My Wig and Me True North

90% of people would say their hair is everything to them,

especially a woman.

And if their hair's good, they'll look good and feel good,

and that's their whole image.

It's important. Very important.

Most girls, when they're going to buy an outfit, they'll try it on

in the store, but they'll look at themselves in the mirror and say,

"Well, it'll look better when I have my hair and make-up on."

My hair has always been part of who I am, part of your femininity,

your image. If you're having a bad day,

you just get up in the morning,

you can do your hair, you feel better.

Or if you want a change, what do you do?

You go to the hairdressers and get a new cut

or get a new colour and then change it up a bit.

It just makes you feel better instantly.

Hair is extremely important.

It defines you as a person.

That's until you lose it.

For years and years, the word "wig"

always had this, sort of, negative connotation towards it.

You don't realise until it's actually gone.

I've seen the look of shock on people's faces, you know,

that are completely took back that I've no hair.

It hit me - this is going to happen, whether I want it to or not.

My hair is going and there's nothing I can do about it.

I sell wigs.

And the first thing they think of is, my goodness,

it's going to be something that they had in the '70s or the '60s,

this horrible, shiny-looking thing.

But it's not like that now.

When I put a wig on, I do feel normal,

because it feels like I have hair again,

and it just makes me feel normal.

Emily was tired, she was up and down in her mood,

she was like not eating her food, and then she developed a wee rash.

Took her to the GP's, we had bloods drawn and...

We came back with a diagnosis of leukaemia,

and it was the last thing in the world

that we ever were suspecting, or ever even thinking about, so...

That was the world beginning to be blown apart.

We're going up to my room, which is up here.

It is my two favourite colours, pink and blue.

On the wall is a picture of me, my friend and my sister,

with Stephen Cluxton, the captain of the Dublin team.

I have Stephen Cluxton's football gloves.

These mean the world to me.

SHE GIGGLES

Being off school sounds like a lot of fun,

but when you're off it for seven months,

you actually can't wait to get back to school.

I can't wait for Confirmation, to see all my friends, to see everyone.

Because I haven't seen them in a really long time.

And that's going to be really exciting.

Every day, it's a worry in this house.

So, the Confirmation is a massive issue,

because it's going to be a chapel full of children

and little children that are maybe sick,

so we have to be very, very careful.

Everything is... is a risk of infection.

There was actually a month, while I was at home,

my mum actually considered wrapping me up in bubble wrap.

I told her to take a chill pill!

SHE GIGGLES.

Hello? Good morning. How are you? How are you doing? You look lovely.

And the hair's all gone. Oh, goodness, you look lovely.

-Are you all excited?

-Yeah.

-Looking forward to the big day?

-Yeah.

'Well, Emily came into my life recently,

'and I got a phone call from her mother.

'Her mother said, "She's dreading losing her hair."

'It's a big day coming up. She's making her Confirmation and, also,

'she had a birthday on the same day, so all I said was,'

"Leave it with me. And I will get together a few styles

"that I know will be perfect and wait till SHE'S ready."

Do you want to go long? Do you want to go short?

-Do you want to go curly? Do you want to go blonde?

-No!

This is your opportunity.

'A couple of weeks before Confirmation,

'we sort of thought about what Emily was going to wear

'and the hair, and all the rest of it and Theres brought'

a whole suitcase full of wigs.

-That's quite nice.

-I really like that.

-So do I.

-Now, would be a good one.

-Come on, we'll try a blonde.

At least she can have a good laugh. What do you think of that?

-No!

-See, I think blonde washes her out.

'I was a mousy brown before'

and the blonde was just... not for me.

-Down.

-Down.

-Big down.

-Big down.

I secretly knew what she would like, so I had my...

The one, as we say, that was up the sleeve.

Right, Emily.

I reckon this could be the one for the big day.

This is the Confirmation one, I think.

We've got a wee bit of curl and a wee bit of sparkle going on.

-That's what you're after, isn't it?

-Yeah.

'When I saw the curly wig with the diamonds,'

I just thought it was amazing and was just the right one for me.

