Bonding through baldness..."it's just hair"

Yes, really, Bonding through Baldness!  There is some kind of humor in every situation and my daughter Eva and I are the type of people who always try and find that humor.  Even with that being so,before writing this blog I talked to my daughter and let her know that I was going to share this experience just to make sure she was comfortable with it and she is.  

They say that "necessity is the mother of invention", or something like that.  I don't know who "they" are but I think that "they" could be on to something.  About seven or eight years ago when I had less children and more energy I would dabble in making my own skin products; creams, shampoos, soaps, and the like.  At the time I had just begun having these really weird rashes and my skin couldn't take the use of most commercial products on the market.  Several years later I found out that the rashes were caused by Lupus. I was diagnosed with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), commonly known as Lupus, a chronic, autoimmune disease that can damage any part of the body (skin, joints, and/or organs inside the body). This diagnosis caused me to become more conscious of the products that I use and the ingredients in those product.  But to tell the truth just because I became more conscious of what products I used doesn't mean that I changed much, it just means that I thought about it more often.  

I didn't make any real changes until about 4 months ago when my 11 year-old daughter came to me and showed me her head and I was devastated by what I saw.  My daughter had 4 large bald spots in her head, she had worn braids during the summer that damaged her scalp and she developed traction alopecia.  When she went for her yearly physical a week later we had her doctor look at the spots and he prescribed a pill, a shampoo, and a cream but he wasn't sure that the hair would grow back.  I'm not a huge fan of pills but I also wanted my daughter to get better.  Eva is generally level headed but her scalp was damaged and I had no idea how long it would take for the hair to grow back.  I gave my daughter the medication that the doctor prescribed and the next day she had a horrible migraine with vomiting and the whole nine, which caused her to leave school early.  I decided at that moment it was up to me to help my daughter's scalp heal and grow her hair back.  Luckily I save all of my old notebooks and I found some of my old skin and hair care recipes.  I combined a hair and skin cream recipe with a beard growth conditioner to make an all natural hair growth and conditioning cream. 

I started treating Eva's hair and scalp by keeping them as healthy as possible.  As a mother there is so much fulfillment in being able to pass knowledge to your daughter, that is how we live on, through the information and skills that we share.  I would walk Eva through every step and have her assist me when I made products so that she will always know how to keep her hair healthy.  I washed her hair at least once a week with an apple cider vinegar conditioner, used a homemade hair tea every other week and used the hair growth and conditioning cream daily on the hair and scalp as needed. I styled her hair in protective styles only.  Eva wore mostly braid and twist outs that had to be strategically styled to cover the bald spots. Within two weeks we could already see results and after three months her scalp was healed and the hair had grown back in all of the spots.  

I trust my daughter's doctor and I truly believe that he is good at what he does.  With that being said I am glad we decided not to use the medication.  Using natural methods helped me to trust my abilities and I was able to show my daughter how  alternative medicine can be used successfully and that healing doesn't have to come from a pill.

I also unexpectedly learned a great deal about my daughter through this experience.  My daughter is more resilient, self-confident and fearless than I could have ever hoped for.  I know that kids can be cruel so I did my best to conceal the hair loss, which was hard in the beginning.  Eva never let it bother her, if someone happened to ask about the hair loss she would give them a matter of fact response, she owned it.  She would always be polite but she was never embarrassed or intimidated by the questions.  Classmates would also ask her why she didn't just wear weave, and she would respond by asking them why they were concerned with HER hair.  When we would discuss it I would always tell my daughter "it's just hair, it will grow back" and that is the attitude that she embodied through it all.  At such a young age she understands that she is so much more than her hair and she is comfortable in her own skin.  I don't care if she loses all of her hair, I just hope that she never loses that understanding...

Left October 2014/ Right January 2015