Tabitha Lemmon says her three-year old daughter said that her bald Barbie reminded her of her mommy because they look alike.
When a small child discovers her mom is now bald after cancer treatment, it can be unsettling. A three-year-old girl recently got some help with that transition from a tiny, fashion-conscious woman – Barbie.
It all started when Stacie Loe, RN, got a phone call from her sister. She had found some Barbie dolls on a clearance sale and wondered if she should buy some of the dolls for Stacie’s daughter. Stacie’s sister texted some pictures and Stacie noticed some of the “Fashionista” dolls were bald. Stacie immediately thought of some of the women she helps at the Intermountain Cancer Center in St. George and wondered if the dolls might help their children adjust.
Staci Loe, RN, had the idea to buy some bald Barbies for cancer patients.
Tabitha Lemmon was on about her second treatment when Stacie asked her how old her children were. Tabitha told her she had a three-year-old daughter and two boys. Stacie asked her if her daughter played with Barbies and Tabitha said her daughter would play with anything.
“So, she brought me this bag of things and the bald Barbie was in it and it was really special,” Tabitha says. “I think it was helpful for my little girl because when she saw it, she said, ‘Mommy, it’s like you,’ And it was really sweet.”
Stacie says the dolls help “to normalize the situation” so children can say, it’s not bad to be bald because “even Barbie can be bald.”
“We couldn’t find any more inexpensive Barbies and we were paying for this out of our own pockets, so we sent an email to Mattel asking them if they ever donate,” Jilynne says. “We told them Stacie’s story.”
Jilynne Hafen, a social worker, believed the dolls would help "normalize" things for young children.
That email led to them getting 20 new dolls Mattel makes called “Brave Barbie” through an organization called “CureSearch for Children’s Cancer.” The Barbies are designed to help children better understand cancer treatments women receive and they come with wigs the bald Barbies can wear, Jilynne says.
Tabitha had high praise for the team at the Cancer Center and she specifically mentioned Stacie and Gwendolyn Randall, RN.
“It’s interesting, I actually don’t like chemo, but I look forward to chemo days because it’s just so much fun in there,” Tabitha says.
Tammy Thomas, RN, manager in infusion services, says her team is creative as they look for ways to help patients.
The nurses at the Cancer Center try to be creative to find things they can do to lift their patients and help them through hard times, says Tiffany Thomas, RN, manager in infusion services. That caring doesn’t end once their patients leave, she says.
Recently a patient, who wasn’t recovering, went home under hospice care. The infusion team heard a friend of the patient was preparing a montage of videos for her, so the team waited until everyone was gone and cleared out an area in the center. Then they filmed a dance routine with choreography modeled after something they found on YouTube to wish her the best and to contribute to the montage.
Jane Jensen, Intermountain's director for medical oncology, says nurses try to empathize and help patients going through difficult times.
Tiffany says she’s very proud of her staff and how they “truly care about their patients and want to do everything they can to help them cope with this time in their lives.”
Tiffany says her team is so patient-focused that even when they aren’t on duty, they’re still thinking of ways they can help their patients and the Barbie example illustrates how this can play out.
“This speaks highly of Intermountain caregivers because that human connection is vital,” Tiffany says. You can train just about anybody to do technical things, as long as the competency is there, but it’s much harder to train people to care about people and that’s what these nurses do every day.”
Thanks to Mattel, some 20 "Brave Barbies" now stand ready to help.
Jane Jensen, Intermountain’s director for medical oncology, says the nurses who work with cancer patients spend so much time with them that they often get to know them and they become like family to them. They try to empathize with everything a cancer patient is going through, she says.
“Our goal in our cancer program is to hold that patient’s hand every minute from the time they get diagnosed to the time they get into survivorship,” Jane says. “This is so hard for our patients. It’s hard emotionally; it’s hard financially; it’s hard physically, but we feel like it’s our duty and our responsibility to just hold their hand and take care of them. We try to make it less stressful, if we can.”