'Once I put it on, her face lit up and she looked in the mirror.

'Oh, my goodness. You could see this girl gaining ten inches in height.'

She became the person she was supposed to be.

I'm your hairy godmother!

LAUGHTER

I'm here to give you hair.

'I think it was very similar to the hair that she would have had

'previous to her illness and it probably just made her feel

'so normal again and just...'

Just made Emily feel...like Emily.

The day you get your chemo, you count 19 days and it's roughly

about that, 19 days. And on the 19th day, your hair starts falling out.

But the smart people, I always say, is the ones that decide,

"OK, I might not have had control over my chemo.

"I have no control over that." No control over their illness.

"But my goodness, I can take control over when my hair's

"going to fall out."

Had a shower. It was a Sunday.

Came out, was putting cream on, and I found a lump.

Thought nothing of it, because of my age. I'd just had a baby.

I always thought, I know people with cancer and I've heard

of people with cancer. Didn't think it would be me.

-Once you start to see...

-Thursday night, I was just, tingling head.

That's it. That's it. I can see it.

I can see it, I can see it, I can see it.

And, once you see it coming, like that, you know,

that's the beginning. And there's no stopping it.

I always said when I got cancer and I heard about chemo,

I'd heard of all these people shaving their heads,

I remember saying, "Oh, I will never be fit to shave my head.

"I can't do that. I don't want to lose my hair.

Why would I shave it off? I'd just these visions of me holding on

to every last strand, as long as I could.

Is your mummy turning into an alien?

LAUGHTER

-An alien. Oh, you're laughing at that!

-An alien mummy.

'When I made the decision that I was going to donate my hair,

I was like, right, OK. I am in control now.

I'm going to lose my hair on Saturday at six o'clock. That's it.

It's done.

Are you waving bye-bye to my hair, Erin? Yeah? Is going, it's going.

How did you know?

-Yes, I wish I was as happy as you are.

-Here we go. Ready for it?

-No!

Go for the first cut.

That's nice and close. That's a nice length of hair.

That's nice, healthy hair.

'At least some wee girl can get a wig made out of my hair,

'rather than just falling out in dribs and drabs'

and it going in the bin. Maybe if I can see that something good

is coming out of this, it'll help me deal with it a wee bit better.

She was great up until the hair went. And then she broke. She cried.

And it was from her heart and her soul. It's hard.

It is only a small part of your life and, hopefully, it'll pass.

A bit weird. I've just... I'm afraid of Erin being scared of me.

-Yes, yes, yes, yes, I know.

-Because I've no hair.

-Give Mummy a kiss.

We'll go upstairs and get ready.

-Oh!

-Mwah.

Ah, goodness.

'That was the moment that I thought,'

"Oh, God, what if I get up in the morning and...

"she doesn't recognise me, or she just finds it really hard?"

It was hard. And it isn't easy.

My job is to make their hair look good.

It's sad.

I'll bring you over and we'll get rid of the last bit.

And then she said, "Right, Orla, we're going to shave your head."

And at that, I went...

GASPING

'It was easier for me to deal with getting my head shaved

'than having to go through a week of torture, basically.

So, I made the decision, so I had the control of when it was

going to happen and why it was going to happen.

We will get a phone call, "Oh, I'm suffering from a bit of hair loss,

"and I'm a bit afraid to come in.

"What way is it and is it confidential?"

And I will say to them,

"Listen. Come on. This is something to enjoy.

"Look at it as a positive thing."

We get all sorts. You do get your cancer patients. It's just natural.

Then, we get hair loss, which is your alopecia people.

People with just naturally bad, thin hair.

And we do get a lot of fashion people, who are in

the fashion industry, that are looking for a certain look.

I'm getting these all lined up for Frankie, who is coming today.

Frankie's a model and she's looking forward to doing

a big photo-shoot tomorrow.

'I remember, I was sitting, I was just touching, like having

'a wee scratch, and I felt the tiniest little spot and, literally,

'within a couple of weeks,'

it was just, if you imagine going like this with your hair,

it was just coming out, like, as I was doing that.

And four months later, I was completely bald.

