Families

Three Generations Shave for Carter

by Erinn Jessop, St. Baldrick's Foundation
August 20, 2015

Honored Kid Carter continues just being himself — a zany, fun little boy — no matter what cancer throws at him. His joyful spirit and story inspired a wave of giving at a St. Baldrick’s event in Frankfort, Illinois, that left much of the boy’s family bald and Carter holding a coffee can full of thousands of dollars for childhood cancer research.

A collage of Carter

Carter was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia and is now in treatment. Photos by Ashley Amanda Photography

It took one simple question from the emcee.

“Who thinks Carter’s mom should shave her head?”

Less than an hour later, Honored Kid Carter’s mom, Kirsten, his grandmother Diane and great-grandmother Margaret were bald and had raised $7,200 for childhood cancer research.

Carter walked the length of the bar, collecting donations.

“He was just walking around with this coffee tin and people were writing checks, people were throwing cash in there,” Kirsten said.

Carter's family poses after their shave

Carter’s family poses after their shave. Top, from left to right: Carter’s mom, Kirsten, and Carter’s great-grandfather, Jim. Bottom, from left to right: Carter’s aunt Kate, his great-grandmother, Margaret, and his grandmother, Diane.

Carter’s mom had challenged the crowd to raise $1,500 before she’d brave the shave. His grandmother wanted them to get to $5,000 and his great-grandmother upped the stakes to $7,000.

Soon enough, all three women were seated in barber’s chairs.

“It was definitely like, ‘OK, we’re not going to have any hair and I hope that I’ve got a decent shaped head,’” Kirsten remembered. Carter’s dad and great-grandfather braved the shave too, making baldness quite the family affair.

Carter poses with his mom and dad after the shave

Carter mugs for the camera with his mom and dad, Sean, after their shave.

That’s part of the reason why it wasn’t a huge deal for Kirsten to go bald — her son had already blazed that trail.

“He walks around without any hair,” she said of Carter. “There’s no difference if I do it.”

Carter rests on a hospital bed during his chemo

Carter rests while he gets his chemotherapy infusion.

The 5-year-old was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in July 2014 during blood tests for a bone swelling condition he’d had since he was small.

“It worked out in our favor because we probably wouldn’t have caught it that fast or even known that there was something going on for a while,” Kirsten said about the bone swelling and the cancer.

Carter has just finished his first year of a chemotherapy regimen that will take about three years and five months. It’s a long road of pills at home and spinal infusions in the hospital, but he’s tolerating it pretty well.

In fact, he was able to start kindergarten this week. He sported a unique sweatshirt on his first day — it looked like the uniform Darth Vader wears in the movie Star Wars, complete with a black cape.

“He is a fan of the Dark Side,” Kirsten said, adding that now he’s also all about The Avengers.

Carter poses for a photo with a plaque before his first day at kindergarten

Carter goofs off while getting his photo taken on his first day of kindergarten.

Carter is a kid who marches to the beat of his own drum. He likes the bad guys when everyone else is rooting for the good. He prefers old, offbeat cartoons that he digs up online to anything on television now.

“He’s super sarcastic,” Kirsten said. “And as long as I can remember he’d do the opposite of what we wanted to do, because he found it funny.” 

Carter waits to blow out the candles on a stormtrooper-shaped cake

Carter smiles before blowing out the candles on his special Stormtrooper cake while his mom looks on.

 When he was just 6 months old, Kirsten would try to encourage her son to call her ‘mama.’ Instead, he’d say, ‘Dada.’

“I always thought he just knew ‘dada’ and he didn’t know how to say ‘mama’ yet, until one day he pointed at a picture of me and said, ‘Dada,’” Kirsten said. “I was like, ‘Oh, you are talking about me! Continue! You don’t have to call me mama. Call me whatever you want, as long as you’re referring to me.’”

His current catchphrase is “Kicking cancer’s booty bottom butt crack.”

“He thinks it’s absolutely hilarious,” Kirsten said.

That’s exactly how Carter deals with his cancer — with a sense of humor and of fun.

“That’s my biggest blessing,” Kirsten said. “He’s not terrified of it. He doesn’t worry about whether he’s going to be OK. He’s just a normal kid, who just has to go in every so often for these things.”

Join us and help kids like Carter kick cancer’s booty — fund childhood cancer research today.

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