I have always known, since I was a little girl, that I was meant to take care of others. That is why I became a nurse, so I could do something meaningful. I found my calling in caring for children with cancer. In the 15 years I have worked in this field, these children and their families have changed me, and made me a better person, in so many ways. In solidarity with these brave kids, I am shaving my head in an effort to raise money for much needed research funding. 

For the past two years of my career, I have worked in a specific area of childhood cancer treatment, as the nurse practitioner for the Experimental Therapeutics Program in the Pauline Allen Gill Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children's Health Dallas.  The primary focus of my job is treating children with aggressive disease on Phase I and Phase II clinical trials.  These trials allow us to offer new,  molecularly targeted, and hopefully less toxic treatments to our kids.  Some of these treatments are very promising, but we have so much more to learn! Each child's cancer is so unique, and cancer in children is so much different than cancer in adults. We need research to look SPECIFICALLY at these rare childhood cancers.  Unfortunately, childhood cancer research is extremely underfunded, only about 4% of federal funding for cancer research is dedicated to helping our kids. St. Baldricks helps us overcome this by raising money dedicated exclusively to childhood cancer research!

Now I need your help! Will you make a donation? Every dollar makes a difference for the thousands of infants, children, teens, and young adults fighting childhood cancers.  Those of us involved daily in this fight to beat pediatric cancer would be so grateful for your support!