Pretty Fabulous

Since my official appointment in February I have had a number of exciting opportunities. I have attended two more LGFB sessions in New York City; I have met some of the other wonderful people, like Pamela Bailey (President) and Lisa Burris (Director) who are also part of the CTFA Foundation.

Part of what is really great about being named DreamGirl is the opportunities that have been coming my way. In just a few months, I’ve had the chance to meet the three honorees, each a beauty industry giant in their own right – Jack Stahl, president and CEO of Revlon, Charles Townsend, president and CEO of Condé Nast Publications, and Peter Born, vice president and executive director, Women’s Wear Daily and Women’s Wear Daily Beauty Biz. (Pretty fabulous, I say!)

I have also shared my story and the impact of LGFB with a number of beauty magazine editors and met a number of volunteers and fellow graduates who all have inspiring stories. It is such an honor to be a DreamGirl!

In my next entry – getting ready for the Dream Ball – it’s less than a month away!

Right Place...Right Time...

“Right place, right time” is an often thought of a cliché, and in the case of how I became DreamGirl 2006 – it definitely rings true.

It all started with a wonderful friend of mine who works in the beauty industry and is a member of an organization called Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW). She invited me to help her sell raffle tickets for the annual CEW Holiday Luncheon, which supports the CEW charitable initiative, Cancer and Careers. By the way, in case you’re wondering, CEW is a nonprofit trade organization based in New York City with over 4,000 members who are executives in the beauty, cosmetics, fragrance, and related industries. So, to make a long story short, my friend and I sold the greatest number of raffles and as part of our prize we had the wonderful opportunity of meeting and having lunch with a highly respected executive in the beauty industry – Pamela Baxter, president and CEO of LVMH Perfumes and Cosmetics, North America.

At our lunch with Pamela Baxter, the news of my story quickly emerged, including my heart-warming experience at a Look Good…Feel Better (LGFB) session. Well, believe it or not, the next week I got an email from Ms. Baxter telling me about the DreamBall as the annual fundraising gala for LGFB and asking if I might be interested in sharing my story and experience with the program.

Of course, I was so honored but the position was not mine just yet. A few weeks later I met with Louanne Roark, vice president of the Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association (CTFA) Foundation, which runs Look Good…Feel Better, collaborating with the American Cancer Society and the National Cosmetology Association to deliver the program (you can visit www.ctfa.org and www.lookgoodfeelbetter.org to get more information.)

Once again, over a lovely lunch we talked about cancer, love, life, losses, pain and triumph. A few days later I received a very uplifting phone call from Louanne to share with me that yes, indeed I would be DreamGirl 2006!

Life is funny that way, huh?

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 LGFB 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.

So, once again I ask what does it mean to be a Dream Girl? Well, I have the honor to share my story about how Look Good Feel Better impacted me – as a woman, as a cancer patient, and most importantly as a human.

As we prepare for the gala event in September to honor and raise awareness and money for Look Good Feel Better 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 – four-time winner of the Iditarod, who passed away this weekend 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 recently interviewed Susan Butcher. (Erin has her own blog that you may want to check out: (http://www.glamour.com/lifestyle/blogs/editor). 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 it’s moments like this – when someone passes away, or I think back on my experience with Look Good Feel Better, that I see the power of cancer and the power that a program like LGFB 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. Some of you might be wondering, what a stem-cell transplant has to do with stem cell research. Well, they are actually two different things. Stem cell research uses the stem cells from fertilized embryos that are not going to be used (i.e. will not grow into fetuses and then babies). 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 what does it mean to be a Dream Girl and how in the world did “I” get to be the one?!

More in my next entry!

Diary of a DreamGirl - the beginning

When last I posted, I had just been diagnosed with AML. Let’s just say, no time was wasted between diagnosis and action. I was immediately rushed into a small dark room. The curtains were drawn and Tim, my boyfriend, was asked to step out.

Alone, afraid and completely unaware of all that I was to go through, here is a brief summary of what happened next.

I spent the next month in the hospital – undergoing a round of chemotherapy that completely wiped out my immune system. As my body started to rebuild itself, thankfully the leukemia was put into remission.

I lost twenty pounds that month and all my hair. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say this was a really, really horrible nightmare and the worst part was that it was real.

But, my life eventually got back on track. After four more (and much more tolerable) rounds of chemotherapy I was told I had a 30% chance of staying in remission. Not a great statistic – I know, but – I thought, I’m young and up to this point I had been healthy. I would be in that 30%, yes I would.

I was wrong…

In June of 2004, almost 2 years to the day of my first diagnosis, my doctor found an irregularity in my blood counts. The leukemia was back. I would have to undergo another round of chemotherapy and we would have to intensely search for a stem-cell donor.

My fiancé (previously boyfriend, Tim, who had in this time elevated his status significantly) and I were scheduled to have an engagement party just two weeks later. We were planning our wedding, and I was growing my hair out. All in all, this was not a good time to be sick.

It was at this point that I encountered an interesting program called Look Good Feel Better.

Here is what Look Good Feel Better is at its’ most basic level and in their own words:

• Look Good…Feel Better is a free national public service program dedicated to helping women undergoing cancer treatment
• Look Good…Feel Better is created from the concept that if someone with cancer can be helped to look good, their self-esteem will help them approach their disease and treatment with greater confidence

For me however, it was much, much more…

There were about ten women in the Look Good Feel Better session I attended. All of us were patients admitted at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. As we entered the room on the fifteenth floor overlooking the New York City skyline, pushing our IV poles, we gathered around a table to discuss a topic central to our womanhood, our beauty.

I will post more tomorrow about my experience at this session, but I will leave you with this thought… regardless of how sick and tired (no pun intended) a woman may be when she is sick, when you put a few of them together in a room to talk about makeup, hair and appearances, something very interesting happens. Let the (internal and external) transformation begin!

Perchance to Dream(Girl)

Emily Dickinson has a quote that reads, “Dwell in possibility” and truly that has been my motto in life. But the farthest thing from reality I ever dreamed of was to be selected as DreamGirl 2006!

Yes, that’s me – DreamGirl 2006. Just saying it makes my eyes light up and my face shine bright. I, yes I, have been selected to share my story in front of hundreds of guests at the annual Look Good…Feel Better/American Cancer Society DreamBall Gala. (A lot more on this to come in my next post- very exciting!)

And behind my shining face is the reality that not so long ago my life, its very existence, was at a fundamental crossroad.

Here is the beginning of my story...

In the summer of 2002, I was in love – in love with a gorgeous, caring young man, in love with excitement for a new job opportunity and in love with anticipation – I was just about to set up a new home, in a new town. Life was brimming with expectancy.

And then, twenty-seven days after my twenty-seventh birthday, I just wasn’t feeling well. My fever just didn’t want to go away. My bones were achy, my throat hurt and I had spent too many days lying on the sofa.

A trip to the emergency room for some more antibiotics, and maybe some fluids, turned into a long, long evening of waiting, blood tests and more waiting. How could I be so sick? I had always been so healthy… I rarely missed a day of work.

The diagnosis… acute myelogenous leukemia.