Unique hairpieces give hope to cancer patients

Rose Ann Gales loved to look pretty and feminine, so when her three-year-old son Robert first asked the question, its effect was devastating.
“Mommy, why do you look like Daddy?”
Gales had been diagnosed with breast cancer in July 2006 and had lost her hair after beginning chemotherapy treatments.
“She got really upset,” her friend Bozena Vicioso said. “One of the hardest things for her was having her three-year-old and 10 year-old sons look at her like they didn’t know her.”
“The wigs I can afford make me very uncomfortable,” Vicioso recalled the 37-year-old mother saying about the synthetic wigs she had tried wearing that made her scalp itchy and sweaty.
Shortly after that conversation Vicioso was watching television when she saw Cheryl James featured as NY1’s NYer of the Week last October.
The television station was honoring James for helping women and children regain their self-confidence after losing their hair from cancer or other illnesses through the creation of a simple, yet life-altering, head covering.
James, who admitted to a lifelong fascination with all things cosmetology-related, said the idea of attaching a synthetic hair piece to a scarf to create bangs came to her four years ago when her daughter’s second grade classmate, Taylor Haymore, had a brain aneurysm.
“The scarf came to me because it is more childlike,” James explained of the inspiration. “Most children are not fond of the wig idea, and there’s not a lot of choice for children.”
Surgeons shaved Haymore’s head to repair the damaged blood vessel and when it came time for her to return to school, she worried how the other students would react.
“I felt sad that people would look at me differently,” Haymore said.
Instead, she wore the scarf to school and her then-seven-year-old life returned to normal.
“It made me feel better,” she said, explaining that she forgot the scarf at home once and became the object of people’s stares all day long.
When Vicioso saw James on television, she immediately thought of Gales and set out to track her down. She found her through the New York University Medical Center where James had recently donated 50 scarves.
Once James made that first creation the idea took root and grew. Naturally charitable (a PTA mom and community service volunteer) she began creating scarves with different hair types and styles to help children and women of all ethnicities feel pretty in the face of hair loss.
Today James, who is her organization’s only employee, donates scarves through institutions including the American Cancer Society, Mary Immaculate Hospital, Montefiore Medical Center and the Hospice of New York in Long Island City among others, she said.
Volunteers help create the scarves, which she estimated take about one hour to make and cost $25—the same amount she charges for customized orders.
Gales’ battle with cancer ended in February. In her sadness at knowing she would soon leave her children without a mother, Gales was particularly grateful for her scarves.
“I’m so glad my boys saw me feeling pretty and confident,” Vicioso remembered her saying.
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