What does a cancer patient look like?

I know I have been the absolute worst blogger ever.  I apologize.  Today, though, I have something to say.  A friend of mine, who I met through work, has Follicular Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  She has recently been called a liar about the fact that she has cancer and actually took the person who called her a liar to her doctor's appointment to prove that she was telling the truth.

That's nonsense.

Why does this topic irritate me so much?  Because I was also called a liar.  So many times.  Not by anyone I ever met in person but by people who could hide behind their computers and call me names.  Because of this infamous picture (well, it feels infamous to me because it just pops up again and again haha).

So, in case you don't already know my story, I was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer at 26.  No family history, no lynch syndrome, no real reason that I can figure out that I could have colon cancer.  Stage IV.  I googled survival rates and do you know what they told me?  That, statistically, I had a 6% chance of being alive in 5 years.  I'm sure if you heard that news you can imagine how that would make someone feel.  

So what did I have to do treatment-wise?  I had a left hemicolectomy where they removed the tumor from my colon, along with a foot of my colon, and the about 17 lymph nodes, 11 of which came back as cancerous.

I also started an intense chemotherapy regimen of 12 rounds of Oxaliplatin, leucovorin, 5FU, and Avastin.  I went every other week for my infusions and had to wear a pump home (which stayed attached to my port) to infuse one of the medicines into my body over 46 hours.  Here's a picture of me attached to my pump (they had given me a fanny pack to wear it in but that wasn't happening, I bought this bag from Target and it fit the pump in it perfectly). 

I also had a liver resection, which included removing 60% of my liver.

I thought I was done with chemo when I took the infamous picture.  My oncologist changed his mind and decided to then have me to 11 rounds of Xeloda (the chemo pill) and Avastin (which I had to have infused through my port).

I had a few hiccups and hospitalizations (and an emergency surgery) along the way but this is the shortened version of my story, which took place over about 17 months.

I went through what felt like a lot.  My body's internal strength was tested to the extreme.  But what did I look like when I was going through this?  Allow me to show you.  These are all pictures taken while I was on my intense chemo regimen.

I look like a normal girl, right?  I am normal girl.  I just happen to have had cancer.  Do I look like what you picture when you imagine someone with stage IV cancer going through active treatment?  Probably not.

Guess what?  Cancer doesn't always look the same.  

You do not always lose your hair.  Let me repeat, you do not always lose your hair.  Yes it happens a lot, but not all of the time!  My hair thinned out but I did not lose it all.  

You do not always get emaciated.  Again, yes, this does happen, but not always.  In fact, a lot of people actually gain weight on chemo because of the steroids they give you.

There is no rule that says you cannot wear makeup or jewelry.  A huge reason people decided I was not telling the truth is because I wore makeup and jewelry to chemo.  My oncologist never told me that was against the rules and I have yet to see a study how makeup and jewelry can interfere with how well chemo works.

You can wear your own clothes to chemo if you go to an outpatient cancer center like I did.  I was not admitted to a hospital to have my chemo given to me.  I'd show up, they'd do my infusion, I'd leave that same day and come back a couple days later to have my pump unhooked.  

You can still try to live your life normally.  Cancer can be very overwhelming and can easily consume your life.  If you try to keep things normal and do things you would do even if you didn't have cancer, it makes you feel more normal, despite everything else going on.  There are definitely days when you don't feel well but trying to live like a normal person makes things a little better.

So why do I feel the need to write this all out?  Because it drives me mad that people, who have no idea what it's like to have cancer, feel like they can call people, who are fighting for their lives, liars because we don't look "sick enough."  Why do I have to look "sick" for you to believe me?  First, what does sick look like?  And why is it that me looking sick would make you feel more comfortable?  Does it make you uncomfortable because if a normal looking girl can get cancer, that means that you could too?  You could.  Anyone can get cancer.  It does not care how old, young, strong, healthy, you are.  You could be a vegan marathon runner and somehow still end up with cancer.  Anyone could have or get cancer.  

