Dame Edna and I have a lot in common these days. I am a drag queen, because post-chemo my tuchus is dragging but like Dame Edna, I'm owning it! I mean, if I'm going to be one sorry sluggish sloth, I will do it it style. My style, but style nonetheless. I will wear a comfy pair of leggings with a periwinkle t-shirt that reads, "LSE Mum" and a pink hoodie from Wabash College and pink socks that read "Cancer Sucks" - with my absolutely most fab glasses and pink lipgloss. This poster child for chemo is rocking her runway! You'll just have to take my word for it, because there is no way I'm going to post a pic; mostly because it would require a level of energy that is lacking and the pic itself might just shatter the illusion I have that I'm looking great!
I saw a commercial recently for Walgreens whose message was to battle beautifully. Women, all with cancer, are shown getting beauty advice or makeovers. I applaud and am at the same time appalled by that message. I applaud the women who had the energy and desire to go out in the world seeking whatever it takes to make them feel beautiful. It's not an easy thing to do when so much of what is deemed to make women beautiful is often robbed from them as they go through treatment; their hair, including eyelashes and eyebrows: healthy skin becomes dry as do their lips: weight is lost and energy is depleted.
I applaud all courageous warriors and their efforts to maintain self-esteem, however they choose to do it. But I am appalled that we feel the need, in the midst of the battle for our lives, to check our outward appearances based on societal views of beauty. Myself included. I find myself not wanting to appear as tired as I feel, which then requires, post-chemo, more energy than I have to work on my appearance. When it's much easier the four-days after chemo to just stay home, rest up and rock my runway in comfy clothes.
I am battling this cancer with all that I've got. I may be laying down for a large part of this battle but I'm fighting. And signs are good that this horizontal fight is working because the tumor has shrunk dramatically (I can hardly detect it!).
I start the next round of chemo in two weeks and it is the 'easier' of the cocktails. Administered weekly for 12 weeks, I will be done in mid-June, with a month to get ready for the main event of 2019 - the wedding of Michael Patrick and Carmen Amanda.
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