Guest post : Reclaiming Beauty From Ashes

Hi everyone, today I've got a guest post sent to me from Jackie Clark who has been kind enough to let me post this beautifully written article dealing with the effects of cancer. Please read:

Reclaiming Beauty From Ashes
By: Jackie Clark

In the 1980s, comedian Billy Crystal created a Saturday Night Live catchphrase with, “You look marvelous, darling.” His popular parody of actor Fernando Lamas celebrated a character that truly believed if you looked good, you felt good. It fit the more superficial mood of the decade, but there is some truth to the idea how you present yourself to the world affects how you feel inside. A boost of self-confidence helps you smile a little easier, stand a little straighter and feel more comfortable in your own skin. For patients undergoing a life or death battle with cancer, this can bring a little bit of normalcy to a time when everything they once knew is turned upside down.

Organizations such as “Look Good, Feel Better” match volunteers with cancer patients for workshops that help these individuals deal with those minor things many take for granted. This is done through the use of makeup therapy, where free cosmetics and instruction on how to wear wigs and accessories help these patients achieve some levity and self-confidence during an uncertain time.
It may sound superficial to worry about such things, but for a person with a serious illness it could provide a welcome respite to reclaim what cancer has attempted to steal. These brave individuals are in the fight of their lives and deserve a moment to feel vibrant, alive and beautiful.

Almost undeniably, cancer dramatically alters the landscape of one’s appearance. Whether through surgery or medication, the loss of how one used to look affects one’s identity. Whether it is losing a breast, or both, to losing an eye or other tissue, it chips away at one’s own self-perception, even if the cancer affects those parts of the body unseen.

Even mesothelioma cancer, which affects primarily the lungs, can change one’s appearance in unexpected ways, ways in which makeup or cosmetics can restore a bit of that old reflection in the mirror. For patients undergoing chemotherapy, the toxic medication administered to kill off cancer cells, this battle affects most notably the hair on their heads. But this also can affect their eyelashes and eyebrows and even their complexion. Like non-cancer patients who use makeup to stall the hands of time, these cosmetics help restore what medication tends to rob at an accelerated pace. The end results are rosier cheeks, fuller eyebrows and lashes, and a renewed sense of identity for the patient.

Moreover it harkens back to a more carefree time when the patient could worry about something as mundane and ordinary as her outer appearance. This in and ofitself helps ease the burden from a patient’s shoulders by finding joy and laughterand beauty in a dark period of her life, and where programs such as “Look Good,Feel Better” thrive among cancer patients.

Every day they wrestle away from disease is reason enough to celebrate the beauty of life, one each and every patient can and should enjoy to the fullest.

This is definitely a difficult subject. I'm sure we all know someone who has suffered from cancer and if you haven't yet, there is a great chance that you will in the future. For me, it was my mother-in-law. It's difficult to see someone you know and love having to deal with the effects and even harder for someone dealing with it themselves. But hopefully this will help any of you out there who are going through this.

Thanks to Jackie for your time spent on writing this for us to read. You can read more at the Mesothelioma Cancer Alliance Blog here: http://www.mesothelioma.com/blog/

xx