Northern Alberta
IMPACT REPORT 2015
Supporting kids with life-threatening illnesses
Thank you for supporting
Thank you for supporting our 13th annual Hair Massacure! Hair Massacure Northern Alberta is a campaign that raises awareness and money to help children facing life-threatening illnesses. Participants dye their hair pink, shave their heads and/or donate their hair for wigs, collecting pledges in support of Hair Massacure’s recipient charities – Make-A-Wish® Northern Alberta and the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation.
History of Hair Massacure
The MacDonald Family Tammy and Gordon MacDonald founded Hair Massacure in 2003, prompted by their daughter Kali’s third hair loss due to chemotherapy treatment for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. The family considered fundraising a secondary goal to raising awareness about children facing life-threatening illnesses. Originally called the St. Valentine’s Day Hair Massacre, the MacDonald family held the first event on February 14, 2003, at Gordon’s Canada Post workplace. Tammy ran the event for 11 years as its executive director. In 2013, due to the increasing scope of the event and the resources required to run it, she transitioned the event organization to the co-recipient charities. Now, Make-A-Wish® Northern Alberta and the Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation run Hair Massacure with the MacDonald’s serving in an advisory role.
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Hair Massacure Milestones • 2003 – first St. Valentine’s Day Hair Massacre event with proceeds to Kids with Cancer Society • 2005 – logo designed of “Proud Victim” in stylist’s chair; Make-A-Wish® Northern Alberta added as co-recipient charity • 2006 – pink hair introduced; event moved to West Edmonton Mall where it earned a Guinness World Record for “most heads shaved under one roof, in a 24-hour period”
2009
• 2007 – event name changed to Hair Massacure; funding model changed to make Make-A-Wish Northern Alberta and Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation co-recipients of funds • 2010 – the event hit the one million dollar mark (funds raised in one year)
2011
• 2013 – Hair Massacure expanded to Calgary and Lethbridge in support of Ronald McDonald House Southern Alberta and Make-A-Wish® Southern Alberta • 2014 – co-recipient charities assume responsibilities associated with running Hair Massacure • 2015 – 28 schools and 64 stylists participated in this year’s event.
Over $10,000,000 raised to date!
2013
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Make-A-Wish® Northern Alberta grants the wishes of children living with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experiences with hope, strength and joy.
When wish kids are granted a wish, they get more than just a great experience for a day, two days, or a week. The experience you have helped provide them improves the quality of life for them and their entire family.
Wish Impact Your support helps grant wishes that changes lives, forever. According to the results of a 2011 Wish Impact Study that surveyed wish parents, and health professions, a wish come true empowers children with life-threatening medical conditions to fight harder against their illnesses. That is why wishes matter. That is why we grant wishes. That is why we are so thankful for your support.
Health professionals treating them say the wish experience is an important adjunct to medical treatment, and they observe their patients feel better and comply more readily with treatment protocols when they experience their wish come true. Your support helps to provide:
Improved Health Status
• Health professionals who treat wish kids, including nurses and doctors, overwhelmingly believe that the wish experience can improve a wish kids’ physical health. • Parents and volunteers observe that a wish come true makes kids feel stronger and more energetic. • Wish kids are more willing to comply with difficult, but vital, treatment regimens. • Parents and medical professionals alike describe the wish experience as a frequent turning point in wish kids’ battles for health. A combined 89 percent of doctors, nurses and health professionals surveyed say they believe a wish experience can influence wish kids ‘physical health.*
Enhanced State of Mind
• Children and their parents alike experience more happiness and less fear in their lives. • Children are less isolated from friends, and feel a return of selfconfidence that comes with feeling “normal” again. • They are empowered to take back control of their lives, and to keep up the fight against their life-threatening medical conditions. • Parents say their family units - often strained to the limit by stresses of the illnesses - are repaired and strengthened through the shared experience of the wish process. 99% of parents reported that the wish experience gave their children increased feelings of happiness and 96 percent said that the wish experience strengthened their family.
