For most of us it would have been just a simple question from a co-worker. For Wendy Madden, it was personal.
Madden, the interim nurse manager in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, was asked if she would be interested in entering a contest for a chance to be the spokesperson for Alabama as part of Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths program — a program through which people can donate their hair so wigs can be made to aid women battling cancer.
Madden jumped at the chance, figuring anything that helps cancer patients dealing with the cosmetic changes they inevitably undergo during chemotherapy treatments was worth doing. Besides, “My hair will grow back,” she says.
Pantene did select Madden, and she currently is working to promote the initiative, which was kicked off on the “Today Show” July 13 by actress Diane Lane. Madden recently appeared on Fox 6’s “Good Day Alabama” program to promote the initiative.
“Giving your hair is nothing compared to what these patients go through every day,” says Madden, who had nine inches of her brown hair cut on “Good Day Alabama.” “I believe in this campaign so much.”
Madden lists the reasons for her fervor for this campaign quickly:
• There’s her grandmother’s battle with breast cancer.
• Her mom’s fight with thyroid cancer.
• Her sister’s struggle with endometrial cancer.
And yet none of those are the main reason she became an oncology nurse. That was provided by her cousin, Johnny Crenshaw.
He was just two months out from his high school graduation and serving as valedictorian at W.S. Neal in Brewton when he was diagnosed with cancer. He lived for six more months.
“We were like brother and sister,” says Madden, a year away from high school when her cousin was diagnosed. “We were real close. We built a car together. When he died I never forgot what that meant to me and my family.”
When Madden was in school at UAB she was selected for the Lois Drolet Luckie Nursing Scholarship, a scholarship given to a nurse-to-be who is pursuing a career in oncology nursing.
Madden was awarded the scholarship because of a story she wrote about her cousin Johnny. She went on to graduate from UAB in 2000 and immediately began working in the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit on the West Pavilion.
“I couldn’t imagine working anywhere else,” Madden says. “I get really attached to my patients, and they mean a lot to me. “The patients give back everything the sad times take away.”
And now Madden is finding another way to give back to patients by donating her hair for the Pantene Beautiful Lengths program and encouraging others to join her and do the same.
“I know what the cancer treatments and side-effects can cause, and one of the things most-feared by patients is what happens to their physical appearance,” Madden says. “This is a way to help those women that lose their hair and give them a little big of their confidence back. It’s a wonderful, non-monetary way of helping.”
Women and men are eligible to participate in the program.