by our client, Sarah Prout
Member of Lashify Life since: March 2022
Top 3 Favorite products: Truffle™ Plushies, Starburst™ and Pre Cleanse
Favorite Bonding Technique: Stoner™ Method
Typically wears lashes for: 1 week
You have cancer.
Well, crap. Those aren’t words any person ever wants to hear. It is absolutely mind boggling how quickly those words change the trajectory of your life. So many questions, so much fear, so much willpower in NOT GOOGLING ANYTHING.
Turns out, my uterus was trying to kill me. Okay, so get it out of there, I was done with it anyway. My best friend told me to go to Urgent Care IMMEDIATELY to get it out before it had another minute to try to get me. I was immediately handed off to a team of unbelievably qualified doctors - Stanford/Columbia/Cedars-Sinai Gynecologic Oncologist for surgery, Harvard Med doctor and U Penn physicist for radiation, MD Anderson fellow for chemo - and I knew I was in very, very good hands. The practical part of taking care of myself was quickly sorted. Surgery, recovery, radiation, chemotherapy - we had made a long-term plan that would result in my team of doctors telling me never to come back.
What I wasn’t prepared for was feeling completely out of control of what was happening to my body so rapidly I didn’t even have time to wrap my head around it. Surgery happened 27 days after my diagnosis. Next came having a port surgically placed for chemo, then countless appointments with doctors and nurses with all sorts of radiation and chemo “education”.
Every time I sat down with someone I was learning something new that was going to happen to my body, another possible side effect, another foreign moment to navigate. Everything was topsy turvy. My body had new scars and all sorts of uncharted feelings (HELLO, instant menopause! Ugh.) My emotions were run ragged. I was trying to keep up with work and maintain as much normalcy as I could, but it was hard. I had great support from my two sons, my sister, and my very best friend ever, but in the dark hours of the night, I was just a 46 year old, single woman asking herself what the hell…
I have to say, I found a life raft in the most unusual of places, clinging to the one thing I COULD control and the one thing that made me feel beautiful and centered in the middle of all of this chaos. My lashes.
It started a few days before my first chemo treatment and the start of six weeks of radiation treatments. I realized that I didn’t have the Gossamer™ lashes I needed to put on a fresh map and there was NO WAY I was going to get through ANY OF THIS without LASHES ON MY FACE!!!!! (Sometimes it’s a blessing no one can hear me in some of my finer Moira Rose moments.)
A frantic order with extra shipping charges got me the fix I needed, and I was armored up and ready to take on this fight. I found something else that night as I was trying to figure out how fast I could get my Cs in 10, 12, and 14. I found the Lashify Life Facebook page.
I joined and started seeing posts of fellow humans asking questions about bonding, looking for ideas for lash maps, asking for constructive criticism. What ran so much deeper than that, though, was the community I discovered in those pages. People building each other up, sharing triumphs and failures, hearing each other and feeling heard. I had never seen a social media group that was so positive and uplifting. All. The. Time. We are over 100k strong and negativity does not exist in this group.
I have shared in Lashify Life a couple of times about my journey. The night my hair started falling out in clumps and my son shaved my head for me, I posted a picture and a “in spite of it all, lashes on point!” message. I was absolutely overwhelmed by the response I received.
Thousands of messages of support, encouragement, love, and a shocking number of people sharing their own cancer journeys. We truly are never alone. I can’t even begin to tell you all of the moments Lashify and Lashify Life has filled a need for me. From preaching the love of Lashify to all of the radiation techs and chemo nurses who need to tell me my lashes are AMAZING, to reading and sending love on posts in the wee hours of the morning when steroids make it impossible to sleep, Lashify is a bright spot in my days.
And the lashes themselves? I have had to get a little creative with brick stacking as my lashes are almost nonexistent at this point, but it works, and the suit of armor it gives me during my battle is irreplaceable.
Even on my roughest days, when I don’t recognize myself in the mirror, I feel beautiful. I feel in control during the most out of control time I have ever experienced. I feel the love and support of a community like no other.
Sahara Lotti doesn’t just sell lashes. She sells an attitude adjustment in a cartridge. Self-care, even when it feels impossible. A community of beautiful, supportive humans. The power to turn your face to the sun and take on another day like the warrior that you are.
It’s about a whole lot more than just lashes.
Join the Lashify Life group on Facebook to see more from our amazing community!
