Going Bald for Kids As nurses at UC Davis in Children's Surgery Center, we prepare kids and their families for surgery and then recover the kids afterwards. It's everything from ear tubes to brain surgery. Our chemo kids hold a special place in our hearts. We are there at the beginning of their journey when the kids get their diagnosis. We see them intermittently during their treatments. We watch them go from vibrant to haggard, from a full head of hair to bald. We celebrate their milestones with them and try and help keep their spirits up when treatment isn't working or they have a relapse. Every Tuesday and Friday, is Heme Onc day. Kids will be coming in for spinal taps and chemotherapy. Why shave our heads? On a Friday in February, we were notified that another one of our chemo kids had passed away overnight. We still had a couple of chemo kids in recovery and it hurt, looking at them and knowing they might be the next not to make it. We started talking about St. Baldrick's and you know, “Hair grows back. Kids don’t.” This is our opportunity to make a difference, raise money for childhood cancer research so that maybe, one more child will live, one more kid won't have a relapse, one more family will be able to start living their lives again. Then there is Henry. Two weeks later, he came into CSC with his mother with a brand new diagnosis of a rare form of leukemia at 3 months old. What does chemo look like? Ask Romana, his mother. She's a nurse in our Burn ICU here at UCD. She had just come back from maternity leave and had used up all her vacation and sick leave. Henry has spent most of the last 2 months admitted to the hospital for treatments. His older brother and sister wonder if he will ever come home. His sister had her ponytail cut off and wanted to save it for Henry, in case he needed it. Romana, his mother, has been unable to work due to the treatment demands. Some of our chemo kids go to Stanford, some to Seattle, some elsewhere for treatments better suited to their type of cancer. Traveling there and uprooting families costs money. Parents have to give up jobs to take care of these kids and travel to the many many appointments. And that's only for a chance. We can give them a better chance with better treatments that cancer research will bring.

In the U.S., more children die of childhood cancer than any other disease -more than AIDS, asthma, cystic fibrosis, and congenital anomalies and diabetes combined. And yet, all types of childhood cancers  combined receive only 4% of the U.S. federal funding for cancer research. We asked ourselves, “How can we do more than just care for these kids?” We decided to show support for them by shaving our heads in  solidarity and raising funds for childhood cancer research.

Please join us in supporting these kids & donate! Choose a participant, choose a team, or just donate to our event. All donations are tax deductible.

The St. Baldrick's Foundation is a volunteer-driven charity that funds more in childhood cancer research grants than any organization except the U.S. government. Get involved and you'll be giving hope to infants, children, teens and young adults fighting childhood cancers!  Thank you.