Celebrating Valentine's Day During Treamtent: 7 Tried-and-True Make-up Tips for Life

“The key to beauty is learning something new and then applying it to your life.”

Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos/author and cancer survivor

So, you have a hot date for St. Valentine’s Day. Great! Now, how do you face the overwhelming challenge of applying your old makeup techniques to your new treatment-face while in therapy? The beauty strategies you previously used went down the drain with your hair.

Now what?

How do you play up eyes that lack eyelashes for mascara, accentuate the arches of eyebrows which no longer exist, or find that dewy glow your skin lost during your last therapy?  How can you accept a date looking like “death warmed over?” Well, if you are reading this Death did not land, so keep going. Can you look beautiful during treatment? Yes you can!

Here are 7 tried-and-true make-up tips.

They will help you enjoy an unforgettable Valentine’s Day by rising above the challenge of beauty during treatment and looking down on the big picture of life despite treatment.  These tips are easy and quick enough to use for your date after a long day of therapy, every day during treatment, and beyond. You may never look exactly the same because you will look better.  

Make-up can be a challenge during many therapies, but especially cancer treatment. 

No eyelashes or eyebrows to hold beauty products in place can make you want to give up before you start.  But as a three time breast cancer survivor, I learned a trick or two about beauty during treatment. These beauty tips will help you glow while you heal.

These techniques can be used with any products including organic ones available in most natural and health food stores and marketplaces.   

1.)                            Your face is already dry from medications, long hours in over air-conditioned hospitals, and dehydrating treatment so you may choose to avoid face powder. It has a tendency to settle into cracks and, yes, crevices; the result of skin cell moisture loss.   

2.)                            Use brown eyeliner to define your eyes and a lighter taupe eye shadow, applied with a small brush, to create eye brows. Large crayon eyeliner pencils are more moisturizing than powder, and easier to handle if your fingers are swollen, numb or tingling from neuropathy, a temporary condition of some chemotherapies. If power is still your tool of choice, wet the brush with water, dip it into the powder and then apply it to the eye area. It will keep less powder from irritating your eye’s dehydrate mucus membranes, and “set it”—   hold your make-up in place.

3.)                            Keep your cosmetics to a bare minimum and use tons of moisturizer. A drop of liquid make-up mixed with moisturizer creates a healthy glow. A drop of moisturizer mixed with cream blush, and applied to the apples of your cheeks will make you the apple of his eye. It will give you just the right amount of color to make you look naturally healthy. A fail-safe way to apply blush is to smile and your “apples” will stand out.

4.)                            Pink stick or gel blush on your cheeks, forehead and chin can give you a sun-kissed glow no matter what skin tone you have. Use colors that are close to your own natural skin tones.  

5.)                            Sprayed your face with an atomizer of water to set your make-up. Small cans of Evian spray are available in department stores, or make your own “spritzer” by filling a spray bottle with purified water. Use it throughout the day to feel refreshed and to maintain that youthful dewy-glow.   

6.)                            Lipstick or clear gloss finishes a healthy look, and moisturizes your lips.  There are many long lasting lipsticks on the market from which to choose.  Once applied, you won’t need a touch-up, even after eating. That little bit of color on your face can make such a difference.

7.)                            There is no make-up that can brighten your face like a smile. Beauty is only skin deep but your smile comes from the soul.  Practiced smiling in the mirror for ‘muscle memory’ and used it whenever you feel like a wet noodle. It will change more than your looks. It will change the vibration around you by pulling it into a higher healing frequency.

Don’t be surprised if your laughter attracts attention. A nurse may bring someone just starting their journey of healing over to you with the words, “Look at her, she’s glowing. See, it’s not so bad.”  Your glow is a beacon of light to others still searching in the darkness of crisis. Share your tips with them. Increase your healing light by giving it away.  This will make you even more beautiful—from the inside out. It is also a great way to do two powerful things at once; pay it forward to those still in need, and give back to the universe. 

 Sharing joy is universally empowering.  

Laughter and smiles go together like peanut and butter, and both are contagious. They are something you want to catch and give to patients who have a lowered resistance during treatment.  Laughter raises all vibrational levels within ear-shot, and gives you an inner-glow that shines through to the world with the message, “I’m still here. I’m more than a survivor. I’m a Thriver!” So give someone a smile, & laugh ‘till it heals with confidence, while you are on your Valentine’s Day date. And remember, Cupid is watching. 

 Watch for part two of this article series, A Valentine Date During Treatment: How to Make Sussessful Dinner Plans During Uncertain Times.

