100 Perks of Having Cancer: Plus 100 Health Tips for Surviving It (13 page)

Perk #9

I Got to Try Out

New Eyebrow Shapes

Y
ou don’t realize how important eyebrows are to your look until you lose

them. That became obvious to me shortly after I lost my eyebrows due

to chemo. Kaitlyn was telling me about her weekend plans, and I looked at

her with “raised eyebrows” in order to communicate to her: “Oh, so you

really think I am going to let you go on a road trip with your friends?”

While this was the effect I was going for:

This is how I actually looked:

So, needless to say, without my eyebrows to communicate my displeas-

ure, she ended up going on the road trip.

A similar incident happened about a week later. I went to Donovan’s

room to look for my phone charger and was horrified at the mess I saw

I 43 J

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100 Perks of Having Cancer

there. I looked at him with “furrowed eyebrows” to show my displeasure

and let him know it was time to clean up. However, rather than this:

I looked more like this:

Without my eyebrows to back me up, it was pointless to tell him to clean

his room.

So I figured it was high time I invested in eyebrow cosmetics and exper-

imented with some new looks. I tried:

The McDonald’s arches

The Jack-O-Lantern

The fuzzy caterpillar

Perk #9: I Got to Try Out New Eyebrow Shapes

45

But finally settled on this look:

If you are in the market

for new brows, try an

eyebrow powder, which

looks more natural than

an eyebrow pencil.

HEALTH TIP #9

Would You Raise Your Eyebrows

if I Offered You Some Weed?

W
hat if I told you that one of the healthiest foods found anywhere can

most likely be found on your front lawn? Can you guess what it is?

Hint: It’s the one plant that you curse at daily, spend hundreds of dollars

to kill, and is the top reason for widespread outdoor chemical use.

Yes, dandelions!

Poor dandelions get a bad rap. No one likes seeing them in

their yard, and, with nicknames like blowball, swine snout,

and cankerwort, it’s no wonder why you may have left this

plant off your shopping list.

Dandelion leaves are loaded with vitamins and iron,

and there’s not a bad thing I can say about them. One

cup of chopped dandelion leaves contains only 25

skinny little calories, no fat, and 535 percent of the

recommended daily allowance (RDA) for vitamin K. Vita-

min K is important for healthy blood and necessary for

vitamin D absorption. That same pesky weed will provide

112 percent of your RDA for vitamin A, a powerful anti -

oxidant and health promoter, and 10 percent of your RDA for

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100 Perks of Having Cancer

calcium. (Moooove over milk!) And if that’s not enough to change your

mind, it is one of the best greens for iron (9% of the RDA).

The leaves are on the bitter side, as some dark greens are, but that’s a

good thing, as the bitterness helps to improve digestion by encouraging

enzyme production and cleansing your liver. The bitterness blends nicely

with assorted baby greens and spinach, and when used with other greens,

actually improves the flavor of your salad. A lemon-based dressing comple-

ments the bitterness nicely. Try mixing one tablespoon of extra virgin

organic olive oil, two teaspoons of fresh lemon juice, one teaspoon of

honey, and one clove of crushed fresh garlic. Add a pinch of sea salt and

dash of pepper, whisk for one minute, and pour over greens for a fresh and

healthy option to your usual salad dressing.

Dandelion leaves also act as a natural mild diuretic and a mild anti-

inflammatory, reducing generalized swelling and blocking inflammation,

the root cause of many chronic illnesses.

The root of the dandelion is the subject of a growing number of studies

for its role in fighting cancer. A 2012 research grant was awarded to the Uni-

versity of Windsor in Canada to test dandelion extract tea on leukemia

patients. Initial research showed that treating a very aggressive form of

leukemia (chronic monocytic myeloid leukemia) with dandelion root

extract caused significant self-destruction of the blood’s cancer cells. Using

these results, the university applied for a more extensive grant where they

created a very basic dandelion tea that could be tested on the different

leukemia cells in the lab. To the researcher’s surprise, the dandelion mixture

caused the leukemia cells to commit suicide while keeping the healthy cells

alive and well. There are anecdotal great success stories of patients using

dandelion root tea to fight leukemia. There are currently research applica-