The last time I posted, I had shared tips for dealing with things like hair loss and such. I just want to clarify that I’m not endorsing the products I wrote about. I just wanted to let you know that there are products out there that can help with our particular needs. The brands that I mentioned are the brands that I found work for me. You might need to try different brands in order to get the ones that work for you. Now that that’s cleared up, lets talk about skin care.
The 4 most important rules for skin care are: Stay out of the sun, moisturise, stay out of the sun and moisturise. Get the picture? When you’re on chemotherapy, your skin is very sensitive to the sun so you can suffer from sunburns very quickly. You don’t need that in your life that’s for sure! If you must go out in the sun, make sure that you slather on the sunscreen thickly and often. There are several companies that make sunscreen from natural ingredients too. Any discoloration of the skin (a so-called “healthy tan”) is actually skin damage and let’s face it, once you reach a certain age, skin damage ages you a lot. You know what I’m talking about – wrinkles and age spots. Yuck!
For my face and neck I use one of those vibrating, rotating thingies that cleans and exfoliates your skin, that way the products I use seem to work better. I use a Clarisonic tool with a sensitive brush attached. I really swear by it, it cleans your face and gets rid of all traces of makeup. Once my face is uber clean, I use a face oil (there are several on the market) at night followed by a good night cream, eye cream and a neck cream. I know, I know, it seems like a lot, but like I said, your skin can get really dry with chemo. In the morning I skip the oil, and use a serum followed by a good face cream, eye cream and neck cream. A moisturising face masks once in a while helps as well. Another tip is to apply coconut oil on your face before a workout then wash it off in the shower after a few hours. Coconut oil also works well for your hair as a deep conditionner.
As for body skin, you also need to take care of that or you’ll have a serious case of the itchies. I find that dry brushing helps a lot. Before you shower (don’t use hot water because that’ll dry your skin even more), brush your skin with a dry brush that you can purchase at any drug store or beauty supply store. I was told that you should brush in the direction of your heart in order to help drain your lymphatic system. The brush helps get rid of your dry skin so that when you moisturise, your skin will absorb the cream better and leave you with soft skin. I also use the dry brush on my arm and hand before bed because I suffer from lymphedema and I feel that the brushing helps drain my lymph nodes and my hand swells less (for the correct procedure you should see a physiotherapist that specialises in lymph node draining).
One particular chemo treatment left me with very dry hands and feet (they call it “hand and foot syndrome” – they couldn’t have come up with a better name for it? like maybe “crocodile skin syndrome” or even “skin-so-dry-you-can-sand-your-floor-itis”). You skin can crack and bleed and it can be quite painful. The remedy? Try not to do chores that involve chemicals on your hands and that includes dish soap. It’s a great way to get out of doing dishes. Rubber gloves don’t really help because it can make your hands sweat and aggravate the condition. Use a good thick hand cream and apply it often during the day. If you want, you can wear cotton gloves after you’ve moisturised. The same goes for your feet. Use a very light touch to exfoliate your feet and apply a good foot moisturiser. Try not to go bare feet because that really dries out your feet (no socks and sandals however or I’ll personally hunt you down and bitch slap those socks right off you!). You can, however, go to bed wearing socks (not the ones you had on all day – gross!) after you’ve applied your moisturiser. What works really well – I’m not kidding- is slathering on Vicks Vapo Rub on your feet and slip on socks afterwards before you go to bed. Another treatment that I find works well is a paraffin wax treatment. You can buy a home kit (that’s what I did because I do it at least once a week) or visit an esthetician. The wax helps soften your skin and your cuticles (those get super-dry).
I hope that was informative and I’m sorry I couldn’t inject more humour in my page this time. I just couldn’t come up with a funny Bobby Tee story that involved skin care. Unless you count the fact that he discovered he can use hemorrhoid cream under his eyes to reduce the bags under his eyes. Everyone knows that old trick!
Now that you’ve read my story about my diagnosis and my surgeries, I’d like to share with you how I dealt with the multiple treatments I had to undergo and still am undergoing. I know, it seems like this will be a boring read but I’m going to try to make it humorous and informative. I hope that the tips that I’m going to share with you are useful because I know that you want to be fab like me!
