little miss hadley makes her supermodel debut! presque isle, maine family photographer

DISCLAIMER:: this blog post will probably make you cry like my other two.. it's a trend ;)

cancer sucks. let's just throw that out there right now - it affects everyone at some point in their lives. last August I lost two grandfathers to cancer, almost back to back. (side note: if you have a certain cancer that runs in your family and can get checked for signs- DO IT EARLY! seriously. early detection is key in lots of cancers, so do it now.) cancer is just plain terrible and terrifying.

it's even worse when a precious eight year old girl is diagnosed with it. Hadley is probably the sweetest little girl ever.

I mean, look at her! doesn't she just look like a sweetheart? Last April, Hadley started feeling sick so her parents had an MRI scheduled and she was diagnosed with a medulloblastoma. Since we live in the middle of nowhere, the closest children's hospital is around 8 hours away by car in Boston. Hadley and her parents Tim and Holly made countless trips from PI to Boston, where Hadley became pretty much famous. They would see random nurses on the street who would remember Hadley and talk to her. I thought that only happened here in Presque Isle!

In January, Hadley turned 9 and instead of gifts, she had a HUGE birthday party at the Aroostook Centre Mall where she asked people to donate to the Children's Brain Tumor Foundation. And she also wanted area Queens to be there ;) my friends Miss Maine High School America Casey and Miss Maine Collegiate America Brittany attended with many of the other Queens, and Casey gave Hadley a beautiful crown she had won when she was a little girl. Hadley raised an INSANE amount of money for CBTF.. $9,400 to be exact. how awesomely crazy is that?! totally inspiring. AND the CBTF flew Hadley and Tim down to NYC to present the money, and do some sight-seeing of course!

I was so bummed I couldn't go to Hadley's birthday party and meet the little princess, but thanks to facebook I found Holly and said I wanted to offer them photos. Luckily Holly didn't think I was a total creeper, so we set a date for March after Hadley's last few treatments.

In between her birthday party, and her photo session, we were both at Planet Head Day (great article here - http://www.umpi.edu/news/releases/item/planet-head-day-gives-those-impacted-by-cancer-the-opportunity-to-make-a-statement) where over $29,000 was raised for C.A.N.C.E.R - Caring Area Neighbors for Cancer Education and Recovery. Crazzzzzyy. Hopefully next year I'll be able to raise tons of money for them and if I raise enough, I'm going to shave my head. yep. so start saving money, cause I won't be doing that for anything under a grand.

before our session, she had one of her last MRIs for a while and the oncologist said she was tumor free. I'm pretty sure at this point, all of Aroostook sighed with relief. Little Hadley is pretty much famous in Presque Isle (and Boston now too!) and she gets stopped by random people all the time now. it's pretty funny listening to Tim and Holly's stories about it. I don't know how they've done it - they've got to be a couple of the strongest people ever.

okay, enough rambling - here's some photos and a video with more!

so I lied - one more thing! these are Hadley's beads of courage. there is one for every single procedure she's been through. every MRI, every chemo treatment, getting her port put in, blood draws, everything. the one right in the middle, the really pretty one, is for her tumor removal. hopefully only a few more beads will be added - the last MRIs and her port being taken out.

 

before you go, leave me a comment telling me which image is your fave!