I slept on floors and hospital cots so my daughter wouldn’t die alone in the dark.
I’m shaving my head to raise money for pediatric cancer research so no parent ever has to keep that kind of vigil again. Whether I shave my beard and eyebrows too is up to you.
When Jasmine was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in 2014, I didn’t know I was enlisting as a night watchman. But that’s what pediatric cancer does—it drafts parents into the overnight shift, turns us into sentries posted beside hospital beds, guarding against a disease that works hardest while children sleep.
After her initial biopsy, the tumor in her leg swelled so badly that Jasmine moaned through the nights. I was allowed to sleep on the floor beside her bed at home—not for comfort, but out of necessity. Her Nintendo 3DS became our lifeline—the glow of the screen the only thing strong enough to pull her attention away from the pain long enough for her to rest. I learned to sleep in stolen minutes, one ear always tuned for her voice.
At Queen Mary Hospital, I was allowed to sleep on a cot while Jasmine received IV medications meant to prevent deadly side effects from chemotherapy. I was also allowed—expected, actually—to test the pH of her urine to confirm medication dosages. This was the parents’ job. Pediatric cancer doesn’t just make patients; it conscripts caregivers. We became amateur nurses because the night required it.
At Memorial Sloan Kettering, I was allowed to sleep on cots while antibiotics dripped into her veins, fighting infections her chemotherapy-ravaged immune system could no longer stop. I was allowed to stand watch as her body was poisoned with chemotherapy—and then poisoned again to blunt its effects. The night never ended; the watch just changed locations.
When the cancer weakened the bones in her arm until it broke—irreparable, inoperable—I was allowed to read her stories each night as we waited for the day it could finally be amputated and the pain would stop. I stretched those stories as long as I could, my voice carrying her away from her broken body to places where children weren’t trapped in beds, counting down to surgery.
As her lungs filled with tumors and breathing became a struggle, I was allowed to sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor beside her hospital bed at home. My job was simple and absolute: wake at her first gasp, adjust the nasal cannula delivering precious oxygen, make sure she never woke up suffocating and alone. Some nights I didn’t sleep at all. I just counted breaths. Each one felt like a small mercy.
The time I spent with Jasmine was a privilege—but not because of cancer.
It was a privilege because she was my daughter.
The quiet moments.
The stories read one more time.
The chance to be there, fully, fiercely, until the very end.
No parent should have to earn that closeness through fear, pain, and exhaustion. No one should be forced to discover how precious time is by standing watch through the worst nights of their life.
And here’s the cruelest part: childhood cancer affects roughly 400,000 children worldwide each year, yet receives around 4% of federal cancer research funding. The treatments that forced Jasmine—and still force children today—to endure this nightmare haven’t fundamentally changed in decades. We’re still following the same brutal playbook: poison them, cut them, radiate them, and hope.
Jasmine lost her right fibula, her left ring finger, her right arm, her hair—and nine days after her 13th birthday, her life. Cancer was the thief. Underfunding was its accomplice.
I refuse to accept a world where future parents must keep the same night watches I kept. That’s why I’m shaving my head with St. Baldrick’s—the largest non-government funder of childhood cancer research grants in the world.
And to push us toward better treatments, better outcomes, and fewer hospital cots and cold floors, I’m putting more than my head on the line:
$25,000 in donations by March 10th = My beard goes.
$30,000 in donations by March 10th = Goodbye, eyebrows.
Jasmine lost her eyebrows to chemotherapy. If losing mine helps fund research so other children don’t have to, I’ll make that trade every time.
No parent should be allowed to sleep on hospital cots and cold floors while their child fights for breath. No child should endure treatments designed decades ago. No family should have to say goodbye at 13.
Donate today. Help St. Baldrick’s fund the research that will finally end these vigils. Let’s build a world where parents sleep in their own beds because their children are cured, healthy, and home.
For Jasmine and all the children who lost the fight. And for every child still fighting in the dark.
