Unexpected Encounters

“I like your bonnet.” I say to the stranger next to me.

I am sitting on the hardback chair in a desolate corridor of the hematology-oncology ward of the hospital -waiting for my routine blood test. I was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML), an agressive form of blood cancer a few months prior. The results of the blood test will show how well my chemotherapy treatments are working.

-Thank you. It’s not actually my hair.” The stranger reaches back and shows me how her hair fringe is attached with velcro to the back of her bonnet.

-I tried real wigs and they were too itchy, she adds. I nudge my husband excitedly.

-Look at what she is wearing! What an ingenious alternative! Her hair looked real to me.” My husband smiles and nods. He is as anxious as I am about meeting the oncology doctor. (But less worried about the logistics of wigs and hair loss.)

The stranger, a young woman in her thirties, gets up as her name is called by the nurse to perform her blood test. I look around at the people sitting in the waiting room beside me; the majority are elderly and come accompanied by a son or daughter. We can tell who is the sick patient by the missing eyebrows above dark gaunt eyes, and the colourful head coverings, or ball caps, on bald heads splattered throughout the hallway. Cancer is cruel. It is rare to find someone in my age bracket waiting for treatment. The median age for AML is 75 years old. I struggled to find peers with a similar diagnosis.

As she came out of the treatment room, the stranger added: “

-Give me your contact details and I will message you the information for the bonnets and wigs.” Her smile and enthusiasm warmed my heart. We exchanged numbers as my husband looked on. I was amazed at the discovery of a solution to my sudden embarrassing baldness and I was also energized to discover someone like me in the same precarious health position.

Later that week, I settled on the purchase of two bonnets and a fringe of blonde human hair online. Oh! The relief I felt when I donned the knotted navy blue bonnet with the fringe for the first time: I felt whole again! I was no longer ashamed of my baldness. It was not a perfect imitation of my old hair but it looked good enough; I appeared a little less sickly…

I wrote to the stranger to thank her. It turned out she was also an elementary school teacher like me! We chatted about our hospitals stays: how awful the food was, and how nice the nurses were. We talked for hours about the big and small things of living with cancer; from unemployment to the best way to treat brittle and broken fingernails after chemotherapy. It was a relief to share with someone my age who had been hospitalized. It was cathartic to tell my story to someone who both listened and understood my diagnosis. They say that peer to peer support is very helpful for those fighting cancer and I was lucky to find mine: wearing a beautiful bonnet while waiting in line for a blood test.