Cancer Beauty 101

For all the ladies out there…this one is for you :) You will appreciate this post because no matter who you are and what age you are, we have all learned beauty lessons. Whether it was during the teenage years, during/after having a baby, gaining/losing weight, just aging in general, all of it... we have all learned beauty lessons. For me, here are some things I have learned about cancer beauty during my past 4 months with HL. I’m ready to laugh again…so lets just laugh about it now! So here are my Top 10…

1) If you would like to lose some weight, go the safe, traditional route and eat more veggies and exercise. Don’t go extreme like me and have brain surgery to lose 17 pounds or get cancer to lose 11 pounds.
2) Don’t let your leg hair get longer than your head hair…doesn’t help the husband any.
3) Enjoy the perks of losing unwanted facial and body hair too…but beware, I hear it will come back :(
4) Splurge and get the $40.00 pedicure. Every time you look at your toes, you feel that at least one thing on your body is right.
5) Don’t wear your new diamond earrings with your beanie hat, you will look like the rapper Eminem.
6) Sport the port… :)
7) It’s like fifth grade again trying to put on eyeliner, but do it anyways…you look so much better.
8) Still wear perfume, there is no where in the cancer bible that says we can’t at least smell good.
9) Get a massage to relax…just trust me.
10) Carry Kleenex’s. We have no nose hair, your nose will run nonstop!

And the best thing for me…NO MORE RED, ITCHY RASHES!

**Oh, and bald is not always beautiful to everyone. Be yourself, but understand that you are going to get stares if you go out in public bald.**

Just wanted to share some cancer beauty secrets I've learned during this. I’m finally feeling better from this past round of chemo. Got some stomach issues that I will spare the details, but that's about it now (plus a sore throat, but I'm scratching that up to the season changing). And I can finally describe the nausea I have with chemo! It’s not nausea like I am going to run to the bathroom and puke, and it’s not the 'oh I just drank a little too much'. It’s the kind of stomach ache you get when someone dares you to drink a whole Gatorade at once. You feel full and your stomach feels sugar coated. It aches in pain, so that’s why you feel you need to throw up because you have so many fluids inside you and not enough food. That’s why I CRAVE Fritos now because it soaks up all that fluid.
The next day is achy bones and you are extremely tired. The day of chemo, you sleep all day. The next day, you sleep half the day away, then the next day your sleeping gets shorter and shorter. This time around, my pain localized in my chest and throat for some reason. I have never had that kind of chest pain, but I hope that means the rest of the tumor just exploded in there and its all gone :)
I hope you all have a beautiful day tomorrow...it looks like it will be sunny with high of 75!! So when you wake up tomorrow, thank God for your beauty...because we are woman and we are beautiful no matter what we have going on with our bodies! I will thank Him for all 5 of my scars that have taught me life lessons, the 8 eyelashes I have left, the big nose I have, the 1/2 inch patchy hair on my head, and for the 200+ moles on my body (yes, I've counted!) Because that makes me me and makes me unique.....but most importantly.....
CONFIDENCE IS BEAUTY AND TO GOD BE THE GLORY FOR TEACHING ME THAT!!!

This is a few verses from the song 'There Could Never be a More Beautiful You' by Jason Diaz. Good song!!

So turn around you're not too far
To back away be who you are
To change your path go another way
It's not too late, you can be saved
If you feel depressed with past regrets
The shameful nights hope to forget
Can disappear, they can all be washed away

By the one who's strong, can right your wrongs
Can rid your fears dry, all your tears
And change the way you look at this big world
He will take your dark distorted view
And with His light, He will show you truth
And again you'll see through the eyes of a little girl

That there could never be a more beautiful you
Don't buy the lies, disguises and hoops, they make you jump through
You were made to fill a purpose that only you could do
So there could never be a more beautiful you
There could never be a more beautiful you