This information is from Kathleen’s book SURVIVING CANERLAND: Intuitive Aspects of Healing.

Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos- Intuitive Life Coach, survived three  cancers missed by doctors but diagnosed by dreams, and penned SURVIVING CANCERLAND: Intuitive Aspects of Healing. She's contributed to many books, a phone counselor for R.A. BLOCH Cancer Foundation, Columnist for CapeWomenOnlineMagazine, & Wellness Woman 40 & Beyond, a Radio Host, Keynote Speaker, PATHEOS & BreastCancerYoga Blogger & OM Times Magazine Contributor.  Follow her @   www.SurvivingCancerland.com & www.AccessYourInnerGuide.com

The Christmas Gift of Community

 THIS CHRISTMAS WILL BE disheartening for many of us. Our unstable economy, dwindling financial security, home foreclosures, and job losses will not pause for the holiday season. Add health issues to that equation and the result is few, if any, gifts beneath the Christmas Tree. However, there is a bright star in our dark night: community support.We are bigger than the sum of our problems.


We belong to the community of mankind. Fellowship and help networks filled with resources and hope are available to everyone. So are sympathetic shoulders to cry on. In my work as a phone counselor for the R.A. BLOCH CANCER FOUNDATION, I recently received a call from a woman I’ll name Lisa for this blog.


Lisa was calling from California. It soon became apparent that this woman, who had just been diagnosed with breast cancer recurrence, needed a whole lot more than just my shoulder for support.


“I can’t start my cancer treatments!” the hysterical voice on the phone cried. “I have to pack all of my belongings because the bank is foreclosing on my home. I’m being thrown out into the street and I have nowhere to go!” I heard the phone drop to the floor, followed by loud weeping. I felt my heart sink. I wanted to cry with her but that wouldn’t help either of us. So I waited for Lisa to retrieve the phone and resume her tale. Sometimes listening is the first step in helping. “I’m the last of my family,” she sobbed and explained that her father and brother had died of cancer last year. Her mother had died two years ago.


Her dog was her only companion and she was running out of dog food.


“If I start my cancer treatments, I won’t have enough energy to pack, and my things are all that I have left of my family. How can you possibly help me?” she demanded.


Good question! How could I assist a woman in such a severe crisis living on the other side of the country? If stress is a killer, why is this poor woman still alive? Is it any wonder she has cancer, again?


“I don’t want to live anymore!” she moaned. “No one can help me.” I encouraged her to take a deep breath and reassured her that there are resources and contacts available to help her. I found the toll-free numbers for the director of the Cancer Legal Resource Center in Los Angeles, and the name of an attorney who is a two-time cancer survivor and co-founder of a legal network for cancer patients.


Before giving Lisa these phone numbers, I contacted the organizations to be sure they could meet her needs. The voice answering the phone said, “Have her call us. We can help.” Two days later, I followed up with a call to Lisa, and discovered that she had contacted the attorney, and Legal Resource Center.

A community animal organization had donated food for her dog.


She sounded much better as she prepared for her treatments. We spoke of the statistically increasing chances of surviving cancer recurrence, due to new treatments, with better results, and fewer side effects. “Call me if you need me,” I said. “I’m here for you.”


“Will you pray for me?” she asked in a tiny voice?
“Yes, I will.”

I was reluctant to let Lisa go, but realized I had to respect her ability, and desire to empower herself with these resources. Unfortunately, Lisa’s story is not the exception during these trying times. Her story, however, has a silver lining, with the uplifting message that community support is crucial during any crisis.

As a community, we are our sister’s keepers. A few days after Lisa’s call, I heard an interesting conversation while standing in a grocery store check-out line.

One lady complained about her financial problems to a second woman who responded with, “If you want to change the way your problems appear, change the way you peer at them.” This remark reminded me of the movie Dead Poets Society, in which Robin Williams played an English Professor who encouraged his students to stand on top of their desks to gain a different perspective on life.

Another helpful way to achieve this change is by not looking at our problems alone.

Like the students in the movie, sometimes we need a guide to help us process challenges differently.
Getting back to holiday basics, and viewing them from a different perspective by remembering the true message of Christmas may also help reduce this season’s stresses.

Christmas was a message of hope and joy embodied in the form of a new life: a homeless infant born in a barn with a manger for a crib. This child did not receive piles of expensive gifts. He received a roof over his head, and one small heartfelt gift from each of three wise men.

