From my male perspective women with cancer get loads of extra help and support when trying to adapt to the changes to their bodies and body image caused by cancer and its treatments. So they should, but men should too.
Ever since my first treatment it’s been a bugbear of mine that men with cancer going through the same sort of things as women are expected to just get on with it, with the implication that we’re somehow less of a man if we mention our painful sore skin or lament the loss of our hair. I was actually told to man up. It was meant as a joke but some jokes aren’t funny.
Fortunately it’s finally starting to be recognised that men with cancer need extra help with treatment side effects, too, to complement what we already get from our doctors and specialist nurses.
A charity called Look Good Feel Better has been trialling workshops and masterclasses especially designed for men whose cancer treatments have left us with scars, sore or painful skin, redness caused by hot flushes or burst capillaries, no eyebrows, thin hair, no hair or bald patches in our beards, to mention but a few.
On its website Look Good Feel Better currently states (but hopefully soon to be amended) “Our free confidence boosting skincare and make-up Workshops and Masterclasses are held across the UK for women undergoing treatment for any type of cancer”, so they’re not new at this, in fact they’ve been going for 24 years, but providing the Workshops and Masterclasses for men is new, and very welcome because, even if make-up is not your thing, having a penis doesn’t mean you don’t need a confidence boost when you’ve got cancer.
I recently went to one of the trial workshops myself, which was attended by nine men of assorted ages where we were looked after by the charity’s paid staff and some volunteers who’d given their time and skills for the day. Amongst them were two guys who were skin care experts who not only worked in the business when they weren’t volunteering but had also had cancer treatment themselves and it was obvious from the things they said that they understood what cancer treatments could do to men’s bodies and how it made you feel.
We were given a goody bag full of free samples (and very nice they are, too) but the workshops aren’t trying to flog you anything. They are just trying to help those of us whose skin, hair, appearance and general wellbeing have taken a massive knock from cancer treatments to recover a bit of our former selves and they do that by freely giving us the benefit of their professional knowledge. My preferred option would be a time machine to take me back 5 years to before my body was nuked but being told which products might make my hair grow back properly or could hide scars and stop my radiation and chemo damaged skin from drying out, itching and becoming painful is a close second.
If you’re a man with cancer, no matter what your age is, I’d recommend going to one of these workshops if you get offered the chance. There’s enough to contend with when you have cancer so why turn down something that could help? It’s a no brainer and if nothing else you meet other guys in the same boat as you, it’s a good laugh and you get to find out that eyebrow touch up pencils also come in grey and they can be used in your beard!!
Not that I need grey, of course.
rantfromthesuburbs 