Hairdresser Helps Ease the Pain of Cancer Patients' Hair Loss

It hits with a one-two punch. Learn you have cancer. Then discover that, as a side effect of treatment, you may lose your hair.  

Both blows bring some people to their knees. 

A local hairdresser offers cancer patients a way to cushion that blow. 

Several days a week, Gail Gallo cuts, colors and styles clients’ hair at the in Woburn, near , off Commerce Way. 

But on Tuesdays and by special appointment other days, for about 15 hours a week, she goes to work at a different local address and helps mostly women select head coverings, from sleep caps and head scarves to wigs. She fits and styles wigs to her clients’ preferences at A Caring Place, a program within Winchester Hospital’s Community Health Institute. This is the first program of its kind with its own staff to be offered by a hospital in the suburbs, Gallo said. 

Gallo started to work there in the fall of 2004, several months after the program started. A hairdresser since the 1960s, she was no stranger to wigs.

“In the ‘60s, wigs hit the scene,” the program’s first and only wig consultant recounted, sitting in a conference room down the hall from the room where she works with clients. In the sunlight-filled private client room, mannequins display wigs of different colors and styles, from dark and shoulder length to short, smooth and almost white. Some sport caps. Colorful headscarves fill a basket. 

“Women were out of the kitchen, out to work,” Gallo said. “A wig was part of getting dressed.” 

She had a collection of wigs herself:  a long “fall” style, long curls, a blond one “for Friday night” and a dark black one “I still wear occasionally.” 

Working on a wig is different than working on natural hair, Gallo said. Ninety percent of wigs are synthetic, she explained, so they must be cut differently than hair. It’s like cutting chiffon versus felt, she said. 

Having your hair fall out after certain kinds of chemotherapy is “overwhelming,” according to Susan Powers, RN, associate director of the hospital’s Community Health Institute – especially if you have to stare at your own bare crown. And the hair can come out quickly after treatment, she said. 

So it’s best, Gallo said, to get a wig as soon after the diagnosis and treatment plan is set as possible.  

“It’s a way to take control,” she said.  Quick action also allows Gallo to match the client’s hair color and style, if she so chooses. 

But not all clients want just a wig. Some days, when you’re relaxing at home, for example, you might just want a head cover, Gallo said. Or a sleep cap to keep warm. 

Beyond her work at A Caring Place, Gallo volunteers with the American Cancer Society—she runs a wig bank.   

The hospital program meets health insurance guidelines, so most health insurers cover the cost of a wig there, Powers said.

 “Any woman without insurance can come (to A Caring Place) and get what they need,” Gallo said.

Some women donate wigs back to her, and the hospital’s Winton Club has contributed funds for special situations, she said. Gallo sanitizes the wigs, and in some cases, restyles them. 

A licensed cosmetologist, Gallo has also been certified to run the American Cancer Society program, “Look Good, Feel Better,” for cancer patients. The monthly program covers makeup as well as head coverings, she said. 

Not all people who come to A Caring Place for a head cover have cancer, Gallo pointed out. Some have other kinds of hair growth problems, she said. 

This coming spring or summer, Gallo and A Caring Place will move from Baldwin Park I on Alfred Street to the hospital’s cancer center on Washington Street in Winchester, near the Winchester-Woburn line.  

The program also offers special products and services for women who have had mastectomies. 

A patient's perspective 

Dianne Driscoll of Tewksbury went to see Gallo recently at A Caring Place. She has been diagnosed with breast cancer.   

“The thought of losing my hair was almost too much to bear,” said Driscoll.  

Wanting to lose her hair “at the time and place of my choosing,” Driscoll, 52, had her husband give her a buzz cut. 

“I wanted to take control,” she said. 

The first wig she tried on with Gallo was “perfect” in her husband’s opinion, said Driscoll. She, however, wanted to try on a few more. Ultimately, she chose the first one she had tried on, which she described as “quite different” from her own hair color and style. She also got several caps and wraps to keep warm, and to wear in place of the wig. 

Her new wig “looks natural on me," said Driscoll, adding that since it is different from her regular hair color and style, when she wears it people don't recognize her. Looking in a mirror, she said she asks herself, “Who am I?” 

Driscoll described Gallo as “warm and caring,” as well as professional.

“She was concerned that I was comfortable,” said Driscoll. "[She was] very accommodating.” 

After a break from chemotherapy, Driscoll will start again this coming week. How is she doing? 

“I’m alive,” she said.