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That first moment is traumatic

“I want to thank you for making me feel beautiful again.”
(Anja Wahl)

Hello Friend of CANSA

Even though you know it’s going to happen, that first moment of reality is still traumatic...

...waking up in the morning to find your pillow covered with clumps of your hair, and bare patches on your head.

Then more coming out in your hand as you touch what’s left.

Cancer patients receiving chemotherapy treatment are told that the drugs used are to kill the cancer cells. And some of these drugs damage hair follicles, causing the hair to fall out.

Our hair is part of our identity and appearance. Losing it makes us feel both physically and emotionally vulnerable. It also happens when a cancer patient may already be feeling at a low in the duration of treatment.

To escape the gradual process, some cancer patients bravely have their head shaved before treatment. But this is often only a partial help.

After treatment, it also takes time for hair to grow back.

It may not be our most well-known service, but our wig bank can make a huge difference to the looks and morale of cancer patients during the time of natural hair loss.

It’s also a service for which we greatly depend on the support of CANSA friends like you, and your donations made online by clicking here.

The wigs themselves come in two types: synthetic hair, and natural hair donated by people cutting off their long ponytail or plaits. (It’s wonderful to note how many children and young people make these donations – with the intention of making someone feel beautiful again.)

Anja Wahl

When Anja Wahl was asked by a close friend to be her bridesmaid, the bride wasn’t concerned about Anja’s lack of hair. But Anja became more and more stressed about how she was going to look alongside the lovely bride – to be captured on the wedding photographs forever.

As you can see from this photograph, the CANSA wig bank solved Anja’s dilemma.

And her spontaneous response to us was: “Getting this beautiful wig from you made me feel like a ‘million bucks’, like I could conquer the world again. It really made me feel fantastic for the first time in a long time.”

Providing wigs could be seen as frivolous when compared with many of our other services to help people living with cancer – but it has a distinctly human impact.

Rather than a vanity, how cancer patients feel about themselves is an important part of recovery. And feeling ‘normal’ as they look at themselves in the mirror, and are looked at by others is a real tonic.

If you can relate to those feelings, I’m hoping that you’ll click here now to send your kind donation to keep helping cancer patients to feel normal, even beautiful, again.

Yours sincerely,

Elize Joubert
Chief Executive Officer

P.S.: You’ll be sharing in something else that Anja said: “I have no words to express the amount of love and gratitude I have for what you do for cancer patients.”

What we do, is thanks to you.

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