Grace at Gould's

Late afternoon of March 16th I suffered a seizure I knew nothing about until I awoke in the hospital two days later. A covid-induced thirst caused me to drink away valuable electrolytes (hyponatremia is what they call it) which led to the seizure. My poor husband could not know it was NOT a stroke until they'd performed an EEG on me before I was even conscious of it. When a technician later visited me in ICU to take the electrodes off with acetone, she told me that nail polish remover could remove what was left of the glue. Not sure she had any idea how much glue was on my head, or in my nearly waist-long hair. To this day I wonder if a frustrated tech had used the glue to french twist my hair into submission. I understand that though I remember nothing, I was not "unconscious", but often struggling with those taking care of me.

 

Thankfully I recovered fully from hyponatremia, Covid-19, and the hospital. Then began the saga of trying to remove this medium-baking-potato-sized lump of EEG glue and long hair at the left-hand corner of the crown of my head. I found this and tried it all. I used up not only one bottle of olive oil, but two bottles of acetone. That itself was scary, and I had to have help so the acetone went into the hair, but not much on my scalp, and certainly away from my eyes. I never did submit to my husband's suggestion of Carburetor GumOut or another's of Goo Gone (I mean, have you ever read the label?!!? Get in on your skin and call poison control?!)

My stash of scarves came in handy, and I determined that I could just live in them for a few more weeks, hoping that hair growth would help loosen things, or the glue would just give up in the face of all the hacks, more of which I was finding online. What I didn't know (what my heroines would later explain to me) was that my acetone habit was basically melting the glue into a harder, more concentrated mass. My daughter spent a long afternoon with the Cowboy Magic and a fine-toothed comb. We freed maybe 87 hairs. We made a date for continuing the project on another afternoon, but instead I watched Cinderella with her daughter. "Mom. You're just going to have to get it cut." She was very pleased with the short cut she just got at Gould's and offered to set up an appointment for me. Still, I thought I could wait it out. But the next morning my husband agreed with her, and in that moment God, the Promise Keeper, gave me grace to trust that He would give me good for submitting to my husband's wisdom. Called Grace and asked her to set up an appointment. 

She could not get one with her new stylist at Houston-Levee, but when she described what we were needing, Gould's told her they had just the perfect person to work on it, and could I come to the Germantown location on Saturday. 

And there I met Eunice Boddie, beautiful miracle-worker, employee with the longest tenure at Gould's: did she say 64 years?!

The pictures tell the story. Within a short time, MaryAnn Frazier joined us. She had nursing home experience with returning patients who had EEG glue to remove. But she admitted that she had never seen anything like my situation. She advised snipping down in to the hairball and they worked meticulously at it for nearly two hours, saving more hair than any of us expected.

Grace, the photo-snapping cheerleader, and I celebrated at Rock'N Dough Pizza for late lunch after Eunice had worked her magic. I went back two weeks later for my new friend Eunice to fine-tune and restyle it for the ladies' retreat my daughter had invited me to attend with her at the beautiful Country Place retreat in Moscow, Tennessee. 

To Eunice, MaryAnn, and all of Gould's cool people (I did meet several others), I say thank you, and carry on your good work. 

Thanks for blessing me.