In keeping with the true tradition of Christmas, my husband and I have decided not to exchange Christmas gifts this year. We have all we need and want for nothing. Instead, we are going to give them to children in need within our community.

This year we will view Christmas from a different perspective, that of the Wise Men.

The internet is rich in local resources for women in crisis. With our extended community of world-wide “womenkind” we have unlimited assets from which to draw at our fingertips. If you know anyone in crisis, please share this article to help them during the holiday season and beyond. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.



BIO: Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos, Intuitive Life Coach, survived three breast cancers, wrote SURVIVING CANCERLAND: Intuitive Aspects of Healing (Cypress House, Jan 2014) http://tinyurl.com/p7cjfxa websites: http://www.survivingcancerland.com & Access Your Inner Guide, Hosts Living Well Talk Radio, Cancer Q&A columnist- CapeWomenOnlineMagazine, Dream Queen columnist-Wellness Woman 40 & Beyond,Blogger for BreastCancerYoga.com, YourDreamIntrepretation.com, WakeUpWomen, PATHEOS; R.A. BLOCH Cancer Foundation Hotline Counselor. Represented by Steve Allen Media

Consciousness and Life

 by Bernie Siegel  http://berniesiegelmd.com/

(I give Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos permission to use and post my blog on her sites. Dr. Bernie Siegel.) 

 

Dr. Bernie Siegel is my guest blogger today in the fourth of our series of shared blogs for October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, that have flowed into November due to popular demand. Have you met your spirit-guides or had a near death experience? Bernie shares some amazing stories of both.... 

                  

In 1978, nearly a decade before retirement, Bernie launched ECaP—Exceptional Cancer Patients, in which he and his wife and co-worker, Bobbie, remain active today. ECaP is a therapeutic approach Bernie calls Carefrontation that helps patients interpret their drawings, dreams and images to express their feelings about the healing process.

The physical, spiritual, and psychological benefits that emerge strengthen the immune system, a direct response to the power of the Mind-Body Connection about which Bernie has written and spoken extensively. He is currently working on other books with the goal of empowering patients and teaching survival behavior to enhance immune system competency. Bernie believes that in the next decade, the roles of consciousness, spirituality, non-local healing, body memory, and heart energy will all be explored more intensively as scientific subjects.

toy-phone 

When I was four years old I was home in bed with one of my frequent ear infections. I took a toy telephone I was playing with and unscrewed the dial and put all the pieces in my mouth as I had seen carpenters do with nails which they then pulled out to use. The problem was that I aspirated the pieces and went into laryngospasm. I can still feel my intercostal muscles and diaphragm contracting forcefully, trying to get some air into my lungs, but nothing worked and I was unable to make any sounds to attract help. I had no sense of the time but suddenly realized I was not struggling anymore. I was now at the head of the bed watching myself dying.

I found it fascinating to be free of my body and a blessing. I never stopped to think about how I could still see while out of my body. I was feeling sorry my mother, who was in the kitchen, would find me dead but I thought it over and found my new state preferable and intellectually chose death over life.

Then for no apparent reason the boy on the bed vomited and all the pieces came flying out. He began to breathe again and I was very angry as I returned to my body against my will. I can still remember yelling, “Who did that?” My thought as a four year old was that there was a God who had a schedule and I wasn’t supposed to die now. So an angel apparently did a Heimlich maneuver on me is the way I would explain it today.

I really do believe there is a schedule we create unconsciously because of later life experiences. Twice I have had my car totaled by people driving through red lights and once I fell off our roof when the top rung on my wooden ladder snapped off. In none of these incidents did any significant injury occur to my body. Someone told me it was because I had an angel and he knew his name. I asked what it was and he asked, “What did you say when the ladder broke?”

“I said, Oh Shit!”

He said, “That’s his name.” I will add he always shows up when I call him in an impassioned way.

Olga Worrall

My next experience was with the healer Olga Worrall. I had injured my leg training for a marathon. It was very painful and not responding to rest or therapy. At an American Holistic Medical Association conference Olga was a guest speaker. My wife told me to ask her to heal me. I was embarrassed to ask and very frankly a non-believer. Never the less my wife pushed me forward and Olga sat me down in a chair and placed her two hands on my leg. The heat from her hands was incredible. I remember putting my hands on the opposite leg to compare the heat sensation. There was no sense of warmth from my hands coming through the dungarees. When Olga was done I stood up and was completely healed. The pain was gone and I could walk normally.

