Abby Laub
Heidi Fuller floats around her Louisville-based shop, sometimes stepping on pretty chairs and thoughtfully placed benches to retrieve wigs displayed at high levels. We’re taking photos of the wigs, which must be properly styled, as Fuller doesn’t accept anything less than the best for her “ladies,” as she calls the wigs.
“Is she going to be in the shot?” Fuller asks, pointing to a long brunette wig way up high on a shelf at Awakenings Boutique. The Shelbyville Road shop has fantastic window light on this sunny August morning, which enables Fuller, a cancer survivor and entrepreneur, to see all of her ladies clearly. She has dozens lining the walls and is eagerly awaiting a new shipment to arrive during the photo shoot.
A young UPS deliveryman walks in as we’re wrapping up photos. Fuller rips open packages in anticipation and lovingly, but quickly, pulls out wigs to carefully examine. She has taken off her own wig to proudly display her bald head. Since shaving her head in 2015, Fuller hasn’t let her hair grow back. Eyes popping, her fingers furiously but delicately comb through the luscious locks to be worn someday by one of the many women who come into her shop to purchase synthetic hair. She throws a few of the wigs on her head, quickly trying them on.
Abby Laub
As the UPS man is leaving, Fuller’s eyes twinkle, and she whispers, “Isn’t he cute?! I need to set him up with someone.”
Fuller’s ability to have fun and laugh while also empathizing with the hurting women who come into her shop is a gift. She opened Awakenings about a year after surviving cancer.
It all started in September 2015. Fuller woke up in extreme pain with cramping and bleeding that sent her to the emergency room.
“I was 38. I was really healthy and in shape; I juiced and ate organic, had a great job, and traveled all the time,” Fuller recalled. “My husband and I had just renewed our 10-year wedding vows surrounded by our friends.”
She said that she initially didn’t think much about heading to the ER because she had a history with reproductive health issues, including uterine fibroids.
“So I’m like, ‘Great, I’m going to have to have a hysterectomy, and this is so annoying,’ ” she recalled feeling at the time. “Seven hours later, I was still there, and it was really scary. But they just said, ‘You’re healthy. You have nothing to worry about, but oh, by the way, we also found a 7- or 8-centimeter mass on your ovary.’ And I had just had a clear ultrasound a year before.
“I got in to a new doctor the following week. She found a thickening in my uterine wall, and she ended up doing a biopsy. And then that day, I left for a work trip.”
Fuller was working in her longtime job at Starbucks corporate in the franchise division—a job that she loved and one that allowed her to “travel all over the place.” This time, it was Minneapolis.
‘You have cancer’
“While I was on my business trip, I got the call, and [her doctor] said, ‘You have cancer.’ It was literally like someone just stabbed me in the heart,” Fuller recalled. “But she said it was promising, that it was grade zero, and they caught it early. And that I’d be OK. And she’s like, ‘I want you to see a surgeon and go in and have everything taken out.’
“So from there, it was all of this stuff being thrown at me. They told me I’d have a hysterectomy and be back to work in no time.”
But then, she got another call from her doctor. The cancer had spread to her ovaries, and she had stage 3 uterine cancer.
“So the one question I asked was not if I’m going to live. It was: ‘Am I going to lose my hair?’ She said yes, and I didn’t really hear anything else,” Fuller said. “It was the most devastating of everything that had happened prior. It was torture because you feel like you shouldn’t be so upset about losing your hair because you get to go to chemo and fight for your life, and people have it so much worse. But I just had long blonde hair and was only 38.”
First, Fuller had the hysterectomy. Then, she went through six rounds of chemotherapy and 28 rounds of radiation. It was a grueling process, and the wig buying didn’t help.
“I made an appointment to get a wig, and that just added to the anxiety,” she recalled. “They were really cold; they were busy. They were rolling their eyes when I asked questions. So I picked out a wig and went home and cried for like four hours. It was horrible. I didn’t know how I was going to get through it …
“I tried wearing my wig, and I couldn’t get it to fit right. So I went back to the place for help, and they’re like, ‘Well you can’t return it.’ I said I didn’t want to return it, but that I just need help wearing this thing.”
Abby Laub
‘Finally awake’
Fuller knew she’d shave her head rather than wait for all of the hair to fall out through treatments. “I didn’t think I was going to make it through,” she said. “I thought I was done. So one day, I walked into the bathroom and cut it with the scissors, and then shaved it all off. When I looked in the mirror and saw my bald head, my eyes became very, very fierce, and I just said, ‘OK, it’s on.’ And I promised cancer to forever be its worst nightmare. I walked downstairs and surprised my husband.”
