The joys of eyebrow pencil, eyeliner, and a wigI’ve recently learned about using eyeliner and an eyebrow pencil. I’ve always had dark eyebrows and eyelashes so they never seemed necessary. However, now I that I lack eyebrows and eyelashes, the application of eyeliner and eyebrow pencil helps to keep me from looking like Cancer Victim. Of course, it’s like painting an old house. Once one paints the trim, suddenly the walls look a lot more beaten up, so one has to paint those as well, and then the hall looks more dreary, so one paints that and so on. Once I get my eyes made up, then I end up putting on foundation, blush and lipstick. I've never been really good at being a girl (having tended more towards being a tomboy in my younger days) and applying make-up seemed like way too much trouble, but suddenly I have an incentive. I was so encouraged by my foray into clay sculpture that I've decided that I can treat myself as an art project. When I'm painting on concealer, I feel like I'm making an oil painting. Applying eyeline requires some skill, but I'm working on mastering it.
I can tell how well I’m feeling by whether or not I’m wearing 1) the wig, 2) make-up, and 3) the prosthetic. If I can’t be bothered with any of them, it’s probably just after chemo and I don’t care how I look. As I feel better, I bother to put on my wig when I go out. If I’m feeling good, I put on make-up. Or the prosthetic. When I’ve got all three, I’m feeling really good. However, the prosthetic has been a bit painful lately. I think some nerves are waking up in the area of the mastectomy, so I haven’t been keen to wear it.
I’ve learned a lot about diet. When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, my naturopath told me not to eat sugar, wheat, dairy, meat, or drink alcohol. I was pretty good about following her instructions, although I’m “bad” sometimes. I’ll have a bite of someone else’s dessert instead of having a whole serving to myself. I have bread and a small glass of wine on Fridays for Shabbat. I still eat chicken, although I’ve cut out red meat. And I’m eating yogurt with two table spoons of ground flax seed added at the behest of my naturopath following the intestinal inflammation. But the one thing I’ve noticed is that I lost close to 20 pounds rather effortlessly and I think it’s mostly from cutting out sugar and wheat. It turns out that fat doesn’t make you fat. Sugar makes you fat. It raises your blood sugar level which gives your body the signal to convert that your food into body fat.
Of course, one should eat good fats as opposed to bad fats. Good fats are coconut oil (even though it’s saturated, it’s a good fat), olive oil, grapeseed oil, and fish oil. Bad fats are vegetable and seed oils (i.e. corn oil, soy oil, canola oil (yes, even though it’s a monosaturate), safflower oil, etc.) And of course, avoid all transfats (hydrolyzed oils) found in commercial baked goods and processed foods. Even butter, long vilified, is not so terrible, at least compared to hydrolyzed oils such as margarine and Crisco.
I try to eat a lot of vegetables. They provide fiber and vitamins. I prefer to eat them cooked since I’m suspicious of microbes on raw stuff, although I sometimes eat salads. (Once I’m done with chemo I’ll go back to eating more raw foods.) It’s hard to keep fresh vegetables in the house since I don’t shop as often as I like. (I used to be the most energetic food shopper in the house but I don’t have the energy keep the fridge full for the whole family). Therefore I get frozen organic vegetables and cook those for myself at lunch. I eat whole grains, but I limit my portions on those.
I used to exercise a lot, but I ate more sugar than was good for me and I could never lose the weight. Bread and white rice convert to sugar in the body, so I have to avoid them as well. I lost most of this weight before chemo, so chemo wasn’t the cause. And heaven knows, I’m not exercising much now, just a relatively short walk every day. Giving up sugar isn’t so hard, especially with the knowledge that cancer cells really like to feed off of sugar. I use stevia in my tea to sweeten it, and eat fruit (like a banana in my yogurt) when I want a sweeter treat. It works pretty well. I never feel deprived these days and my weight is staying steady with a BMI (slightly) below 23.
I can tell how well I’m feeling by whether or not I’m wearing 1) the wig, 2) make-up, and 3) the prosthetic. If I can’t be bothered with any of them, it’s probably just after chemo and I don’t care how I look. As I feel better, I bother to put on my wig when I go out. If I’m feeling good, I put on make-up. Or the prosthetic. When I’ve got all three, I’m feeling really good. However, the prosthetic has been a bit painful lately. I think some nerves are waking up in the area of the mastectomy, so I haven’t been keen to wear it.
I’ve learned a lot about diet. When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer, my naturopath told me not to eat sugar, wheat, dairy, meat, or drink alcohol. I was pretty good about following her instructions, although I’m “bad” sometimes. I’ll have a bite of someone else’s dessert instead of having a whole serving to myself. I have bread and a small glass of wine on Fridays for Shabbat. I still eat chicken, although I’ve cut out red meat. And I’m eating yogurt with two table spoons of ground flax seed added at the behest of my naturopath following the intestinal inflammation. But the one thing I’ve noticed is that I lost close to 20 pounds rather effortlessly and I think it’s mostly from cutting out sugar and wheat. It turns out that fat doesn’t make you fat. Sugar makes you fat. It raises your blood sugar level which gives your body the signal to convert that your food into body fat.
Of course, one should eat good fats as opposed to bad fats. Good fats are coconut oil (even though it’s saturated, it’s a good fat), olive oil, grapeseed oil, and fish oil. Bad fats are vegetable and seed oils (i.e. corn oil, soy oil, canola oil (yes, even though it’s a monosaturate), safflower oil, etc.) And of course, avoid all transfats (hydrolyzed oils) found in commercial baked goods and processed foods. Even butter, long vilified, is not so terrible, at least compared to hydrolyzed oils such as margarine and Crisco.
I try to eat a lot of vegetables. They provide fiber and vitamins. I prefer to eat them cooked since I’m suspicious of microbes on raw stuff, although I sometimes eat salads. (Once I’m done with chemo I’ll go back to eating more raw foods.) It’s hard to keep fresh vegetables in the house since I don’t shop as often as I like. (I used to be the most energetic food shopper in the house but I don’t have the energy keep the fridge full for the whole family). Therefore I get frozen organic vegetables and cook those for myself at lunch. I eat whole grains, but I limit my portions on those.
I used to exercise a lot, but I ate more sugar than was good for me and I could never lose the weight. Bread and white rice convert to sugar in the body, so I have to avoid them as well. I lost most of this weight before chemo, so chemo wasn’t the cause. And heaven knows, I’m not exercising much now, just a relatively short walk every day. Giving up sugar isn’t so hard, especially with the knowledge that cancer cells really like to feed off of sugar. I use stevia in my tea to sweeten it, and eat fruit (like a banana in my yogurt) when I want a sweeter treat. It works pretty well. I never feel deprived these days and my weight is staying steady with a BMI (slightly) below 23.
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