Another time Olga and I spoke at the funeral of a mutual friend. After the ceremony we were standing in a deserted hallway when she asked, “Are you Jewish?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Because there are two rabbis standing next to you.” She went on to tell me their names and describe their garments, which included their prayer shawls and caps. Her description of them was exactly what I saw in my meditation and imagery sessions when I had met these figures while walking on my path.

Another evening after I gave a lecture, which felt like someone else was giving it and I was simply verbalizing it for them, a woman came up to me and said, “Standing in front of you for the entire lecture was a man and I drew his picture for you.” Again, exactly the face and features of my inner guide. I still have the picture hanging in our home.

My next experience came when I was telling a friend about how busy I was and she said, “Why are you living this life?” Her intention was to get me to slow down and travel less but her question sent me into a trance and I immediately saw myself with a sword in my hand killing people. My first thought was that I had become a surgeon in this life to use a knife to heal and not kill.

I spontaneously went into a trance again a few days later and saw myself living the life of a knight who killed because he feared his lord and what he would do to him if he didn’t carry out his commands. I killed my wife, in this life, and her dog and was devastated by the experience. But at the same time it revealed to me why my wife’s face has always had a hypnotic effect upon me and why I am so involved in rescuing animals.

Ultimately it taught me about having faith in the true Lord and like Abraham, Jesus, Moses, Noah and others to understand that what our Lord asks of us is for the greater good and that if I had said yes I would have not been asked to kill anyone.

Most recently one of our cats disappeared when a door was left open. After several weeks with no sign of her I was sure she was killed by a predator. A friend I had made, Amelia Kinkade, is an animal intuitive who lives in Los Angeles. We live in Connecticut and Amelia has never been to our home or near it. I pestered her to tell me where the cat was and one day I received an email, without even sending Amelia a picture of the cat, and it detailed the house, yard, other animals and people who were involved in the cat’s life. The next day I went out and found the cat exactly where Amelia said it was hiding.

She told me in the email, “The cat is alive because I can see through its eyes.”

If that doesn’t make me a believer nothing will. I totally believe that consciousness is non-local and not limited to the body. I also have experienced this through the drawings and dreams of patients I have cared for which allows them to know their diagnosis and what the future holds for them. As Jung said, “The future is unconsciously prepared long in advance and therefore can be guessed by clairvoyants.”

I believe it is this unconscious awareness which we each bring with us when we are born. So I do not believe we literally live many lives but that we bring with us the experience of previous lives. Thus the wiser we get the better the future will be for those who follow us.

I wish to thank Bernie for sharing his amazing blog of true-life miracles with my readers. It just proves that we are born with Spirit–Guides/Guardian Angels, we are their job and they take that job seriously. Meet your guides in your dreams.

Guest Bio: About Dr. Bernie Siegel: Bernie, as he prefers to be called, was born in Brooklyn, NY, and attended Colgate University and Cornell University Medical College. He graduated with honors and holds membership in two scholastic honor societies, Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha. He trained to become a surgeon at Yale New Haven Hospital, West Haven Veteran’s Hospital and the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. In 1989, Bernie retired from Yale as an Assistant Clinical Professor of General and Pediatric Surgery to speak to patients, their families and caregivers.

Bio: Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos, Intuitive Life Coach, survived three breast cancers missed by the medical community, wrote SURVIVING CANCERLAND: Intuitive Aspects of Healing (Cypress House, Jan 2014) websites: Surviving Cancerland & Access Your Inner Guide, Hosts Living Well Talk Radio , Cancer Q&A columnist CapeWomenOnlineMagazine, Dream Queen columnist- Wellness Woman 40 & Beyond, Your Dream Interpretation http://www.yourdreaminterpretation.com/about-us/ ,WakeUpWomen; R.A. BLOCH Cancer Foundation Hotline Counselor. Represented by Steve Allen Media

Self Induced Healing and Remarkable Recoveries

by Dr. Bernie Siegel  http://berniesiegelmd.com/

(I give Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos permission to use and post my blog on her sites. Dr. Bernie Siegel.) 

 Dr, Bernie Siegel, Bernie by preference,  is my guest blogger today for October's Breast Caner Awareness Month, which has been received so well, that we are extending it into November. His words of wisdom concerning healing and medical prognosis, are profound. Read, remember and live a fulfilled life....

