- I think the length is perfect.
I love the color, I love the texture.
I'm obsessed.
I feel like Gabbie Hannah.
I'm Gabbie Hannah. - Okay.
- I'm coming for your gig.
(laughing) - Step outta here.
- No, that looks bad.
I've been sitting in the car for a full 10 minutes
trying to hide my hair loss.
Even though I clearly still have hair,
it's about a third of the hair that I used to have, if that.
Maybe like a fourth at this point,
and it's just a struggle.
It feels like a reminder that I'm sick.
Around eight months ago,
a cancerous tumor was found in my colon.
It was taken out,
and around three months later, I started chemo.
I'm more than halfway through chemo now,
but my hair started falling out before chemo even started,
which was confusing.
Even though I'm not totally bald, it's still a hit,
and I feel guilty for some reason for losing my hair,
like my body isn't doing what it's supposed to be doing.
I wanna know how this has affected other women
and if there's any hope for getting our hair back.
Okay. - So...
- Thank you, Becky, for joining me.
- You're so welcome.
- So, I guess first of all,
give me your losing your hair journey.
- I had weird symptoms
of seemingly autoimmune related things
all throughout my younger years.
I had vitiligo.
I had weird flareups on my stomach and hives and rashes.
All of these little hints, and then finally, when I was 18,
it was Christmas Eve and I was about to go out with my,
at that time, boyfriend.
I went to go brush my hair,
and a huge chunk of hair fell to the ground.
And they decided that it was most likely
because of alopecia areata,
most likely induced from lupus
or some type of unlabeled autoimmune condition.
Shaving my head is an action that took 20 minutes,
and realistically,
I spent about two and a half years
emotionally and mentally preparing for it.
- And it's very ironic because I did that video
where I wore a bald cap for a day.
I identify so much with my hair,
and if people are like who's Megan?
She's the one with the curly hair, you know?
It's an identifying factor, and I wanted to test it,
and now life is being like here's the real test (bleep).
- It's crazy.
- So, at this stage in my hair loss,
it's really upsetting to see this amount of hair fall out
'cause I don't have much hair left.
These aren't just loose ends, it's entire...
That's the length of my hair.
I can't stop doing this, taking videos.
Maybe people who don't know me wouldn't notice,
but I've never seen my scalp before.
It just doesn't look like me anymore,
and I'm not comfortable going out
in public like this anymore.
Maybe that super silly.
Wow, look.
There's definitely a sense of shame and embarrassment
around being able to see this much of my scalp,
and I'm also ashamed and embarrassed
that I'm ashamed and embarrassed.
It's like I don't want people to know I'm sick,
but I am sick, I'm super sick.
I didn't choose this.
(sighs)
I'm supposed to go out and look for a new car today,
but I just couldn't feel uglier.
I look in the mirror
and I'm really upset that my hair is gone,
but I'm like (bleep) it hasn't all fallen out though,
but it still sucks. - Like for example,
let's say your hair is thinning
and you're losing just the same amount of hair,
but it's diffused.
You could even be losing more hair, and it's diffused,
and it's just as much if not more
impeding your ability to feel sexy
or all that kind of stuff.
To some extent, it's just going to matter.
- Yeah. - Right?
And so, you just try to walk that balanced line,
but you know what I mean?
Or if my hair's super thinning and it really pissed me off
and it doesn't make me feel sexy,
you have to just accept it.
- My name is Dr. Susan Primmer,
and I'm a board certified pediatrician and dermatologist.
- So, today, I'm going to see a dermatologist
to talk about my hair loss and get it diagnosed.
I'm pretty sure it's telogen effluvium
slash chemo at this point
because I can see my hair loss globally on my body.
(bleep)'s a mess.
So, I'm going to see this dermatologist to hopefully
get diagnosed and talk about potential solutions.
I just got out of the dermatologist's office.
She said it's telogen effluvium,
but they would have to take biopsies of my scalp
to really confirm it, and I just didn't care to do that.
I was like we all seem to be on the same page,
so for now I'm kinda just gonna take the L
and know that eventually my hair will grow back
and maybe when treatment is done,
I'll start biotin when I feel like there's more room
in my brain to think about other things.
That's the verdict on that.
I think I just still have a lot of shame.
- Yeah, yeah. - About losing my hair.
So, that's why I don't wanna wear this wig
because I'm embarrassed that I'm losing my hair.
- At some point, you just have to be like oh, (bleep) it.
(laughing)
- Yeah, I would never get anything done
unless sometimes we said (bleep) it.
- Sometimes you just gotta be like (bleep) it.
- So, here's what it looks like fully dry,
which kinda looks like what it looks like when it's wet.
And here's a picture
of what it used to look like when it was fully dry.
(groaning)
I wanted to be confident and go out into the world today
with my natural hair,
but I'm just not comfortable doing that anymore.
So, we're putting it up
like I've done every day for months now.
I want a million wigs for every day,
for whatever mood, for whatever outfit.
I want a blue one,
I want (bleep) that would never naturally
grow out of my hair 'cause it's art and it's expression.
- Maybe we have to go wig shopping.
- Please.
(jazzy music)
- Sexy, very sexy.
- Wow, these curls are the curls I wish I were born with.
The length is perfect, I love the color, I love the texture.
It's so... - Beautiful.
- I'm obsessed, I'm buying this.
One of everything.
- You're a very ambitious person.
You're a very ambitious producer,
you're just a very ambitious women in general,
and that's awesome,
but I'm sure you're applying that same ambition,
cray ambition, to the idea
of how you are gonna transition into this, which is...
Just be easy on yourself in terms of, like,
you can't just flip into it.
- I know that people watching this video,
a lot of them might be women
who are experiencing hair loss themselves, or men.
If there are people like that watching,
I wanna know sort of if there's hope for them.
Is it like most people experiencing hair loss,
oh, that's kind of the beginning of the end?
Or is it like no, there's normally something we can do?
Okay, and it's good to just know that
if anyone out there is watching
and experiencing hair loss themselves,
there's more than likely some kind of solution.
Okay, so start now.
- When I wake up without my wig and I look in the mirror
sometimes in the morning,
I still to this day sometimes have this thought of
how could I be with a person for the rest of my life,
with a life partner,
where they have to see me like this in the morning?
Some days I look in the mirror and I'm like oh my God,
not only is your bald head kinda badass,
it's kinda feminine and sexy.
I still think that,
and I wake up and look at myself every day,
and I genuinely like myself.
And I wish I could say that it's been getting better,
but I can just say that it gets shorter.
- Mostly I've been feeling like a creature recently.
- Oh, you feel like such a creature is a perfect word!
- I feel like a creature.
- Oh my God, I've used that word.
No, I totally get that. - Yeah.
- [Becky] But yeah, I don't think that goes away.
I think that just gets less.
- [Megan] I'll get there.
- Oh, you totally will get there.
You will get there very quickly.
You are a force to be reckoned with, it just...
You have to give yourself a little,
like a little bit of time.
We'll be watching this video in a few months
and you'll be like (laughs),
I'm fine. - In my wig.
In my blue wig.
Okay.
For the first time in a really long time,
I feel really beautiful.
You are beautiful
regardless of the state that your hair is in,
but if you're looking for something
to just make the load a little lighter,
I suggest getting a bright ass purple wig.
(somber music)