By RUSSELL BENNETT
LET’S be clear – Ashlee Smith owns her condition, she refuses to let it own her.
A trainee umpire and an under-15s player at the Bunyip Netball Club, she was initially diagnosed with alopecia areata when she was just 10 years old.
It’s an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system indiscriminately attacks the hair follicles, causing bald patches and hair loss.
There’s no known reason for exactly why it happens, and no cure.
It effects both genders and people from all walks of life, but it’s a particularly horrible diagnosis for a young girl to try and wrap her head around.
When Ashlee was 10, she had a few bald patches, which lasted for around a year before her hair grew back.
But she started to lose her hair again this year, only to a much more severe extent.
Now, as her mum Kelly explained to the Gazette, treatment involves a series of painful injections into the affected area of her scalp – and they may or may not work.
“Being a girl, everyone talks about what hairstyles they’re going to do for summer, and I can’t do that anymore,” Ashlee said on her own Go Fund-raise web page, which she set up to raise much-needed funds for the Australia Alopecia Areata Foundation.
But Ashlee has taken a stand.
After being consumed by the fear of losing her hair, and the stigma and at times overwhelming emotion surrounding it, this incredibly strong young girl stepped out of the darkness recently to stand up in front of her entire school community at Cairo Christian College to explain her battle, and she will shave her head on 18 September at school to raise money and awareness for the battle against the disorder in the hope that one day a cure will be found.
Words like ‘heroic’ and ‘inspirational’ are all too often thrown around in a sporting sense, but in this case they’re incredibly fitting. In a sporting world crying out for role models, Ashlee certainly is one.
Her parents Kelly and Joel are amazed by her courage in taking such a public stance, as is everyone at the Bunyip Netball Club. Through her love of netball, Ashlee has a real community of support rallying around her.
The Bunyip Netball Club posted Ashlee’s story on their Facebook page, and it has so far attracted around 10,000 views – an astonishing effort for a page with 330 likes.
Ashlee has set up a Go Fund-raise page to raise much-needed funds for the Australia Alopecia Areata Foundation. She has raised well in excess of $500 so far.
For more information, or to donate, visit www.personalchallenge.gofundraise.com.au/page/SmithAJ.
