Resources: Look Good ... Feel Better

"Look Good...Feel Better is a free community service program dedicated to helping Australians cope with chemotherapy side effects, such as hair loss and changes to the skin. Cancer treatment and the ensuing appearance changes can be a very difficult for many of the thousands diagnosed with cancer each year in this country. The purpose of the program is to help them manage these side effects, with the use of skin care, make-up, hats, turbans and wigs, thereby helping to restore their appearance and self image."

My experience with "Look Good...Feel Better" wasn't quite what I had expected... but I don't really know what I expected.

It was the first time I had:

• been in public with my cancer but not talked about it
  
• revealed my bald head outside of my home
• realised that cancer as a young adult was really different to that as a child or post-50

I felt really out of place with the older women around me. I felt strange to be in a room full of women who seemed to have forced joviality. I felt weird to be surrounded by cancer but not talk about it.

In retrospect, it was fabulous. It allowed me to think about having cancer, to acknowledge it, to consider some of the practical aspects, and to have some kind of fun - albeit forced fun - fun nevertheless. You know when you start to laugh, even though something isn't that funny, but if you keep laughing you soon forget what was(n't) funny but you just laugh for the sake of it. Well, the fun we had at LG...FB was a little bit like that.

It was wonderful to be able to be out and doing something other than going to the hospital for medical appointments, and although cancer was the reason why we were in that room together, it wasn't the focus. Cancer was the means; enjoying ourselves with some free beauty products was the ends. (I would NOT say they were justified.)

Now I am volunteer with Look Good ... Feel Better, every fourth Wednesday at the RBWH. I really enjoy spending time with the ladies and demonstrating how to draw on eyebrows and put on make-up to best enhance what we have!

Radiation: Skin Basics

With radiation therapy, I found the key was to moisturise moisturise moisturise ... everywhere!

The products I found most useful were the "Skin Basics" range, which you can buy in most pharmacies and even in some supermarkets.

1. Aqueous Lotion
I used this for washing the sensitive skin during radiation therapy. I started using it long before the skin became thin and red so I could adjust to it. It's not like a normal shower gel or cleanser in that it doesn't foam, so that took some getting used to. But it was lovely and soft on my skin AND I have since found that it is perfect for shaving my legs! I chose the pump bottle because it was easy to use in the shower.

Ingredients:  Purified Water, Paraffin Soft white, Paraffin Liquid, Emulsifying Wax-anionic, Phenoxyethanol.

2. Sorbolene Cream
I used the rich cream as a moisturiser after showering and after treatment. I didn't know how much of my skin was being radiated when treatment started and my advice for anyone would be to moisturise absolutely everywhere near and around the treatment area. I missed a patch and you can see on my photos that it's much redder and more raw than other parts of my skin. I chose the 100% pure cream in a tub. I used it a lot and I didn't want any additional ingredients such as glycerine, aloe vera or vitamin E. (I also used this product prior to radiation to moisturise my hands and feet when I was taking Taxotere.)

Ingredients: Purified Water, Paraffin Light Liquid, Paraffin Soft white, Cetomacrogol 1000, Cetostearyl Alcohol, Propylene Glycol,  Diazolidinyl Urea, Methyl Hydroxybenzoate, Propyl Hydroxybenzoate

3. Zinc and Caster Oil
I wasn't able to use this until after my treatment had finished, but it was a wonderful thick and heavy moisturiser which made my skin feel, although heavy and greasy, nice and cool and healing.

Ingredients: Zinc Oxide 75mg/g.
Also contains Peanut (Arachis) Oil, Castor Oil 500mg/g, Cetostearyl Alcohol, Beeswax White.