At the start, it was hard. I was so ashamed.

It ruined my personality, you know, for a good couple of months.

It killed me.

I was 18, nearly, and losing my hair.

Depression, anxiety - everything comes with it.

I deemed myself some sort of freak.

-Hello, how are you?

-Good, good, thank you.

'Frankie's been coming quite a while.

'Unfortunately, she's lost her hair, due to alopecia.'

'Theresa has been my little fairy godmother.'

From the moment I walked into her shop,

she told me it was going to be all right.

'When I got to know Frankie a bit better, I discovered that'

Frankie had very bad burns. I think it's bad enough

that you've lost your hair. Like, that's a big thing.

But to be badly scarred... And she is.

Christmas morning, at the age of two, I got, like,

a little Cinderella pyjama set from Santa.

And a spark came off the fire and it just completely caught.

I suffered third-degree burns down the left-hand side of my body.

From the age of two, I have had an operation every year of my life.

Now, at the age of 23, I'm still going for surgeries.

I'm pregnant with my first baby, and having to go to physio,

because my skin's not stretching. So, growing up with burns,

it did hold me back, in certain aspects,

but a majority of it, it actually pushed me.

It's grew back, but it's absolutely hideous.

'It turns out now she's expecting a baby

'and this is a girl who thought she couldn't have a baby.'

This wasn't going to happen for her. Now this is happening.

This is just incredible. But believe it or not,

her hair's started to grow back. I never thought I'd be doing this!

My first haircut in six years! It feels strange.

'I have special sympathy for alopecia people,

'because it is ongoing, and it's hard for them,

'because they've worn it on a daily basis,

'but everything that life has thrown at her,'

she has turned it round and I just think she's an amazing person.

Now, this is Emily's favourite part.

Get you in there and get your messy fingers messy!

LAUGHTER

'Emily has been getting chemotherapy for nine months now.'

She has come through a really, really big journey.

Get away down!

-That'll test your strength today, won't it?

-Mm-hm.

'The doctors have to give you loads and loads of treatment.'

Most of the treatment is disgusting. I hate the treatment.

-You know you have to get it to make you better.

-Yeah.

-But you really don't like taking any of it.

-If it just tastes nicer...

It tastes like poo.

Hair is a massive thing for a ten-year-old girl.

Going out, flicking it about and dolling herself up.

Then, having none, it was a massive shock for her.

I was a real girlie girl, because I used to love playing with my hair,

I used to love to plait it and to put it in loads of different styles.

My hair has started to fall out again.

I'm going to think positively,

-because my hair grew back really fast the last time.

-Yeah.

'My sister wants it to come back ginger and my mum'

thinks it's coming back blonde, but if it does come back blonde,

I'm going to the hairdressers and I'm getting it dyed back

to my original colour.

LAUGHTER

The one positive that Emily has taken out of all this is that she

-can get ready quick to go anywhere.

-Mm-hm.

'Most of the time I don't want to go out when I'm taking treatment,

'because I feel really sick. I just watch TV

and sometimes I get really, really bored.

Good girl. This is amazing!

'Sometimes you have to weigh up a bit of risk and we sort of said,

'right, we'll go with Confirmation and birthday

'and we'll try and make a wee bit of a fuss,'

to give her a wee bit of...

..like, strength to keep on going.

ALARM BEEPS

If I stay above the shop on the days that I have to go to

Altnagelvin it's easier. So, Altnagelvin today.

We are all propped up in some way, shape or form.

We all create an illusion. We all have our insecurities.

I've always had fine hair. I'm always interested in,

how do you make it look thicker. I've spent most of my life

trying to get my hair... to look thicker.

So, I wear this wee thing here. This and the make-up.

Love it all. This is my armour. This is all armour.

Putting on your shield. Then, brush it up.

You just brush it all in with what you have. Two minutes puts it on.

On in two wee clips. Just nice. Snaps it down to what I have.

And there you go. Ready to go.

And then, you wouldn't believe how many times during the day

I take that off, to let other people see that I'm dealing with...

Listen, there's nothing to fear. I wear a piece.

I wear something. And they go, oh!

