Family shaves heads to save more lives

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After three long years fighting cancer, one Ridgefield youth is looking to give back so other kids have a chance at being one of the “lucky” ones.

You wouldn’t know it by looking at him, but Rhys Class is just getting through his final stretch of chemotherapy. Today he sports a full head of hair dropping past his shoulders. At one point during his treatment all of that hair was gone, a result of the physically taxing treatment for his Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL).

Pretty soon those locks will be gone, along with that of three of his family members. This time the hair loss will be markedly more jubilant, as the Class family is taking part in a fundraiser that involves head shaving as part of its efforts to raise money for cancer research.

On July 15, Rhys, his mother Karey, his father Darrin and his sister Samantha will take part in the shaving at Randall Children’s Hospital, a place the family knows well. Shortly after the event in August he will take his last dose of chemotherapy medication and, save the routine checkups necessary for those in remission, he will finally be complete with his treatment, three years in.

Rhys’ hair hasn’t been cut since it had fallen out initially through treatment. He’s looking forward to getting it cut for a few different reasons, not the least of which is getting confused for a girl with such length.

One of the biggest reasons is he wants to show off his scar on his head, the result of a biopsy early on in his three-year journey.

With the end of the treatment protocol in sight, Rhys’ mom Karey has called it “light at the end of the tunnel,” especially considering how this time last year Rhys had developed acute pancreatitis, a complication arising in ALL patients undergoing chemo. 

For 21 days he was stuck in the hospital during what Karey agreed was the lowest point during the journey.

“All of a sudden on August 6 it’s the last pill he takes,” Karey said, commenting on the relatively anticlimactic ending to what has often been a difficult situation.

Rhys was diagnosed with ALL in June of 2014 at the age of five. In a blog the Class family has maintained Karey recalled the months leading up to his diagnosis, at first noticing a patch of white hair on her son’s head. After an initial diagnosis of some sort of fungal infection the symptoms didn’t get any better until it was finally revealed he had cancer in his blood.

Recently Rhys completed his last spinal tap and dose of steroids, two particularly unpleasant parts of treatment.



The Class family first came to be aware of St. Baldrick’s Foundation fairly early in Rhys’ leukemia fight. Karey recounted how during Rhys’ initial induction she noticed some hospital staff with conspicuously shaved heads. She asked what was up and learned about the foundation’s mission, and now three years later the family will be making their own contribution.

In line with the main event of head-shaving, the family is also raising funds with a goal of $5,000 to benefit St. Baldrick’s. Although the name conjures up images of saintly salvation, it’s just a play on words given that baldness is such a big part of the foundation’s branding.

Though there’s no historical St. Baldrick, Karey touts the real help the foundation has done in cancer research, mentioning specifically their funding of T-cell immunotherapy, a promising breakthrough in treatment of the disease.

The experiences the family has had over the past three years is part of the reason that Rhys and the Class family are raising the funds.

“I feel like we have a duty, that we’ve gone through this, so it’s meaningful for us,” Karey said. “That’s the time when you have to get people to give.”

“Kids deserve a childhood,” she later added. 

She commented on how through the experience, and in the case of the pancreatitis episode, Rhys has come to an understanding of his own mortality more than many adults.

In order to help give those kids a chance for some sort of normalcy, Karey said the fundraising would help assure that positive outcomes such as Rhys can happen more often.

“The only way it happens is if people give money to research, right?” Karey said.