Nicole Hitchcock styles cancer patient Brandi McWade’s hair as part of free Hairdressers with Heart program. Courtesy photo.
My wife abhorred having to suffer through breast cancer.
I wasn’t thrilled either.
But the idea of her losing her lengthy tresses didn’t bother me, possibly because hair didn’t register on my Meaning of Life scale.
Possibly because I have the male Y chromosome.
I knew I’d love her — and still find her beautiful — even if chemotherapy destroyed every follicle, even if I stumbled over reddish clumps in our San Anselmo home.
For Nancy, though, hair loss filled the No. 2 slot on her hate parade.
As soon as the docs said baldness would follow her chemo cocktails, she freaked. And she never did get comfy with the identity crisis it spawned, “the most psychologically devastating part of the cancer.”
That was 19 years ago.
Today she’d have more options to relieve her distress.
Some free.
Such as cutting and styling from Hairdressers with Heart, a nonprofit founded 18 months ago by Nicole Hitchcock and Nina Husen, co-owners of NH2 salon in Novato, after they saw close-up what treatment-induced hair loss could mean.
What they’d watched was the anguish Brandy Hitchcock, Nicole’s sister, had endured when her hair fell out.
Before leukemia killed her in 2009.
Nina and Nicole, armed with scissors, hair products and truckloads of compassion, now celebrate Brandy’s life by signing up Style Heroes, stylists who donate time to aid cancer patients.
They offer pre-chemo haircutting and head shaving, wig fitting and customizing, and 12 monthly post-chemo cuts.
Free hairpieces are provided financially disadvantaged patients.
The program’s stylists work hard at ensuring their pro bono clients no longer feel powerless. And its website at www.hairdresserswithheart.org — while noting “over a million people will be diagnosed with cancer this year in the United States” — says clients can transform the way they feel by transforming the way they look.
I remember wishing for a magic wand to do that to Nancy.
None ever appeared.
But what HWH accomplishes best is give “a person something positive to focus on,” declares Nina in a YouTube video.
So far, Style Heroes have worked on 22 women.
Bridgene Raftery, a Sonoma recipient diagnosed in August who’s still being treated for breast cancer, is one of them.
While her pre-chemo hair was being trimmed, she decided “to have fun by trying different colors — lavender, a little bit of pink.”
She’s now thrilled with her hair’s reappearance, despite it “coming back in different sections, fluffy bits, straggly.”
The image jerks me into a time warp.
Nancy’s hair had returned thick and course, multi-colored and strangely different than its former soft texture. The curls had vanished. She couldn’t wait to tint it back to her original color.
But she almost felt like herself.
Nicole, who’s been a stylist since she was a teenager 21 years ago, feels especially connected to Brandi McWade, a recipient whose name is only one letter removed from her sister’s.
Brandi recalls that they developed “a beautiful friendship” as Nicole trimmed her pre-chemo locks.
When it came time to shave her head, Brandi employed a San Diego outfit to “make a hair ‘halo,’ which is what I wore with a hat instead of a wig because it was my own hair.”
The Fairfax recipient, whose breast cancer has since metastasized to her bones, has retained a positive attitude.
Nicole’s attitude is one of appreciation — because the program is expanding, boosted by an influx of donations.
A May fundraiser picked up $24,646 (money that will be used to help the organization go national).
Meanwhile, at MC23 salon in Ross, three stylists and an assistant have become involved in the HWH program, according to sales manager J.J. Kwan.
“It’s almost like a spiritual journey,” she says, “and helps us give back to the community.”
At Sproos Salon in San Anselmo, Angele Perez is an independent stylist who’s “known Nicole from high school and was totally inspired by what Hairdressers with Heart is doing. It’s an emotional, tough time for cancer patients, but we can help coach them through it.”
Bridgene calls the program “absolutely brilliant — because losing your hair is so traumatic.”
And she, as does virtually every woman who’s discovered Hairdressers with Heart, endorse its rallying cry: “You are not alone.”
Nancy certainly was glad I stayed by her side during her nightmare.
But I bet she’d have preferred that I could wield a comb and scissors.
