Oct 6, 2018 6 min read

Facing breast cancer changes everything, including your perspective.

Life is altered in an instant. Suddenly, your calendar is filled with medical appointments, tests and scans. Your treatment consists of any combination of chemotherapy, radiation and surgery.

Most breast cancer patients prescribed chemotherapy lose their hair. On top of all the dreadful things about cancer, losing your hair is devastating.

When your hair begins to fall out in clumps, when you feel the clippers shaving off what is left, when you look in the mirror for the first time and no longer recognize yourself – it can be traumatic.

Losing your hair makes you look sick. Losing your hair is a sign that says, “I have cancer.”

Patients deal with this in many ways. Bald is brave and beautiful, but some patients choose to cover their head with scarves, wraps or wigs. Many women want to remain private about their illness, and wigs help them do that.

Nancy Frazier, of Studio Seven Hair Salon in Washington, understands. She has been living with alopecia, an autoimmune disease that causes hair loss, for more than 30 years. In 2014, Frazier was also diagnosed with breast cancer.

“I know what it is like to not have hair. It is traumatic. It is more than ‘just hair,’ as some people sometimes say,” said Frazier.

Frazier mentioned a time when she used to wear hair pieces to hide her thinning hair. She walked past a co-worker one day who mentioned that she could tell when Frazier wore her hair pieces, because she walked taller and straighter.

“That was very telling about the difference having hair can make,” she said. “Feeling like you look your best isn’t about being vain, it is about confidence.”

Frazier has helped women with wigs for more than 20 years. She said that women who undergo treatment for breast, colon and pancreatic cancer typically lose their hair. She tries to personalize the experience by educating them about wigs, helping them choose the right wig for them, fitting the wigs after hair loss and educating them on how to care for them.

Frazier suggests patients call for an appointment before treatment begins, because, at that point, patients are less emotional, and she can see their natural hair and help them find one that makes them happy.

The salon keeps some wigs in stock, but some must be ordered.

“Coming in before treatment allows time to pick out the right wig and to order it so it is available when the patient needs it. The process is more difficult when a woman comes to the shop after her hair is gone. I may not have the wig she wants in stock,” Frazier said. “I never want a woman to settle for less. I want them to get the wig that will make them feel their best.”

Frazier said that she loves her job because she loves to make a difference.

“Helping a woman feel better and more comfortable with all they are going through helps me as much as it helps them. I like to think I play a part in their healing. I like to put a smile on their face,” she said. “Women don’t recognize themselves when they go through treatment. Unlike other illnesses, cancer changes their appearance. Once they accept that this is how they look for now, then, I can help them look their best during that difficult time.”

Jennifer Segen Hinkler knows how feeling your best can help with treatment. She recalls her mother, Elana, taking the time to get dressed up to go to her doctor appointments and treatments. Hinkler begged her mother to conserve time and energy for other things, and frequently told her that it didn’t matter what she looked like. But Elana insisted on looking her best, no matter how she felt or where she was going.

“When she looked good on the outside, she felt better on the inside,” said Hinkler, admitting that she understands that more now than she did back then.

Elana died in 2014 after living with breast cancer for 15 years. Hinkler started a nonprofit, One World, One Dream, while living in China to provide awareness, early detection and aid to those diagnosed with breast cancer. She gained valuable experience in fundraising during that time and suggested to her brother, David, an event planner living in Ohio, that they work together in a new endeavor. David wholeheartedly agreed. In 2015, they started the nonprofit Elana’s Blessings in their mother’s memory.

“After my mother passed away, I was angry and I had all these emotions. I didn’t know how to digest that. I turned my grief into something joyous, into a way to help someone else,” Hinkler said. “We thought the best way to honor our mother was to try to help other women look and feel their best, and to offer services to women throughout the Southwestern Pennsylvania and northeastern Ohio areas.”

Elana’s Blessings raises about $125,000 annually for breast cancer patients in the Washington and northeastern Ohio. The organization provides blessing bags for women going through cancer treatment, tailoring the bags to the needs of particular patients. The women who are facing mastectomy surgery receive bags with everything they need for a hospital visit, including robes with inside pockets for the drains they will have after surgery.

They provide spa treatments and days of beauty to help the self-esteem and quality of life of patients going through what their mother did. They also provide gift certificates that can be used to purchase wigs at Studio Seven.

Elana’s Blessings has opened boutique, a small shop that offers a place for women to purchase intimate items they need to assist in the recovery from mastectomy surgery as well as prosthetic pieces and bras for individual needs. They also carry small gifts and unique items. The shop is located at 470 Johnson Road, Suite 150, Washington.

“Women, in general, do not take time to care for themselves. I think about the women that don’t feel well. I want to give them a fun, shopping experience. It can be emotional. Buying these items can be difficult,” she said. “I have spent time educating myself on what is newly available for these women, and I want to bring that to our community.”

Editor’s note: Jennifer Collins’ blog “LifeConfetti” appears on the Observer-Reporter website.