NAPA NEWS: Bald ambition ...

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Note: forwarded message attached.

Subj: NAPA NEWS: "Bald ambition" ... (interesting implant comments)

Date: 6/29/2005 6:38:06 PM Eastern Standard Time

From: ilena03@...

http://www.napanews.com/templates/index.cfm?template=story_full & id=14C91140-F03F-482F-AC0A-E7725A3B85D1

EXCERPT: It was at a doctor's insistence several years earlier when she decided to have breast implants that they be placed on top of, rather than beneath, breast muscle. That, she said, is the only reason she first noticed a lump. And she says it may have saved her life. The tumor was on top of the implant.

She urged any woman considering breast implant surgery to also have the implant placed close to surface skin.

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Bald ambition

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

By PAT STANLEY

Register Staff Writer

For rent: Advertising space atop a bald head.

Trouble is, nobody took up the eBay offer from Summer Mondeau of Napa. Mondeau said she's disappointed nobody placed a bid, but added, "Not running around bald is not too bad."

The 40-year-old Napa mom and substitute teacher, who lost her coif because of breast cancer treatments, turned to the online auction company in hopes of finding an advertiser before her hair re-grows any more than it already has.

The good news: Her cancer is in remission.

Any payment -- she initially hoped to raise at least $1,500 -- would have been donated to three of her favorite charities, she said. They are Amnesty International, Doctors without Borders and Heifer International.

Amnesty International advocates for human rights around the globe. Heifer International helps improve access to education and improves the environment, often providing food resources in Third World countries. Doctors Without Borders provides medical relief to victims of natural disasters, wars and epidemics in more than 80 countries.

When the online ad got no hits, Mondeau extended the offer. But only for three more days. "I don't want to start all over again," she said, glancing upward to her head, covered by an azure blue scarf.

Then, with time again running out for eBay buyers to rent ad space, she decided to lower the opening bid from $1,234 to $777 on Wednesday. On Thursday she again lowered the minimum first offer, this time at $502.

Still no takers.

Bidding closed Friday morning.

Body advertising is apparently not as novel as when one of the first to do it was paid $37,000 by a dot-com, she said.

She said the ad would have remained painted on her head until it was covered by hair. Mondeau also said she would have been willing to shave her head for an ad, or to "carve" a message into the stubble which had begun to re-sprout.

On the eBay Web site, Mondeau explained why the funds raised would be earmarked for the three world-wide agencies rather than for the fight against breast cancer. "First, I am beyond grateful to the thousands of people whose efforts to beat this disease have saved my life, and perhaps more importantly to me right now, saved the life of my children's mother," she wrote. "But my causes didn't change with my diagnosis. In fact, having breast cancer made me realize how blessed and lucky I am. I have health insurance. That's huge. Then, I thought to myself that even if I had to die ... I would still be better off than the hundreds of thousands who don't get to die of natural causes. They'll die of violence or hunger or curable diseases. I'm doing this for them and ultimately, for myself as well."

Although she was willing to sport the ad anywhere within reason, she had suggested the financial district of San Francisco might get a potential advertiser the best exposure. Other locations she suggested to gain maximum exposure for a renter included an Oakland A's baseball game. Mondeau has season tickets to watch the ballclub.

Mondeau teaches enrichment classes as both a substitute and a volunteer, mostly at Napa Valley Language Academy.

She's also raising two children named after Texas cities: Austin, who will enter the fourth-grade next year, and Dallas, who will be in the second-grade.

She grew up in Concord and moved to Napa about four years ago with her husband, Uhrenholt, an engineer with Diamond Services.

She was initially devastated with the diagnosis. "I was having a mid-life crisis squared away when I got this diagnosis," she said. "That switched it into turbo."

When first informed of her disease, she misunderstood her doctor and thought she was in the late stages of the cancer, when, in fact, the opposite was true. "I thought I had just a 30 percent chance of living," she said. "It can be your darkest moment."

Nevertheless, she had to undergo chemotherapy, and barely two weeks ago began a series of 33 radiation treatments.

She had procrastinated before going in for a mammogram.

It was at a doctor's insistence several years earlier when she decided to have breast implants that they be placed on top of, rather than beneath, breast muscle. That, she said, is the only reason she first noticed a lump. And she says it may have saved her life. The tumor was on top of the implant.

She urged any woman considering breast implant surgery to also have the implant placed close to surface skin.