Like many of you, the impacts of Breast Cancer hit close to home – and never closer than it did last year. As many of our guests know, our own Master Stylist and Educator Andrea Bengimina was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in July 2018. Over the next 12 months, Andrea underwent intense medical treatments but never lost her incredible zeal for life and for doing hair. She is now in remission but will forever be changed by the experience – and so are we!
Please take a minute to read Andrea’s recent blog about her experience with Breast Cancer below, but also please consider visiting us during the next month to help raise money for individuals and families impacted by Breast Cancer here in Kansas City. All month long, Bambou Salons & Spas will be donating 5% of all products sales to the Cancer Society. In addition, we’ll invite you to wear a complimentary Breast Cancer Awareness pin along with our teams!
Thank you in advance for your support of Bambou Salons & Spas, Andrea, and all individuals and families impacted by Breast Cancer Awareness!
My Breast Cancer Story
by Andrea Bengimina, Master Designer & Educator
With October and Breast Cancer Awareness month upon us, I thought this would be a good time to share my personal experience with breast cancer.
In my 39 years of being in this wonderful industry of hairstyling, I have had the great honor of taking care of several clients who came to me with breast cancer. The diagnosis is bad enough to hear. But when you are told that part of your treatment will cause you to lose your hair, well it’s much more than most women can take.
Let’s be real people, hair is very important to women. It’s our crowning glory, and it adds insult to injury that we have to lose It. When things are out of control in the rest of our lives, we’ve always been able to control what we do with our hair. In the past I have told my clients to shave their heads before chemo takes their hair. It will empower you to know that you are taking the hair off before the cancer/chemo does. It will make you feel better, I promise. That’s what I always said. Guess what? Now when I say that, I truly know what I’m talking about.
I was diagnosed with stage 2B breast cancer in July of 2018. I have been through 14 rounds of chemotherapy, 1 surgery and 31 radiation treatments. I am now on an anti-hormone pill that I will be taking for the next 5 years to make sure that dreaded cancer doesn’t return! I understand fully what it is to have your hair start to fall out in clumps, and the stress it causes. It is not fun! To make matters worse, your eyebrows and lashes go as well. This my friends was most unbearable for me. Most people would say, it’s just hair, it’ll come back. Easy to say when you haven’t gone through it. Cancer is traumatic enough, we women should not have to endure facing a mirror and not recognize ourselves on top of it.
I believed I was compassionate with my cancer clients, and I was. But now that I’ve gone through it I have even more insight to help. So does our team at Bambou Salons. I wouldn’t have gotten through it without all of them! When someone comes in after such a diagnosis, we want to step up and help them through the process as best we can. When the time comes to shave their heads, we do not charge for that and make it as positive an experience as we can. We will carve out time just for them, or they may want to have a group there for support.
At one of our Bambou locations, we even have a private room where they can feel more relaxed. We encourage whatever it is that we can do to make them comfortable. Some guests just for fun want to see what their hair looks like in a pixie cut or a mohawk before we take the rest off. Those warriors have an extremely positive attitude – yea for them!
Once the hair is gone, what can we do to help next? First of all, we are happy to help pick out a wig (or 5 like I had!) and cut or trim that wig to customize it for each individual. Most of the time no one knows it’s a wig when we are finished working our magic. We also offer a scalp treatment with a relaxing massage and hot towel wrap. Believe me this really goes a long way in making a woman feel “normal”. Some days It just felt good to have my head rubbed with oils by skillful hands.
When the hair starts to come back, it doesn’t really look like much but fuzzy chemo hair, but we will trim it around the edges to keep it looking neat as it grows. Plus we have a pretty awesome product to help facilitate that growth, that I am still using called ColorProof Bio Repair system. It’s been a life saver for me! Pretty soon the wigs or head wraps come off and the hair is long enough to be shaped into a trendy style. I’m at that stage now. Looking at me today, nobody knows that my hair is still growing in from chemo, it just looks like I have a very cute short haircut! I also became a blonde, never thought I’d do that but hey why not!
I’d like to end by saying Thank You to every member of our Bambou Team for taking such great care of me over this last year! I hope you never have to go through this experience but if you do, please let us help in any way we can.
