Breast cancer patient’s daily headgear selfies raise £8,000 for Macmillan

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/03/breast-cancer-patient-headgear-selfies-macmillan

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On the 141st day of her self-appointed challenge – to post a cheery selfie in outrageous headgear every day throughout her cancer treatment – Sara Cutting woke up without an idea in her bald head.

“I just could not think of anything new to do,” she said. “When I was going through the chemo I used to make lists of ideas for the days when I felt really poorly and couldn’t really think of anything, but I’d used up all of those.”

She’d already done the vintage radio, the teapot, the purple orchids donated by celebrity hatter Philip Treacy, and the fascinator donated by her mother.

So instead she set about a bit of long overdue spring cleaning in her Brighton home – and inspiration struck: Sara’s thousands of followers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can now admire her in a particularly fetching confection of kitchen roll, scrubbing brush and sponge scourer.

Cutting says she’s fortunate to live in Brighton, where nobody turns a hair at such an outfit, but the first response online – “perhaps you could get a job as a human toilet brush” – came from a familiar source of affectionate mockery: her father, Tony.

Cutting has vowed to continue until the first anniversary in October of the start of her treatment for breast cancer, and with over £8,000 raised in donations from followers she expects to comfortably exceed her £10,000 fundraising target for Macmillan Cancer Care.

She posted the first selfie on the morning of her first chemotherapy appointment, and by the time she had walked up the hill to the hospital, had already taken more than £1,000.

“I had never taken a selfie before, and always been careful never to post anything personal on Facebook, so this was a big step,” she said. “But it’s been a really energising experience. There have been days when I felt so poorly I would just get up, get the face ready, get the head ready, get the makeup on – and just crawl back to bed.”

With the chemo complete, she now faces a month of radiotherapy. Losing her hair was her greatest dread when the treatment began, so she had her head shaved and found the experience liberating.

She has had hallucinations from exhaustion on some days, and fears she will never recover enough strength to lift sacks of cement in the building company she runs with her partner, but insists: “It’s not all been misery, cancer. There have been some incredibly uplifting and positive experiences from it all.”

Cutting was only 47, too young to be called for regular mammograms, when the cancer was diagnosed, and she hopes her experience will encourage other young people to be more aware – she regularly urges her followers to “go check your tits”.