The color purple

I get asked all the time about my purple hair, YUP there is a story to it.

Back in October 2010, I started a group of my friends running and we created a team for the Race for the Cure, I was the team captain. I never thought I would be a leader, but I tried my best to do a good job. As the date of the race came closer I tried motivating my teammates to raise money and I put up my hair as incentive. I told everyone I would dye my hair pink if we could raise $1500. The morning of the race we had exceeded that goal and raised $1625 and my hair was bright PINK!

As the month of October went on my pink faded significantly and I let it fade. The pink had served a purpose and I enjoyed it. The last week of October my brother's wife lost her grandmother to pancreatic cancer. November is pancreatic cancer awareness month and the ribbons are purple, so hence the purple hair. No matter the type of cancer, they all suck, but pancreatic cancer only has a 5% five-year survival rate, which is just sad.


In December when the purple was starting to fade again I lost a close friend I had known since eighth grade. She was one of my first friends when we moved to Lubbock in 1994. She had a rare form of cancer called leptomeningeal melanoma, skin cancer that had metastasized to her spine. She lived 5 years past her diagnosis but unfortunately passed a few weeks before her 30th birthday. Throughout her treatment she had her treatments done through a port that went directly in to her brain and because of the blood-brain barrier she never lost any hair so because she wanted to, she always had part of her dyed pink. She was actually the source of my inspiration for going pink for the cure back in October. When she got really sick in November they had to remove the port and replace it and they shaved part of her hair off for the operation. She told her mom before she went in for the operation that she wanted to dye her hair purple when it grew back out, but she never woke up from the operation. I keep my hair purple for Christie.

I am proud of the small contributions I have made to cancer treatments, through the race for the cure and by donating to other friends causes. Check out my friend doing a fight for air climb for lung cancer. It's a fantastic cause and she could use the support. She also has a great blog on her weight loss journey too!

What is your little victory today?

Guitarplayingmommy,

Heather