So they know if they see me and if I look good,

that'll give them hope that they can look good, too.

Molly, we're going to work! Come on!

Chemo's been really hard and I have been very sick after each one,

actually, getting worse.

Because fitness and exercise has always been part of my life,

I always wanted it to be, so if I couldn't be doing anything, it

would have been just another thing that cancer would have took from me.

So, I wanted to continue life with some sense of normality, I suppose.

I had... I can't keep working, so my goal is to run a 10k

at the end of May, for Cancer Research.

It just made me feel normal and that, OK, I have cancer,

but I can still do this.

It's not going to control my life or control who I am.

I think it's very important that they keep their sport going,

because it's great for them, it's a social thing,

they enjoy it and it's important that they don't let any part

of their life slip.

We're now open for business. OK.

Still a hospital, but we've taken the edge off it.

We've taken the hard edges off it.

'Obviously, when I met Theres and she gave me my wig,

'I was like, OK, this is great, this is grand,'

'but the wig, kind of, came with some restrictions.'

If I'm going for a run, I'm like, I can't wear this wig,

it's going to be ridiculous looking. And I wouldn't want to,

I wouldn't feel comfortable, but lo and behold,

Theres had some very ingenious ways to deal with that.

Here we go, Sinead. Anything, we don't like, you're getting it!

Anything we like, we'll hold on to, yeah?

Pass marks? It's exposing your head. OK, OK, it's exposing your head.

When Theres put it on, we were like, where, in the name of God,

is she going with this?! It's like... It's...

All I could do is laugh. Oh, my God. Me and Sinead just nearly

died laughing. I was like... Oh, my God, what is this?

I am not wearing this out of the house. Are you joking me?

And she was like, Oh, you'll be like Daddy!

-Daddy's hair. What?

-Daddy's got a nice style.

-This is what's known as the...

-A monk's head?

-..the wee monk.

We nicknamed that week The Monk Den, after that!

'I was like, "Theres, I'm not putting this on," and she's like,'

"It's going to be lovely, and we can get a hat on and...'

She was giving it everything - "It's going to be amazing."

-I was like, "It's really not."

-You'll either shoot it down...

-I'm shooting it down!

-But the pig's nice.

Yes, the idea of, yes, a little pig hat.

No, like I get what you're saying. A nice plain hat.

But once you have a hat on, it completely transforms itself

into something that is very wearable and very comfortable,

actually, which is good.

I grew up as a confident young girl, with burns. It didn't faze me.

I lost my hair and it was a fight for my life, to be truthful.

I know people and girls have said it to me that, if they lost their hair,

they wouldn't have got up in the morning,

they wouldn't have went out of the house.

-It's so nice.

-It's gorgeous, isn't it?

-Amazing.

-It looks so natural, as well.

-I love it.

'There is so many girls that want to do modelling

'and I just, sort of, gave up.

'I thought, you know, why would they pick me?'

And that was my mind-set for the first year of my alopecia.

'But I just had to get over it and just get on with it.

'I had to kick some ass.'

I needed to get out there. It was going to kill the person I am.

That is me. That was the way my hair was before, like, it all fell out.

'That injury must have been horrendous at the time,

'when it had just happened, and it was a shock'

to see that she must have suffered a lot as a child.

-That makes me sad.

-Oh...

-It does! Because you know why? I know that...

You can imagine, that I've said already, I know, cos...

That burn must have been some burn.

-It was bad.

-It just wasn't a wee burn. That was a very bad burn.

When you the scars that she has lived with,

you think, my goodness, this is a very special person here.

Not only did she turn around, but, boy, did she turn it around?

I kept it secret because people are mean.

That's why I pushed myself into modelling, as well.

I want to show everybody that every person's different

and beauty isn't what's on your body, it's what's inside.

It's a very strange paradox.

Most people would say this debilitating hair loss

is a negative. Instead of that, she actually takes it and says,

"OK, I'm going to be a beauty queen from this." You know, hello?!

She wears it with such style and she has such a positive outlook

on life, and she's now, I think, she's a poster child for alopecia.

