Jacquie Beltrao - Video 2

For those who are unable to view the video, prefer to read, or who have difficulties in hearing, this is a transcription of the interview

Video 2 - Jacquie describes the day of her new Intralace System

Lucinda: Tell us what it was like on the day you went to have your hair put in.

Jacquie: Do you know what, it was so exciting, I was really excited because at this point I'd had two chemos; I'd just had my second chemo, my hair was quite short and funky but it was already bald across here and I could pull my hair out - I could do this and strands would come out, all the time it was on my pillow, and it wasn't like falling out in clumps the way you would think it would do in a movie, but it was coming out, loose, so in my mind I needed to do something quickly. I was beginning to panic that, you know, it was quite soon going to look pretty bad.

So I thought if I can get my Intralace on, I can have my old hair back and nobody will know, and I won't know, which is kind of the main thing - trick yourself into thinking there's nothing wrong. So I was in a bit of a... there was a time issue here. And because you were so busy at Hammersmith I had to go to your Edinburgh salon, which turned out to be an amazing day because I'd organised to meet an old friend of mine who was my gymnastics coach when I was a child who lived in Edinburgh. Who said I'll come with you, we had tea, we had drinks, we had champagne, we chatted, and it was incredible how my hair was transformed, I mean like transformed into something like I couldn't believe. I did not think that I could have hair like this. (Video shows image of Jacquie immediately after the fitting.) In fact when I left your salon I had the best hair I've had since I was a teenager.

My heart just really lifted. You know for me, I work in television, so I'm kind of on display all the time, and people comment about what you look like, meanly or otherwise, "your hair looks great today" or "your hair looks messy today" or "your clothes are great today" or "I didn't like that dress you wore". You're scrutinised all the time, it doesn't matter how good you are at your job you just are, and all females are a little bit judged on how they look, and I'm vain - a lot of people are vain - it's the one thing that cancer can take away from you, the fact that you can't afford to be vain, well you can be vain but there's nothing you can do about it, when actually here is something you can do, and actually you feel more in control and the psychology of just keeping your hair, or not seeing that your hair falls out is amazing. I mean I did not see how much my hair fell out; obviously a lot of it did, a lot of it stayed under the Intralace but it was probably loose, and a lot of it stayed in, but I didn't really know because I couldn't see. When I looked in the mirror I just saw me - with amazing hair, every single day.