Galveston County Daily News, Feb. 11, 2008

UTMB's Oncology Clinical Trials Office is offering "Look Good ... Feel Better," a nationwide program sponsored by the American Cancer Society. Patient Debra Murie can't stop looking in the mirror. "My goodness, I feel so special," she said in her slow Texas drawl. "This'll be somethin' for the books."

Program gives makeovers to cancer patients
By Sara McDonald
The Daily NewsPublished February 11, 2008

GALVESTON - Debra Murie puckers her lips, bats her lashless eyes and places a pink Longhorn cap on top of her barely-not-bald head.

She can't stop looking in the mirror.

"My goodness, I feel so special," she said in her slow Texas drawl. "This'll be somethin' for the books."

Murie isn't girlie, hates caked-on makeup and doesn't have many female friends. But chemotherapy took her eyebrows, lashes and hair and gave her mouth sores and blotchy skin.

"I'm not a makeup kinda gal," she said. "I don't wear it. Once this cancer came back, I needed some help with the looks."

So with just a few chemotherapy treatments left and a regiment of radiation ahead, the 53-year-old San Leon resident signed up for a new program at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston's cancer center.

"Look Good ... Feel Better," is a nationwide program sponsored by the American Cancer Society that the medical branch's Oncology Clinical Trials Office just started offering.

Patients learn how to tie T-shirts into head wraps, draw on eyebrows and get a sampling of donated designer makeup products.

Murie said the 30-minute makeover did more for her mood than any other half-hour she's spent.

"I try to look more feminine," she said. "With eyeliner and brows, they make my eyes sort of pop out."

Christine Haas, a cosmetologist with the medical branch's hair studio, volunteers with the program to help patients learn how to apply makeup. She said that because most people have never had to draw on eyebrows, they can have trouble finding where to put them or making them look natural.

"Their eyebrows really help them be more expressive," she said. "We can apply (false) eyelashes to help keep the dust out of their eyes."

The salon also styles patients' wigs while they get treatment, Haas said.

Murie may say she needed a self-esteem boost, but she is anything but downtrodden, despite the tragic twists her life has taken recently.

Her mother, who she said was her "rock and backbone" died three years ago, her brother soon afterward. When she found out in June 2007 that the breast cancer she had in 1998 was back, her husband was hysterical and she was calm.

"I didn't cry," she said. "I didn't freak out. I kind of had a feeling it was back."

During her first battle with breast cancer, she had surgery and the problem stayed solved for nine years.

This time, the tumor was bigger, and surgery would be accompanied by two types of chemotherapy and radiation.

The second kind of chemotherapy - an aggressive medicine she affectionally calls "Big Red" - has given her mouth sores and rashes. She gets fatigued and has to sit around the house, something she hates because she'd rather be "going and going and going."

"I was excited to get chemo," she said. "I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. You sit back in the recliner and watch a big TV and talk to the other patients. It ain't so bad."

Besides, she said, she'd rather have the chemo than miss seeing her second grandson's birth or having the chance to boss her daughters around.

"I'm too mean and ornery to let this cancer beat me," she said. "I'll get by. I'm a cat with nine lives. I just want things to be smooth and enjoy life and my grandkids. I've got too much to live for."

Reporter Sara McDonald can be reached at 409-683-5324 or sara.mcdonald(at)galvnews.com.

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On the Web

www.lookgoodfeelbetter.org