by Tripp Underwood on April 2, 2012
Mattel Inc., maker of Barbie dolls, last week announced that it would create a bald version of the popular fashion doll to support people battling cancer.
The announcement came a few months after Beautiful and Bald Barbie, a Facebook group that petitioned Mattel to make a hairless version of the doll, gained mass support online. Their mission was simple:
We would like to see a Beautiful and Bald Barbie made to help young girls who suffer from hair loss due to cancer treatments, alopecia or trichotillomania. Also, for young girls who are having trouble coping with their mother’s hair loss from chemo. Many children have some difficulty accepting their mother, sister, aunt, grandparent or friend going from longhaired to bald. Full story »
by Tripp Underwood on September 29, 2011
Jean in 1968
When Jean Shaw first came to Children’s Hospital Boston in 1951, the world was a rapidly changing place. The Korean War was escalating new tensions between America and the Soviet Union, a reactor in Idaho became the world’s first electricity-generating nuclear power source and teenagers everywhere were discovering a new type of music called rock n’ roll.
Fortunately for Jean, the world of medicine was changing as well.
When she arrived in Boston to seek a cure for osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer that occurs most often in teenagers, the standard treatment was amputation. It was a successful method in the short-term, but over time the cancer came back, often in a more lethal form like lung cancer. Given the severity of the diagnosis, Jean’s mother was frightened. It was a great relief when their doctor, Sydney Farber, MD, said he saw a different treatment option for the young girl.
Sydney Farber, MD
“When the doctor in our home town told my mama I had bone cancer she was terrified, because the doctor said he hadn’t known of any child who survived the disease, even after they had their limb removed,” Jean remembers. “Still, he suggested we go to Children’s Hospital Boston to see if they could help. When we got there Dr. Farber took a look at me and said there may be a different way to treat me.” Full story »
by Melissa Jeltsen on November 2, 2009
Cancer care for children has improved dramatically in the last 40 years. Prior to the 1970s, childhood cancer was often a fatal diagnosis. Now, thanks to advances in cancer treatments, about 80 percent of pediatric cancer patients can expect to be cured of their cancer and grow into to adulthood.
Unfortunately, the intensive treatments needed to cure children of their cancers can have significant effects on their physical and emotional health later in life. Full story »
