I'd been a short-hair-girl most of my adult life, and considered hair a nuisance.

Oh, sure, hair could be pretty, really lovely at times. But what about those other times? You know – when you wake up in the morning with chicken-butt hair at all odds and angles? When your hair outgrows your color and the shadow of your smile is eclipsed by shadow of your roots? What about all the time and money for cuts and coloring and perms and straightening and a line of products as long as the imaginations of the hair care gurus?

And it doesn't stop there. Noooo...then comes the eyebrow tweaking and the nose hair trimming and the mustache waxing...and those goat beard chin hairs!

I imagined it would be great to be like Yule Brenner or Telly Savalis or even Mr. Clean. They had no hair on their heads and were considered exotic and sexy. Why couldn't it be that way for women too? Science fiction gave us some bald females...but you had to be alien to be bald and exotic and sexy. Baldness in real women in the real world was associated with illness, undesirability and shame.

Innately unfair. Still…reality. So I groused and did the hair thing.

Then I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. One of my ovaries was as big as a lemon. The other had grown to the size of a melon. Both were full of cancer. I joked that between chemo and radiation I'd surely turn into Mrs. Clean...free of chicken-butt hair at last. But I was blessed. After a total hysterectomy my oncologist announced he’d gotten everything without puncturing the ovaries and I would be spared both chemo and radiation.

Then, three years later, a severe stress reaction resulted in alopecia universalis. Patch by patch, here a clump, there a clump, everywhere a clump, clump, arm hair, nose hair, ear hair, every hair. The process was not as cool as I'd imagined, except for shedding those darn chin hairs.

I'd made a date with a girlfriend for lunch and a movie. When she saw me, she wrapped her arms around me and said, "Pammy, we're going to lunch and a wig shop. I've seen dogs with mange look better than you do." Now, that is a true friend. After lunch, fortified by a split piece of Snicker's ice cream pie, we trundled off to the wig shop and had a blast trying on wigs of all colors, lengths and styles.

Not one to dither when I've found a direction that feels right, I had the rest of my hair buzzed and went home wearing my new wig. Some people thought I'd had my hair colored and styled. Some didn't notice anything. Some said I looked ten years younger. It was fun...until I started getting headaches from maintaining a tight enough fit to keep the wig on, yeast infections in my scalp, and watched the tracks of penciled on eyebrows erode down my cheeks in rivulets of sweat from my poor overheated head.

Casual physical contact became constrained. Is my hair on straight? Hugs became mine fields of snagging and sagging potential. Anxiety over the condition, position and stability of my fake hair took predominance in my thoughts. And I got angry - very, very angry that men could choose to deal with a balding condition by shaving their heads, shining them up and sauntering into the world to be viewed as sophisticated and virile, while most women felt constrained to hide.

That's when I said enough. I am who I am who I am. And who I am is plenty good enough. I took off my wig and put it away.

That’s when my adventure began.