It was a big day for Ashleigh Cottier when she decided to step out of her home she had been hiding in after suffering a difficult year.
The Christchurch mother-of-three, who had suffered hyperemesis gravidarum during her pregnancy, lost her hair to the point she’d decided to shave it all off.
“I had a really really tough pregnancy … suffered from hyperemesis gravidarum, lost over 20kg, ended up with PICC line in my arm for five months and suffered from blood clots,” she told Seven Sharp.
Those clots caused blockages in her lungs which landed her in intensive care. Then just when she seemed to be turning a corner, things got worse.
“There would be handfuls and handfuls of hair and I'd be crying,” Cottier recalls.
“So I just went in there and shaved it off - I was like 'no I have alopiecia, but alopecia doesn't have me'.”
Cottier then decided to use a wig after all she’d been through.
“It was really emotional,” she says.
“My kids were nagging me - I felt bad because I'd been hiding out at home.”
Taking all three kids to the playground was not an easy step. And yet it was there that fate intervened.
While the kids wanted chips, it was the woman who served them that had noticed the special family.
“The mum was so lovely that it made me keep watching them,” says Paula Revell, owner of food business, The Chippy.
“And we finished our chips and my daughter said 'I want some more',” Cottier says.
Revell took some more out, since they were spare.
That small act of kindness, unlocking the door to a special moment between the two women.
Cottier explained she’d had a difficult time.
“And said I have to tell you that I've had a terrible time lately, I've lost all my hair,” Cottier recalls saying to Revell.
“Turns out we had a bit of a connection there, because not long ago I shaved my hair and donated it to the same place she's going to be getting her new wig from,” Revell told Seven Sharp.
“It was just wow, the universe aligned for us, so really special,” Cottier recalls.
Revell plans to catch up with the school Ashleigh's kids attend to do a fundraiser.
“You never know what someone's going through behind closed doors - you can make someone's day just by doing something like that, just kindness, it means so much,” Cottier says.
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