Linda Lancaster-Carey
“I did everything you’re supposed to do,” says Linda Lancaster-Carey. She had yearly checkups and tests to screen for breast cancer. Ten years ago, her tests came back positive for stage-3 breast cancer. Three-and-a-half years ago, she was diagnosed as metastatic.
“When I had chemotherapy for the first time, my eyebrows didn’t really grow back,” says Lancaster-Carey. “When I look in the mirror, I don’t look at the rest of my face, I just see my eyebrows. It’s nice to have eyebrows.” Unfortunately, hair loss is a common symptom of cancer treatment. While some women choose to embrace it, others turn to makeup to help them feel like themselves again.
“I felt like I needed to wear more makeup,” she says. “I wasn’t self-conscious about it at all, because that’s just sort of part of the package, but I liked to draw my eyebrows on.” Now, Lancaster-Carey wears vivid lipstick when she wants to feel strong. “It makes me feel powerful in a really weird way,” she says. “I don’t know why a color of lipstick would make me feel that way, but it does and I’ll take it.”
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Marcela Shine is Founder of Avanzar Ventures, Business Manager of The Tutu Project and an advisor to the Carey Foundation. Her company, Avanzar Ventures, has been supporting the project by providing operational, social media and technical implementation strategy since the inception of the project.