Worlds Greatest Shave: What I learn’t behind the scenes at the Leukaemia Foundation

This has to be one of most heart-felt, emotional partnerships I’ve done. Late last year the Leukaemia Foundation reached out to me for my support on the incredible campaign; Worlds Greatest Shave.

Without hesitation I knew this was an amazing cause I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to bring more awareness to what was going on to millions of people that we may not be aware of. 

It can be easy to get caught up in life, and sweat the small stuff but when you meet these incredible people it really opens your eyes. You learn about their struggle’s and the impact this disease has on not only their health and life, but on their loved ones. It can put a huge strain on them financially.

Not only the added stresses and factors that they now must worry about, but the toll this takes on their whole lives and those around them.  How will they afford and be able to travel to and from treatment? What about the time their loved ones must take off work to make this happen? Therefore deal with the overall financial stress, which is the last thing they want to be worried about.

This is where the incredible Leukaemia foundation comes in with the nations largest campaign to help support those suffering with blood cancer and their families; The Worlds Greatest Shave. 

About 2 years ago I was told my dad had something called MGUS which is a condition that can turn into myeloma, which is a form of blood cancer.

Of course at first I was beside myself, I was so fearful for what this meant for my dad. Luckily enough this is a condition that with close management and monitoring we can make sure it won’t turn into blood cancer. For this we are so incredibly fortunate, I couldn’t imagine if his condition was more aggressive.

Until I heard of my fathers condition I didn’t realise how many people in Australia are affected by a form of blood cancer. There are 35 Australians diagnosed with blood cancer daily, which is one person every 41 minutes. One Australian loses their life to blood cancer every 2 hours! Blood cancer claims more lives than breast cancer and melanoma. This is one scary statistic that is happening in our country that I wasn’t aware of.

My dads condition gave me a major wake up call to what I needed to do in terms of spreading awareness and raising funds for the Worlds Greatest Shave. 

I was fortunate enough to chat with Snez who oversees my closest Centre. I learnt so much about all the hard work and dedicated people who freely give up their time to help these beautiful families and people going through the hardest time of their lives. It really opened up my eyes to the selfless, amazing people we have in this world. 

There are so many ways you can assist in this great cause! You don’t have to shave your hair to help! You can do anything from hosting your own event, to volunteering at your local centre, being that friendly face that drives patients to and from they treatments and even donating what you can!

Please check out the World’s Greatest Shave and help in anyway you can!