Shave for the Brave

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WE REACHED OUR GOAL OF 250$!!!

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WE REACHED OUR SECOND GOAL OF 500$!!!
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THANK YOU!!!
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     When I was five years old I was at one of my friend's birthday party when I started to throw up and couldn’t keep my balance. My mom took me home and when we got home my balance was worse to the point I couldn’t walk up the stairs. I remember my dad taking me outside so we could wait for the ambulance and when it got there my mom went in the ambulance with me whilst my dad and brother went in a car behind us. The ambulance ride felt like ten minutes to me but apparently it was about an hour-long ride to the hospital.

     When we got to the hospital, I was given an emergency CT scan where they found out I had a rare kind of cancerous tumour on my brainstem called an anaplastic ependymoma. My brain had started bleeding and I was admitted to hospital. I don’t remember much from the first part of being at the hospital as I was on a lot of medication but I remember people coming to visit me.

     I had to get surgery to get the tumour removed, leaving a scar up the back of my neck. I remember having to have a shower before leaving and how much the shampoo stung on my scar, but then I remember going home and eating non-hospital food.

     After I had surgery, I had to go to Boston for further treatment, as Vancouver didn’t have the kind of treatment I needed. I had Proton Therapy in Boston for around 12 weeks before going back home. I really liked being in Boston other than the treatment part. I lived in Christopher’s Haven which is a non-profit organization for children and families having to stay away from home because of treatment like I had. I met a lot of people there who went to the same hospitals as me and I remember having ice-cream-Friday with a family from Florida.

When I finished my treatment I went home at the end of May (my sixth birthday) before going back to school in the middle of June. I only had about a week left of kindergarten but I wanted to go still.

     And now I am almost ten years cancer free (as I am writing this in February 2022) and I wanted to celebrate by raising money for a non-profit charity. When I was in treatment there were a few charities that helped me and my family not only by funding research but also by helping us pay for living costs such as meals and rent. So many charities supported us that if I tried to name all of them I would likely miss some out so it is important to me to support a charity the 100% of the money donated will be used to help others. Team Reece is a charity that sends its money to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital to fund research, as well as funding a holiday home for families struggling with childhood cancer. Reece had a very similar story to me and I wanted to help a non-profit charity that meant something to me.

     I will be shaving my head on the 4th of May 2022 in school during an assembly! We will have a last-minute donation bucket if anyone would like to bring in a donation!