In memory of her dad, Katie chose to cut her lockdown locks to raise funds and awareness for Bowel Cancer Australia.
 
"In late February this year, my beautiful dad Paul, was admitted to hospital. He was told by the oncologist that he had 3-6 months to live. We lost him five days later to an aggressive form of bowel cancer. 
 

Dad had been in hospital for an operation to remove his gall bladder just six months prior to this and there were no signs of any cancer at this time. The aggressive nature of his bowel cancer allowed it to spread to his liver and blood in this short period of time, before it was diagnosed.  

Coming out of lockdown this year, I noticed so many people booking straight into the hairdressers. I hadn't had my hair cut for two years so it was something that just wasn't on my radar. It hit me one day that my two years’ worth of hair could be put to a far greater use than being on my head. 

I researched donating my hair to make wigs for cancer patients and found that children's wigs took longer hair to make than adult wigs. Being a primary school teacher and having lost one of my students to cancer previously, donating my hair for a child's wig was a no brainer. 

However, I also wanted to make sure that there was something to honour the memory of my wonderful and always generous dad. By setting up a My Cause page, I was able to ask for donations for the cut. The more donations, the shorter the cut would be, and the longer the hair donations for a wig. My aim was for $10,000 to cut the length for a child's wig. Every $5,000 after that would get shorter still.  

On Sunday 5th December, we celebrated what would have been dad's 78th birthday by completing my ‘cut for cancer’. It was an awesome day, with my sister-in-law Jo and my niece Erin doing the honours of the cut. At the beginning of the day, we had already raised over $11,000 so there was definitely enough for a big chop!

Three days later that amount was still rising, and we are now over $15,200. Looks like I'll be going a bit shorter still!! And I'll keep going shorter for every extra $5,000 raised.  

Early detection is key to surviving this horrible disease. Hopefully the funds raised will help in effective research into early detection and treatment of bowel cancer. 

Dig deep so we can Kick it to Bowel Cancer!" ~ Katie. 

If you were inspired by Katie’s fundraising activities and would like to support Bowel Cancer Australia through a community fundraiser get in touch with us through our webform.
 
0210 BCA December 2021 1520x320 Supporters in Action Katie Frost