Mascara

I love putting on mascara. Since I've been allowed to use makeup again,
it's my favorite thing to do. Brush, brush, brush. Ahhh!

It reminds me every time that I actually have eyelashes again! This is no small
feat. Losing one's body hair is a very strange thing. It's not just the head that's
difficult. It's everything. No arm hair means you will be cold. No nose hair means
you will have a constantly runny nose. No eyelashes means your eyes will water.
No eyebrows mean that you look kinda funny.

I find it very interesting to see what order the body grows hair again. My head
seems to be the least important. Eyebrows come first. I guess in human evolution,
eyebrows must be very important for individual recognition. I watched my eyebrows
carefully each day to see when they would resume their place on my face. Once I saw
they were growing, I knew that my body was starting to recover.

The hair on my head is now long enough for me to have crazy hat-head when I remove
my wig or my chemo cap. It was an unsightly salt and pepper color that bugged me, so
I decided to color it. I was a bit stumped at the store, and ended up with a color called "Ash Brown".
It should have been called "Muddy Water". Maybe because this is new-growth hair, or
maybe because I didn't do it right, my hair looks like I dunked it in a pail of nasty water.
The color is not terribly attractive and didn't take evenly. So I'll be continuing to wear
a wig or hat until it grows long enough for me to haul myself to the salon to get it done correctly.

In other news - I am now 100% grafted!! That means that my sister's bone marrow has
completely taken over.  There is no bone marrow in my body that has my DNA. Weird, huh?
The doctors get this information from something called a Chimera test. Here's the
official definition of Chimera: (in Greek mythology) a fire-breathing female monster with a lion's head, a goat's body, and a serpent's tail. I think that's pretty fitting!!

And Ivy and I are only speaking to each other three days a week. Yay!
She has been good to me but I don't mind taking a break from her.

Every restricted lifted is a gift. Every milestone is a miracle. These days, I just
take one day at a time, and appreciate all the little stuff.

Celebrate the little things in your life! Find your own personal mascara and rejoice!