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Jaylen
Age 6, Severe Bleeding Disorder
“I wish to be an Edmonton Eskimo.” Like many boys, six-year-old Jaylen wished to play professional football. He dreamed of lining up behind the quarterback, taking the hand-off and running with the ball into the end zone. However, Jaylen is battling an auto-immune condition called idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, which means that he is unable to play high-contact sports. This severe bleeding disorder causes a person’s platelet levels to drop drastically, meaning that a simple hug could cause major bruising. “When his platelets are low, if you just touch him, he’ll have finger marks and bruises all over [his body]. When it gets critical, he has no energy, he’s tired. It can be very difficult on his body,” says Tiffany, Jaylen’s mom. “We’re getting used to it… He’s so strong… We’re just hoping for the best.” Through Make-A-Wish®, Jaylen had the opportunity to become a part of the Edmonton Eskimos roster as a pro running back! Jaylen attended an Eskimos practice, where Head Coach Kavis Reed called him into the huddle. Once a play was made, Jaylen stepped into the formation and took the hand-off from quarterback Mike Reilly. He sprinted to the end zone— touchdown! Jaylen signed a one-day contract with the team—for no less than $1 million—and Eskimos General Manager Ed Hervey held a special press conference to present Jaylen with his game jersey. Jaylen also received a behind-the-scenes look at life in the CFL, meeting his fellow players, touring the facilities and adding to his collection of Eskimos swag and autographs. Jaylen will always remember his day with the Eskimos. “This experience has been absolutely incredible, not just for Jaylen, but for our whole family. It’s a nice break from all of the doctor’s appointments,” says Jaylen’s mom, Tiffany. Welcome to the Eskimos family, Jaylen. As they say, “once an Eskimo, always an Eskimo.” Last year, Make-A-Wish® Northern Alberta granted 91 wishes for children aged 3-17. The goal this year is to grant 95 wishes across Northern Alberta. A wish is not just a day or a trip or a meeting. A wish is something a child keeps with them their entire life. It reaffirms the beautiful, happy moments in life and gives our wish kids and their families the strength to push on and persevere.
Jaylen
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The Stollery Children’s Hospital Foundation is committed to funding excellence at the Stollery Children’s Hospital. Excellence comes in many forms: specialized equipment; sub-specialty education to train the brightest medical minds; research to pave the way to the discovery of new treatments and cures; and specialized pediatric programs that enhance family-centred care, and patient and family outcomes.
Given the complexities of childhood illnesses, research plays a huge role in the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease in children. That’s why one of the Foundation’s key roles is supporting innovative research at the Stollery. A portion of the annual proceeds from Hair Massacure goes toward funding research that is essential to the fight against childhood cancer and the consequences of cancer therapy. Funds from this year’s event have been awarded to six faculty and four graduate students who work in laboratories based at the University of Alberta. All faculty award recipients have their primary appointment in the Division of Pediatric Immunology, Hematology/Oncology, Palliative Care and Environmental Health (iHOPE Division) at the Stollery Children’s Hospital, Department of Pediatrics. Research projects range in scope from discovery-based research investigating childhood cancer as a disorder of development, to comparing methods of long-term follow-up for cancer survivors. At our third annual iHOPE Division Research Day, held April 23, 2015, all of the recipients of Hair Massacure funds from recent years presented their research. The research day was well attended by members of our team, including doctors, nurses, scientists, clinical research professionals, and members of other allied health professions. Undergraduate, graduate and medical students interested in children’s cancer also attended and appreciated the breadth, depth and excellence of the research activities in the Division’s clinics and labs.
Left to right: Dr. David Eisenstat and Dr. Shairaz Baksh
3,800
210,000+ patient visits per year and growing
45,000
emergency room vists per year
INpatient Surgical procedures per year
40%
of patients come from outside the edmonton region
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Lexie
Age 19, Dysautonomia Lexie was nine years old and in grade 4 when she was diagnosed with Dysautonomia. Even as early as grade 2 she would complain that she “wasn’t feeling right” but there was never anything specific that we could pinpoint that was causing it. When she was nine, Lexie started showing more severe, unexplained symptoms. One minute she was a happy, fun loving girl and as if someone had flipped a switch, she would go white as a ghost, have no energy and in some cases become incoherent. Then a short time later, the switch would flip again and she would be fine. Her parents were told to monitor her blood sugars as it was thought that may have something to do with it. They were referred to an endocrinologist at the Stollery to see if there was something in that area that was causing it, then to Pediatric Neurology. That’s when they met Dr. Richer and Lexie was diagnosed with Dysautonomia. Dysautonomia is a condition in which there is a dysfunction of the Autonomic Nervous System which controls all of your body’s subconscious functions (heart, pancreas, emotions, etc.) and this causes them to malfunction. This condition can be difficult to diagnose.
Lexie
However, because of donor-funded resources at the Stollery, Dr. Richer was able to assemble a team of doctors and support staff to work with Lexie, all under one roof. As the family lives outside of Edmonton, having a ‘one-stop’ facility of top notch children’s specialists and amazing support staff gave Lexie and her entire family their lives back. The whole family truly believes that Lexie’s story would not be continuing on such a positive note without access to such an amazing facility as the Stollery Children’s Hospital. “With Hair Massacure funds, our divisional researchers can take an idea, formulate a question, test it and generate pilot data that serve as a proof-of-principle towards leveraging funding from other Provincial and National sources and expanding the reach of their research. In this manner, and by working together, we can really make an impact on childhood cancer, especially by continuing to encourage researchers to discover new knowledge and translate these discoveries towards the development of new biomarkers, tests and treatments. Our entire team is grateful for the support.” - Dr. David Eisenstat, professor and iHOPE Division Director Special thank you to our volunteer photographers: Romy Young Photography, Ryan Drury, Riyaz Sharan, Nicki Wohland and Chantelle Turgeon
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See you in
2016!