I sit at my kitchen table forcing myself to drink this horrible protein shake and researching all the different vitamins I should be taking that are supposedly going to make my hair grow back. Vitamin A, biotin, vitamin C, folic acid…the list goes on and on.

Last night I researched to figure out exactly what a tissue expander is, because if my hair doesn’t grow back by my next appointment, the surgeon said I’ll have to have one. I cried when I saw the pictures. The thought of me walking around with a huge balloon-like object attached to my head made me want to puke. I’m gonna look like a freak. Like an alien. And of course as soon as my mom saw the streams of tears running down my face, she rushed over to me. In an attempt to comfort me, she hugged me and held me for a while, like she did when I was little. Whenever the monsters wouldn’t leave from under my bed. Whenever I scrapped my knee. Whenever I couldn’t sleep. This is much bigger than any those things. Much much bigger.

It’s been over a month and I can still remember exactly how it happened. It was August 27th. I had just left school and was headed to this new salon. It was a great salon. Very nice, and not exactly cheap either. Mama was planning to meet me there after she got off work. I walked in, sat down, and waited for them to call my name. “Macy.” That’s me. Now, I had my hair highlighted several times before, but this time was much different. The stylist went to the back to mix up the dye. As he was working, I noticed the foils were a bit hot; but I didn’t pay much attention. I should have. All the sudden it felt like someone put a blow torch to the back of my head. I told him and he frantically rushed me over to the sink. He started ripping the foils out of my hair. I was crying by this point. It hurt. It was the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. All sorts of things were running through my mind. Things like: “What if I don’t have any hair left?”, “How am I going to do Beauty and Beaux?”, “How am I going to be in showchoir without any hair?”, “How am I going to compete in Miss Mississippi in two months?”, “What about senior pictures next week?” The tears just kept coming and coming. He washed my hair over and over again with the coldest water in the world. My scalp was tingling. It went numb. He took me back to his chair. I looked at myself in the mirror as he was combing my hair.  I saw a long white streak. That’s not what I asked for. Not at all. I kept watching him comb…my hair was coming out in handfuls. Every time he combed through my hair it looked like a spider had made its web on the comb. I started crying again. The stylist was panicking too, but obviously not too much because he blow-dried my hair and started to finish the highlights. My mom showed up not long after all this. I told her what happened. She ran her fingers through my hair and immediately realized we had a problem whenever a handful of my hair came out. The foils started feeling hot again so I quickly told the stylist and he rushed me to the sink again. That whole process I just described…yeah, we went through it again. But this time he washed my hair with sprite- something about the alkalinity level, it was supposed to make my hair stop falling out. It did stop, eventually. My hair was ruined, so the salon gave me all kind of treatments and sprays and shampoos for free. But, I had a much more serious problem than just damaged hair.

I went to the local clinic the following week. The doctor told me I had an infection and that the chemicals from the dye burned the neurological layer of my scalp. He just said as long as we could keep staph away then everything would be fine. Everything wasn’t fine. I went to the dermatologist the next week because my scalp started oozing. Pretty gross, right? She took a culture and tested me for staph. The test came back positive, so she sent me to the plastic surgeon. I had surgery on Wednesday September 17th. My surgeon Dr. Thomas shaved part of my head and removed about a palm size amount of skin from my scalp. I was scared to death, but he took care of me.

It hasn’t hurt very much since the surgery. I went for a checkup this past Tuesday. Dr. Thomas told me that if he didn’t see hair follicles by the next checkup then he would have to do a skin graft and possibly a tissue expander, which is the big balloon-like monstrosity that I described earlier.

People ask me about it every single day. And every time my face just lights up like a Christmas tree because I get to tell them all about this wonderful time that I’m having drinking all these protein shakes and taking up to 7 pills a day in an attempt to make my hair grow back and to fight off infection. Oh, and I also get to tell them about how my mom has to wash my hair just like she did when I was a kid because I can’t do it myself. And I’m sure they see the joy across my face whenever I attempt to adjust the gauze around my head. That’s not easy.And they all say things like: “Oh, Macy I’m so sorry you’re going through that.”, “Macy, it’ll all be okay.”, “You are so strong, don’t lose that Mace.” Well I’m just about all out of strength…and all out of hope. Everyone says senior year is great, it’s something you’ll never forget. Well I can promise you one thing, I will never forget this.