And before you go calling people liars, how about you educate yourself and find out the truth.  Put yourself in our shoes.  We have fought, with everything our bodies have, to live and you're looking at us saying, "no you didn't."  Based on what?  The fact I still have hair?

I am currently cancer-free, by the way.  This is me holding my latest scan results (wearing my awesome shirt from Stupid Cancer)!! 

I am appreciative that God gave me this challenge in my life because it has made me so aware of how misinformed people are about cancer and cancer patients.  I'm doing what I can to change that.  

September Cancer Awareness!

Ok, so I had this brilliant idea to try to, each month, raise awareness for the cancers whose awareness month it is by doing makeup inspired by their ribbon colors.  I picked a difficult month to start this idea haha.  September has eight cancers whose awareness month it is.  That's crazy.  So I decided to do this on my blog facebook page (click here to check it out!) and ask you guys to also contribute.  I mean, I can't spread awareness all alone!!

So September is ovarian cancer, prostate cancer, thyroid cancer, leukemia, lymphoma, multiple myeloma, gynecological cancer, and childhood cancer awareness month.  So here are the looks:

Childhood cancer (gold):  This is so important to me because I wouldn't wish cancer on my worst enemy, let alone and innocent child.  If anyone in this world deserves cancer the least, it is a child.  We lose so many children each year to this horrible, horrible disease.  

Multiple Myeloma (burgundy): This cancer is important to me because it's what my grandmother died from.  It's a crazy cancer that attacks the plasma cells of blood and shows itself in really weird ways.  It affects kidneys and bones and other ways I'll never understand.

Leukemia (orange):  Leukemia is a cancer of the blood.  I have known quite a few people who have had leukemia.  This affects people of all ages.  My Uncle Brian had leukemia, he got an infection from having his immune system so suppressed from chemotherapy and that took his life.

Lymphoma (lime):  Lymphoma is a cancer that starts in the cells of your immune system, called lymphocytes.  My husband's coworker had a swollen lymphnode on his neck.  After some convincing, he went to the doctor about it, the doctor said it was an infection and gave him an antibiotic.  When the lump hadn't gone away, my husband convinced him he needed to get it looked at again (this was shortly after I was diagnosed).  So he did.  It was Hodgkin's lymphoma.  Luckily it was caught early and he's ok after chemotherapy and radiation.

Prostate Cancer (light blue):  Researching a little bit, I found out that prostate cancer is diagnosed in 80% of men who reach age 80.  That's insane!  It is the second leading cancer-related death in men in the United States.

Ovarian Cancer (teal):  There is no good screening for ovarian cancer, no preventative screening.  Women need to pay attention to their bodies and listen to any symptoms they may be showing.  Some possible symptoms include pelvic discomfort or pain, loss of appetite or feeling full quickly, changes in bowel or bladder habits, low back pain, etc.

Gynecological Cancer (peach):  This includes ovarian, uterine, cervical, vaginal, and vulvar cancers.  Women really need to be as proactive in screening for these as they are in screening for breast cancer.  These cancers are serious and they affect so many women each year!  Go for your pap-smear (I know, they suck!) every year because you owe it to yourself to make sure everything is good!

Thyroid cancer (teal, blue, and pink):  I have read that thyroid cancer doesn't always have symptoms so it can be really hard to find and diagnose.  Thyroid cancer starts with a thyroid nodule, most aren't cancerous, but they could be.  If you feel a lump in your neck, a swollen lymphnode, if you have a hoarse voice, difficulty swallowing or breathing, you should get it checked out.  There's no need to play around with something like that!

There is a lot of information out there about all of these cancers.  I have said it about a million times, but I will say it again.  If something is wrong in your body and you know it, go get it checked out.  Too often we put things off because "it'll get better" (I'm completely guilty of this).  Your life isn't worth risking!!

I did these looks to celebrate everyone who has been touched by any of these diseases and their loved ones.  I think all cancers are important and people need to learn about them!

A post with a little bit of everything

So today I guess I have a lot to say haha.  Now since this is supposed to be a beauty blog, I guess I will start off with the makeup portion.

