A day in the life

Ask anyone who knows me: I am one of the world’s least girly of girls. Nonetheless a good chunk of my time and money is devoted to body-improvement tasks of various sorts.

I floss, brush and irrigate my teeth and swish with plaque-preventing mouthwash twice a day. At night, I poke the interstices of my teeth with a wooden toothpick stuck into a special plastic doohicky from my periodontist.

I shower in the morning, then smear my entire body with moisturizer to replace all the oils washed away by the shower, and spritz my underarms with a mineral-based spray, which is probably not necessary because I haven't sweated since my lymph nodes were removed five years ago—but who wants to take a chance?

I neti my nose to prevent recurrence of the sinus infections that plagued me for two decades. Then I smear ointment on my nostrils to prevent irritation from the neti salts.

I take a multivitamin capsule, a calcium/vitamin D tablet and a biotin tablet every day. Once a week I take a bisphosphonate tablet, which will either maintain my bones or destroy my jaw or both. Time will tell. It’s a crap shoot.

Every other day, I shampoo my hair, then condition it to replace the oils I washed out.

I brush my hair, these days using a wig brush to prevent removing any loose hairs from my sparsely covered scalp.

Once a week, I grate the calluses from my feet with a Ped Egg rasp—satisfying but easy to go too far. Sometimes I slice off larger chunks with a superdangerous mini-mandolin-type thing.

In the morning, apply eyeliner and mascara, often twice since I usually get it wrong the first time. At night, I remove the stuff with a special makeup remover.

I exercise: a yoga class or 30 minutes on the elliptical and the armbike.

At night I squeeze a rubbery device over my toes to pry them apart and counteract the pressure from my bunions. I leave it on for 20 minutes.

I dab debriding gel on each of my toenails. When they grew back after falling out from chemo, they have been fungus-flaky, and my liver is too quirky for me to take the antifungal medication that might cure the condition.

I fill the humidifier I use to counteract the drying effect of the radiator heat.

I’m sure I’ve left stuff out. And this list doesn’t take into account the endless hours I spend muddling over my clothes and breast prostheses and looking in the mirror to make sure I don’t look like a transvestite and that my shoes don’t look too dorky with the rest of my outfit and that I haven’t once again put on my shirt inside out. And there’s the daily earring decision. And let’s not even get into outerwear selection.