I finally receive a letter from the hospital - my 'emergency' referral means I only have to wait five weeks for my appointment.  I'm anxious and nervous to see what this appointment will bring, but all I can do now is wait.

Now I’m not one for sharing the most precious or intimate details of my love life (I don’t aspire to be the next Bridget Jones – although I can’t deny that I wouldn’t fancy the lifestyle!), but I feel this must be shared.  This girls, is how you know you have found ‘the one’.  When a man can make you feel so loved, so adored and so special, at a time when you yourself are feeling at your absolute lowest and totally drained.

Out for a meal with my girls, the night ends with discussions of my hair, and my imminent hospital appointment. We share a few laughs and they ply me with words of encouragement and empathy, but then I hear the words I have been dreading to hear.  I'm told that people have been questioning and commenting on my ‘condition’.  This I can deal with as I guess I have to accept that when my hair is growing increasingly thin, and changing to a nice shade of bright white, I have to expect that people will notice that right?  However I also learn that there are some particularly narrow-minded and ignorant people who are seemingly amused by what they see and choose to gossip and make comments.  I try to end the conversation as quickly as I can, because I don't want anyone to see that it's affected me - but inside I'm distraught.

I drive myself home and I can think or feel nothing but devastation, drastic as that may seem to some, but I really cannot explain or put into words the sheer self destruction and de-motivation something like this can cause.  Tears stream down my face and I'm struggling to focus clearly through the teary image of the road ahead and bright lights of the cars that pass me by.

I get home, and I'm feeling totally deflated - but I brush away the tears and try to hide my feelings as I open the front door.  Try as I might to put on a brave one, my face cannot hide what lies inside and my boyfriend knows instantly that something is wrong.  As I join him on the sofa I start to tell him what's wrong but before I can say anything, he says "Stop".  He places both of his hands on my face, one on either cheek, and he looks me in the eyes and says "You're beautiful, and I love you.  You're my dream woman and I've wanted to be with you for so long, I have never wanted anyone else, and I will never ever leave you.  You're stunning and I love you.  Now tell me what's the matter."

After that, what did I need to say?  

I may not be, or live like Bridget Jones, but I have certainly found my Mr.Darcy

After months of turmoil, sadness, distress and heartache I finally get what I have been waiting for – a referral to the hospital Dermatology department.  Things are looking up…I hope.

But of course the patch didn’t stay this size for long, nor are we talking about just one patch anymore, and I’m desperately holding on to my hope. 

A few months after my diagnosis and I’ve lost a good 40% of my hair; and it continues to fall out at an excessive rate day by day.  Even now to this day, I still have only 60% of my own hair – but I know I will get it all back one day, and I must continue believing in that.  It seems that this is a never-ending lifecycle, for every strand that falls out; I’m met with a new shiny white one.

Not to sound patronising, but for the purpose of those of you who don’t know, there are different types of Alopecia, and I apparently have the most ‘common’ type called Alopecia Areata - this basically means I lose my hair in patches, rather than by being consumed by total baldness -and for that I am lucky.  I feel completely blessed that I have only had to endure this form of Alopecia, and have retained a proportion (albeit a rather small proportion!) of my own hair throughout this entire experience. 

As the months go on, I’m back and forth to the doctors on a couple of occasions, but neither time am I overly informed or questioned about the possible medication I could be on that may be having an adverse affect or even potentially causing my condition.  So I decide to take matters into my own hands, and start enhancing my detective skills – surely there’s got to be some reason why things aren’t improving?  I’ve tried the herbal baths, the Swedish massage, all your classic ‘de-stress’ type tools – and whilst I absolutely love to pamper myself (so I’m in no way complaining), these measures have still failed to have any impact of my hair situation and I’m convinced that this can’t just be stress related and I intend to prove it.

So one night, as I sit pondering the 'ifs' and 'buts' of my current hair situation, I decide there must be something triggering or contributing to my condition.  Something was making it worse, or atleast preventing it from improving, surely?

I decide to browse the internet - now whilst I fully appreciate that often in times of sickness or questioning symptoms one should not always seek comfort or answers from the wisdom of the google search engine - but something inside me was egging me on and I couldn't ignore it.

I only had to search for a few moments before I was swamped with endless internet sites that struck a very real cord with me and this is something that I feel I must include in this blog because this is a very serious warning for women and girls everywhere.  For whatever reason I decided to research the possible side affects of the contraceptive pill I was taking - Cerazette.  I was absolutely devastated and astonished to find myself trawling through forum after forum about the links between Cerazette and hair loss.  The sites & forums were endless, and the facts devastating.