Let’s start with Radiation Therapy. If your doc says that you need to undergo radiation, believe me it’s a walk in the park. In my case, I had to have 4 separate sessions of treatments, a 25 treatment session for my chest, a 5 session treatment for my femur (where they fried my eggs for good measure), a 5 treatment session for my spine and rib and another 5 session treatment for my spine. The only real side-effect was a little fatigue and sensitivity at the site. I strongly suggest that if you undergo radiation treatment, apply pure Aloe Vera to the site about 4 times a day. Not immediately before treatment of course but after treatment for the duration of your session and for a few weeks after your last treatment. You’ll thank me for it. If you don’t, you’ll likely suffer from burns and itching. I forgot to do it for my last session, and it looked like I had a square sunburn on my back! And it was incredibly itchy!
That’s all the advice I have on Radiation Therapy. Now on to the dreaded Chemotherapy. I’ve been on about 5 different kinds of chemotherapy, one experimental treatment and 3 different kinds of hormone suppressant therapies, so name the side-effect and I’ve probably experienced it.
Before I was scheduled for my first chemotherapy treatment, I wanted to be prepared for the side-effects, so I made sure to be the strongest me I could be. I of course ate well, exercised and made sure I did everything that I could to be strong. Fortunately, I didn’t suffer the nausea that a lot of patients do but my appetite wasn’t particularly good so I ate a lot of soups (especially bean soups so that I could benefit from fiber and protein). I did however gets bouts of diarrhea (yay me!) but those didn’t last very long thank goodness.
After I was done with my last radiation treatment my kids, my husband, my sister and myself had tattoos done of the pink ribbon. My daughter and I got matching ones, my husband got a Mustang with a pink ribbon, my son got a pink ribbon wrapped around a green fleur-de-lis and my sister got praying hands with the ribbon wrapped around them. I went first because I knew that I wouldn’t feel much pain that way BT wouldn’t be afraid to go. Well he cried like a baby of course! Poor bastard!
BT trying to hide his tears
BT’s tat
My tat on my ankle
Renee’s Tat
Eric’s tat
family tattoos
After the chemotherapy was over and done with (the first time) I took part in an experimental treatment that was specific to patients with hormone positive breast cancer. This type of cancer can increase your risk of developing osteoporosis later on and since my mother and 2 sisters suffer from this, I said Hell Ya to the treatment. Because it was a study and I was randomized in the group that took Zometa, I was asked by the study nurse to keep records of my side-effects. Welllll….. My niece Tara and I thought it would be really funny to include bizarre effects like uncontrollable cursing, anal leakage and general inappropriate behavior! The poor nurse didn’t know what to think. Of course I had to tell the truth (boring!!). But we had a great time thinking that shit up! The only real side-effect I had was aching joints. Funny enough, that treatment is now protocol for cancer patients whose cancer has metastasised in their bones like me. It seems to strengthen the bones so that the cancer has a harder time eating away at them. I’m now on that treatment again (as well as chemo).
And now for everyone’s favourite side-effect – Hair Loss. Before I started treatment, I visited a Wig shop to order my new hair. I wanted to make sure to order the wig in the same style and colour as my hair. At the time I had long curly and thick hair so I wanted the same in my wig. The stylist suggested a wig that was half human hair and half acrylic because the fully human hair wigs are harder to maintain, since you have to blow dry it and style it. You may not have the energy to do that when you’re feeling run-down. By the time I had lost my hair, my wig was in so the transition was pretty easy. The only problem with the long wig is that it tangles really easily when it rubs against clothing. It drove me nuts so I went to see my regular stylist to have it cut into a cute bob and I absolutely loved it!
Sporting an awesome wig!
Once my hair started to grow a little, I used a hair system called Nioxin that includes a shampoo, conditionner and hair and scalp treatment. I feel that it helped my hair grow back quicker and thicker. Everyone had told me that my hair would grow back curly but my hair was curly before the cancer so…… It grew back straight and thinner (or normal since I had abnormally thick hair). What a change for me! But it was fun getting used to it. I grew it into a bob like my wig. To keep it relatively healthy, I didn’t wash it more than every 3 days and limited the amount of products I used. I stayed away from products that contained alcohol and never brushed it when it was wet. I also didn’t blow-dry it often and only used a flat iron on it when it got longer. The less stress on your hair the better.
The second time I lost my hair was about 3 years ago when I had to undergo another type of chemo that made me loose my hair. Thank goodness I hadn’t gotten rid of my wig! I wasn’t on that treatment for very long so my hair grew back quickly but it was even thinner and straighter ! WTF??? The doc switched my chemo because that particular one had no effect on my liver tumour and the next treatment didn’t make me loose hair. Eventually, that chemo stopped working so another treatment was introduced so I lost my hair for the third time!!! This time however, I didn’t loose it all. I kinda had a Donald Trump thing going so I was able to buy a hair system that is fairly new on the market called Evolve Hair System. It attaches to your existing hair with tiny clips and stays on no matter what! You get it tightened about once a month and that’s it! I worked great for me. Looked totally natural and the shop made sure that the system matched my hair exactly! I just got it removed a few weeks ago because I’ve switched chemo again and this one doesn’t affect your hair. My hair has now grown back but it’s thin and fine like baby hair. Oh well! Better than no hair at all.