I have been doing so much better wearing color.  I'm proud of myself for getting back into it a little bit more. Still nothing crazy but I've definitely been playing more.  This is just a basic green look that I did.

What I used:

Too Faced Shadow Insurance

All eyeshadows by Makeup Geek:

"Poison Ivy" all over lid

"Shimmermint" on inner 2/3 of lid

"Envy" on outer 1/3 and outer v area

"Corrupt" to darken outer v

"Latte" to blend up 

"Bling" as highlight color

I liked this look.  I thought it was pretty and wearable but still had a little punch of color.

Now I don't think I ever told you guys that in January I had a CT scan done.  It's always so nerve-wracking to have one done.  The last thing you want to hear is that they found something.  As much as I felt they weren't going to find anything, especially since I had just finished my IV chemo, you just never know.  So I met with my liver surgeon to go over the results and he came back and said everything is good.  My CT scan review read, "no evidence of metastatic disease."  I was thrilled.  And then he told me that I could continue doing my follow-up scans closer to home if I wanted to and that I could forget he ever existed.  I told him that it is impossible for me to forget he existed one, because he helped save my life, and two because I have some nice scars from him on my belly.  

I'm really self-conscious to do this, but I'm going to show you my tummy so you can see what I mean when I say I can never forget him haha. So here it is:

The top scar is from my liver surgery.  As you can see, it's a pretty decent sized scar.  It goes up a little more than what you can see.  The lower scar is from my left hemicolectomy and that goes down a little farther than my pants line.  And then the random other little scars are either from my laproscopic surgery for my bowel obstruction or they're from drains from the more major surgeries.  I'm lucky that apparently I'm a good healer.  My scars have faded a lot.  The lower scar is a little over a year old and it's really not terribly visible.

I am not embarrassed of my scars or of anything I've gone through.  I'm just not a belly show-er haha.  

Now, on the day I got my CT scan results back, I was so happy.  Until I went on facebook to post about it. There I saw that my husband's cousin had lost a friend to cervical cancer that same day.  It is unbelievably difficult to be happy for yourself when someone else just lost their fight.  And this is something I'm really really struggling with.  I'm so so grateful for being cancer-free but I cannot understand why I am and other people aren't.  Why did I respond so well to chemo and other people don't?  I mean, yeah, I fought, but they fought just as hard as I did.  Yeah, my family needs me but their families need them too.  I almost feel guilty for being healthy when other people who have been through the same thing I have aren't responding the same way I did.

But I am doing everything in my own personal power to make sure my cancer doesn't come back.  As I said in my last post, I've changed the way I eat and have started juicing and drinking a lot of green smoothies.  So I thought I'd share one of my favorite juice recipes with you!  I'm telling you, it's soooo yummy.

What it calls for:

4 oranges, peeled

1 medium sweet potato (you can peel it if you want, but I leave the skin on for the nutrients)

3 stalks of celery

a chunk of ginger

Juice them all up and here's what you get!

Why is this juice good for you?

Oranges support your immune system, combat cancer, protect your heart, and support respiration.  Sweet potatoes protect your eyesight (better than carrots, even), combat cancer, lift your mood, and strengthen your bones.  Celery fights cancer, lowers cholesterol, aids digestion, alkalizes the blood, lowers blood pressure.  And ginger fights nausea, maintains normal blood circulation, strengthens immunity.  All of these ingredients do so much more than what I've listed.

And the main difference between juicing and smoothies is that with juicing, you remove all of the fiber.  There are debates all of the time about what's actually best for you.  I do both so there's no debate for me haha.  Juicing helps you to directly absorb the macro-nutrients in whatever you've juiced since your body doesn't have to break it down.  This is great for people who have digestive issues.  One of the benefits of smoothies is the fact that it does have the fiber and it slows the rate at which you absorb the sugars and your blood sugar won't spike like it could with a juice.

