God Bless Sephora!

I did something Wednesday afternoon that I have never done before. I set aside my intimidation and walked into the Sephora cosmetics store in Fashion Valley. I know most of you girls love this place, but I never got into the whole make-up thing. A little mascara, a little lip gloss and I'm out the door. Guys - Sephora is kind of like Best Buy for cosmetics. There are so many tubes, bottles, powders and potions that it will make your head spin!

My eyebrows and eye lashes have started falling out. It's slight, but becoming noticeable. With this current round of chemotherapy plus one more there is a chance that the loss will be significant by mid-October. The bummer is that I will be done with the chemo by then - so right when I'm feeling good and recovering from 4 1/2 months of hell is when I will look the sickest. So, I decided it was time to go to the pros and ask for help.

I'm not sure why I was afraid of this place. This was a really fun experience! I got to sit in the special make-up application chair with my own mirror and make-up artist. I had decided before I got there that there was no way I was buying and applying fake eye lashes. I don't have the patience or desire to glue something to my eye lids. So my search was for products to fill in my thinning eyebrows and highlight my eyes without lashes/mascara.

Who new there were so many easy solutions?! (I sound like a kid in a candy shop, don't I?) For eyebrows I tried a pen that you use to draw in fine hairs. It did the trick, but the color wasn't exactly right. I settled on wax and powder. You apply a thin coast of wax from a wax pencil over the brow and then eyebrow powder with a small make-up brush. The powder sticks to the wax and voila! the brows appear full.

For my eyes, the make-up artist suggested I use my daily mascara sparingly only on special occasions. This is because the more I handle them during application and rub them to remove the make-up the higher the chances I'm pulling them out and causing even more damage. Makes sense - but breaking a 20 year habit won't be easy! We tried a few eyeliner colors and she showed me the correct way to line my eyes. When I left there I had a bag full of goodies and a lot less cash. But, now I feel like when I walk down the street at least you'll all be staring at my eyes and not my foob! I'd still rather spend the money on Chargers apparel, but removing the worry of looking sick from missing eyebrows was well worth it.

Round 5

The best thing about being in this chair hooked up the IV for the next 6 hours is that 3 weeks from now will be my last chemo session! This is round 5 of 6. Easy! I haven't posted anything new since the last round even though I promised I would... you missed another fever but everything else was easy. The weekend after round 4 was uneventful. I was tired, but not as nauseous as I usually am. But on Saturday night of Labor Day weekend I felt like hell and had a fever of 101.5. Anything over 100.5 means a call to the doctor and a trip to the emergency room. I tried to sleep it off, but the fever was still there on Sunday morning, so I called the doctor. Since I was feeling ok except for the fever she had me go to the infusion center for some blood labs to see what was going on. My white blood count was really low so she prescribed some antibiotics. I was able to convince her that I would report if the fever went any higher or if I had any pain. She sent me home with my antibiotics and the fever broke the next day. Other than that, everything else was business as usual.

I woke up yesterday morning and heard the kids chatting. Ryan asked Jake where I was. Jake replied that I was still sleeping and that they should let me sleep because I would be getting my bad medicine tomorrow and it makes me sleepy. I was very touched to hear Jake taking care of me, but also sad that my kids are worrying about me. It just motivated me to be even stronger so that I can be a great mom despite my energy level or how I'm feeling.

Unfortunately there's no new foob news. I know some of you tune in just for that. And other than the complete destruction of my Chargers on Monday night, everything is good. Thank you to everyone for all of your support!