The dreaded grooming process

Every woman has grooming things she hates doing.  For some it's shaving.  For some it's plucking the eyebrows. Others hate doing their hair or make-up.  It can be any list of things. 

Since I've had Scleroderma, they've all turned into a pain in the @$$. 

First it was my hair.  Originally i shaved it all for the chemo, but doing so made me realize, I can't run curling irons and hair ties and do french twists or cute little up-dos anymore.  So, I came to the realization, I will never have long hair again.  Heck, some days, even with it this short, I'd still opt for shaving it all off again!  LOL!

Showering, shaving, lotion, etc. are all a pain in the butt.  My razor is on a stick so I can shave my legs and not have to ask hubby to do it. 

I've learned to shampoo my hair with the backs of my thumbs and wrists.

If I do lotion on my own, it's only on my arms and upper legs as I've figured out how to do it with the backs of my hands, too.

I have yet to figure out how to do my toes.  The hubby either does them, or I treat myself to a pedi.  So, that works out.

Now, here's the most despised and hated part of the grooming process for me.  My gosh-darned finger nails. 

I have nice, hard, thick fingernails.  When my hands were straight, I could grow nice nails.  I was the envi of any woman that had to pay for acrylic nails.

Now, the "positive" of Scleroderma, is that it makes those nails that much harder.  The not-so positive about that is that they are so hard, I often times can't clip them with clippers.  Seriously.  Add to that my curled, gnarled hands and the fact that it's almost impossible to maneuver fingernail clippers to actually even try to cut the nails.  So, I end up having to file them down.  Yep, file, file, file.  Ugh!

I'd love to get a mani, but that's just not happening.   So, I often put the task off much longer than I should.  I try to keep on top of it, otherwise I scratch myself and we know I don't need any more sores.

So, tonight, I know that my nails are too long.  They have been for too long for over a week.  I've gotten the emery board out a ton of times, just haven't made the time to do it.  It's a long laborious process.  I even bought emery boards on vacation.  They're still in the package in my bathroom travel bag.

I guess tomorrow I'll have to break down and file the darned things down.   Maybe I'll get the energy to paint them too.  They might not be pretty hands and the paint job will be far from perfect, but if I'm gonna cut 45 minutes out just to file them down, I might as well add the extra time to make them girly.