cancer warrior, did just that. She shares her ritual for shaving her head here.
Photo by: Catherine Clark
Wigs are a more popular option, especially for women. Breastcancer.org gives helpful tips for picking out wigs and wearing them while undergoing treatment. Wig Shop in Los Angeles sells a variety of wigs – some pictured here – including wigs made from "virgin hair," which is human hair that has never been dyed or altered.
After being diagnosed with cancer, each person goes through New Patient Orientation, mentioned by Alison Trope. In this orientation, a nurse or hospital representative tells new patients what to expect in treatment and outside of it; teaches them and their families all the necessary tools to cope with cancer; helps them find resources in and out of the hospital; and lastly, allows them a moment to mentally and emotionally acknowledge their fears and concerns. Hair loss caused by treatment is also discussed during orientation.
Every patient receives a unique chemotherapy drug cocktail that is specifically designed by their oncologist to fight their cancer. While two patients may have the same type of cancer, that cancer is uniquely theirs and must be fought as such. Some drug cocktails will cause hair thinning; a different mix only causes you to lose the hair on your head; and others may cause total hair loss – including body hair, pubic hair and eyelashes.
Cancer cells begin their lives as normal cells that mutate, which causes them to divide rapidly and unceasingly. This infinite division of cells causes tumors to develop, and if left untreated, allows these cells to spread throughout the rest of the body (metastasis). Chemotherapy drugs attack these rapidly growing cells, but don't stop at just the cancer. Chemo attacks all rapidly dividing cells, including the good ones like those that cause hair growth. Each strand of hair grows at a rate of about 0.50 inches per month. Within two to four weeks of treatment, hair begins to fall out, either quickly in clumps or gradually.