Breast Cancer Patients Get Free Makeovers From Sassoon

NEW YORK—The Comprehensive Breast Center of St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan joined forces with the Vidal Sassoon Salon to kick off National Breast Cancer Awareness Month in October with free beauty makeovers for breast cancer patients.

A New ‘Do’

Pat Leddomado from Yonkers had a mastectomy recently at the age of 38. In anticipation of hair loss from her chemotherapy, she asked Lina from the Vidal Sassoon Salon for a new cut. She wanted her shoulder length locks trimmed short so that the expected hair fallout “won’t be so traumatic.”

But shedding one’s well-tended locks is never easy: “My hair, my hair,” Pat said, casting a sideways glance at the dark hair accumulating on the floor of the Breast Center’s library, which had been turned into a beauty salon for the occasion.

Still—a new Pat was emerging. Her mother, who had come along for the event, liked what she saw. “Bella! Bella!” she said beaming at her daughter’s new gamine look.

There was another mother and daughter team that day, Kristen Kilkenny, 29, of Westchester, who recently had a lumpectomy and radiation, and her mother, Eileen Lange, who had breast cancer 10 years ago. “Kristen has three little kids. She didn’t get much pampering after her operation,” Eileen said.

But today, green-eyed Kristen looked radiant as she had her hair, nails, and makeup done. Kristen said she was very hopeful about the future because her cancer was caught at a very early stage.

The chairs in the Breast Center’s library were filled with women surrounded by manicurists, hair stylists, and makeup artists. Sallow faces looked brighter, expressive eyes became even more so. “I never had so much attention,” one woman commented.

And Pat Leddomado now had a new problem. She loved her short hair so much that “losing it could be just as traumatic as losing my long hair would have been,” she said.