#4 I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I'll prolly do at least one of those things, however.

^Laugh.

This actually happens quite often.......or at least every so often.

I think that there are a lot of people going around carrying a lot of guilt.

People have come up to us in the grocery store and gave us a five dollar bill to get the kids something. Strangers do this. It's odd........and although it is sort of annoying, it is difficult to give it back and they don't ever really want to hear an explanation of her condition. They usually seem to want to just run off.

I HAVE been in some REALLY annoying situations though.

Once I took Jessie to my other daughter's school to watch the "Halloween Parade"..........where the kids march around the parking lot in costumes.

I had my camera and I sat in sort of a conspicuous spot to get some photos. Jessie sat beside me......she was perfectly cool just grinning and watching.

Some dude sat down next to me and began talking to my four year old....who was pretty much ignoring him.

He kept saying...

"Oh......you're SO beautiful"

"You're SO strong"

"You're such a pretty girl"

He wouldn't shut up. it was getting harder to ignore him; and I really didn't feel like interrupting my tasks to explain to him that she wasn't undergoing some terrible treatment.

Then he started tugging my sleeve......repeating the same ****......

"She's SO beautiful..."

He put me in a bad mood. My daughter simply wanted to watch the kids march by and this guy wouldn't leave us alone.

Finally I said, "Listen.....I don't even know you......so why don't you get the **** away from us?".

I don't think he understood...........but his wife came over and dragged him away.

Andy, I hate to state the obvious, but maybe having your child wear a hat sometimes would prevent some of these situations.

?

And, the docs can't figger out why no hair grows?

Fer crissake, we can put a man on the moon...

and you are justifiably concerned about schoolkids cruelty.

#23.....

Not enough glue in the world to keep a hat on a four year old.

The "condition" is "alopecia"............which means "hair loss". I told the doctor that I knew she had hair loss. I said some other things.......but doctors don't have much of a sense of humor.

Anyway......the condition is believed to be an "auto-immune" problem. The body attacks the hair follicles as if they were some sort of virus, etc. Auto-immune issues are notoriously difficult and most of them are not completely understood.

Some people respond to treatment; others don't. We have been through about three years of specialist visits........several DIFFERENT specialist, and several treatments; some unusual.

Nothing worked.........she DID grow some hair back; but we had to stop treatment because it was causing some other issues. The hair all fell out.......but it was patchy to begin with and really didn't show much promise of ever being "real" hair.

Eventually, we made our way to an Alopecia "guru" (long waiting list, etc).

He confirmed what I thought......stop treatment; hope for the best.

as long as she has a positive self image/good self confidence she's probably going to do fine in school and the pics you've posted of her indicate a pretty darn happy kid, at least she smiles an awful lot.

And, no hair? It could be worse. but it may take her some time to realize that.

My son was bald until about the age of three.

Now he has a thick head of hair.

The downside to your daughter's condition is that she'll probably have to wear a wig.

The upside is that she gets to wear a wig: no "bad hair" days.

No bad haircuts.

No need to dye your hair.

No gray hairs.

The only problem is that a decent wig costs mullah.

#22 "Laugh". Roger that.

"I think that there are a lot of people going around carrying a lot of guilt." Well, now there I have an advantage. Too many clients have tried to play me over the years. I've fully morphed into a callous, heartless bastid.

#22 BTW, I think that's part of the wife job description...dragging us away when we don't recognize trouble. Even when we mean well. Hell, ESPECIALLY when we mean well.

#28......we have commitments from a few friends for hair donations to make wigs.

The longest hairs I have are sort of short and curly..........so I was disqualified.

Sorry Andytv gave you the wrong email address, tired when I posted, it's [email protected], your #25 post is exactly what our daughter has also same treatment by strangers when outside of home years ago, got a kick out of your post because that was us several years back, she went thru same treatments you described, took her to Danville for 2 years, same results, she will be 8 years old in about a week, we have had wigs specially made for her since she was about 5 years old and she became much more aware of her condition. My Wife has done more reseach than I and has been in touch with families with childred with same condition.Shoot me an email we can discuss futher.

I'd offer, but I'm balding and need to keep whatever I have left.

THX 1138