I can't pretend it isn't happening anymore

[Friend]

The day before my 34th birthday, my husband was standing behind me and asked me if my hair was thinning. I couldn't pretend I was just imagining it anymore.

My maternal grandmother is bald. When I was a child, I remember she wore a tiny hairpiece that scared the bejesus out of me when I saw once it on her bathroom counter. She now wears a full wig. Her oldest daughter (my mother’s older sister), is balding. My aunt does nothing to hide it (vanity is a sin - I'm not kidding, she believes that), and it's so sad and just sickly looking. My mother’s hair was perfectly fine until she came down with cancer. She finished her chemo treatments last year, but it has yet to recover. She took to wearing different colorful scarfs on her head, and she loves that each day she has a "new" head.

I made an appointment with my doctor. She let me know that this is a known possible side effect of my antidepressant, but then had my thyroid checked (it came back normal). She suggested trying the Nioxin line of shampoos and conditioners and seeing a dermatologist.

The dermatologist did some blood work and took two biopsies of my scalp. The blood work showed that I’m anemic, so now I'm on an iron supplement.

The results of biopsy came back and this is what it said:

Nonscarring alopecia within the spectrum of findings present in androgenetic alopecia. Telogen count of about 14% is not diagnostic by itself; however, may represent a component of chronic telogen effluvium.

The dermatologist told me it looked like it was heredity, and other than Rogaine there was nothing I could do. I went home, crawled into bed, and didn’t want to come out. My husband tried to get me up, but I wouldn’t budge for a whole day. I felt so defeated... I'm starting to feel better now, but each time I think about the inevitable it tries to drag me down again.