The way I see it there are about 7 billion permutations of a "day" each time our big little rock spins in a circle. Many of our permutations, or at least mine, is more often than not riddled with good fortune. But it isn't that way for everybody... Lately the lens I see the world through seems to find it's focus on more and more ways the world can be scary for people. As a second year medical student the faucet of such information seems to flow at a rate closer to that of a firehose. One particular category of "scary" in medicine that is relevant to every organ system we study is cancer. Cancer is a vague term used to categorize a variety of pathologies that share the result of abnormal cellular growth. The various causes of such growth are changes in normal regulatory processes within normal cells resulting in a Genghis Khan like lineage of cells. Treatment it is a balance of killing off these Genghis Khan cells without killing off too many of the normal cells. For a cancer patient there is no guarantee, and patients live in a state of existential vulnerability while poisoning their own bodies in the hopes that the poison will wipe out Emperor Khan and his many children. Now try to imagine being an innocent little kid facing such a burden. Its hard for me to wrap my head around that. If by shaving my hippy hair and looking like a turkey vulture for a while I can contribute to an effort to make it less scary for the children and their families facing pediatric cancer diagnoses, I would be remiss to ignore the invitation to do so. So on March 23rd I'll be lopping off my locks in the name of showing these kids they aren't alone in their scary battle. You can join my classmates and I in the effort to support these children by donating money to the St. Baldrick's foundation. The St. Baldrick's Foundation is a volunteer-powered charity that funds more in childhood cancer research grants than any organization except the U.S. government. Thanks for reading and thank you for your consideration. Evan