I apologize – only to a certain extent – for the click-bait of that title.
To clarify, my wife, Nancy, does not have cancer. She is helping fight children’s cancers. At this point, I will pretty much do anything in order to help my wife make her goal of $10,000 all in support of the St. Baldrick’s Foundation.
Background
As some of you know, I had a cancer scare five years ago. Thankfully, it wasn’t cancer, but it was a huge wake-up call that cancer is real, and it could affect me (and my loved ones). In the past five years, I’ve gone out of my way to help raise money and awareness to help wipe out this horrible disease.
I’ve shaved my head twice for St Baldrick’s, done Movember a couple times, and donated to countless charities to fight cancer. I’m such a sucker for donations that I even offered to shave my eyebrows at the St Baldrick’s event last year for $600. Turns out my friends are awesome/horrible…I got the money in less than an hour.
But this post isn’t about me…
…this is about my lovely wife.
I thought I couldn’t be more proud of Nancy after what she’s done professionally, but I was wrong. She and I had previously volunteered our time to help set up and organize the St Baldrick’s event at Fadó in Annapolis, MD, but only I had shaved my head. During the planning of the last St Baldrick’s event in February of 2014, she decided that she wanted to participate as a shavee. The last time Nancy got any sort of haircut was in August of 2013.
For those of you that don’t know Nancy, she’s a lawyer. She is currently Associate Area Counsel with the IRS. This might not mean much to folks that don’t/haven’t worked in the government, but it means she is a lawyer as well as a manager of other lawyers, while employed by the US government. The gov’t can be a bit conservative on personal appearances, especially at her level, a GS-15. On top of that, she’s a female, and current society doesn’t look upon females with shaved heads as easily as men. She really didn’t care, she just wants to help out, and both myself and our friends that she’s shared this with cannot be more supportive. Even her office is supportive.
Everything was coming together, her working with her office, deciding how to wear her long hair until March of 2015, and then something happened that made her really want to participate.
Rebecca, a little girl she didn’t know at all, died
I found out that Eric Meyer‘s daughter, Rebecca, was battling cancer at the beginning of 2014. He’s a web developer that I have followed for years on Twitter. I don’t feel comfortable typing a lot about Eric and Rebecca here on my own blog post, but I must say that one of the major reasons that Nancy wants to shave and raise money is to honor Rebecca.
When I first read about Rebecca, I told Nancy about her and would update Nancy about her when I knew anything new. It wasn’t until after I shaved my head in March of last year that I realized that the Meyer family was involved with St Baldrick’s. Carolyn, Rebecca’s sister, had shaved her head for the cause. I would have loved to gone back in time and given all my donations to Carolyn.
Sadly, on June 7th, 2014, Rebecca passed on her 6th birthday.
I broke down and cried, and Nancy decided that she would honor Rebecca with her St Baldrick’s donations.
This is what Nancy posted on her St Baldrick’s page:
Childhood cancers are different from adult cancers and childhood cancer research is extremely underfunded. So please help me raise money for cures by making a donation. Every dollar makes a difference for the thousands of infants, children, teens, and young adults fighting childhood cancers.
Thank you very much for your support!
Conclusion
I have been on the fence for weeks about posting this, specifically about using information about Eric and Rebecca. I feel like I’m mooching off someone’s tragedy to make money and I feel dirty. It is NOT my intention to do that. Nancy and I were truly and honestly moved reading Eric’s posts. We’re not trying to profit from anything, we just want to help stop cancer that kills children.
With that said, I felt I needed to post this to share how much Nancy is investing with this. She’ll be a 40 year old female lawyer with a shaved head that works for the government. It’s honestly not nearly as easy as it sounds. I cannot be more proud of her, and I will be tweeting/facebooking the hell out of her link until March 15th when she gets the shave 🙂
Please share this post wherever you can, via twitter, FB, email, etc….I don’t care. Let’s kick cancer in the nards!
Links:
In Memoriam: Rebecca
To donate to Nancy: https://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/mypage/738756/2015
4 responses to “Help My Wife Fight Cancer”
[…] visit Dangilmore […]
[…] Dan Gilmore’s St. Baldrick’s Cancer Campaign […]
[…] Dan Gilmore’s St. Baldrick’s Cancer Campaign […]
[…] most of you know, my wife Nancy is shaving her head tomorrow and donating her long locks to WIgs for […]