- Author bio:
Clare Kay is the host of the Moving Countries 101 podcast, a writer, and a consultant working in global relocation. Her work focuses on the lived experience of transitioning, with particular attention to curiosity, listening, and the choices people make as they adapt to new environments and experiences.
- Losing hair is an unsettling experience.
It doesn’t come out in clumps by the root as they show in the movies.
I have — well, had — masses of curly hair, which I cut fairly short in anticipation of it falling out due to chemotherapy. At first, it was just a few strands. Then, after showering, when I raked product through my hair with my hands, a thick tangle of loose strands simply matted around my fingers. It was quite disturbing.
I was holding out for my husband’s birthday. Not because of him, but because I didn’t want the absence of hair to distract me, or anyone else, from him having a great day. It poured with rain that day, so ironically, my hair was covered all day anyway. It’s funny how things work out.
I then delayed shaving my head because we were due to see my mother-in-law. I worried that hats — or no hair at all — might alarm her further, beyond her already heightened anxiety about me having had breast cancer. I was keen to reassure her that the cancer had been removed and that the focus now was on the prevention of cancerous cells returning.
However, two days after my husband’s birthday, I woke up with the unmistakable feeling that my hair really needed washing. I knew that washing my hair would be disastrous, as so much would come out in the process. Instead, my husband and I went to a local barbershop and had our heads shaved together.
For probably the first time, I gave real thought to what men might go through when they begin to lose their hair — and the emotional work involved in embracing baldness not temporarily, as in my case, but permanently, as in my husband’s. For the first time in 21 years of being together, I asked him what it had been like emotionally to know he was losing his hair. He had only been in his thirties when he first noticed.
Looking back, I realised I had never really thought to ask him before. Nor had I supported him through that change — certainly not lovingly and humorously, he was now supporting me.
It made me think about how rarely we ask people a simple but profound question:
- What is it like?
When my father had a stroke, a senior coach I worked with in personal development gave me advice I’ve never forgotten: Get interested. Ask your dad what it is like.
After listening to my mum’s experience of Dad’s stroke and her recollection of the medical staff’s observations, I went into the lounge and sat with my dad. Understanding that his stroke had affected his ability to speak, I felt slightly foolish — but I asked him anyway, “What was it like, Dad, to have a stroke?”
Without missing a beat, he answered. Slowly. Deliberately. Struggling to enunciate some words — but unmistakably responding to the question I had asked.
Years later, when my mother was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, we explored what it was like for her. From those conversations emerged her acute awareness, her humour, and her dismay at having dementia. The most striking insight was this: after a lifetime of giving, she was learning how to receive.
Birth, death, illness, recovery — these are shared human events. And yet no two experiences are the same. They have always lived uniquely. Even where there is overlap, the inner experience belongs to the individual.
Almost everyone knows someone who has had cancer, so we think we understand. People offer suggestions, remedies, and good practices — generously and kindly.
My own experience of cancer has been, in many ways, a privileged one — and certainly a blessed one. While it was fast-growing, it was found early. There was no metastasis, no secondary cancer, no lymph node involvement. The care I received was extraordinary — thoughtful, thorough, and tender.
My consultant described the process as a journey to a cure.
I love that phrase. No fixed promises. But a firm, resolute direction.
When I was told chemotherapy was necessary and would inevitably result in hair loss, I decided intuitively that I would not try to preserve my hair. I would shave my head and wear hats — something I used to do when I was younger.
Wearing a Masumi Headwear was never about hiding cancer or hair loss. It was about practicalities, about feeling protected — literally and metaphorically — and about continuity: a way to step into the world without explanation or apology, and without managing other people’s reactions.
More than anything, wearing a hat enables me to choose. There are times when I take off my hat — somewhat nervously, I’ll admit — and sit in a public place with my shaved head visible. Once I relax, I forget that I look different, that I stand out as a woman with a bald head.
And perhaps that returns us to the same question that runs through all of this:
- What is it like — really?
I wonder what I would say if people asked me that.
