My Evening Routine Often Includes Tears

Tonight’s cry is brought to you by castor oil. Yes, you read that right. A tube of organic castor oil.

I belong to a couple of breast cancer forums and have learned that many women report applying castor oil to their eyelashes and brows at night to help support regrowth.

Mine are definitely thinning out so I thought, what the hell. I bought some and decided to incorporate into my evening self-care routine.

More current routine looks something like this:

Take evening nightcap of an antihistamine to help with sleep.

Take a gummy if needed.

For the love of my bowels, I take an Imodium if I don’t wish to have a spectacular July 4 celebration, triggered by the first sip of coffee. And the rocket’s red glare….

I tell my Buddha belly that it’s beautiful but assure my body I will rid myself of the extra 14 pounds I’ve gained during treatment. But secretly, I harbor a fierce dislike for my new body profile.

Then I massage scars with Bio oil. Little circles, strokes, maybe a little cupping. Spots of the 18” or so of scar are widening so I am on active keloid patrol and prevention.

Whisper sweet nothings to my scars. Yeah. I know it’s weird. But after years of speaking smack to my body, I decided I needed to change this behavior. So, yeah, I talk to my scars. I send them love and let them know they don’t need to go into hyper-growth. The trauma is over and we can heal now.

Sometimes I apply silicone tape to my various scars. It can help soften scars and prevent keloids. By the time I finished doing that, I look like a postal package. I wonder how much it would cost book rate to mail myself to Hawaii?

I apply a little oil to Rafaela (my port) and thank her for her service and for taking the hits with the chemo infusions. She’s sparing my veins from burning up. But also remind her she is not a long-term tenant.

I carefully brush my hair, per protocol from Paxman, the cooling cap I use. Twice a day brushing, they say. Be extra gentle with those follicles!

I assess how many strands I pull out and remind myself that every day we lose a couple hundred hairs. (If I want to amuse (or horrify) folks, all I have to do is run a hand through my hair and go, LOOKY!)

I breathe. More self-talk. I am cancer-free. I am healing. Thank you, body for housing me all these years.

My evening routine is nearly finished.

Oh wait. I’m going to try the castor oil bit.

It’s in a tube; one end has a brush for the eyelashes, the other, an eyeliner applicator.

I’m relieved it doesn’t smell like a basement lutefisk church dinner.

It says to apply like eyeliner first. So far. So good.

Now the brush applicator. First the right eye. Easy sqeasy.

Now the left. (This is the eye that also has a chemo induced twitch, btw.) Uh. Wait. Where does this stuff go? My lower eyelid is a blank canvas. There are a few little downy hairs and I swear they whispered, “look what you’ve done to us!” The eyelashes have left the building. Maybe they will show up with an Elvis sighting. I don’t know.

In a second, all my positive affirmations fly out the window.

I’m standing there, held together by tape, wisps of hair wafting down to my shoulder and oh, bloody hell. What is that smell? (Yes, I tell myself; I DID take my Imodium.)

I am trying to apply castor oil to my twitching eye and there are no fucking eyelashes on which to apply. I look like Odo from Star Trek.

My eyes are blurring. It’s not because I got castor oil in my eye. I emerge from the bathroom. My partner, Tom, sets down his book and wordlessly hands me a tissue. He embraces me.

I have reached the tipping point for today.

It is 7:00pm. It is time to make my world small and watch something fluffy on Netflix. Tonight, I chose Burn Notice.

I pretend I’m Fiona. Svelte, confident, can walk in heels without falling over, can eat yogurt without dribbling it down her chest, and oh, yeah. She has eyelashes too.

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