So many women commenting on their experiences of hair loss and alopecia after having been prescribed Cerazette by their trusted GP.  They explained symptoms exactly as I had experienced, and what's worse, many of the women had found that even despite coming off the pill (after putting two and two together and finding it equalled hair loss) they continued to experience baldness, hair thinning or total hair loss despite months without the prescription.

I couldn't believe what I was reading - and I felt totally hurt, angry and resentful.  How could my doctor have not ever mentioned this to me despite my visits, and how can the NHS be allowing this pill to be prescribed, without providing patients with a severe health warning or an explanation of the risks associated to hair loss and alopecia when taking this drug. 

I knew my situation hadn't been brought on wholly through stress - I mean yes, I can be quite a hot head at times, as any of my family will probably agree, but I was no more or less stressed a year ago than I am today, so I knew there had to be another cause.  Now I can't prove this is the cause or that I had been conned into taking a prescribed drug that was not suitable - but I am convinced that Cerazette has contributed greatly to my ordeal.  Something needs to be done about this, and I intend to take this matter further than just this blog. 

So I sit and think to myself, that this can only be one thing – Alopecia.  I mean, very little other conditions tend to cause random bald patches to appear on your head, other than that.  I already suspect I know what I have, but for some reason I really need to hear it for myself, to hear those words out loud from someone ‘in the know’. 

What always struck me as ironic is how so many of those people 'in the know' instantly related the words alopecia and stress; they seemed to come hand in hand.  What seemed odd to me though is how people can possibly expect you not to feel stressed, when you find yourself in this situation; waking up every day to find that clumps of beautiful hair is rapidly disappearing from your head. Surely that's enough to warrant a little bit of stress...even to the most chilled out of us all.

I cannot begin to explain or try to put into words how this feels because until you have been in the situation there is no way you can possibly relate or appreciate, but I will try.  No matter where I was going, what the occasion, every day was a battle – a battle with myself and my own self esteem.  No amount of make up or fake tan, new outfit or new shoes could ever give me back my confidence, or femininity.  I had lost a part of me that I feared may never come back.  I no longer felt sexy or womanly – even as I sit and write this now I struggle to find the words to convey the emotion or feeling I had, and still have today. I speak of this in a past tense because this all started for me a year ago, but in reality I am still very much living with this situation in the here and now - so all these feelings are still very much firmly in my mind and the battle continues.

One thing I will say though is that I could not have done this without the support of my family and friends.  I know, that sounds completely cliché right – I hear it!  But it is undeniably true. I can feel nothing but total sympathy and compassion for anyone experiencing Alopecia, but especially for anyone who is finding themselves alone in the ordeal.

So I book myself an appointment at the doctors, and a whole mixture of thoughts and emotions run through my head.  'Will it be alopecia?', 'Can a doctor help me', 'When will it get better', 'What's causing it'....you get the idea!

The doctor confirms my worst thoughts, and diagnoses me with Alopecia.  I'm upset, but a part of me is relieved to hear a definitive diagnosis so that I can start to look at how I can make it better.  I'm also not too concerned, because it's only a small patch - probably the size of a 50p piece, and I have hope.

Like most 25 year old girls, I love to don the make up, blitz the hair and get utterly spruced up for a girly night out.  But this time it was different, and little did I know how much my life was going to change after this night.

My sister (Carrie) and I are extremely close, best friends, always supportive of one another.  People often questioned our relationship, no one could believe two sisters could be so close and loving, no jealousy or malice between us, but that was just us. My boyfriend and I had recently moved into our own apartment, loved up and content, this was the start of things to come, and I couldn't have been happier.

Make up done, outfit sorted and sprawled across the bed, alongside a mound of the entire contents of my wardrobe that had been carefully selected but subsequently tossed to the reject pile, after much deliberation and assessment of course!  We sit down on the floor, giggling and chatting, drinking our wine, whilst waiting for the GHDs to heat up.  Carrie starts to curl my hair, piece by piece; she makes golden waves that fall loosely around my face.  Carefully she selects her next victim, only this time it appears to be me that has fallen victim.  We notice something that no woman or girl ever wants to notice - a bald patch.

And so it begins, my life with Alopecia....