One of my followers, Sylvia, suggested I read "Eat to Live" and I fully intend on doing that!  Any other recommendations are more than welcome!  I really feel blessed that I've had support in learning what foods can do for me.  One of my friends actually got her certification in holistic nutrition and she has been incredibly helpful to me.  I'm always asking her questions haha.  I've just been so frustrated with the fact that I specifically have asked all of my doctors and the dietitian at the cancer center if there were foods that could help and they all told me no, that nothing had been proven.  I've learned differently.  I was not looking to substitute the chemo, I just wanted something in addition to the chemo to help my odds.

I want to thank you all for being so amazing to me throughout everything I've been through.  Your support has meant more to me than I could ever explain to you!  Thank you all so much!  I hope you're having a great week!

Happy New Year! A fun look and a personal update

I figure I'll start this post off with the look in case you're not interested in the personal stuff.  I actually did this look like a month ago and just never got around to posting it.  I did post these pictures already on facebook so I'm sorry if you've seen them already.  I wanted to do a cut crease look with glitter because I hadn't used glitter in like a million years.  So here's the look

What I used:

All Makeup Geek (MUG) eyeshadows:

Lid: Bleached Blonde

From crease line up to brow bone: 

Bada Bing 

Mocha

Brown Sugar

Cocoa Bear

Goddess

Bleached Blonde

Bling

Then I topped the lid color with NYX glitter liner in Gold.

Eyeliner: MUG gel liner "Immortal" topped with MUG eyeshadow "Corrupt"

Mascara: L'oreal Voluminous Carbon Black

Then I used a Makeup Geek Lipstick too in the color "Darling"

I thought it was a fun look, it was really dramatic and I hadn't done anything so dramatic in quite a while so it was a bit of an overload haha.

So now onto the personal stuff.  

I am officially done with chemo IV treatments!!!  The more days that go by of me being done, the more excited I get.  Because I was going every 2 weeks for treatment so when I'd start feeling good again, it was almost time for my next treatment.  But now I'm starting to feel good again and I don't have to dread going for my next treatment because I don't have any more!!  I did find out that my oncologist wants me to take a chemo pill for 6 months though.  The chemo pill is not supposed to be as intense as the IV treatments but there are still a bunch of side effects that could make me feel like poo.  I also could still lose my hair.

If you follow me on facebook, you may have seen that I posted this picture of myself at my final chemo treatment

I posted that on my blog page mainly to let you guys know what was going on because I've been a terrible blogger and haven't updated my blog in a very long time.  I also didn't want to keep changing information on you because my treatments kept getting pushed back.  I didn't want to tell you I'd be done for Thanksgiving and then come back a week later with a "just kidding!"  But anyways, somehow this picture got shared out of control.  As of now it has over 255,000 likes and 3,471 comments.  Completely out of control.  I didn't even know that could happen.  I wasn't trying to let random people know I'm done with chemo, I was trying to let you guys know.

What I learned from this picture being shared so much and with so many comments is that there are some really really incredible people out there who really just want the best for someone they don't even know.  I got so many comments saying, "God bless you" and "Congratulations" and amazing comments like that.  I also learned that people can be incredibly cruel.  While the good comments far outweighed the bad, I got sooo many comments telling me that I should be ashamed of myself for posting this picture because it's fake. There's no way I went through chemo because I still have my hair.  I look "too healthy" to have gone through chemo.  I have makeup on so the picture is fake.  I have jewelry on so the picture is fake.  I had people calling me names.  Some people said the only reason anyone cares is because I'm a, "pretty white girl."  Which is complete nonsense!

My integrity was being called into question, it really hurt my feelings, and I really felt like I wanted to defend myself to every mean comment I saw.  I realize that I don't have to.  But who in the world would make up that they have cancer?  Why would I go to a hospital and be like, "can I sit in your chair and take this picture with my fake sign please?  Oh yeah, can I have a blanket and hospital bracelet too while we're at it?"  It makes no sense.  And I feel like if people educated themselves a little bit they would realize that not all chemotherapy drugs are the same.  They don't all make you lose your hair.  I responded well to chemo.  I'm very lucky and I realize that.  

