Beauty and cancer — the start of the journey

It has been a mental few weeks for me since the launch of the beauty bus campaign. It has been incredibly overwhelming how amazing people have been with donations and shares.

As you’ve probably seen, Stand Up to Cancer has launched the video that features me and my story. I didn’t quite anticipate how well that would all go, to be honest. I wondered if I’d be just another cancer story that blends into the background.

It’s funny really, I know everything about vaginal cancer. My statistics, the symptoms, the rarity of it. Especially that last one. I know how rare of a cancer it is. It is literally the lottery of cancers. But you can’t quite grasp onto the concept of how rare it is, no matter how many times you tell yourself its rare, until you get feedback of it yourself from people.

I’ve had loads of messages from people on their experience of cancer themselves or through relatives, how inspirational and eye-opening my blog is, it goes on.

However, out of all these messages only one person has come forward with the same cancer as me. Just one.

Now, I know there will be other ladies out there with the same cancer, most likely in the demographic that they should be in. They may not want to be in contact with me about it or are just sitting back watching. Not everyone wants to talk about their cancer and that’s fine. There is no right or wrong way to go about this.

It just hit me how rare it really is! Which is stupid, because I already know the statistics!

The long ride

I’ve been super busy the last few weeks since my beauty bus campaign launched. I have so many ideas to enforce, to reach my target and steps to take before I get there. The most important one updating my beauty qualifications to include oncology beauty treatments. It is a little sore spot that I have to do this anyway, I already know what they would be teaching me. But I have to do it for insurance purposes.

Cancer and beauty have never really sat next to each other very well in the industry. Cancer always seems to send up red flags.

So I did the course and it went well. However, it has just reinforced my opinion that this stuff needs to be included in the standard curriculum of beauty therapy. I shouldn’t have to be paying over £500 for a course where I already know it all. Especially as a cancer patient myself. I don’t mean to sound bitter about it, but it’s hard not to when you can see the problems that you are faced with. The beauty industry may be opening their eyes to cancer and beauty as one but it is only really superficial. It needs to go deeper… but I’ll tackle one issue at a time, the first one being getting my beauty bus on the road.

The snooze

I’ve had to take a couple off days to recoup from the course. With it being two days of full-on theory and practical, added to that it being in London, travel has made the days that much longer, I am pooped. Fatigue is a real trier during recovery. I didn’t quite understand the difference between tiredness and fatigue… but there’s a big, big difference. Mostly the fact that my body gives up on me when I’m fatigued. So, I’ve just had to switch off for a couple of days. I’m almost back to my normal self, so I’m cracking on with what needs to be done.

If you’d like to donate to help the beauty bus reach its target or would like to share what I am doing, then please do. Click on this link to find out more.

This post originally appeared on Happy Smiling Cancer Girl on September 20, 2018. It is republished with permission.