Alopecia Aloschmeesha!

Ryan's hair... When Ryan was one, we started taking him to get his hair cut at my beautician, Joni, who had a shop in her home. His first cut with her consisted of me holding him on the floor while she cut one side of his hair, then I flipped him over for the other side... Little did we realize what a struggle his hair would become.... The below picture is nothing. His hair is much longer than mine now and his father and I don't mind too much anymore. It's better than what it HAS been...
When Ryan was three, Joni noticed a bald patch on the top of his head and asked if he'd gotten a hold of scissors or a razor. Nope... We discovered that he had Alopecia Areata, which means loss of hair in areas of the body. The clinical reason for this was that he had some stress in his life and it was coming out thru his hair... Or at least that's what it said in Joni's hair manual. We disagreed. The only stress was that his sister had just been born...

He eventually lost all hair on his arms, back and legs and at one time only had a half of an eyebrow. He kept most of his hair on his head, but at times it was pretty obvious. Sometimes it would grow mostly in, then one morning a bunch of loose hair would be on his pillowcase and it would start all over again on a different side of his head.
As time went on, Joni moved and we had to take him to a cheap hair cutting place and they spouted off the entire paragraph that they had learned in beauty school. "What kind of trauma has he been through?" We explained his sisters birth... But I'm pretty sure that's not it...

We took him to specialists and dermatologists who prescribed or "practiced" on him. Apparently we hit every specialist who had never had a patient so young with this condition. They prescribed meds that made the bald patches red and irritated, so much so , that Ryan called his bald spots holes. He hated those meds! This had nothing to do with nutrition. Not too many hotdogs or mountain dew...

We got a hold of some Rogaine thru a prescription (at that time) and started applying it daily. We were not going to let him lose his hair until he was 18 and wanted to just shave it off. The insurance company gave us some flack saying that they couldn't cover the cost of Rogaine since it was for cosmetic purposes. I believe I started crying on the phone at that time and stated that my son was 3 years old... This wasn't a cosmetic thing in our eyes. We didn't want him made fun of at preschool... They changed their minds.
As he grew, he discovered various ways to deal with strangers curiosities. Not the right way at first. At first whenever anyone commented on his hair, he took it wrong and ended up in several playground fights. Threw a glue bottle and broke the glasses of a boy in 5th grade that is now one of his roommates...

We talked with him and gave him some new ideas on how to explain his condition. He then started telling people in a joking manner that a bird had pecked off his hair, or his little sister shaved him while he slept, etc. But when he told a new teacher that he had cancer, we had to talk with him again... His sense of humor was developing, that's for sure!
He grew to hate swimming and didn't want to go with us to the pool anymore. It exposed his scalp too much and he didn't like looking "uncool" with girls around.

Since the cheap cuts places every single time asked what type of trauma he'd had, we switched to a local barber with a shaky hand... He must be 90, but wow, he could cut Ryan's hair so it fell over the spots and looked really natural, unless of course it was windy or rainy.

At one bagpiping event (my husband plays), they gave out bagpipe temporary tattoos. Ryan put one on his bald patch. People thought he shaved that spot on purpose for the tattoo. He used about 10 for a couple weeks. My crazy brother thought that Ryan should have his whole scalp tattooed with wires and crazy exposed things like that, so when hair fell out, it would look like he was a cyborg... Ryan wanted to do it, but we put a stop to that. No tattoos!!! Especially on your head!
Ryan hasn't seen any barber since the summer of 2008... He had really been fighting us on hair cuts. We held it over his "head" for everything... If he failed a test, if his grades dropped, if he didn't stop hanging out with certain people... He was destined (in his mind) that he would look awesome in dreadlocks. Not sure on that... We won a couple times, but when he went thru the really rough time that fall & winter of 2007-08 and we pulled him out of public school to homeschool, we let him do what he wanted with his hair.

We figured a girl would someday ask him to cut it for her. He'd do anything for a girl. Throw himself into a wall, act like a monkey, whatever it took to get her attention...
Above is Ryan and Maddy. They seem so happy together and wow, did she idolize her big brother.
In this picture... not so much... Maybe younger sisters DO cause stress...