I am about to Brave the Shave again!
Many of you will recognise Rox our kind and welcoming receptionist at Hair Solved London.
Rox will be Braving the Shave again fundraising for Macmillan Cancer Support and we are thrilled to be able to share this candid and heartfelt interview with you.
If you’d like to support Rox’s fundraising then you can follow the link at then end of the interview or scan the QR code.
You’ve Braved the Shave before, can you tell us why and what motivated you to do it again.
The reason I did it the first time was because back in September 2019 my family found out that my dad had cancer and on the day of diagnosis he was already under palliative care as terminal.
He declined quite quickly and during that period of time from diagnosis to when he passed away I leaned quite heavily on Macmillan.
My Mum wasn’t very open to talking, she was very focused on staying positive around my dad and trying to be as normal as possible so Macmillan’s support was vital to me.
I had no one to lean on and no one to reach out to and cry to. So I would find myself on the phone to Macmillan most days of the week.
Did someone signpost you to Macmillan, were you aware of the support they offer?
Before working for Hair Solved, I worked for the NHS for 15 years so I have quite a good background in where we would signpost people too. Obviously never in a million years did I think I would ever be using Macmillan’s services, but we would signpost a lot of people and a lot of patients to them.
So, I approached their website to see times and when I could contact them and to be fair it was 24 hours a day that I could phone them if I needed them.
To be honest even though they wouldn’t be personal on my dad’s case they would offer so much counselling and so much conversation to give you more understanding, they’d be supportive, they’d listen to you cry. They would then signpost you to professional services if you needed them outside of what they could offer.
I found that without them actually the realisation was that I had nobody – nobody that was willing to sit down and really discuss what was really going on in our family. They are what got me through that period of time.
Did they continue to support you?
Yes and even more so towards the end of the journey when my dad was bed bound at home, because he went into a hospice for a while, but he was pretty much at home for the last couple of months. Macmillan would actually come out to him every single day of the week and they would give him a home treatment and make him comfortable. They even provided equipment that he may have needed.
On the night that he passed away me and my mum were there with him and we had them out four times because he was in a lot of discomfort. They were giving him medication to make him comfortable for those last few hours and not once did they ever come across as moaning, complaining, stressed or tired, the come out with so much love and respect and care. It was just beyond me that humans do that and that it was charity based. It was just beyond me that I could see people come out in the middle of the night and do what they were doing.
And outside of that, on that last night that they came out I went outside into the garden, whilst they were making my dad calm and settled, and one of the ladies actually came and sat with me and I was like you know ‘this is a charity that I will spend the rest of my life working for’.
Macmillan are so underrated people don’t realise what they do, people think you can just talk to them about money or how am I going to deal with my diagnosis. I wasn’t the one diagnosed and what they had done for me was beyond what I can put into words if I am honest.
"They come out with so much love and respect and care. It was just beyond me that humans do that and that it was charity based." Rox talking about the team from Macmillan that cared for her dad and her family
Were you aware of how they pay for their staff, nurses all the services they provide, did you know that it all came from donations?
I wasn’t to be honest – I would signpost patients throughout my working life because I knew they were amazing. My mum always brought us up to fundraise for charity, we always did support a charity and it has always been a cancer charity.
I would signpost people left, right and centre and it was almost as if, like everyone else, I was taking them for granted. It was only when I was dealing with them myself and I was doing my own personal research that I found that they are 100% funded by fundraising – and the amount of people that have available is crazy!
And they don’t stop, no matter how short staffed they get or how overworked they were, no matter who you spoke to they never actually would show it… I. mean I would be exhausted after a day’s work within the NHS and go home absolutely whacked and exhausted.
But they would come across like they had just woken up and were ready for the day and rearing to go and full of energy and full of beans but inside they absolutely weren’t… they were coming out at 2, 3, 4am in the morning and they still came with the same smile, the same courteousness… it is 100% an amazing person that does that.
I made a promise that I plan to keep
What made you want to Brave the Shave again?
When I first did it, I did it with my mum and my sister; all three of us lined up! To really add to that fundraising target all my male family members were begging to be the ones that shaved our hair. – so, we made them bid.
Every bid they put in went directly to Macmillan and the highest bidder got to shave our hair. We realised how much money between the three of us that we had raised me and my mum said… well we had always been brought up to fund charities that deal with cancer regardless – that was the first time we had fundraising for Macmillan… but me and my mum said that when our hair looks normal and we look human again we will do it again.
Because it gives the biggest impact – people are more inclined to fund you if you are shaving your head rather than selling a cupcake. It has a bigger impact, and it is a way of stand up for the people who lose theirs through cancer… to say that I am very grateful and knowledgeable that my hair will grow back but I am doing this to stand with you and have the biggest impact on the amount that I can raise.
"Mum and I made a solemn promise that when our hair had fully grown back we would shave our hair again."
Unfortunately, last year my mum passed away – she was 59 and she passed away suddenly. I just felt the need to stick to my promise. It felt like if I am going to do it, I’m going to do it whilst it is still fresh in my head, and this is what we were going to do – my hair looks how it used to. I just want to say ‘mum I am keeping our word; I am doing it for us’.
So yes, that’s why. We always knew we would do it again one day, but we were going to do it together. Although she didn’t have cancer it is to stand in her memory and a promise I made to my mum as well as doing it for the charity we were always going to. So doing it for Macmillan and for my dad. He was the first human in my life that I have lost, I hadn’t had any losses before him, even my grandparents were still around.
And given the fact we always supported cancer charities it just made sense the one that helped us in the moments that we wished we never needed would be the one we would support. Me and my mum made that promise saying ‘we will do it, we will do it again look at how much we raised that is amazing! Let’s not sell cupcakes, let’s not walk for five miles around the park let’s just do it again’.
Me and my mum were very like that, the maximum we could do we would do, and I feel like I have to stick to my word, and I can’t just give up because my mum has gone. I want to make her proud as well.
"My parents were my world, my everything, my mum was my best friend, my dad was like… well I was so his girl. And to have them both gone and not stick to my word would go against everything that they raised me to be."
Donate to Rox's Brave the Shave here
Help Rox meet her fundraising goal.
We are so proud to be able to share that Hair Solved will match all donations up to £5,000 in support of Rox and in memory of our co-founder Denny.
If you would like to support Rox and Macmillan Cancer Support you can make a donation on Rox’s Fundraising Page here.
Or simply click on the QR code here and it will take you to Rox’s Fundraising Page
We will be doing updates and sharing more about Rox’s fundraising challenge so do bookmark this page!