But people were saying, "nobody looks that good at chemo."  Well you know what?  I was feeling good the morning of chemo so I got up, showered, did my hair and makeup because that's what I do.  I don't go in public without at least some makeup.  I'm sure as heck not going to let my husband take my picture if I don't have makeup on, let alone post it on facebook.  If I had my husband take my picture the next day, you would see a completely different girl.  I would look tired.  I wouldn't have makeup on.  My hair wouldn't be done because that's what chemo does to people.  I have enough time in between my treatments where I get back to feeling like myself again so the mornings of my chemo treatments I feel fine.  It's the next 5-6 days where I feel like crap.

I just needed to get that out haha.  Thank you for listening to my little rant haha.  I appreciate every kind comment so much.  I couldn't understand why these people who have never heard of me or seen any of my makeup before this would care so much and their kindness blew me away.

I feel so lucky and blessed that I get to start 2013 being cancer free with no IV treatments left!  I feel blessed that I get to see 2013 at all because things could have been very different.  I'm going to ask you, as a personal favor, if you ever see a picture floating around facebook and you might think it's fake, please don't make nasty comments because you never know what someone is actually going through.

I wish you all the best in 2013.  I'm so excited to see what it has in store!!

Thank you all for being the best followers ever!!

Bright blues and purple using BFTE

It had been a while since I'd worn any real color on my eyes, I honestly just haven't felt like putting the effort in.  Lame, I know.  So I decided I wanted to do something colorful.  When I do looks, I like to use exclusively one brand of eyeshadow (unless there's a specific look I'm going for or if I really need another color) so if you want to copy it you don't have to go all over the world to do so.  So for this look I reached for the sampler set I have from Beauty From the Earth (or BFTE) Cosmetics.  So here's the look I came up with (you've already seen it if you follow my facebook page, I did this look like a week ago)!

The colors I used (all from BFTE) were:

Lid: "Blue Bayou"

Crease: "Blue Bird"

Purple part of crease: "Midnight Kisses"

Purple above crease: "Kastra"

Highlight: "Beautiful"

Liner: Avon Glimmersticks Liqui-glide eyeliner "Black"

Mascara: L'oreal Voluminous Power Volume 24H

And this has nothing to do with makeup but recently I did a 5k to help raise awareness for colon cancer.  I really want people to know that it can happen to young people too (though that wasn't really addressed, they said, "If you love someone over 50, make sure they get screened").  So I have some pictures that my family, who are completely amazing and drove down from New York to do this with me, took so I thought I'd share them with you!

It was called the Undy 5000 where they encourage people to run in their undies to help raise awareness but I'm not really an undies-showing kinda chick so that was a negative for me haha.  I wore leggings under the boxers they gave me haha.

This is the photo of my whole team.  My team came in 2nd place for fundraising, we made $2,248!  The first place team had 66 members so it doesn't surprise me that they won, we only had 9 members signed up to fundraise so I say we kicked butt!

The shirts my family had made up

My adorable niece's shirt

Me, my sister (to the left), and my cousin

Most of the rest of my team

Me at the one mile marker!

Crossing the finish line arm-in-arm!

Me and my hubby!

With the other 19 survivors, I got really emotional and had a hard time not crying.  Who looks out of place haha?  They kept looking at me like wondering why I was standing up there, I think they thought I was just confused haha.

Me and my dad with my "survivor" medal.

It was really fun.  I didn't realize I'd have a good time walking 3.1 miles just to do it but I really had a good time.  And we raised so much money, I'm so proud!  My time wasn't very good but I finished in under an hour so I guess that's not terrible haha.  Good thing I wasn't in it for the race, I was just in it for the experience and to raise some awareness that this happens to young people too!  It is easier to prevent if you're older and get screened regularly but if you're young and something isn't right, get checked out!!  

So that's my lengthy post for the day haha.  I hope you guys are having a great week!  Thank you, as always, for sticking with me through this whole thing.  I promise it'll get better once I'm done with treatments and cancer-free!  Here I am getting treatment number 8!  Four more to go and I'm done (fingers crossed) forever!!

Thanks guys!!!