Senna Drost is only 17 years old and has already had to endure a lot in her life. At the age of 14 she was diagnosed with leukemia and the situation was over. But look at her now: she survived the disease, learned to walk again and is full of ambition to start her own barbershop. And not just any one, because her first business (her parents’ shed) will have a real coin floor.
More than 12,000 5 euro cent coins go in and Senna is almost done with the monster job. “It’s a lot of work, but then you get something.” She demonstrates how she sticks the coins one by one on the floor. “That’s how you sit for I don’t know how many hours. My mother also glued something and my father a small piece.”
She still lives with her parents and at first it was an idea to set up the barbershop in her sister’s room, who has now left home. “But my father thought: ‘I’ll put some sports equipment there’, so it was immediately confiscated.” Don’t worry: the shed was still left. She chuckles: “A few days later I emptied it with my mother.”
Extremely hard period
Senna is training at the Barber School in Amsterdam and is doing an internship at a hairdressing salon in Westzaan. In the time she has left, she would like to start her own business. It is a step she had not dared to dream of at first: in 2020 she was diagnosed with leukemia and was in the hospital for six months.
“Liver damage, heart failure due to chemo, learning to walk again. And everything that comes afterwards: lung fungus, pneumonia…” She survived the disease, but has had a tough period. “It was also difficult because I was in my room for six months. Most children in that situation can simply leave their room because they have enough strength to do so. I couldn’t do that.” She was fully supported, also by her teammates from her soccer team.
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She still has complaints now, but can live with it just fine. “Sometimes I get cramps in my muscles. Then you just have to sneeze and you get cramps in your ribs. Or when you cut, you get cramps in your arms. But it doesn’t bother me if I continue to take good magnesium.”
She wants to obtain her diploma as quickly as possible and, if this initiative goes well, have her own full-fledged business. Or who gets a coin floor? “Haha, I don’t know. Depends on how much money I make.”