      

In his latest book, his 12th, published in September 2011, entitled A BOOK OF MIRACLES—Inspiring True Stories of Healing, Gratitude, and Love, Bernie is described in the Foreword written by Deepak Chopra who tells us, “Bernie Siegel began his writing career twenty-five years ago, and from the outset he didn’t shy away from miracles. The title of his first book—LOVE, MEDICINE & MIRACLES (1986)—flaunted his disagreement with mainstream medicine. An MD who advised more love as a path to healing would have been in enough trouble. Opening the possibility of miracles was grounds for dismissal. In his new book, Bernie reaffirms his original beliefs, and with a lifetime’s wisdom and experience, he trusts in miracles more than ever.”

The reason that medicine has not explored the issue of self-healing and patients who exceed survival expectations is that we either give the treatment the credit or refer to them as miracles or spontaneous remissions. Medicine does not study success because one cannot learn from spontaneous events but when one thinks of these cases as unique to the patient and self-induced you are more likely to ask the patient for their story and learn about survival behavior.

Psychologist Bruno Klopfer, back in the 1940’s, was given 24 personality profiles of cancer patients and correctly predicted 19 times who would have a fast or slow growing cancer. In one case he couldn’t decide and his predictions were wrong four times. Yet when a patient enters a doctor’s office and is given a diagnosis they are not handed a list which tells them how to behave and act like a survivor or a list of questions to determine their personality profile and find who is more likely to become a long term survivor and who needs psychotherapy. Doctors are not trained to communicate with patients and so our words can kill or cure. I have found that “wordswordswords” can literally become swords.

Let me share two cases of remarkable recoveries in which I was personally involved. One was a woman who lived in North Carolina and was told by her doctor that going to Duke for chemotherapy was a waste of time and energy as she was going to die anyway of cancer. Her niece was caring for my father-in-law at the time and without asking me told her aunt, “Doctor Siegel helps people to get well all the time, come up here to Connecticut.”

When she arrived and I was called, I admitted her to the hospital and found she had leukemia. As a surgeon I had nothing to offer her, so I called an oncologist to see her. He basically said what her doctor had said but started chemotherapy to give her some hope. She responded dramatically and went into complete remission. His last letter to me, with a smile said, “Isn’t chemotherapy wonderful.” Her niece later told me she went home and was driving her doctor crazy and that she knew she would get well when I sat on her bed and hugged her.

Another case involved Jordan Fieldman, a Harvard medical student who developed visual problems many years ago and was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor. He underwent surgery and woke up blind and was told he would be blind for the few months he has left to live. A week later his sight returned and he went to the medical library to research his disease. Every book he read said recurrence is invariable and death occurs within a year. Now a good student would have gone home and died, but Jordan was not a good student. He said, “How dare they say invariable!”

Jordan also suffered from ulcerative colitis and noticed that when he decided to change his life style and not die of a brain tumor that his colitis also responded. He combined traditional medical therapy with other modalities and his tumor never recurred.

Butterfly

The essence of the story behind remarkable recoveries can be symbolized by the image of a rainbow colored butterfly. It is the symbol of transformation and every color symbolizes an emotion; when your life is in order you are transformed and heal. It is about being born again; religions and myths show us the benefit of that act. Picking a new name for yourself and changing who you are by giving up the untrue self-imposed upon us by others is life-saving. He who seeks to save his life will lose it, while he who is willing to lose his life will save it.

As a three time breast cancer survivor whose dreams found  cancer my doctors and the tests on which they relied missed, Bernie’s words ring true on so many levels. My recurrent cancer was stage 4. In order to ensure I lived, I had to embrace death as a friend who would one day come for all of us. This gave me the peace of mind to live my life to the fullest, and I am still here to encourage others to do the same. We all have an expiration date stamped on our body by our Higher Power, and only she can read it. Thank you Bernie for being my guest blogger today.

Guest Bio: About Dr. Bernie Siegel: Bernie, as he prefers to be called, was born in Brooklyn, NY, and attended Colgate University and Cornell University Medical College. He graduated with honors and holds membership in two scholastic honor societies, Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha. He trained to become a surgeon at Yale New Haven Hospital, West Haven Veteran’s Hospital and the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. In 1989, Bernie retired from Yale as an Assistant Clinical Professor of General and Pediatric Surgery to speak to patients, their families and caregivers.

Bio: Kathleen O’Keefe-Kanavos, Intuitive Life Coach, survived three breast cancers missed by the medical community, wrote SURVIVING CANCERLAND: Intuitive Aspects of Healing (Cypress House, Jan 2014) websites: Surviving Cancerland & Access Your Inner Guide, Hosts Living Well Talk Radio , Cancer Q&A columnist CapeWomenOnlineMagazine, Dream Queen columnist- Wellness Woman 40 & Beyond, Your Dream Interpretation