Cancer Affects Any Age

Most everyone has been affected by cancer in one way or another. Either you have had it or someone in your family, a friend, a coworker etc. I think it is safe to say that everyone knows someone that has been affected by this horrible disease. "You have cancer" are three of the worst words to hear from your doctor I would say, but what if you heard those words once and beat the disease only to hear those words again for a different type of cancer? What if on top of that your father passed away from cancer during your own battle? It would be a tough part of life to make it through no doubt. Think about how hard it would be on someone to endure this pain and hardship. Now think about having gone through all of this and only being ten years old! Well that is exactly what ten year old Preston Allen has had to endure over the past years.

Preston was born in 2001 and shortly after was diagnosed with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH), which is a cancer in the white blood cells. After a five year battle Preston come out victorious against the disease, but his victory was short lived. Eight months later Preston's father, Dana was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and passed away in April 2010. Then in August of 2011, Preston was once again diagnosed with cancer, this time it was Hodgkins Lymphoma. Preston started intense chemotherapy treatments the following month and shortly after lost all of his hair due to these treatments. Preston wanted something original to keep his head warm so he asked his mother, Tonya, to teach him how to sew hats and so was born "Beanies for Baldies". Preston and his mother have now taken on the mission of sewing beanies for other children that are battling cancer and make trips to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital to distribute them. Preston and his mother recently donated one of their beanies to be auctioned off at a local Relay For Life fundraiser event in which the winning bid was $950.00. I have one word to describe Preston, .......amazing!

You can learn more about Preston and his beanies by visiting http://beaniesforbaldies.com/Home_Page.p... and you can learn more about cancer and ways to prevent it by visiting www.cancer.org.