Bandanas For The Brave

It is the most devastating news you could ever hear, "YOUR CHILD HAS CANCER", something as parents we thought we would never have to hear, or deal with.... but we did.... not so well sometimes, but during this tough journey we where on we learned so many things... which has lead us to where we are today...

Learning from our journey with our son Todd, gave us the strength to be able to help other children and young people with Cancer in a very unique way.

"Bandanas for the Brave" was inspired by my own brave son and our hero Todd, who was diagnosed in February 2010 with a malignant Brain Tumour. Todd who was just 8 at the time had a hard time throughout his treatment but it was especially hard for him when he lost his hair due to his chemotherapy, and below is WHY.....

When Todd started treatment, one of the things we where told was that approx week 3/4 of his treatment that his hair would begin to fall out... but fortunately for Todd it actually stayed, thin as it was, it was still there, but 52 weeks into his long 85 weeks of treatment Todd anaphylactic shock....it came on because of the length of time he was on his chemotherapy drugs, that one day his body just said no more.... that was one of the most frightening things I watched, and feeling so helpless as the doctors rush to his aid, after that the oncologist decided he couldn't have the cocktail of drugs again, so he had to then change treatment.

Todd then became an inpatient for his chemo which was very intense and it was miserable for him, and to make matters worse the inevitable happens a few weeks later.... Todd lost all his hair, and that when things changed for him... he was absolutely devastated, and he hid away, he never ever let anyone see him and he hid when the door bell rang, he wouldn't even come to clinic without hiding in the toilets in case anyone saw him, it was heart breaking watching him struggle with loosing his hair it was one of the hardest and most emotional times that I seen him throughout his 85 weeks of treatment.

(When our children loose their hair, its such a quick process and I think that it is a hard thing for the whole family to deal with, one day they have a full head of hair the next 24/48 hours and it was almost gone, we were so not prepared for this at all in any way)…..

So as Todd struggled with his hair loss (he tried the usual hats and even got a wig but nothing helped him with the struggle) until we came across an amazing bandana in the local sports shop, we brought it home for Todd and when he put it on it really was like a turning point for him, you would not have believed it unless you seen his wee face, the bandana not only looked cool, but the material was light and stretchy and most importantly seamless so he didn't have that painfulness he had when he put on his head. From that day on Todd was a lot less frustrated because he was most of all comfortable and cool, he even started to go to hospital without a fight, as the nurses commented on his cool bandanas, Todds confidence grew every day, it really was a light-switch moment, it changed the person he was, to the person he is today. I can honestly say I would never have believed that something so small could make such a huge difference......

As Todd was going through treatment we threw ourselves into fundraising for local children cancer charities but in the back of my mind i always wanted to do something to help our brave kids directly, but just didn't know in what way, that was until we sat down and spoke to Todd and asked him what the hardest part of his journey was, his answer was, it wasn't the pain, or the sickness or even the hospital stays.... in fact it was losing his hair.... so there it was ......the route we wanted to take for our charity.

So our aim is that we are trying to do is to prepare the families as much as possible by having a bandana at the ready, FREE (as you will find out that its not the first thing on your mind when going through this journey), so we make a difference in these children s journey, hopefully in the way it did to Todds.

We have given hundreds of bandanas to amazingly brave children and young adults, throughout UK & Ireland, and we know that we have already made a big difference in these kids lives, sure just look at the photos and you can see the best thing ever..... A SMILE..... and for us all at Bandanas for the Brave, that is the best feeling in the world.

our e-mail is info@bandanasforthebrave.co.uk if anyone needs a more info...