What they don’t tell you about some chemotherapy is that you loose ALL your body hair (yup all of it), your eyebrows, your eyelashes and for some, your nails (ouch). As for loosing your body hair, that’s kind of a bonus because shaving, waxing and plucking are totally unnecessary, however….. It may just be me, but loosing all, and I mean all pubic hair, made me pee all over my legs! Does the hair funnel the pee in a straight stream??? Who the fuck knows? Please message me if the same thing happened to you otherwise….. I’m just a freak I guess!
You don’t realise the value of eyebrows until you loose them. The no-eyebrow thing really changes your look and it keeps the sweat from dripping into your eyes! The challenge is NOT to look like some old lady with crooked, mismatched eyebrows or Woopie (have you noticed that she has no eyebrows?). My old aunt had mistaken her eyebrow pencil for her lip liner once. It was quite the look! Good thing was that the old folks at the home didn’t notice. Instead of a pencil, I prefer to use a powder. I feel that it gives you a more natural and may I say, youthful look . We all loose some eyebrow hair as we get older (thanks menopause) and we need to fill them in, so the powder is a great technique for that (unless you’re a pro, penciled-in brows may look too severe or too thin). Your eyebrows frame your face and gives a nice definition to your eyes. If you have no eyebrows at all, or you’re like Bobby Tee and “accidently” shave them off, you can buy a kit that has powder, brushes AND stencils! I use NYX Eyebrow Kit With Stencils. It has 4 eyebrow powders, 2 brushes and 3 different size stencils. You just hold the stencil down with one hand and fill it in with the brush provided with the other hand. Just make sure to align the two brows evenly because you don’t want one brow to be higher than the other. You can also use more than one colour of powder to get a more natural look. Thick brows are all the rage now so eyebrow kits are easy to find.
Bobby Tee and his “accident”
For me the worst part about the hairless cat look, was loosing my eyelashes. You would think that you could just stick on fake lashes and voila! But no! You need eyelashes to stick on the fake lashes. You can’t just stick them on your eyelids. What I hadn’t realised is that eyelashes keep the dust from getting into your eyes. Even the tiniest speck of dust will find its way into your eyes! My eyes cried 24/7 even with sunglasses on! So I had no lashes AND red and teary eyes! Not a great look! So I came to terms with the no lash look and just applied brown eyeliner to distract from the fact that I had no lashes (black would look too severe). Some sites recommend applying dots at the base of your eyelid (where you would apply eyeliner) to mimic lashes but I didn’t think it looked good on me (it just looked like dots and not lashes). Being pro-active, I thought that there must be something out there that will help them grow back. I tried several lash serums and the only one that truly worked for me and made my lashes longer than they were even before the chemo is the StimuLashFusion lash enhancer. I also use their mascara and I swear by it. Another product that I’ve been using on my lashes for a long time is the Dior lash primer. You apply it before you apply your mascara and it conditions your lashes and makes them look much thicker. I tried other brands but most of them just made the mascara clumpy. Once my lashes began to grow, I was able to use false lashes but I had to find glue that was latex free since I’m allergic. The only one I found is made by Revlon and I like the little application brush. I tried lash extensions but there must have been latex in the glue because the reaction I got was horrible! I had them taken off the next day and, thank goodness, the girl gave me my money back. Never again!! And remember, don’t use mascara every day because you really need to be gentle with your lashes and taking off mascara can pull and tug at them. You also need a really good eye makeup remover that will make it easy to take off your mascara. I find that Marcelle makes a good one that is gentle on the eyes.
Another side-effect that a few patients suffer from is the loss of finger and toe nails. I lost a few which was quite painful but thankfully it was summertime so I wore sandals all the time so that nothing touched my toes. I kept my fingernails short and didn’t use any polish on them so that my nails could “breathe” and not be subjected to harmful chemicals. I resorted to using Band-Aids on my fingers and toes so that I wouldn’t hit them by accident and to prevent them from ripping off completely. They grew back to normal after I was done that first session and it hasn’t happened with the other treatments.
So that’s about all I have for the whole hair issue. Next time we’ll discuss skin care because caring for chemo skin is a science!
Fabulous Cancer Warrior 