A young couple's loving act of solidarity is getting lots of attention this holiday weekend. On Reddit, a user who posts as slamhead wrote on Thursday morning: "My pregnant wife is undergoing chemotherapy so after Thanksgiving dinner we decided to shave each others heads."
Documented in nearly 20 pictures, slamhead's album shows the "hair shaving extravaganza," culminating in a sweet family portrait. The album has already received 21,504 up votes.
Commenters were moved by the photos, but had several questions for the original poster.
"It's stage 2 breast cancer, and prognosis is good for both mother and child," slamhead told one concerned poster and filled in other details throughout the thread like how far along she is (34 weeks) and that her oncologist said chemotherapy won't harm the baby at this point in the pregnancy.
Indeed, while in the past, doctors have worried about how to best balance treating a pregnant woman with cancer, and the need to protect her fetus from potentially toxic cancer treatments, a paper published in February had encouraging news. According to the Associated Press, studies suggest that these women can be treated almost the same as other cancer patients are, with minimal risk to the fetus.
This month, a new series debuted on HuffPost Healthy Living, called Generation Why, to explore the unique set of issues facing today's young adult cancer patients and survivors, including what it means for fertility, pregnancy and more.
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