Brooks: Small change in law makes big difference for Minnesotans with cancer

Every once in a while, a small change in the law makes a big difference.

“I can literally turn you into Beyoncé in five minutes,” Faatemah Ampey promised, pointing decisively to one of the mannequin heads lining the gleaming white walls of Flow Hair and Beauty at the corner of Lyndale and Lake.

Shop manager Jaed Lin carried Ampey’s selection to the counter — a gleaming $290 human-hair wig in a brunette cascade of gleaming waves.

Ampey, who you may remember from her star turn on the reality show “Shear Genius,” has styled some of the biggest celebrities in the country. But this service she provides for free, styling wigs for cancer patients in memory of a beloved aunt she lost to the disease.

Now many of the wigs will be free to cancer patients as well, thanks to a Minnesota law that changed for the better on Jan. 1. Insurance companies are now required by law to cover the cost of wigs up to $1,000. One less thing to worry about for Minnesotans who have enough to worry about.

Consider it a parting gift from the late state Sen. Kari Dziedzic, who died from ovarian cancer just days before the bill she sponsored became law.

Dziedzic was diagnosed in the winter of 2023, not long after she was named the DFL’s Senate majority leader. She continued to work through chemotherapy and the mountains of medical bills that piled up during her treatment. And then her hair started to fall out in clumps.

“It’s a cold slap in the face,” she told the Minnesota Star Tribune at the time, remembering how she stared at herself in the mirror before tying her thinning hair back in a low ponytail and heading to work. “All of the sudden, hmmm, I look like a cancer patient.”

Dziedzic paid $500 for a wig out of her own pocket because at the time Minnesota required insurance companies to cover wigs for people who suffer hair loss from alopecia, but not from cancer treatments. She could afford the extra expense. Many patients, she knew, could not.

At M Health Fairview, oncology social worker Ellen LaFontaine and her colleagues are spreading the good news to the patients they help through all the parts of life that cancer makes harder. Paperwork. Groceries. Transportation to and from appointments. Feeling like yourself when the face in the mirror no longer looks like you.

“I have a patient I was talking with just last week who said she’s not going to leave the house until her hair grows back,” LaFontaine said. “You just think about how devastating hair loss truly can be. I just think legislation like this is a way to fight back against the isolation that can result from going through cancer treatment.”

The law will be a true gift to cancer patients in rural areas, who may have less access to wigs and to charities and resources that can offset the expense. During testimony at the Legislature last year, LaFontaine shared the story of one older man, an avid motorcyclist, who had spent years growing his snowy white hair — one more thing the cancer was trying to take from him.

The patient “shared his deep pain of hair loss. He took great pride in growing his hair out for many years,” she told lawmakers. “Due to his living in a rural area, and being of limited finances, I was not able to locate a wig for him. Which was absolutely devastating for me as a provider.”

The new law, she said, is Minnesota’s way of telling the cancer community we see them and we care.

At Flow Beauty, Lin watches cancer patients step into her shop embarrassed, angry, worried, hopeful. She ushers them to a private fitting area and works with them for as long as it takes to find the wig that makes them feel like themselves again. Whether that’s a wig styled to look and feel just like the hair they lost, or the bright pink princess number up on the wall.

The shop works with customers in need of medical wigs and operates a donate-a-wig program that has offset the costs for patients in need. The last thing a cancer patient needs to worry about, she said, is a bad hair day.

“These wigs will take you from day to play,” she said, smoothing the mermaid waves on the wig on her counter as Ampey suggested a few tweaks that would really emphasize the wearer’s cheekbones. “Get ready for no more bad hair days.”