Name: Rookie Report: International Alopecia Day - Behind the News
Uploaded: 2016-08-10T10:39:10.000Z
Duration: 4 min 5 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

To-infinitive

My name's Stef and I'm going to tell you about growing up with a condition

That was when I first realised my hair was falling out.

I kept waiting for someone to break out the magic wand

and just make me better but it didn't happen like that.

Instead, the doctor told me I had alopecia.

Alopecia is a hair loss condition which has no cure.

Basically, everyone has a little army of soldiers in their body

It's supposed to protect us from nasty things like coughs and colds.

My soldiers, unfortunately, they're not the sharpest crayons in the pack.

They see my hair and they attack it, which is why it falls out.

There are three different kinds of alopecia...

..which is when you get patches of hair loss on the scalp.

..which is when you lose all your hair on your head

..which is when you lose all your hair on your body,

including, like, your eyebrows and your eyelashes.

The good news for you guys is that it's not contagious.

And the good news for me is that I haven't had a bad hair day in ages.

And what wardrobe would be complete without...novelty beanies?

but as a kid it was really tough having a condition

especially when I finally went bald in year six.

and I was so sad for a really long time about it and very insecure.

I thought that being different would put a target on my back

so I kept it a secret for a really long time.

This is the first wig I ever got when I was about 12 years old.

And I'd already done a presentation to my year level

about having alopecia, so everybody knew.

And when I came to school for the first time wearing it,

all of my friends went running up to me like,

I'm thinking I might dye it a fun colour like blue or purple.

What do you guys reckon? You might have to help me convince my mum!

These ones are really awesome because you can do things

like surfing, swimming, sport and they don't come off.

So if you wanted to do a bit of head banging,

but thanks to people who donated their hair to charity,

What it did was help me fit in when all I wanted to do was belong,

Because when I went outside without my wig on,

I didn't have to look like everyone else.

That's when I finally stopped wearing my wig every day.

I thought that having my condition made me ugly.

Now I think that, you know, I'm not the kind of beautiful

that you'll see on the covers of magazines,

but I'm my kind of beautiful and somehow that's even better.

I think there's more beauty in who you are and what you do

I hope other kids with alopecia will start to see themselves