WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) - Terry Gates had her first chemotherapy treatment on Dec. 3, 2015, just a few months after having a bilateral mastectomy because of breast cancer.
Her hair fell out three weeks later.
“It started coming out in clumps,” said Gates, who lives in Trinity. “I was anticipating it but hoping it would not happen. I thought, ’Right before Christmas.’ Bad timing.’”
On the Monday before Christmas in 2015, Gates shaved her head, then on Christmas Eve went to a wig shop in High Point to buy a turban.
She recalled how wearing a hairpiece caused a rash.
While Gates was at her doctor’s office for another breast cancer treatment at Forsyth Medical Center, a nurse who found out about the rash mentioned putting Gates name on a list for a medical wig.
She learned that wig designers at UNC School of the Arts had teamed up with Novant Health, the owner of Forsyth Medical Center, to build free custom wigs for patients with hair loss. The wig designers are students in UNCSA’s first School of Design & Production’s wig and makeup design program.
The program began as a class in the spring semester, led and instructed by Christal Schanes, a wig and makeup associate professor with the School of Design & Production.
Recognizing a need
Schanes, who works as a wig-builder for such TV shows as “Saturday Night Live” and “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,” often has built wigs for patients with cancer, alopecia and other medical conditions as a side career.
“I had a lot of students who were already in the process of building medical wigs and I was kind of tutoring them, advising them on the side of all my other wig classes,” Schanes said. “So I became aware of the fact that this was a huge need in the department (of wig and makeup).”
She estimated that she had previously advised six students about how to build medical wigs for their family members and other folks.
Initially, Schanes took her idea about starting a medical wig class to Michael J. Kelley, the design school’s dean. Kelley secured a grant from an anonymous donor to help pay for the class, making it possible for students to build high-quality, custom hand-tied wigs at no cost to 12 clients. Each student had a $600 budget, with donations of hair and other supplies, to make a wig for a client.
Schanes also reached out to her friend Beth Miller, a medical physicist in Forsyth Medical Center’s radiation oncology department. Miller put her in touch with Candiss Vestal, a nurse navigator, and April Crissman, a radiation oncology registered nurse at the medical center. Vestal and Crissman have since taken the lead on pairing patients at medical center’s Derrick L. Davis Cancer Center with the wig and makeup program.
“Anytime we have an opportunity to partner with our community on a project like this, I think it’s a great idea, especially if it’s a service that we give back to our patients,” said Betsy Johnson, the medical center’s director of outpatient oncology services. “We certainly have a lot of patients who inquire about wigs and patients who are interested in more information about wigs. It’s just part of our discussions and education that we provide with our patients.”
Since its beginning in spring 2016, the medical wig project has expanded beyond the classroom to become a production assignment, allowing students to build wigs for medical clients year-round between their work on UNCSA performances.
“We have big hopes and dreams for this,” Schanes said.
She said the ultimate goal of the program, which is currently looking for funding to get the production assignments off the ground, is to help as many clients as possible.
Potential careers
Wendy Dresher, a senior, and Chelsea Raitor, a third-year graduate student, in wig and makeup at UNCSA, said they were both grateful to be able to participate in the program.
Dresher, said Gate’s wig, which she built, is like her baby and her favorite of the eight wigs she has done during her four years at UNCSA.
“I show everyone,” Dresher said of the various photos she has of the wig.
She said the program and working with Gates “and to see her wig from beginning to end was just very rewarding and a really fine experience.”
Raitor said she liked getting the experience of building a different type of wig than she has worked on in the past.
“It was a very personal growth situation for you and your relationship with your client,” she said.
She said her client, who she considers a role model, had amazing support from her family.
“She had her husband’s hair and her son’s hair put into her wig,” Raitor said. “That just made it all the more meaningful.”
Graduate student Uriel Najera pursued medical wig work this past summer after completing the class. He received a grant from the Semans Art Fund, which provides funding to current UNCSA students for innovative and special projects, study, research and performance. The money was used to build three more medical wigs for clients through Novant Health.
Najera and other students see medical wigs as a potential career.
“You never think of wigs as benefiting people,” Najera said. “But what I’ve realized is that it’s definitely the little things that can change someone’s life.”
Schanes said she consulted with UNCSA alumna Stephanie Caillabet through Skype for the wig and makeup program on several occasions.
Caillabet has more than 10 years of experience creating custom quality wigs for the Hollywood film industry and has been making wigs since 1995. She currently owns Art of Wigs in Austin, Texas, and offers wig-making and consultation services.
“What she is trying to teach is a valid career move for people who are wig- makers,” Caillabet said of Schanes. “The film industry is very difficult and so is television to get into but also to stay in. So having this talent, to be able to help others who really need wigs - as opposed to just want them - is a massive career that has been untapped, I think, so far in the United States.”
She said that while people can buy wigs in stores, it’s not “one size fits all,” because everybody is different.
The wigs and clients
Because custom wigs tend to be expensive, it probably would be hard for people with cancer and other medical conditions to be able to afford the wigs of the quality provided by the wig and makeup program. Also, insurance does not typically cover the cost.
“A standard entertainment wig in the industry on the low-end would cost $3,500 and sometimes up to $10,000 or even more, depending on the hair length, color and what the foundation looks like,” Schanes said.
The labor that goes into the making of these custom wigs can range from 70 to 175 hours.
Each of the wigs is made from human hair and shaped specially for each client’s head.
Schanes said the wigs are designed to be highly breathable and can be washed and styled.
“It’s very labor intensive to hand-tie every hair and to really make the hair appear as though it’s growing in the right direction,” Schanes said.
Crissman said the free wigs have been a huge relief to clients.
“Most patients can’t afford to pay for a wig,” she said “They are already spending so much on treatment.”
When Crissman sees some of the patients who received wigs she now notices an “aliveness” in them, she said.
Vestal said many patients lose a lot of what makes them feel like a woman.
“Their hair is important,” she said. “Helping them maintain their body image is a huge part of treatment.”
Gates said it’s hard to describe many of her emotions when she finally was fitted for her wig.
“When all this happens you just want to kind of feel normal again. It helps,” she said of the wig.
Before her hair fell out, Gates sported a short, salt-and-pepper hairstyle, so she said it took some getting used to a long-haired wig.
“I just hated to cut all that hair off,” Gates said. “I thought it was a waste.”
But she recently visited the wig and makeup studio at UNCSA to have her wig cut and styled.
While there, she also had her own hair, which has slowly started to grow back, trimmed.
Schanes told Gates to never hesitate in calling to get revisions done to her wig.
“If ever you do want to go short - short like the original cut - you just let us know,” Schanes said.
More wigs
The wig and makeup program has funding for a second class that will start in spring 2017.
“I’m currently gearing up for it, working with my nurse navigator and radiation oncologist (at Forsyth Medical Center),” Schanes said. “I’m also reaching out, of course, to the clients that have gone through the class with us to see if they have family members or friends who are in need.”
She said that funding is key to continuing the medical wig project because the program’s funding is not part of UNCSA’s state-appropriated funds.
She is also asking salons for hair donations and simply getting the word out about the program.
“What I’ve always said is I’ll do a free haircut. I’ll do something sassy and fun for you if you let me harvest your hair,” Schanes said.
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Information from: Winston-Salem Journal, https://www.journalnow.com
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