65 miles
Rider 1512
It all began at the age of 13, I opened the doors to walk into the cancer center at Childrens Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA. My 8yr old cousin had melanoma skin cancer on her right thigh and had just gone through surgery to have it removed. If you could have asked me then what I remember about that time I could not tell you much detail. I only remember staring at the wound on her leg and thinking this is what shark bit must look. But one memory stuck with me from that time and I remember it like yesterday. As I took my focus off of my cousin’s leg and expanded my view to the other things in the room I immediately noticed the other girls in the cancer center. Teenage girl like me, except they had no hair, or various stages of losing it. To really understand the impact this had on me, you must understand a teenage girl and the struggles of identifying who you are and how much of that is represented by your looks.
The courage to talk to the other girls never came to me. I wanted to ask them so many questions. I could see the pain in their eyes. I wanted to do something, I wanted to fix this and make it all go away. But I soon realized there was not much I could do. Until my mom pointed out I could donate my hair to Locks of Love. A charity for financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 21 suffering from long-term medical hair loss. Remember how I said your looks mean everything to you at 13, well this was really hard! But I did it, and I did again. I donated my hair every 5 years, the amount of time it took to meet the 14 inch requirement. To date I have cut my hair 5 times making a total of 10 wigs since my hair is so thick and makes 2, who knew!
Yes, this is me and yes this is my story. But I thought it would only be right to tell you about myself before sharing the stories of others. Maybe I’ll captivate your interest and convince you to donate money for my ride. Obviously my evil plan for doing all of this work. So what is it you would like to know? Is it about the cycling stuff and why I am doing this crazy ride? Is it more about how I got here? Or maybe it’s just about “my story” that interest you? Instead, how about I share a story for others to hear and maybe even learn from but mostly to feel. This is a story of random acts of kindness.
