Island Life Magazine Ltd December 2008/January 2009 | Page 27

INTERVIEW

Lauren’s clinic
Once she had cut and shaped her wigs, and
learnt how best to look after them, she felt
much happier. Having a positive attitude, she
stresses, is absolutely vital. “Even if you’re
feeling really rubbish it’s important to get up,
have a shower and do your hair and makeup
– you feel better.” Her clinic will aim to do
just that for people. “I just thought it would
be nice if there was somewhere you could go
where there was someone to help you through
every stage after being diagnosed with cancer,
from when you’re told you’ll lose your hair. As
I’d been through it myself it would be more
personal to them – I just wanted to help people,
really give something back.”
Genevieve Sanders, the proprietor of Level
Hair and Beauty, has given over a room which

"In order to regain the person she once was,
Lauren had to get back to looking normal –
and that had to be a different normal. It is
the importance of surviving the after effects
of treatment that she wants to pass on to
others."
will be a clinic where people can come and talk
to Lauren, who will explain what will happen
when they start to lose their hair, and give
advice – like cutting long hair short so it’s less
of a shock when it does go. “I will shave their
head if they can’t do it themselves,” she adds,
“then cut and shape their wig to make it their
own.”
After chemotherapy – she pointedly never says
“chemo”, and you wonder if, as the writer Alan
Bennett has remarked about his own cancer

treatment, she has never felt on sufficiently
friendly terms with the process to give it a pet
name – the new hair is delicate but does get
stronger. She will also be a listening ear for any
unexpected horrors, such as when her eyebrows
fell out. “I’d finished my chemotherapy in May
and my eyebrows were the only bit of hair I
had. Then just when I started to feel better
two weeks after the end of the treatment, they
fell out! That was really bad because eyebrows
make a person.” Fortunately it was just another
temporary stage in the process and they soon
grew back.
As well as receiving advice in total privacy,
there will be access to therapies such as hand or
foot massages from Katie, the salon beautician,
without having to leave the room. “You feel
I want to help make a real rubbish time for
people a little bit better.”
While the final touches were being made to
the new clinic, Lauren was about to attend a
course with acclaimed hair stylist Trevor Sorbie,
who runs an organisation called My New Hair.
He teaches wig cutting and shaping, and his
organisation also helps cancer and alopecia
sufferers who cannot afford to buy wigs. On his
website, www.mynewhair.org he has sent out a
call for his peers in the industry to join him in
offering their services in helping people with the
devastation of hair loss.
Lauren is happy to take up that call.
For more information about Lauren’s clinic,
and for price quotations, contact Level Hair and
Beauty, Ryde. Tel 812244. Email rydeleisure@
btconnect.com

life

Maryla’s story:
It isn’t just the very young
who feel they are not given
sufficient information about
their cancer. Maryla, who is
in her forties, is recovering
from breast cancer, and
believes more should be
done to encourage sufferers
to learn from each others’
experiences.
“By chance I came across
a website called www.
goodhealthnaturally.com,
where publicity is given
about supplements you can
take and the results they are
having in people.”
Since alternative
supplements are licensed
as food supplements
rather than medicines they
are not endorsed by the
medical profession. But
Maryla believes everyone
should have access to
ideas and information
which other sufferers
might have gleaned. She
has been taking curcumin,
to which she attributes
her remarkable resistance
to the more debilitating
aspects of chemotherapy
and her return to good
health. “Research I read
on that website says that
curcumin causes cancer
cells t