From that point on, she knew she was going to live differently, including letting go of the pain and anger, forgiving herself, and loving more.
“Shaving my head … it changed my entire life. I told my husband that day that I have a new perspective on life. And I’m finally awake,” she said. “And then I went back upstairs, and a few days later, I put my wig on. I rocked [the wig], and I loved her. She made me feel pretty, once I figured it all out.”
Eventually, as Fuller began seeing the light at the end of the cancer tunnel and went back to work, she started becoming more grateful and reflective.
“I started to write about this really beautiful place that’s a safe place—where someone who is diagnosed with cancer, or they’re a caregiver, or whoever, can come, and they can be supported,” she said. “So Awakenings went live online in September of 2016. I got my feet wet online, but that’s where I wanted to be. Then we opened here in May of 2017.”
Another thing that stung was the reality that Fuller could never have biological children, even though she admitted she had never really wanted to anyway.
“But I was with my soul mate, and it was devastating to know that [possibility] was gone,” she said, adding that it was yet another thing cancer had taken from her. By September 2016, she was declared cancer free, and around the same time, she and her husband had a little girl come to live with them.
“She was 2 years old,” Fuller said. “Maya—blond hair, blue eyes. She was a distant relative’s baby we took in so she didn’t have to go into the foster care system. She became our baby! Cancer took that from me, but God turned it right back around and gave it to me. I would never have been her mom. I would never have taken in a kid—anyone, let alone a 2-year-old!
“I felt compelled to help, and it really was going to be temporary. But she just turned 5. She’s our baby. We have permanent guardianship of her until she’s 18. She’s my little gift from God. It’s crazy when you’re in the storm—whatever storm you’re in—once you come out of the storm, the blessings start pouring in.”
Abby Laub
Coming Full Circle
Although cancer took Fuller’s hair, reproduction and job, she is now a mother, owns Awakenings, and is giving back to others. She’s able to use her shop to support other local small businesses, has donated thousands to charities, donates wigs, and sets up an annual photo shoot for cancer survivors and those going through treatments. It’s called the Real Faces of Cancer, and it’s one of the highlights of her year.
Awakenings partners with Today’s Woman magazine and features 14 women for the shoot. They get fitted with an Awakenings wig or go “bald and beautiful to show the real beauty within the cancer storm,” Fuller said.
“They get their makeup done, get dressed up and get pampered,” she said. “It’s a magical day. When you can get a group of women like that away in an atmosphere with other women who are going through the same thing, but it’s not hospital related, it’s so beautiful. They all leave best friends. This is the best therapy. It’s very emotional.”
It’s not unlike most days at the beautifully appointed yet comfortable boutique.
“People just feel comfortable in here. Some other wig shops are kind of scary,” Fuller said. “They’re coming in here now, and they didn’t have enough courage to go somewhere else. They’re usually nervous or crying or scared. I help them through it. It’s OK to be upset about losing your hair. We give them permission to mourn. It’s the ultimate insult from cancer, and it takes a lot of courage to walk in somewhere and pick out your new hair.”
Fuller, who had no previous experience in the hair or beauty industry, said about half of her clients are women battling cancer, and the others need wigs or hair toppers because of hair loss due to stress, hormonal imbalances or diseases such as lupus. She can even trim and style the wigs, which are made from either human hair or synthetic fiber.
“These women are so inspirational, and to put a hair topper on them and for them to look into the mirror and cry tears of joy is incredible,” she said. “I love them. I always thank them for trusting me with their hair—it’s a big thing. I have some women who have never even shown their husband or their kids their bald head.”
Fuller, who makes house calls for women too sick to get out, said it’s been fascinating to meet these women and their families, and she never dreamed that giving them back their hair would be so rewarding.
“God is through here; He’s working all of this. And I’m just helping Him deliver,” she reflected. “I don’t even know how to describe it. It’s like I was meant to do this my whole entire life. It’s what I do really well.”
When someone walks in the door, Fuller can usually pick out a wig for her before the consultation even begins. Her shop also sells cancer-related clothing and accessories, skin care, candles, jewelry, cards and home decor.
Fuller has even helped shave heads and has a slew of “ladies” waiting to help make a perfect fit.
For more information on Heidi Fuller and Awakenings Boutique, visit awakenshop.com.