By Aya Nader, BECAUSE It was an ordinary day at the 57357 Children’s Cancer Hospital. Children enduring the physical and emotional demands of cancer and its treatment were arriving for appointments, undergoing chemotherapy, or lying in bed. But in one calm corner of the the largest pediatric oncology hospital in the world, something unusual was happening. For two teenage girls, who had suffered the treatment’s normal effect of total hair loss, the usually grim day was being turned upside down. Prominent hairdresser Ashraf Abo El Magd, of Salon Ashraf and Mazen salon in Heliopolis, had turned one of the hospital’s offices into a salon, shaping long wigs into the hairstyles the two cancer patients have always wanted. “It felt like I was never sick,” said 14-year-old Etab Ali, who had been crying that morning. “My hair used to be the same length and color.” The project was made possible through the collaboration and generosity of community, the hospital, and commerce, to bring the hairdresser’s idea to fruition. The idea to be a stylist to cancer patients had always been on Abo El Magd’s mind, but he hadn’t been able to…
