Teen Shaves Head In Support Of Homecoming Date Coping With Cancer

Like millions of teens across the country, Allie Allen was planning to attend her Homecoming Dance, but that’s when she received some devastating news.

At just 14 years old, Allen was diagnosed with anaplastic ependymoma, a rare brain tumor, and now she had relapsed just a week before the big dance.

“With cranial spinal radiation comes lots and lots of terrible side effects,” Allen wrote of the ordeal. “Now of course the side effect I was dreading the most—hair loss…”

This wasn’t the most devastating news for Allen, unfortunately. She had dealt with worse, and recently too.

In March, her grandfather passed away after his own battle with brain cancer. Her mom is currently battling breast cancer. This was something Allie knew she couldn’t put off. She started chemotherapy immediately.

“[By] Wednesday afternoon I got out of the shower and brushed my hair and noticed it falling out. Of course I had a meltdown. It’s easy for some people to say ‘it’s just hair’ but it’s hard when you’re a teenage girl… On Saturday the majority of my hair was falling out and it was just torture to watch. Sunday morning I woke up with about 2 chunks of hair left and I decided to pull a Britney Spears 2007 and shave my head. That was very hard for me to do but that’s one thing I got over and am not stressing over it anymore. One of these pictures shows my scar now everyone can see it, but a scar is a tattoo with a better story, right?”

So even with a shaved head, Allen was still positive and didn’t want to miss the dance, but what happened next nearly brought me to tears.

Brayden Carpenter, Allie’s date and long-time friend, arrived at the Allen household with his own head shaved to help Allie feel more comfortable. Allie had no clue it was happening. Just seeing the big smile on her face tells you it was one happy surprise.

As Allie’s mom wrote about young Mr. Carpenter, “Now that is class!!!”

We couldn’t agree more.

The Allen’s have a GoFundMe page set up if you’d like to learn more and donate to help the family tackle their hospital bills. Visit Fighting with the Allens here.