You are who you are.

Your personality carries you off, your smile, your laugh.

Yes, hair does define you, until you lose it and, then, you realise,

you know, it's not even that important.

Race For Life is a sponsored run for Cancer Research UK.

We just said we'd go for it and we'd give it a go, and it was like,

yes, look, I want to run it, but if I have to walk it, I'll walk it.

But I am going to do it.

-Scare some wee child if they see me doing this!

-No, you'll not.

-I would.

Get me hat on now. Hide it.

Nobody in one million years would think she's going through chemo.

They'll just think she's here running for somebody else.

Unless my hat flies off! They'll be like, surprise!

LAUGHTER

It was just a beautiful day. It was absolutely gorgeous, like.

People were gathering and the atmosphere was building up

and there was like a board with all these tributes, I suppose,

to why people were running.

Cancer just affects everybody. There is no age.

You hear this thing, you're too young to have it. You're not.

It just really hit home that there's very few people out there now

that aren't affected by it.

-COMPERE:

-Three, two, one, Mexican wave, make some noise! Hooray!

Five, four, three, two, one...

KLAXON BLARES

The monk hair, on the whole, it was quite cool to wear

and it just felt like my own hair in a hat, which was good,

so I never was really worrying about what my hair looked like

and I could just focus on trying to breathe!

The heat was unbearable. My head was sweating, my hat was...

It was just so hot.

Because I knew how bad she had been feeling this time

and for her to get up and actually still want to do it,

never mind do it, it was amazing. I'm proud of her.

Like, she has been amazing through this whole thing. Absolutely.

And I couldn't be more proud of her.

Sinead's just a breath of fresh air. She just makes me laugh

all the time. And... Oh, God.

(Don't get emotional.)

I'll be going, "Oh, Sinead, I'm really tired,

"I can't go any further," and she'll be like, "Of course you can,

"what are you talking about? Don't be ridiculous!"

You know, she'd make a joke out of it, you know,

"Are you sick or something?" It was supporting each other

all the way round.

-COMPERE:

-Congratulations to everybody. Well done!

I got over the finish line and it was just like, I'm done,

I'm finished. I didn't care who seen that it all came off.

I just needed a minute to recuperate and just feel happy

that we'd done it and relax.

CHEERING

I didn't actually think I would make it here.

It's just a really big sense of accomplishment that I didn't

let cancer hold me back from doing it.

In many ways, it could, if you let it, but I wasn't going to.

I just was going to do what I wanted to do, and do it my way.

The morning of Confirmation, we had mostly everything organised.

We have the dress, we had the hair,

we had the invitations sent out and Emily woke up very early

that morning, about five o'clock, feeling very sick,

and it just put... It just brought reality into the house, that we were

not a normal family that could organise things

and just get on with things. We had a very sick little girl.

This time, she's just completely wiped, so it's so rubbish for her.

She has spent most of today in bad.

We're just going to play it as it goes.

So, we started making plans to unplan the plan.

And... That was... That was it.

About four o'clock, she just got out of bed and she came into

me and says," Mummy, you know what? I think I will go.

"I think I'm going to be all right."

I'm getting my nails painted, to look pretty for my Confirmation.

I'm very excited.

'Once she got that on, she just felt normal,

'and the sickness disappeared and she felt happy.'

'We got Emily all dressed up and her hair was absolutely beautiful.'

-Oh, you are gorgeous!

-Oh, Emily, that is gorgeous. I love it.

How do you feel?

-Like a princess.

-Like a princess!

And it was just so emotional watching her,

doing the things that any ten-year-old little girl

should be doing.

Nobody took notice that I was wearing a wig

and that was really nice for me.

She just was back in the limelight, being... Doing what Emily does best,

just shining and sparkling.

It's all about creating memories and life is about creating memories.

For us to get Emily looking good that day and that she could go along

with all her friends and just blend with the crowd

and be one of the girls... Wow.

ALL: # Happy birthday to you. #

CHEERING

We knew that confirmation was a risk and...nothing happened!

Thankfully.

My goal is to get all my hair back and to get back to normal life.

CHEERING