SANDY, Utah (ABC4 News) - A Utah company is helping to heal women with cancer one hat at a time. Hats With Heart is now going international with it's products for women who have lost their hair during chemotherapy.
Kelli Duran is one of those women. She is shopping today, a welcome break from her treatments for stage two hodgkin's lymphoma.
"Hodgkin's responds well to chemo so hopefully it will be gone and everything will be great," she says.
Kelli was diagnosed last summer after finding a lump in her throat. After her second treatment of chemotherapy she says her hair started falling out.
"Every time I would touch my hair, I would have handfuls of hair. And I have two little girls and hair all over the floor, that's not great. So I shaved it. And it was hard."
"Each story that we hear, every day here, touches each one of us and makes us want to work harder," Kristen Toone from Hats With Heart says.
Hats With Heart was started by a woman with cancer, in her home, sixteen years ago. The business now sells hats and accessories in five hundred locations across the United States. Eight are here in Utah.
"While we are not the solution, cancer of course is the hard thing in their life. We get to help them through a hard part of it, which is losing their hair. It makes you feel good to work for a company that is doing good things for people," Toone says.
Kelli Duran will be doing chemotherapy until January, and says she's trying to get used to her new look.
"It's nice to shower and get ready as quick as my husband and be out the door somewhere. But I will be glad when I can start growing my hair back too," she says.
Until then, a couple new hat purchases have given Kelli a reason to smile.
If you are interested in finding locations where Hats With Heart products are sold you can go to their website, www.hatswithheart.com
