Eyelashes and surgery
It's such a stupid little thing but I am so cross with my surgical team.
Somewhere on breast surgeon Liz O'Riordan's blog she wrote that having breast cancer taught her the importance of how much the little things can mean to a patient. Such as now when she operates on women going through/having just gone through chemotherapy, rather than applying tape directly to the eyes, she makes sure there's a bit of gauze under the tape. This protects the eyelashes from being ripped out when the tape comes off, baby eyelashes or ones bravely hanging on.
This was not done for me and I'm really annoyed. I had managed to hang onto most of my eyelashes through chemo. They had thinned a little but were doing better than my eyebrows.
When I was finally able to hobble to a mirror I was appalled to see that almost every single lash on the bottom left lid had gone, and that half of the lashes on the top right lid had disappeared.
Now I'm not especially vain, don't always put on make up, and wear glasses. But ffs! After all the ugly indignities that BC puts you through, the scars you're left with, the ongoing side effects of long treatments, is it SO bloody hard to take the time and effort to think about and eliminate one thing for the patient?? One little thing that can affect our fragile self-esteem, sense of personal pride, privacy about our health? The thing that keeps grit out of our eyes? One less thing to remind us of CANCER everytime we look in the mirror???
How long will I have to wait before my eyelashes grow back?? What's a little thing about your treatment you'd change?
I am mightily pissed off.
Somewhere on breast surgeon Liz O'Riordan's blog she wrote that having breast cancer taught her the importance of how much the little things can mean to a patient. Such as now when she operates on women going through/having just gone through chemotherapy, rather than applying tape directly to the eyes, she makes sure there's a bit of gauze under the tape. This protects the eyelashes from being ripped out when the tape comes off, baby eyelashes or ones bravely hanging on.
This was not done for me and I'm really annoyed. I had managed to hang onto most of my eyelashes through chemo. They had thinned a little but were doing better than my eyebrows.
When I was finally able to hobble to a mirror I was appalled to see that almost every single lash on the bottom left lid had gone, and that half of the lashes on the top right lid had disappeared.
Now I'm not especially vain, don't always put on make up, and wear glasses. But ffs! After all the ugly indignities that BC puts you through, the scars you're left with, the ongoing side effects of long treatments, is it SO bloody hard to take the time and effort to think about and eliminate one thing for the patient?? One little thing that can affect our fragile self-esteem, sense of personal pride, privacy about our health? The thing that keeps grit out of our eyes? One less thing to remind us of CANCER everytime we look in the mirror???
How long will I have to wait before my eyelashes grow back?? What's a little thing about your treatment you'd change?
I am mightily pissed off.
