Vlog: The Big Buzz

The hair is gone! My current fundraising total is £300, thanks to all of the generous people who sponsored me. If you'd still like to do so, you can here! And thanks to YouTube, you can see the whole thing below, in glorious technicolour. 

I'm really enjoying my new buzz cut at the moment, and very excited to be working on my ball which I will be posting more about soon. Get in touch if you'd like to hear more details or buy tickets!

Pete

Before The Buzz

I can't believe how quickly my fundraising target for my headshave was smashed! A big thank you to everybody for your kind and generous donations.

As I mentioned in my last post, I have brought plans to shave my head for charity forward, and I set myself the fundraising target of £170, which would cover the cost of the initial care grant given out by CLIC Sargent at diagnosis. Within a day, this target was smashed, and currently stands at £260! (See JustGiving page here).

£230 could fund for a family to stay in a CLIC Sargent Home From Home for a week, as my family did (but I'll probably post more about that later) - so this is an amazing amount! I wanted to write this post to give some details, before the buzz...

I originally wanted this to coincide with another fundraiser which I am working on and will be announcing soon, but I wanted to move it forward, before my hair is too thin to donate!

This is why I didn't set myself a really high fundraising target for my Big Buzz - I didn't want to be haggling people for sponsorship just before asking them to support my next fundraiser - which is something I'd really like a lot of people to get involved in!

I haven't made plans for the actual headshave - which is in just under two weeks time - but rest assured, I will be posting a video of it happening, and lots of photos, so watch this space.

As I said before, I will be donating my cut hair to Little Princess Trust. Due to the chemo, dye and everything else I have subjected my poor hair to, I'm not sure that it will be good enough quality to be made into a real hair wig, but it's certainly long enough and I can but try!

If anybody would like to donate to help smash my target even further, here is my JustGiving page: justgiving.com/petebigbuzz

Thanks for reading!

Pete

Hair

I wasn't planning on doing this so early, but my chemo dosage has just been increased again, so here we go!  

My hair - December 2015

For the past 18 months or so, I have been growing out my hair, and now have a man-bun which is several inches long. There are a couple of reasons for this, the first, but least prominent, being me experimenting hairstyles as I have been since the beginning of secondary school. More importantly, due to still being on chemotherapy, my hair is very thin, so I wanted to grow it long to create the illusion of thickness (you could see my scalp through my hair when it was shorter). 

However, the most important reason is that I have been planning on shaving it off all along. 

On the 3rd May, I will be taking on The Big Buzz for CLIC Sargent and shaving my head back to the wood to raise money for children and young people with cancer, and their families. 

My LPT wig - October 2013

The reason for the growth is that my hair is now over 7 inches long, I can donate my cut hair to Little Princess Trust, to be made in to a wig for a young person who has lost their hair. LPT provided me with an amazing acrylic wig whilst I was going through the intensive stage of my treatment, so it would be great to give something back to them, and maybe help another young person... provided my hair is good enough quality! 

The dosage of my chemo tablets has just been increased again, as per the protocol. This isn't a problem for me, but every time the dosage is increased, my hair weakens, gets thinner and molts easier, so I've brought the date of my Big Buzz forward. 

My fundraising goal for this challenge is £170, which would fund an initial CLIC Sargent grant, which is given to a young person within the first 72 hours of a cancer diagnosis. This is to help with the initial additional incurred costs, such as travel and accommodation, and was greatly helpful to myself and my family. 

I have set up a JustGiving page if anybody would like to sponsor me - if 100 people sponsor me £1.70, I will have hit my target! https://www.justgiving.com/petebigbuzz 

Thanks for reading! 

Pete