Pia's Look Good.. Feel Better Chronicles

At the Look Good...Feel Better session I attended, the two facilitators that afternoon were volunteers from a large cosmetic company. They guided us through the twelve steps of skin care and demonstrated how to care for our skin and enhance our changing skin and appearance as a result of the chemotherapy we were receiving. At a time when so many of the elements in our life seemed out of control, the Look Good. . .Feel Better volunteers showed us how we could in fact look and feel beautiful. Through the two-hour session I could not help but feel so grateful to be part of this program. To learn about beauty and makeup was exciting, but to participate in the session with other women, who just like me, had cancer, was transforming. Each woman in the room shared an experience similar to mine. We were sisters, united by a cancer diagnosis that would in most cases result in hair loss, skin and nail changes and above all a fundamental change in who we were. Yet, through the support of the program, we would overcome these challenges.

(Click the "Pia 1" link to actually see and hear me talk more about my Look Good. . .Feel Better experience) So, once again I ask what does it mean to be a Dream Girl and a Look Good. . .Feel Better Ambassador? Well, I have the honor to not only share my story about how Look Good... Feel Better impacted me – as a woman, as a cancer patient, and most importantly as a human, but meet other women who have similar stories to tell about the program. Remembering all of this, I cannot help but think about some of the other inspiring women I know (some more personally than others) who have experienced cancer. There are two people I am thinking of in particular today. The first is Susan Butcher &ndash four-time winner of the Iditarod, who passed away in August 2006 after her leukemia relapsed. Though I did not know her personally the fact that she and I shared the same disease made me feel connected to her. She too had to search for a donor in order to have a stem-cell transplant, and unfortunately despite having one, the leukemia took over. I am also thinking about another friend of mine, Erin Zammett Ruddy, a staffer at Glamour magazine who interviewed Susan Butcher. (Erin has her own blog that you may want to check out). Erin has Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia – a slow progressing form of leukemia that gradually develops over time. Thanks to lots of scientists and drug research she has been in remission for about three years. But when someone passes away, or I think back on my experience with Look Good Feel Better, I see the power of cancer and the power that a program like Look Good. . .Feel Better has to change the world. All of us women with cancer – affected so differently by the disease, and yet bonded together by a powerful force. To come back to my story – I found my stem-cell donor – a person who I don’t know much about except that the genetic typing of her white blood cells matched mine — perfectly. My donor generously agreed to donate her stem cells to save my life. The process of a stem-cell transplant is essentially getting a new immune system – a healthy one that does not contain any cancer cells. All of us have stem cells — they are the cells that grow into other cells, and hence form the basis of our immune system. My transplant consisted of stem cells from an adult donor (embryonic stem cells are not used for stem-cell transplants.) So how in the world did "I" get to become DreamGirl 2006?! More in my next entry!