You’ve all heard of, know someone who has, or have experienced sleep walking antics (in my dreams!), even the Ambien-induced zombie driving, cooking, eating, or whatever activity undertaken during/after the drug’s kick-in. Well, pathetically, I have no excuse. I was awake!
It had been a l-o-n-g day in my wheelchair: my back hurt, my boo-tā needed relief, my feet felt like stuffed sausages, and my face screamed, “Nourish me!” If a CSI quadriplegic can hurry, I was trying to!
Whether or not you’re living with a life interruption (my coined expression for SCI, a prolonged illness, injury, or disease), you know the urgency of a getting horizontal reprieve. It’s more expedient than a need; more urgent than a must; more demanding than a have-to. It’s an emergency!
In the throes of discomfort, after tending to the boys, turning back my sheets, preparing my bed with my nightly supplies (if you’re SCI, you know what I mean), and turning off all slumber-robbing lights and electronics, I remembered seeing a white tube of face cream next to my stash of Young Living’s medicinal, therapeutic essential oils on my kitchen table.
Okay, I’m on that side of sixty. Get a grip! You’ll be there in the blink of an eye.
Anyway, assuming it to be my anti-wrinkle-undo-sun-damage-of-my-youth cream, I squeezed its emulsion into my palm, and slathered it generously upon my face—around my lips, cheeks, eyes, eyelids, eyebrows, and forehead.
Instantly, I was distracted from its odd, but vaguely familiar, scent. OMG, did it burn!
Still in the dark, I wheeled to the bathroom to administer a soothing gel. After a couple of minutes of no soothing, I smeared on a hefty portion of hydrating lotion. Still, no relief. Hmmm.
I reasoned that my face was extra sensitive after washing my hair, head down, in the sink, rather than in the shower. I figured, “Oh, well; overnight, my skin’s pH will balance.”
In the night, I had a rememory of something work-related I had forgotten to do. In the morning, in spite of a tight, itchy face, my feet hit the floor running (in a manner of speaking) to my office. After a while, a growling stomach reminded me I hadn’t eaten.
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Back to the kitchen table in daylight, I noticed the writing on the tube of “face cream:” Sally Hansen® Crème Hair Remover for face. OH, NO!
YES, I do have facial hair…it’s peach fuzz…and is only noticeable in sunlight…if you’re using a magnifying glass…sort of.
In horror, envisioning the hikimayu practice—shaved eyebrows, I skidded to a screeching halt in front of my bathroom mirror to see if I still had eyebrows, or eyelashes. Disability is one thing but a bald face is another.
Amidst scattered red splotches and snake skin scales were two brows. Below, circling both eyes, there were lashes.
Through extreme gratitude, I can’t explain why those hairs defied removal, but it did explain the pain! Oh, and yeah, “…the vaguely familiar scent.”
I believe my oft’ recurring missteps are directly proportional to the air in my wheelchair tires, not to the air in my head.
Are there any mathematical geniuses out there that would agree?
(“In pre-modern Japan, hikimayu was the practice of removing the natural eyebrows and painting smudge-like eyebrows on the forehead. Hiki means “pull” and mayu means “eyebrows.” -Wikipedia.org)