Casey’s Story

Hi! I just wanted to share my son’s story with you guys. In May of this year I was putting my 4 year old to bed and my 12 year old son, Casey walked in the room. He parted his hair and said, “Is this a bald spot?”. I was literally in shock to see that he had a bald spot on top of his head about the size of a 50 cent piece. I put my daughter to bed and immediately got my husband to take a look at Casey’s head. He began to look through his head and found a total of 5 bald spots! This was during the end of grade testing so he could not miss the 3 testing days. I got him permission to wear a hat during testing and as soon as testing was over we went to the pediatrician. I had already looked it up online and knew that I would hear the word alopecia when we got there. Sure enough she confirmed that it was alopecia and sent us to a dermatologist.
We have tried the steroid creams and squaric acid with no luck at all. I even took him 4 hours away to a naturopathic doctor with no luck there either. As of today he has over 10 bald spots that are getting bigger and growing into each other. His hair line at the back of his neck has started to recede. He is now 13 and having a hard time dealing with it. He has a hat pass for school and so far he has not had any problems with kids teasing him. It is hard as a mom to watch your child go through something like this. It makes me feel helpless.
Casey has good days and some days he gets really down about it. I had never even heard the word alopecia 4 months ago and now I have to figure out how to deal with it and all the emotions that come with it. We live near Wrightsville Beach, NC and I found out that on August 11th WB surf camp was holding Aloha for Alopecia at the beach. They provided free surf lessons for kids with alopecia. Casey would not get in the water all summer because his bald spots showed when his hair was wet. I thought it was a great event and only 10 minutes from our house so I signed him up for it.
The CAP kids were there for Alopecialooza and we had a blast! Casey felt comfortable around the other kids with alopecia and he took right to surfing! He has since then got a surf board and he goes surfing almost every evening. He has told me that he doesn’t worry about his hair when he is in the water and he feels free while he is surfing. The owner of WB surfcamp (who has had alopecia for 20 years), found out we were local and donated a week of surfing lessons to Casey! We felt so blessed because I feel Casey needs activities that he can enjoy rather than letting alopecia limit what he can do.
As of right now, he doesn’t seem to have any new hair growth and we don’t know what the future holds. I am so thankful for sites like this because it makes you realize you are not alone. Well that is our story, since I am so new to dealing with this, I welcome any comments, advise or suggestions! Thanks for taking the time to read my son’s story.
Samantha Rockwell