It was a cool, crisp winter's day...what we here in SW Florida call a "chamber of commerce day".
I hadn't a care in the world!
I was thrilled that the Prozac was working its magic, and I had recently gotten quite fit-ish, and lost 10 pounds.
Celebrating my new figure, and still clipping tags from a month's long shopping binge (discount, of course), I was gearing up to go after my long procrastinated dream of becoming a kick ass professional makeup artist to the Stars!!!
Almost ten years prior…early 2001, I found myself laid off from a failed Dot Com start up company, so I decided to enroll in the Joe Blasco Makeup Center in Orlando.
Once I was certified in Professional Beauty Makeup Artistry later that Spring, I was handed the fabulous opportunity of working with the Hooters Swimsuit Calendar as one of their makeup artists and photo assistants.
I had just turned 31…too old to go back to slinging wings in short shorts (in my opinion)…but never to old to bleed orange.
Once I was certified in Professional Beauty Makeup Artistry later that Spring, I was handed the fabulous opportunity of working with the Hooters Swimsuit Calendar as one of their makeup artists and photo assistants.
I had just turned 31…too old to go back to slinging wings in short shorts (in my opinion)…but never to old to bleed orange.
Over the course of almost a decade, I was once again seeing life through those orange colored glasses.
I hopped around the USA in a small, eye popping company logo'ed RV with my handsome Photographer Husband, Doug…Mr. 365 The Calendar Guy, as he's known to insiders.
From the majestic mountains' uplifted valleys to the little mosquito bites' perky peaks…I had a blast traversing our saucy and sexy nation while making the world a little more Hooterific.
But as AWESOME as that job was, it only kept me busy and employed for half of each year...so during the off seasons, I would do freelance makeup in the Tampa Bay area.
I was often hired by a prominent production studio who's clients were mostly popular local law firms, restaurants, regional banks and auto dealerships. They regularly came in to tape their cable TV commercials or to shoot their billboard ads.
Those jobs were always a lot of fun...but what was really cool, were the times I was booked to work with pro athletes and team owners, or up-and-coming actors, musicians and spokespeople on location somewhere.
This is what really sparked my desire to work with celebrities.
I looked forward to, and found myself craving the certain "high" I would get whenever I was working with those types of people. There was always something special that emanated from within them.
So effortlessly easy and organic was the fabulous energy that surrounded them...addictively intoxicating and invigorating.
So anyway, here it was...late November 2009.
I was 39 yrs old, and in my anxious possession, were 500 of the coolest custom business cards ever created...ready to land in the hands of those important people who could get me where I wanted to be.
Freshly printed and sitting proudly on my desk, they had been designed by the artist, Doug Wright who had also drawn (Me) in the Halle The Hooters Girl comic book.
On each card was a really cool sketch of my (Halle's) face accompanied by my name, title, email and phone number in fancy, artsy charcoal grey script.
I was ready, and I was confident.
I had just invested A TON of money in a shiny new airbrush system, too…one that gleamed with all the bells and whistles. Much like a new 64 pack of childhood Christmas Crayolas, the fancy airbrush makeup and all of the new accessories sat poised...sharp with anticipation of my future artistic greatness.
I couldn't wait to rise to the next level of makeup artistry, and having acquired quite the impressive collection of makeup artist picture books, I had become over-inspired.
I was absolutely salivating at the thought of my success.
So…even though my new meds had quite a few undesirable quirks, I was elated and giddy knowing that I wasn't going to die from a heart attack! My future suddenly looked very bright.
However, there was this one physical side effect that was becoming a bother.
MY BOOB HURT!!!
And it was beyond annoying!
So, I Googled any correlation between breast pain and fluoexetine (Prozac).
I discovered that in fact, the drug could exacerbate the condition known as fibrocystic breast disease...of which I had been told a while back, that I had. My boobs were so lumpy and bumpy and sore during hormonal changes and caffeine binges anyway, I figured this must be it! I just have to get used to it.
All of this was going on around the time of the media's public disservice "announcement" stating that women under 40 shouldn't bother with self breast exams because of our dense and ever changing breast tissue. Well, Miss Hypochondriac here, HAD been very diligent in doing self breast exams. I did them virtually every day since I was 35, along with my (almost) annual mammogram screenings. Plus...I just had a diagnostic digital mammogram 8 months ago...and an ultrasound with a follow up by a breast cancer surgeon 3 months ago...all due to a previous scare.
So, having had the reassurance of a "clear" mammogram, ultrasound and a physical exam done by the breast cancer surgeon, I was quite confident that my boobs were of the healthy variety...and I stopped examining them or even touching them for 3 months. Mostly because they just hurt too bad, and partly because the Prozac dulled my hypochondria. I was just going to wait until my next scheduled mammogram...some time late spring 2010...to even think about my boobs again. And with the media's "support", I didn't feel any anxiety about skipping my self breast exams either.
Then late November rolled around…and I SAW IT!
Oh noooooo.....oh please, oh please, oh pleeeeeeeeez! My insides fell to my feet, my heart shot in to my throat, and my legs became over cooked spaghetti noodles.
I felt my eyeballs bugging out like Wil E Coyote's just before he got crushed by the ACME anvil.
WHAT THE….?????!!!!
It took a good part of forever for my sweaty, trembling hand to find the nerve to
reach up and touch "It".
An undeniable little something stared back at me from my just-starting-to-fail-the-pencil-test, used-to-be-oh-so-perky, middle-aged-but-still-kinda-cute left breast.
SHIT.
SHIT.
SHIT.
So much for my antidepressant haze of euphoria.
My brain snapped back in to its old crappy comfort zone of worry and dread, and I immediately dove into the world of Google...searching frantically for any information that could even remotely explain this new thing in my chest.
