B is for busier

I fear that I'm turning into my dad by saying that I have had a 'busy' day when I've actually only had one appointment! Dad includes every single step of his routine in his 'workload', so even before he's got downstairs he has clocked up quite a number of activities on his 'busy' scale. I'm not at that stage yet, but if I have three appointments, I now count that as quite a busy day!

So Monday was a busy day... I went to a workshop called "Look Good, Feel Better" which was organised by, and held in the hospital. It was basically a 2-hour session giving tips on hair (i.e wig management!) and make-up, all focused on cancer patients. I hadn't thought too much about it really except that it might be nice to go to (my schedule isn't that full!), it was free and you get some free samples... yes, I have been in the Netherlands for a long time; the Dutch hardly ever pass up the opportunity of a freebie. I wasn't really sure what special make-up advice there would be for cancer patients... how different can it be than for 'normal' people? Well, it's all to do with chemo treatment; among the many side-effects is getting really dry and sensitive skin, another, less common one, but one I have been lucky enough to experience, is pigmentation. I already had some problems with this from the sun, but now it has increased and spread so I'm even more paranoid in the sun and am rigorously slathering my face in sunscreen, even on these dark days. Yesterday I went for a walk in the park and it was a beautiful, sunny day and I was so generous with the sun cream that you would have thought I was going on the slopes, my face was almost white... think that might be a tad too much, but better safe than sorry! Anyway, back to the workshop, so pigmentation can be a problem, but the most common, and obvious one is hair loss, which also affects eyebrows and eyelashes. Because of that there was quite a bit of focus on creating eyebrows where there are none, and encouraging eyelashes to grow back, or again, creating the effect of eyelashes when you have very few or none at all. Quite clever really.

There were about 15 women, and we all sat around a long table, like in a conference/meeting room, each with a mirror and collection of skin and make-up products in front of us, and we were taken through a 12-step plan (did you know there were so many involved in putting on make-up?!). The woman leading the workshop was lovely, quite heavily made-up which was slightly concerning, especially when she came at me with an eyeliner pencil... I'm rubbish at putting eyeliner on, which is why I don't really do it, but her attempt even rivalled mine on the 'wobbliness' scale! I had to remove some with a cotton bud before leaving the room, it was that bad. Well, in general it was good, we all had different products, which had been donated by the different brands and they weren't cheapy rubbish brands either; I got some Clarins, Clinique, Roc and Lancaster stuff and other people had Chanel. There were a couple of Rimmel and Dove or Hema products as well, but I was very impressed by the fact that everything was just provided for free.

The most surprising thing which also gave me a boost (in a weird way, because it is completely random) is that I was the only one in the room with my own hair. When we started the workshop, everyone was offered a hairnet to keep hair out of your face for cleansing etc. and I was the only one who took it because everyone else just took their wigs off! It was so interesting to see a room full of people at various stages of baldness, and all without a hint of embarrassment or uncertainty, fantastic actually. Well, maybe they felt slightly embarrassed or self-conscious but it didn't show. So now I'm wondering whether to feel happy or have a sense of trepidation: when I start on the different type of chemo will I swap the horrendous tiredness and sickness for hair loss? What a trade-off!

The rest of my day was taken up with a lesson, a social visit from the lovely Marieke and some more translation work. So, actually that was quite a busy day.

Today, in contrast, I only have two appointments: going to my first gym sesssion in the hospital with the phsyio. Need to dig out my gym clothes! After that Di is popping in for a cuppa and the rest of the day is unplanned. Should do some work on my book and more translations.

Brrr, just looking outside and it's another tights under trousers, vest under jumper kind of day. I know in some parts of the country people are unnaturally excited at this weather because they are holding the first skating contest on natural ice but quite frankly, they are mental and have some problems that need working through. It may be a day to enjoy seeing your surroundings blanketed in white, drink hot chocolate or mulled wine, have soup... but you can do all of that from inside.