One of the most traumatic side effects of undergoing cancer treatment is hair loss. The emotional wallop can be particularly acute for women, for whom hair is often intertwined with body image. 

Whitney Wynn had experienced strange symptoms for years, but her primary care physicians didn’t suspect cancer. Her recurrent yeast infections were dismissed as “just women’s problems” although they were later attributed to the high levels of cortisol being secreted by her tumor. 

It’s understandable that Alyson Looney doesn’t remember the worst time of her life. After all, she was just 8 months old when she was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL). Twenty years later, her mother, Leanne Looney, still gets emotional thinking about what Alyson endured: months of chemotherapy followed by a bone marrow transplant at Seattle Children’s Hospital under the care of Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) physicians.