"Cancer doesn't stop me being a princess." That's the message of 17-year-old Andrea Sierra Salazar, and looking at these photographs, we couldn't agree more.
Andrea, who lives in Texas, lost her hair due to chemotherapy after being diagnosed with stage 2 nodular sclerosis Hodgkin lymphoma. The treatment left the usually-confident teen feeling self-conscious, but when her mother shared her daughter's story with various modeling agencies, one photographer helped Andrea to rediscover her true beauty. While taking snaps for a photoshoot, Gerardo Garmendia captured the teen in the pictures you can see below, and after sharing one on Twitter, it's since been liked more than 200k times.
"This journey has taught me to love and accept myself regardless of the way I look," wrote Andrea on Facebook. "The hair on someone's head doesn't define who they are. All girls are princesses, and today I feel beautiful inside and out."
"There were no side effects," Andrea told Buzzfeed
Image credits: Gerardo Garmendia
"I wouldn’t have known [I had cancer] until one day I felt like I slept wrong, and my neck hurt"
Image credits: Gerardo Garmendia
"I patted my neck and I felt a really big ball"
Image credits: Gerardo Garmendia
Doctors diagnosed her with stage 2 nodular sclerosis Hodgkin lymphoma
Image credits: Gerardo Garmendia
“Before chemotherapy I had always been a confident person,so when my hair started to fall out I would look in the mirror and I wouldn’t feel that confident about myself”
Image credits: Gerardo Garmendia
"Then I realised that I had no reason to be ashamed of the way I looked, I should be proud"
Image credits: Gerardo Garmendia
“It’s not only about my outside beauty, it’s about the inside. That’s what really inspired the photoshoot without the wig”
Image credits: Gerardo Garmendia
“Cancer doesn’t stop me from being a princess,” she wrote
Image credits: Antonio Von Marrok
We couldn't agree more
Image credits: Andrea Sierra