First off, I'm not judging anyone's opinion on what he/she feels is worse: Androgenetic Alopecia or cancer. I think one would first have to experience hair loss as a healthy individual, live life as a truly bald person and then be diagnosed with cancer to be able to answer that question. Secondly, I've seen four people close to me suffer from cancer, three from diagnosis to deathbeds, so I'm not ignorant to others' suffering, both physical and mental, from the horrible disease.
Two years into my hair loss, I read this article in People Magazine:
http://www.people.com/article/joan-lunden-bald-reveal-breast-cancer
What struck me the most was this comment:
"But when you lose your hair, it just affects the way that you look at yourself in the mirror. You feel less feminine, pretty or desirable, and it's not an easy thing to go through."
I wondered why she didn't take that opportunity to express empathy for women who suffer from Androgenetic Alopecia or other types of alopecia--women who will never regrow their hair and some of whom will forever feel "less feminine, pretty or desirable".
I'll also share with you the first two paragraphs from a young girl's story I read on WHLP a long while back:
"June 14th 2004. I bet I know what you’re thinking. 'That’s when her hair started falling out' Right? Nope. That’s when I had my ability to walk taken away from me. It was a normal day, and I was training for a big national competition in Australia with my horse. I had been riding for 10 years before that day, and falling off was just another thing. No big deal. I had heard that you had a 2% chance of something going horribly wrong if you fell off a horse, and I’d never come away with anything more then a couple of bruises and some sore muscles until that day. I was now a paraplegic. Being faced with the fact that I would never walk again. Ever. That I would be completely dependant on a wheelchair for the rest of my life and have to learn all over again to do simple tasks like looking after myself. It was hard. Very hard. But not the hardest thing I’ve experienced.
Just before my 16th birthday, my hair began to fall out. Very slowly at first, just a few more stands then normal. But in the next week it became more and more noticeable. There would be hair on my pillow, in my sheets, stuck on my clothes, on the lounge, in the shower, absolutely everywhere. Handfuls of hair would painlessly and effortlessly come out just running my fingers through my hair. I used to sit on the bottom of the shower in shock, as I watched my hair run loose with the stream of water and watch the water rise as the hair covered the drain. I was petrified of brushing my hair. I wanted to keep the small amount of hair that I had left. I felt so ugly, so alone, like such a freak. I was a girl! A YOUNG girl. And here I was holding my hair in my hands crying and hoping to God that this was just a horrible, nasty dream."
I'll end by saying that, for me, at this stage of my life, anything that would make me dependent upon or take me away from my family would be worse than hair loss. I can't say with certainty how I'd feel, though, if I were a young, single woman with Androgenetic Alopecia.
