RICHMOND, Va. -- A makeup stylist is using her skills to help breast cancer patients feel their best.
Lisa Jackson, a hairstylist and makeup artist who has been in the beauty business since she was 17, is in her element when doing when doing makeup.
“People give me compliments like, 'You look so pretty,'” Jackson said.
Lisa Jackson
In December of 2016, in front of the camera is the last place Jackson wanted to be when she was undergoing treatment for breast cancer.
The tumor was caught early during her very first mammogram. She would go through chemo, have a lumpectomy and radiation.
“My hair may be gone. I may not feel my best. What can I do to make myself feel a lot better,” Jackson recalled.
It was the makeup that gave Jackson the boost she needed.
In what could be their lowest moments, Jackson wants other survivors to feel pretty too such as 49-year-old Denise Thompson, who was diagnosed in 2013.
“I noticed this large bump on my right breast,” Thompson said.
It turned out to be cancer. Thompson would endure 16 rounds of chemo, a bilateral mastectomy and 25 rounds of radiation. During a recent reconstruction surgery, Thompson was told her cancer may have come back.
“I’m like, 'I can’t. I can’t,'" she said. "I don`t regret having had to gone through it because I've been able to help others, but I don't want to do it again."
Denise Thompson
Waiting on that kind of life-altering news can affect your mind and your body. Thompson said her beauty session with Jackson helped to calm her nerves -- even just for a moment.
“I feel really pretty. It sounds really cheesy to say, but I feel so pretty,” Thompson said.
Recently, she received the news she was desperate to hear: her cancer did not return.
Jackson said she wants to help other survivors feel pretty, too. She can be reached at 804-245-2579 or lisajimage.com.
