Living with alopecia: ‘I’ve learnt what matters – your health, your children, your laughter’
From losing her parents young, to supporting her son as he fought leukaemia, Vicky Pigot has weathered more than most. Now, she says hair loss didn’t diminish her – it freed her.
When Vicky Pigot, a solicitor from Dublin, noticed a small, round, bald patch on her scalp during college, she didn’t think much of it. “They always grew back,” she says. “I’d get one or two little spots, rub a bit of product on them, and off they’d go again.” She had no concept that these small circles of alopecia would one day mirror the turmoil and struggles of her own life. Vicky’s 20s were marked by deep loss. She recalls: “My dad died of cancer in 1996, and my mum passed away three-and-a-half years later from complications of rheumatoid arthritis. They were both gone by the time I was 30.”
Having also watched her child fight cancer, survival was all that mattered. “I’d seen my little boy lose his hair through treatment,” she says. “So for me, it wasn’t tragic. It was just another thing.” When the last strands were gone, she felt something unexpected: freedom. “The next morning, I had a shower, and it was divine,” she says, smiling. “The water on my scalp, it was the most beautiful feeling. I thought,’Oh, this isn’t so bad.’” Today, Vicky wears a wig, styled and cut by stylist Aidan Fitzgerald. “They’re beautiful, you can get real or mixed hair, semi-permanent or removable,” she explains. She’s open about her experience. “A lot of women comment on my hair,” she says. “They say, ‘Your hair’s gorgeous,’ and I just smile and say, ‘Thank you.’ Nobody talks about alopecia. There’s still a bit of silence around it.”
But for Vicky, it’s no longer something to hide. “After everything – the losses, the recession, the divorce, the illness, the pandemic; I’ve learned what matters. Your health and your children and your laughter,” she says. “Hair grows, or it doesn’t. It’s just part of the story.”
Read the full Irish Independent article.
Sunday with Miriam – RTE Radio1
“I try to not let it define me” Vicky Pigot joined Sunday with Miriam and opened up about living with alopecia universalis. Watch the full interview feature on Facebook here.