A Mother's Frustration
- Breast cancer survivor Donia Youssef, 42, got about 50 Bunchems toys stuck in her hair while playing with her daughters. She had spent two years growing her hair back after chemotherapy-related hair loss.
- The UK mom called for a ban on the toys, and the company issued a statement that they pulled the product. This is not the first of these toys getting stuck in people’s hair.
- Cancer patients undergoing certain treatments can expect to start losing hair around their third week of chemo. The good news is that “most people will start seeing regrowth around 4 weeks after your last chemotherapy treatment,” a nurse practitioner tells SurvivorNet.
Breast cancer survivor Donia Youssef, 42, from Grays, Essex got about 50 Bunchems toys stuck in her hair while playing with her daughters, Aaliyah, 8, and Tiana Youssef-Thomas, 5. The girls panicked when they couldn’t get the toys out of their mom’s hair, and as a result, the survivor lost a giant clump of hair after just growing it back from chemo-related hair loss. Bunchems are tiny balls meant to stick together.
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Youssef pictured with her two children while she was growing her hair back out.
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The children’s book author says she was trying to appease her kids and play hairdresser for ten minutes and then had to deal with her emotional hair nightmare. A friend helped to unravel the toys piece-by-piece with a detangler.
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According to the Daily Mail, a rep for Spin Master, the company who owns the Bunchems product issued a statement: “We express our sincere apologies for the inconvenience this has caused for both her and her children. While the packaging clearly indicates that Bunchems should be kept away from hair, we recognize that accidents like this may happen. We are no longer producing this item and any product still on shelf are through third-party sellers. We encourage parents who may have the item in their home to read the directions carefully and leverage our online resources to help guide play with the product.”
Although, the company’s statement advises keeping the product away from the hair, but the company advertises a crown design on its Instagram page.
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A woman complained about a similar issue on Amazon while reviewing the children’s product.
“The instructions should read something like this: step one: lather your kids head with shaving cream. Step 2: shave your child’s head! Step 3: remove bunchems from bag. It is now safe for your child to play with bunchems!”
Another woman from Arkansas warned about a similar “nightmare” in 2019, according to USA TODAY.
Coping with Hair Loss
If you have been recently diagnosed with cancer and will be undergoing chemotherapy treatment like Youssef, it is good to know what to expect so that there are no surprises. When strangers are able to physically tell that you have cancer, it can be stressful for many patients. Not all treatments cause hair loss, so you should ask your doctor what to expect whether it’s no hair loss, complete hair loss or thinning.
“Some of those people choose to get a wig before chemotherapy so that they’re prepared and can feel more like themselves during chemo,” Vivian Ruszkiewicz, a nurse practioner from OhioHealth, tells SurvivorNet.
For drugs that do cause hair loss, you can expect to start losing hair around your third week of treatment. The good news is that “most people will start seeing regrowth around 4 weeks after your last chemotherapy treatment,” Ruskiewicz says, noting that patients may see a change in hair texture or hair color once it starts growing back.
Chemotherapy Side Effects Hair Loss
Although there are scalp-cooling products out there to help prevent some hair loss, many women feel liberated and empowered by shaving their head, and that is another option if you want to be more “in control” of the hair loss, doing it on your own terms.
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