HerCampus as a whole is participating in a campaign with Be Bold, Be Bald, to offer support and solidarity with cancer patients who do not have a choice when losing their hair. On October 20th, all of the participating HerCampus teams will wear bald caps throughout the day to experience just a small part of the everyday life of a cancer patient.
This fundraiser holds a really special place in my heart because I am a childhood cancer survivor.
When I was six years old I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. I remember sitting in an outpatient hospital room with my entire family, my parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents were in tears. As a six year old, all I wanted to do was make them feel better. Little did I know that I would have to get my long hair chopped off so that when it fell out, there wouldn’t be overwhelming clumps everywhere. I went through several rounds of chemotherapy and was in remission for eleven months. In March of my second grade year, I went to a routine check-up with my mom and the doctors told us that it was back. This time I bawled with my mom because I knew how hard my body fought the first time; I didn’t want to feel the pain and tiredness ever again.
When the Oklahoma Sooners visited us during the USC Vs Oklahoma Rose Bowl Game
After I relapsed, I just let my family shave my head. I went through chemotherapy again and waited for a bone marrow transplant match. Luckily they found a match pretty quickly and to prepare for the new blood cells, i had to undergo full body radiation. After the transplant, I had to take steroids and a whole buffet of other medications to help my body accept my new blood. It was a long uphill battle and I still have to deal with the effects that the radiation, steroids, et cetera caused to other parts of my body (like getting cataracts surgery at thirteen), but now I get to sit here at twenty one, 13 years cancer free!
Bandanas were my favorite accessory haha
Me in the bone marrow transplant unit with my grandma who passed away from terminal cancer after being breast cancer free for eight years.
Me and my sister while I was on a lowered dose of steriods
At the Relay for Life with the HerCampus team
This year: best year yet!
So please join the #HCGoesBald movement and support your loved ones who have fought, are still fighting, or who’ve lost their battle to an ugly disease and wear a bald cap to glimpse just a tiny part of their everyday lives.