AbbySparwasser

When Kyleigh Gall, Class of 2018, was first diagnosed with cancer at 16 years old, she didn’t expect it to control her life for as long as it did.

In grade school, she was known as the “hair girl,” always doing other girls’ hair during recess and any other free time she could manage. At Marian, that archetype was right at home in a class full of girls.

But on Thanksgiving of her junior year, Gall found her hair falling out in clumps. Only two to three weeks earlier, she had just started her journey through chemotherapy for undifferentiated sarcoma, a rare type of cancer found behind her right thigh. “On Friday we went and shaved my head. My best friend’s mom actually shaved it for me,” Gall said. She had a wig picked out for that very moment, but Gall “wanted to stay in denial” for as long as she could before making the final purchase.

On that Monday, Gall arrived at Marian in a wig, and no one seemed to notice much of a difference. The wig was made of human hair, and it was as realistic and close to her hair as she could have hoped.

When she was first diagnosed, Gall had no idea how she would manage school with her treatment, but Marian supported her all the way through it. “Marian was honestly indescribable with how great they were when I was going through everything,” Gall said. Though math was a struggle for Gall in high school, her Pre-Calculus teacher Mrs. Sue Altman helped her pass her class even with the fatigue of finishing treatment. “She helped me get back on track of not only understanding but grasping the material and being able to succeed at it,” Gall said.

Altman helped Gall through the struggles of “chemo brain.”

 “It really does exist,” Altman said. “It’s the inability to function at the level you’re used to functioning after you’ve gone through chemo.” Altman and Gall worked together to create ways to remember all of the aspects of the class.

When Gall’s hair was long enough, she started to look into getting extensions. That was when she found the company Chemo Girls, a worldwide service that provides extensions for post-chemo hair. Founder John Richards did the procedure on Gall when she was finally ready for the process. At the time, he was one of the only people in the Midwest area who knew the procedure. “That was probably the biggest confidence shift for me, because it felt as close to my hair as it could,” Gall said. “When you’re 18 or 17 years old, your hair kind of means everything to you.” Even after the extensions were put into her hair, Gall stayed in contact with Richards, keeping the Chemo Girls procedure in the back of her mind as she went into college.

In fall of 2018, Gall enrolled in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with not only new hair extensions, but also newfound confidence. During her years there, she worked her way through a second cancer diagnosis and received a degree in Marketing. “As much as I loved [marketing] and everything,” Gall said, “I came to terms with the fact that I wanted to be the hands-on person, and so that’s kind of what led me to hair school.”

Her constant interest in hairstyling and cosmetology came to fruition in beauty school. However, Gall’s experiences with cancer gave her inspiration for more training from John Richards, who had given her both extensions and confidence all those years ago. But after starting to make plans with John Richards to learn the Chemo Girls hair extension procedure in Minnesota, a new diagnosis put a damper on her plans.

Gall believed the surgery for her third diagnosis would just be a “small blip.” But despite Gall’s wishes, the surgery to remove the tumor turned into a much bigger event in her life than she had hoped.

Her leg was amputated in 2025.

However, that didn’t stop Gall from completing her goals. “When I came back to school, I finished it out, whether I was still on crutches with one leg at this point doing it. But it was all worth it, because it led me here,” Gall said. She graduated from Capitol Beauty School in August of 2025 after treatment.

Later that same year, Gall traveled to Minnesota for a weekend to train with Richards. She started the process of learning at 7 a.m. the day after arriving and worked for three days to refine her work. “[The procedure] is meant for people that are on the other side of survivorship,” Gall said. The extention process takes place when the hair is too long to wear a wig, but two short for some to wear as a pixie. “I basically take a plant-based adhesive and I use about eight to nine bundles of hair, depending on the shape and size of someone’s head. Then, I take each individual strand of hair and apply an extension to it,” Gall said. The entire process leads to a look that is both natural immediately after application and months after as it grows out.

After training, Gall came straight back to Omaha to finish what she had started. Now the only person in Nebraska and surrounding states that knows how to do the Chemo Girls procedure, Gall needed to put her specialty to use for those in the process of cancer recovery. In early 2026, she started her own salon, ArKYves Studios, in Elkhorn for both classic hairstyling and the procedure as well. “I knew the general area of where I wanted to ‘put down roots,’ not only business wise, but personal life wise too. That’s what led me to finding the studio that I’m at now,” Gall said. 

Even on the other side of her own journey with cancer, Gall’s experiences affect her relationships with her clients going through the same process that she once did. Gall’s trust in the procedure has given her the comfort that those going through the process of post-chemo extensions can rely on her.

Now in 2026, Gall has accomplished multiple post-chemo extension procedures. “Any advice I’d have for anyone that’s trying to find their path in life or anything like that is just to find your passion. Find what you feel like God is putting on your heart to find your calling, and then turn that into your purpose,” Gall urged. Gall’s fulfillment in her life was thanks to the determination she showed to achieve what she put her mind to. Even as a 16-year old Marian girl grappling with the fact of losing her hair, Gall never gave up on those dreams that she possessed. Showing the importance of perseverance and hope, she forged her path through her struggles to find her true calling.