When we were in Tassie, we met a great little girl

Her name was Shianne

You may have seen her on the Tasmania vlog

At about the 2:36 mark

Her Mum, Chantelle,  had sent a letter asking if Shianne could meet Dad

She’s only 11, but knows all the words to Dad’s songs

And loves him

You have to be 18 to see the show

So she came backstage before the Burnie concert to say hi and get some pics taken

Shianne has Alopecia

It’s a disease where your hair falls out

Sometimes in patches, sometimes all over

Shianne has Alopecia totalis

Which has made her totally bald

Eyebrows, eyelashes – all of it

Shianne first started loosing her hair when she was 7

As a Mum with a daughter who will be 7 this year

I try to imagine how she would cope losing her beautiful, long hair at this age

Being her Mum, I’m not sure I would handle it too well

Chantelle’s letter told of the hard time that Shianne gets at school

She gets teased constantly

Because we all know what motherfuckers how cruel kids can be sometimes

(And how much I hate bullying BUT how standing up to them can help)

So having something as obvious as ‘no hair’ would be such a magnet for the arsehole kids

So they give her a hard time

All the time

According to Chantelle, the school where Shianne goes, does fuck all about it is not too great at handling the situation

Shianne was told to, ‘deal with it’

As she would look like it for the rest of her life

So it’s in her ‘best interest’ to get used to the stares and smart arsed comments

When I spoke to Chantelle about it, I was gobsmacked

I’m not sure if changing schools is an option

But it’s something I would look into

After I told them to all go fuck themselves!

Asking an 11 year old girl to just deal with name-calling and constant teasing?

If that’s not absolute bullshit, I don’t know what is

Then I spoke to Shianne

And seriously, she is the cutest, sweetest, giggly little girl in the world

It seems so unfair

What she has to go through every day

Her friends and family are currently raising money

So that Shianne can go and meet some other kids who have Alopecia

She’s the only one in Tasmania

And has never met anyone else who suffers from it

She’s very excited

She wanted to have one of my albums, but we’d sold out on the night

Plus I was a little hesitant

OK, I was A LOT hesitant

About handing over an album of my ‘fuck’ songs to an 11 year old kid

Her Mum assured me it was OK

So I ended up sending her a signed copy

Along with a kick boxing dvd

To help her deal with the fuckers at school

And maybe kick some arse

I figure if I’m going to be a bad influence

I might as well give it my best shot

.

.

Update – they raised the money, so Shianne is planning her trip to go & meet some new friends!!

Because twitter is limited to 140 characters, some of my ramblings won’t fit – but they’re not quite long enough to qualify as a ‘real’ blog post. This is one of those. The first in what is sure to be a series of thousands

Dropping Miss 6 off at school. After walking her to the door, I head back to the car. I end up walking next to one of the other Mums

Trying to get my umbrella up I say, making pointless conversation as this woman & I have NOTHING in common Can’t believe it’s raining again

And she says, I know, I was just telling my baby boy (her 6 yr old son) that it’s not really rain. It’s the angels crying, because the Mummy’s are sad that the school year is almost over and their babies are growing up.

And I said, that’s just what I was going to say

(But what I THOUGHT was, holy shit you’re a fruit loop and your son’s future floral business better be successful to pay for all the therapy the little fucker is going to need)