Survivor's Blog April 9 , 2013.. Chemo made my eyebrows look like Andy Rooney's, how do I fix them?

OK so one of the weirdest things that happened to me during and after my first bout with Cancer and chemotherapy was my eyebrows. Pre cancer I had the kind of eyebrows that every girl wants. My eyebrows were slightly darker than my natural hair color (strawberry blonde)  and had a nice shape to them. I never had to pluck or use a pencil to shade them in any way. During the first few weeks of chemo in 2011, the hair on my head all fell out. The next month out came my eyebrows, eyelashes, and everything else. As I finally worked my way back to health in 2012, my eyebrows started to grow back in.

When my eyebrows returned post cancer they were like something out of a horror movie!!! The first thing  I noticed as they were growing back in was the color.. a very light blond. Nothing wrong with light blond, except that my hair seemed to be coming back dark brunette.  At first, as my eyebrows slowly came back they looked just like my old brows except for the color. A few days later I noticed that they were just a little bit longer than my old brows, so I bought one of those eye brow and lash brushes with a colored brow pencil and some clear eye brow gel and started " shaping" my brows as I did my makeup. After about a week of shaping my brows I noticed that the hair just kept getting bushier. Every day the hair got a little longer and coarser it started sticking straight out. I was beginning to channel a very unhappy porcupine. And oddly enough, since I saw those crazy brows every time I passed by a mirror they started to bring me down. No amount of gel or shaping could do a thing with the hair that was coming back in. I was starting to look like Andy Rooney!!!

One day after a particularly tough brow and make up session I realized I had to take more drastic measures. So I called my local salon and asked what they would recommend. The first idea was a brow wax and a trim. Like all lymph edema and cancer patients, I had to nix that one since I have no immune system any more waxing could cause a nasty infection. So the salon owner suggested threading and a trim. I also had to nix that ( once again even the smallest injury can cause an infection). This left me with the third and final option a professional trim .. and gulp it would cost $30.00! I could not bring myself to pay $30.00 to have my brows trimmed especially since they seemed to be growing at such an alarming rate. There just had to be another solution.

I did a bit more research and found that you could buy a simple eyebrow trimmer at the drugstore for between $10 and $20.00. The first one I bought did not have a specific gadget for eyebrows, I followed the directions and the results looked like I was back in chemo.. too short. So I went back to the store and bought another device, the "Finishing Touch". This trimmer allows you to pick a trimmer guide in several different lengths, plus it has a light. In minutes I was able to figure it all out and use it to make my eyebrows look like those of a normal human and not a pissed off porcupine or fuzzy caterpillar.