New wig boutique offers cancer patients renewed look on life
After losing her hair from chemotherapy, Mary Rafatcz resorted to wearing a hat to cover her head. She couldn't afford the several hundred dollars a wig can cost.
But when going for her weekly infusion at Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield, she ran across a new wig boutique there specifically for cancer patients.
A former blonde, the 58-year-old retired grocery store worker found a wig to match her color that she liked. Pleasantly surprised to learn the wig was free, she returned home to Addison the proud owner of a new head of hair.
"It looks so nice, like when I was younger," she said. "My husband even liked it!"
As if having cancer and going through treatment is not enough, many cancer patients also lose their hair from chemotherapy or radiation.
The cost of a wig can range from $500 to nearly $2,000, though if it's prescribed by your doctor, insurance might cover part of the cost.
The American Cancer Society's new boutique at Central DuPage is the first at a hospital in the area. The society also offers free wigs to cancer patients who need them at its Oakbrook Terrace, Arlington Heights, and Libertyville offices. For information, call (800) 227-2345 or see cancer.org.
The service is meant to respond to an emotional side of cancer that medical providers don't normally address.
Those able and willing to spend money at private salons can buy human "hair systems" or wigs to give them a new look or to match their own hair. The wigs can be customized to match the color, texture, length, hairline and part, and can be cut and styled.
Ten days after she started chemotherapy for breast cancer, Janet Paulsen started losing her hair.
A 42-year-old mom from West Chicago, she didn't want to scare her two young daughters by suddenly becoming bald.
So she went to White Cliffs Chicago Hair Replacement Studio in Oakbrook Terrace and ordered hair to match her own blond locks.
Because her hair was already falling out in handfuls, she decided to get it over with. A friend helped her as they spent two hours pulling out her hair. Though it didn't hurt, Janet cried most of the time. That was even more traumatic, she said, than her mastectomy, because she could hide her surgery, but not her hair.
"It's very much part of a woman's identity," she said.
But after she went in that day to get her new hair, she walked out looking like she had before it all started, and felt restored.
No one knew it wasn't her hair unless she told them. As an administrator for a vodka company, she got up on stage to accept an award in front of 150 co-workers, and none of them knew. She even fooled her doctor several weeks into chemotherapy.
"It just helped me feel that cancer wasn't taking over everything," she said.
The White Cliffs wig can be adhered for long periods of time so patients can exercise, shower and sleep with it, or can be taken off daily.
Owner Paul Sandor says even teenage cheerleaders with ponytails wear wigs that friends can't detect.
For some cancer patients, their hair is no big deal - until they lose it.
Before she was diagnosed with cancer, Barbara Cooke took for granted her very curly mane of shoulder-length blond hair. She found out how important it was to her self-concept.
A resident of Long Grove, she went to Jerome Krause Fashion Hair in Skokie, where she tried on a dozen different wigs before finding one she liked.
"I hated it the first few times I wore it," she said. "It just felt so weird. But it's a part of my life right now. It makes me feel like a complete person."
Plus, it gives Cooke a more positive attitude.
"It takes your mind off the treatment you're going through," she said. "It's not a frivolous thing. In my opinion, it's almost a necessity to make you feel better about yourself, at a time when you don't really feel good about yourself."