sarcoma

Shave your head for kids with cancer. Be a shavee℠.

Photos courtesy of Matt Janson Photography. See more of his work at mattjanson.com.

Here at St. Baldrick’s, we have the privilege of seeing a lot of beautiful bald heads. Whether it’s a #baldselfie on Facebook or a collection of inspiring event photos, we know that each naked noggin represents something wonderful: more funds raised for lifesaving childhood cancer research.

At the same time, a head shaved for St. Baldrick’s is a bold symbol that our shavees stand behind kids with cancer, who so often lose their hair during cancer treatment. Shavees let these kids know that they are not alone, that they have a friend in the fight against childhood cancers.

Photographer Matt Janson captured the shavee spirit when he set up a portrait studio at the Grand Junction, Colorado, head-shaving event in June. His second year at the event, Matt said it was the shavees themselves that drew him to St. Baldrick’s for another year.

“I’ve never been a part of any group that’s been able to take something so painful and turn it into a day of love, support, and remembrance,” Matt said. “I can’t even begin to describe how infectiously positive everyone is at the event.”

Here’s a look at a few of Matt’s portraits along with a few words from the shavees about what it means to be a shavee and why they believe childhood cancer research is a cause worth losing hair over.

Read more »

After trying everything to cure her cancer, Emily was given three months to live. Then something amazing happened — her cancer went away. Read Emily’s survival story and learn why she shaves her head to raise money for childhood cancer research. (You can be a shavee℠, too!)

Emily with two of her nurses in 2008.

At the age of 11, I was diagnosed with late-stage osteosarcoma of the spine and ribs. As is typical with bone cancers, I had been having pain for a couple of months. But it wasn’t until I injured my knee rollerskating and went completely paralyzed from the waist down that doctors found a grapefruit-sized tumor that had grown into four ribs, around my spine, and into my lungs.

They found it with a simple x-ray.

Read more »

Members of the Boston Cannons lacrosse team will be shaving their heads for children’s cancer research on August 9 and competing to see who can raise the most money. Donate to their efforts or sign up to shave your head with them!

Members of the Boston Cannons lacrosse team are holding a St. Baldrick’s Foundation head-shaving event on August 9.

From June 21 through August 9, the Boston Cannons are taking the fight to childhood cancer with a fundraiser for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation.

Team members Jack Reid, Matt Smalley, Jordan Burke, Brodie Merrill, Eric Hagarty, and head coach John Tucker will be shaving their heads in front of their fans at the August 9 home game. Until then, these six members are competing to see who can raise the most money, with the team as a whole looking to raise $5,000 for children’s cancer research.

Read more »

The much-anticipated movie “The Fault in Our Stars,” based on the bestselling young adult novel about two teens with cancer, hits theaters today. We checked in with 2013 Ambassador Emily, 18, who spent half of her high school years fighting childhood cancer, to gauge her reaction to the book and the film and how they relate to her own experience as a teen with cancer.

Read more »

Becky’s hair was a source of comfort for her son, Jack, when he was in treatment for childhood cancer. This Sunday, she’s shaving her head to honor his memory and raise money for childhood cancer research. Donate on her page.

Becky is shaving her head for St. Baldrick’s in memory of her son, Jack.

I remember his cheeks puffing out so we jokingly called him our little bulldog. And the name was fitting. He was tough right from the start.

When Jack was 2, doctors found a tumor behind his throat. We were shocked to learn it was embryonal rhabdomyosarcoma, a type of cancer in children.

Read more »

Bob shares his best (and worst) ideas for a great head-shaving event.

St. Baldrick’s VEO Bob GaNun talks to a young shavee at his Floral Park event, which has raised over $1 million for pediatric cancer research.

Don’t.

It seemed like a good idea at first. “I thought, we’ll kick the beach balls around…it will be like a concert,” Bob said. But once they got the beach balls on the stage, things got hairy. “There was hair floating all over the place, hair sticking to the beach balls. Everybody popped them. But it was funny.”

Fun is what Bob brings to his St. Baldrick’s event year after year, and it works. Since 2009, his event at the Trinity Bar and Restaurant in Floral Park, New York, has raised over $1 million for children’s cancer research.

Read more »

One year ago today, my husband and I sat in a waiting room while a surgeon sliced into the right side of Anneliese’s head and scraped out a small piece of tissue. He removed some from her auditory canal. He made a frozen slide. He stitched her back up. And then he approached us.

I knew. I knew the minute I saw his face that it wasn’t good. I remember his voice as he said, “It looks like something called rhabdomyosarcoma.”

I remember my heart pounding, my husband and I searching each other’s eyes. I remember thinking, “You need to hear what he has to say. This is important, and you’re the one who understands the science jargon. Listen now. Cry later.”

Read more »

One year ago today, childhood cancer claimed Ambassador Alan’s life. His parents, Harold and Judy, reflect on his journey and what this day means to them.

Alan was diagnosed with a rare sarcoma in his hip at 17 months old.

Maybe we are special. But if we are, it is because you — our friends, our family, our community — have made us that way.

Dealing with childhood cancer has sometimes been described as facing the dragon. The thing is, though, it is rarely possible to take on the dragon alone. Usually, you want an army at your side. They’re there to fight with you, to help you up when you fall, to take up the fight when you need to rest. And what we have seen in our army of supporters, we have also seen when we look in the mirror. We know that if you had to, you would rise to the occasion as we had to, because we saw it in how you rose to help us.

Read more »

They called him Mr. Cheeks for the frequent, easy smiles that stretched across his face. Alan was diagnosed with a rare sarcoma in his hip at 17 months old, but for the five years he graced this earth, Alan was pure joy. He was such an active, engaged child that it was hard to keep him occupied during long hospital stays. “Alan was unstoppable,” his mom says. He learned to walk three times in his short life: as a toddler, as his hip recovered from the tumor damage, and again after having his hip removed.

Read more »

Help cure kids’ cancer. Get involved.

Luke (left) is one of five St. Baldrick’s Ambassadors. This year marks five years since his childhood cancer diagnosis.

Many of my memories of diagnosis day are crystal clear: the emergency ultrasound and MRI, the green sweater I was wearing, meeting the oncology fellow who would be with us throughout Luke’s journey, signing paperwork in a corner of an examination room while my husband and Luke played in the waiting room, driving home in the dark, the deafening silence.

Read more »