Mom with Cancer Lets 4-Year-Old Daughter Cut Her Hair ‘However She Wants’ Before Losing It to Chemo

Illustration - Shutterstock

When Emilie Orton, a mom of three, from Arizona, was diagnosed with stage two germ-cell ovarian cancer at the age of 32, it changed her perspective and reordered her priorities. A course of chemotherapy began in October 2019, and once Emilie’s hair started to fall out, she knew that a huge decision had to be made.

“Knowing that a beautiful baldness was coming my way terrified me and made me cry on multiple occasions,” Emilie shared on Romper, “but I tried to think of the best way to make it bearable for this family of mine.”

The best way to cope, Emilie decided, was to hand scissors to her artistic 4-year-old daughter, Norah, and let her have some fun. “I sat down on a step-stool, donned my child’s haircut cape, and let her set to work on her most favorite project yet,” the stoic mom regaled.

Emilie filmed her “salon appointment” and later shared the funny, moving footage on YouTube. Referring to her trim as “the fancy cancy haircut,” Emilie captions the clip: “I started chemo two weeks ago. Today my hair started falling out in creepy clumps.”

As little Norah, nicknamed “Shug,” snips away with adorable solemnity, Emilie sits on her stool and films her daughter’s progress. In a bittersweet moment, Emilie comments out loud that chemo “really helps assist” the haircutting process. “One perk about the chemo is if the hair’s too long, you just pull it out,” she says, while tugging a long strand loose.

“My daughter was focused and determined, and as the cut kept evolving, so did her love for how it was looking,” Emilie later wrote on Romper.

When the haircut is over, Emilie beams; she is full of nothing but praise for her 4-year-old daughter’s efforts. “My favorite thing about kids is they love so big and so unconditionally,” reads Emilie’s video caption, “that no matter what you look like, they can’t see anyone but someone they love.”

One comment from a supportive viewer read: “With a team like your daughter alongside you, you got this! Be well and fight on.”

“[Y]ou look so cute with short hair,” wrote another supporter, adding, “If you look cute with short hair I’m sure you'll look beautiful with none.”

Amid residual trepidation about losing what was left of her hair—as she wrote on Instagram, “I’m feeling scared to take the plunge. Bald? Please no”—Emilie made the decision to take control of her fate by voluntarily shaving off the rest of her hair.

In a followup video, Emilie commissioned her husband, Nick, to use clippers to shave off the remainder of her hair. Emilie then shared her kids’ responses to her newly bald head in the video caption. “Norah: ‘Mom I liked my haircut I gave you, but the haircut Dad gave you looks weird,’” Emilie wrote.

“Cole: avoids looking at me, and then just keeps saying, ‘It’s just so baaaaald I can’t look at it!’” Emilie continued, adding, “Remi: loves how it feels and keeps rubbing her hand on it like a lucky Buddha belly.”

After one very creative home haircut and then bravely shaving off the remainder, Emilie continued to document the restorative ups and devastating downs of chemotherapy.

In a moving Instagram post shared on Nov. 6, 2019, Emilie wrote: “The annoying thing about chemo is ... everything. It’s been so frustrating this week. I’ve been in such a dark place. And it has become so real.

“This isn’t a poor [me] post,” Emilie clarified, “but a reality post and a here-is-what-cancer-can-feel-like post. I don’t want to forget how it was.”

Supportive messages quickly flooded in, many wishing to bolster Emilie during her long and painful journey toward beating cancer. But despite the dark times, Emilie remains determined to focus on the positives.

Turning the sadness of losing her hair into a creative project, not to mention a fun memory that her young daughter will treasure forever, was one incredible way to triumph over adversity.