Wigs… in a Dementia Blog Post?

I promised, so I’m delivering: A post on wigs in a Dementia Blog… and you will indeed be amazed at how I tie wigs in with Dementia 🙂

This blog post is mainly for laughs. I was trying to take a nap on my couch the day I was dreaming this up, but kept thinking of wig stories and how they would tie in with this blog, and everything struck me so funny that I kept waking myself up laughing. No nap that day, that’s for sure!

Story #1
Losing One’s “Filters”

I imagine you may have experienced some older people in your life being a little too honest and outspoken. That happened with my dad as he was progressing with his dementia and happening to reside in an assisted living facility in my Laramie community. Here’s one example for you: I’ve always been insecure about my poor, fine hair, which annually gets even finer if possible, and thus complicates my life. Well, when Daddy was alive and in the assisted living, I would go often to visit. One night I visited after I had a curly permanent “done” on my pitiful fine hairs. I always loved the permanents, since they made my hair feel thicker. But in retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to go to Dad’s the same day I had the permanent completed, since one is not supposed to do ANYTHING to one’s hair for something like 24 hours. So it was curly, frizzy, and smelly [according to my DOGGIE! I walked in the house and he barked and ran away! Hahah!].

But I showed up with a smile at Dad’s, regardless of my dog’s comments. And let me tell you, that Papa of mine had the laugh of his life! He sat up in his bed with a huge smile, actually pointing at me, and said, “That’s the funniest hairstyle I’ve ever seen! You look so silly!” And he laughed and laughed. He seemed to think I did it on purpose just to entertain him, I think! Throughout the time I spent with him that evening, he kept breaking into a wide grin and resumed laughing. He had a great giddy evening at my expense!

Anytime I would wear my own hair around Dad, he always had something to say about it–always with a smile and a laugh. I just couldn’t fix my little hairs to his liking. But when I started trying out WIGS as my fine hair worsened and thinned, Dad never teased me. I don’t think he knew I was wearing a wig; he must have decided that I finally figured out how to make my hair look better. It’s only when I wore MY hair that he gave me a bad time! Go figure.

Story #2
Watch out for Stealing!

Funny things happen sometimes in the memory care units of places like my Dad’s in Laramie. I remember one evening when the nurses were going through all the resident rooms trying to find someone’s TEETH. Come to find out, folks take their teeth out and lay them on a counter, and another resident sees the teeth and thinks the teeth are THEIR teeth, so they pick them up and put them in their mouths, and off they go! Nurses in that unit have to be regular detectives, trying to find out who is wearing the missing teeth!

So I am just IMAGINING what would happen if one of the residents happens to wear a wig. As we saw with folks taking out their teeth, they might also take off their hair if they are wearing a wig and lay it down if it’s bothering them. I can foresee some problems in that scenario. People may think it an animal! I doubt anyone would think it was their hair and try to put it on. But for people like me who are USED to wearing a wig, I would hope one’s family (hint, hint, dear daughters) would find us and put our wigs back on us!

I do remember a little lady at the assisted living facility during the time Daddy was living there. Dad had worked with her in the banking arena during their lives. Her name was Wyoming! What a great name. But she was quite frail and couldn’t take care of her hair any longer. So someone got her a sweet little knit hat to put on her head. I loved that.

Story #3 – Preliminary Ponderings
I wonder: is a person with a head of fine hair more likely to get dementia than a person with thick hair? I Googled that and brought absolutely nothing up about it. I would think our little scalps aren’t as protected? Especially a head like mine that actually got bumped on the floor when my mommy dropped me as a baby? Does that count? Evidently not, since scientists don’t even come close to mentioning it. Well, since I am way off track anyway, I’m just going to go ahead and tell my wig story, because it makes me laugh–and I bet THAT VERY LAUGHTER might help to prevent dementia in ME, anyway, because it takes away anxiety, yes?

SOOOO—-There you go! I stated at the beginning of this article that you will indeed be amazed at how I tie wigs in with Dementia, and I do not disappoint!! So let me reiterate how wigs tie into Dementia: Laughing helps relieve anxiety, which tends to lead toward dementia (see last post on Anxiety!); and wig stories make me laugh, so that’s the very valid reason for this particular blog post, as I hope to avoid Dementia as long as possible!

