Help Me Miss Clairol

Last night I got all up in my magnifying mirror to pluck some eyebrows and wax some upper lip hair. WELL let me tell you how horribly awful that experience was. The latest shingles outbreak I have been battling showed up in such a lovely place, my chin. So there is a dry, flaky, red rash covering it. I have tons of tiny blemishes from hormones or eating sugar or I don't know what competing with my freckles for facial space. Those sweet age spots are enlarging, crows feet deepening, oh it was not a pretty sight. But as I shook my head in dismay and critiqued myself in high definition the piece de resistance revealed itself...I have blackheads on my nose! Now clogged poors I am used to, but not something as dark and obvious as...a blackhead.

I got pissed. This is not life threatening, causing me pain or shortening my life. But it still sucks. And still represents another aspect of how Fibro infiltrates every part of your life. When I was working I had the money to go get a facial. Now I don't. So feeling old and unattractive, this morning I got up, dyed my increasingly graying roots blonde and painted my cracked and chipped toenails. The repetitive motion of applying the dye to my hair exacerbated the pinched nerve in my neck that causes immeasurable shoulder, arm and hand pain and near paralysis. Painting my toenails was nowhere near better. Keeping my hand forcefully gripped to roll my foot evenly in front of me was agony on my hands and hips alike. But I got them done. At this point it was exacerbating my pain quite profoundly, though.

So here I sit with pretty pink toenails, blonde growing out of my head with a face void of unwanted hair. In far too much pain to actually get dressed, put on makeup and go anywhere. But I am not going to stop caring about my appearance. Not now, not ever. It is who I am. I sold face cream and did makeup for nine years. I wore makeup in high-school (as poorly applied as it was), dyed my hair everything from platinum to fuchsia to black. When I was a little girl I used to play with my mother's makeup and fancy gowns. Big circles of red cream rouge drawn on my cheeks by a child arm stacked with glittery bangles. For goodness sakes my 95 year-old grandma still wears makeup and paints her toenails! It's damn near programmed into my DNA. I have given up so much for Fibro. It's depressing when what the "me before I got sick" could do before she went and worked a nine hour shift takes all day and causes so much pain. But what I really should be doing is pacing. A little bit each day. Hey I have managed to have a clean bathroom for two weeks that way!

Thanks for joining,
Leah