Iowa State Student's 'Beautiful Girlfriend Fighting Cancer' Photo Inspiring Many Across the Internet

The timing is perfect with Valentine's Day on Thursday for a picture that captures the adoring stares of a young couple that's felt the sting of cancer.

A young woman - bald and battling cancer - returns the loving gaze of her boyfriend, who shaved his head in support. The photo is captioned, "Beautiful girlfriend is fighting cancer. She got this ****."

The photo of Riley Nicolay, who is an Iowa State University freshman, and his  girlfriend Deidre Sechi, a former ISU student who is in treatment in Overland Park, KS, was posted on Reddit.com, and has more than 1.1 million views in a little over 24 hours.

"Just finished therapy - am hair- and cancer - free. And I'm 60!!! YOU CAN DO THIS!!!!! God bless; you're in my prayers," one commenter wrote.

Another of the nearly 1,000 comments said, "High five to you for being a supportive boyfriend! You're both wonderfully strong."

Sechi left school at Iowa State last semester after doctors diagnosed her with cancer. She had a "baseball-size tumor in her stomach as a desmoplastic small round cell tumor, a rare form of sarcoma," according to ABCNews.com.

ABC News is among many that have picked up the story. Here is some of what they learned:

So last weekend, as Sechi’s hair began to fall out after her first rounds of chemotherapy, the couple, both 18 and high school sweethearts from Overland Park, Kansas, decided to shave their heads together.

“She’s shaving her head and I don’t really care about my hair so I’m shaving it with her,” Nicolay, a freshman at Iowa State University, told ABCNews.com.  “It wasn’t an option for me.”

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