Story #3 Continued – Highschool
I feel like I already told you this in some blog post, so forgive me if it is a repeat, but it starts the story. During the early high school years, wigs were getting so popular to the point that my dad’s BANK was using them as a promotion, giving them out to women! The bank even altered one of their rooms and lined it with mirrors and nice lighting, so that the ladies could come try the wigs on and decide which they liked. So my sister Connie and I got to go check them out, took some home with us and used them when we had bad hair days. What was funny was that when we WORE them, we looked like we were having a VERY BAD hair day! Hahah! I came across this picture recently…

Windy Wigs / I remember wearing that wig above on a date in high school–on a particularly windy day–and it blew off as we walked from the car to the restaurant. I had to go hide behind a truck to try to reaffix it! I also remember another date where a different fella took me horse riding. The wig and I were doing fine, until the horse started trotting faster. The horse knew that over the hill there was a stream it was planning to jump. So the horsie started galloping. I looked like a true westerner with one hand on the reins and one on my wig. Might as well have yelled “Yee-HAW!!!” as we neared the stream, for the horse took flight–with me and my wig–and we all landed together on the other side of the stream, by some miracle. No more horse riding for me, just in case you wondered!

Musical Wigs / High School also had musicals we put on, through both the choir and drama departments. I remember playing Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” but with a long blonde wig. It was the only one available. And I played Marian the Librarian in “The Music Man” – and I think I wore the wig you see in the picture above! But the wig looked even worse, since it was a year later, and I didn’t know how to properly care for wigs! I feel badly for the poor guy who played Harold Hill opposite me. But he was a sweetheart, and happened to tell me once that he liked my REAL hair. So that gave me the gumption to start “wearing it” — the real hair, not the wig — which took me into college.

College was another story, since that particular fall in Laramie, Wyoming was PARTICULARLY windy! Well, it was also Wyoming… But I tended to skip classes if the class was too far away and it was too windy. So I did not do well grade-wise that fall–big surprise. But at least I didn’t wear wigs anymore….until I started back in opera performances. Years later when I was married, I was recruited to come back to campus to sing in UW’s production of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” – and ended up being pregnant then with my 3rd child! The costume designers kept having to let out the seams in my dresses, and the director kept finding things for me to stand behind or carry in front to try to disguise my situation! But at least the wig they found for me made me feel pretty. Long reddish brown wig! See below…

Ice Breaker Wigs-Great for a good laugh!

I remember when my youngest (Teresa) was in high school. She had a group of her best friends over to our house several times. They were all sweetly shy around me… until the day they found a box of my mother’s wigs she had used for a little Rawlins entertainment group. Those kids all donned a wig–even the fella who was amongst them. The wigs seemed to inspire them to act all dramatic and funny. So much laughter going on! But interestingly enough, those friends were never shy around me after that. The wigs somehow bound us all together with a sense of humor.

I for SURE understand how a wig can change your mood! During COVID, my daughter Emma was pregnant with her first child and was all the way down in Louisiana. We wanted to give her a shower, but…COVID. So daughter Teresa decided we would give Emma an ONLINE shower. Teresa also decided we would do a silly song and tape it for her. The subject of the song was to let EMMA know whether the baby was a SHE or a HE. Emma had the doctor write on a little paper what the baby’s sex was, but Emma didn’t look at it, and instead showed it to Teresa via video on her phone, then destroyed the paper so she wouldn’t be tempted to look. So Teresa was going to tell EMMA what her baby was going to be as a highlight of the baby shower. It was a funny situation, made hilarious with the video Teresa came up with. She had all of us family members sing or play some music to a song we made up, and then Teresa put it all together in a movie. My part was to play some of the silly song on the piano and sing with it. So I had practiced hard… and I decided to wear a curly wig that I never wear, since it was so silly. But it was so silly that it made me laugh, and I could never get my song right cuz I kept snickering at my reflection. Here’s a sneak peak…

So what’s the moral of this story?

Maybe the moral of the story is rather a suggestion for how to entertain a group of folks in assisted living. Why not bring in a bunch of wigs and let the folks try them on and look in mirrors! They would have a blast laughing…maybe. Or maybe it would confuse them. I remember my sweet Aunt Betty not recognizing her own self in the mirror in the bathroom when she was in her last years, telling her kids that there was an old lady in there looking at her. Putting a wig on her might have done the same thing. Well, I am assuming that we try what we can to cheer folks up, depending on where they are with their dementia. If we laugh, it just might be contagious.

And I’m running out of dementia stories evidently…

I think I would now like to start having guests share about their experiences with a loved one and dementia. I have some folks in mind, so look toward next week, when we will look through someone else’s eyes as to challenges and solutions.