The story of Ciara McDonald featured in Allure magazine
A LEADING NEW YORK magazine, published around the world, with a readership of over a million has featured the inspirational story of Lisnaskea teenager Ciara McDonald.
Ciara was diagnosed with stage two Hodgkin’s lymphoma on February 10 of this year, but after undergoing 12 gruelling rounds of chemotherapy is fighting fit and just last month was told she is now in remission.
Ciara’s article in the Internationally renowned women’s magazine Allure came about after she posted a photo of herself on the Facebook page of Boston charity ‘Be Bold, Be Bald’, which supports people battling cancer and becoming bald.
“In July I sent in a picture of me, my boyfriend Niall and my minion, Barry, and like the others they shared it on their page and wrote a lovely message under it explaining my story. Not long after I looked at it and there were hundreds of comments from people all over the world wishing me good luck and giving me tips on how to stay strong. It gave me and my family so much joy and hope in a time we most needed it.
“A few months after the charity wrote a message to me asking would I like to be involved in a beauty feature and talk about the changes women go through while losing their hair. I was so honoured and said yes straight away.”
She continued: “A few days later I got an email from a man named Patrick Rodgers from New York magazine, Allure. He wanted to know would I like to be featured in it with my story and as you can imagine I was so excited and honoured.”
The article charts Ciara’s journey from diagnosis through chemo, to losing her hair and regrowing again.
“I found it very therapeutic and felt like I was just writing a diary. It was only until I read back over what I wrote that I realised how much I have came through, it was like I was looking at my battle from a completely different perspective I tried to explain my emotions as best I could, but as it was a beauty magazine I wanted to also focus on how going bald affected your self confidence, and what I did to overcome that knock. Chemotherapy also affects your skin, changing texture and feel, so I talked about some tips I learned on how to deal with that also.
“I was so shocked by the overwhelming response and I was so happy with how it turned out. It was an amazing opportunity to be able to share my story on that scale and even if it helped one person on the earth then I am so so happy I’d like to think it reassured some people that going bald is not the end of the world, beauty shines from within you, and no matter what your appearance is if you are happy and positive you will always be beautiful!”
Ciara has just last week finished her radiotherapy treatment and reported that it all went well.
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