Monday, December 29, 2003
Extreme Makeover: Earth's new scourge
I don't seem to be able to keep from watching shows about plastic surgery. Mercifully, I lack cable and therefore am not always subjected to my new vice. I do, however, find myself nearly unable to resist Extreme Makeover, and have been glued to the same episode of Entertainment Tonight dealing with plastic surgery twice in the last few days. What is it that makes people yearn so much for transformation that they will go under the knife to do it? As freakish as I think it is, if I had the money, I'd betray the genes passed on to me by countless Slavic ancestors for a more delicately sculpted nose.
I actually have a plastic surgeon, but I don't have to pay the exorbitant fees that go along with assuaging my vanity. He's very good at what he does. Many of the medical professionals I've seen in the last few months have praised his skill highly. The doctor I usually see tells me that he's one of the two best plastic surgeons in the area. Several of the nurses in the hospital (in addition to admiring his very suave appearance and Armani suits) had great things to say about work he'd done on relatives. One of the oncology nurses said that he did a wonderful job on her daughter's lip. The lady who does referrals for my primary care physician's office told me that he was the one she'd go to if given a choice. I have no complaints about the job he did on repairing me. I'm quite amazed at how natural the contour is (aside from a disconcerting flat spot...I wonder if anything can be done about that).
I'm not sure what I expected from a plastic surgeon. He seems quite personable, but I find his manner oddly unsettling (and he does seem to have a wicked sense of humor). The general surgeon who performed my biopsy (and later the mastectomy) warned me before I went for my consultation not to expect a great deal of sympathy from plastic surgeons. "They're a strange breed," he told me. Since they're in the business of making money and are more concerned with aesthetics than saving people's lives, I shouldn't go hoping for a shoulder to cry on. At that point, I honestly didn't want sympathy. I was up to my ears in proffered shoulders. I was tired of trying to calm down friends, relatives, acquaintances. Encountering somebody with a cool, detatched demeanor might be good.
I was not prepared for the encounter. The office was difficult to find, as there was no signage. There were no windows. I had no assurance until I walked in that I was even in the right place. The office staff was more "made up" than any medical staff I'd ever seen in my life, and I wondered if it was a job requirement or if they got discounts on cosmetic procedures. The waiting room was sprinkled with Vogue magazine, and not the usual Newsweek or Parenthood to which I was accustomed. I had left the fax of the biopsy results in my office at work, and so did not have it for the doctor to look at. I imagined the lady who led me to the room was disdainful of my lack of preparedness. I looked over the brochure she left for me with different reconstruction options.
I'd seen them already on the ASPS website on reconstruction. The brochure had identical graphics. I hoped I'd be able to have the tram flap procedure, since I really wanted something more natural in appearance than silicone or saline could approximate. Since only one breast was going to be removed, I thought it would be ridiculous to have an eternally young perky thing next to a 30 year old companion that was only going to droop more and more as I age. Combine that with the myriad disadvantages of introducing foreign material to the human body (not to mention the distastefulness of having to deal with weekly visits to be inflated like a bicycle tire), and I was decided.
The doctor seemed surprised that somebody my age would be opposed to artificial implants. He didn't spend an inordinate amount of time explaining the procedures in the brochure (although I did find it fascinating that some of the saline expanders can also serve as the final implants...the little valves get removed as the implants are sealed, which avoids further surgery), and accepted immediately what I wanted. I was a little surprised at the complete lack of pressure. The only issue was my body size. "You're a little thin," he surmised. (Hahahaha! This is my favorite thing about Michigan. Anywhere else in the country I'm fat. But here I'm a bit on the thin side.)
I told him that I carry my weight around the middle (I was camouflaged that day with slim cargo pants and a blazer), but he appeared skeptical. At any rate, he left the room and the lady who had brought me to the room gave me a paper gown to wear, open at the front, please. I sat on the weird chair thing in the office, and the doctor came back in to examine the raw materials. My embarrassment was acute. Having my body parts squooshed by medical professionals has somewhat lost its novelty to me now, but then it was agonizing. I tried very hard to neither laugh nor cry. He noticed immediately the disparity in size (made more uneven by the biopsy), which nobody besides me ever had. He explained that the natural droop of the other side (I must have turned several more shades of red at that one) was very difficult to duplicate, and that the upper part of the chest might be flatter than the other side. He tries to do a skin-sparing procedure, if possible, for the most natural results.
Then he wanted to see my belly.
I undid the front of my pants and reflected that never in my life did I expect to be in exactly this position. The kneeling man squooshed what was there, looked up at me, and waggled his eyebrows. What? What did that mean? Is that bad? Why is he looking at me like that? "This is great," he said, squooshing some more. I further never expected to hear anybody telling me that my marshmallowy midsection was great.
My midsection made me a good candidate for the procedure I'd asked for, and the doctor explained how it would simultanously rebuild my breast and give me a tummy tuck--which they do a lot of. He would send the assistant back in to take photos, and I could call to schedule the surgery. Then he went off to go do doctorly things, leaving me bemused.
I felt weak with relief until I realized what was coming next. Just so you know, if you visit a plastic surgeon's office and are thinking about any kind of surgery, make sure that you have performed the necessary, er, grooming. When I was told to don the tissue underpants and stand against the wall for the pre-operative photos, I was mortified. Mercifully, none of the photos showed my face.
There are things those makeover shows just don't cover.
I actually have a plastic surgeon, but I don't have to pay the exorbitant fees that go along with assuaging my vanity. He's very good at what he does. Many of the medical professionals I've seen in the last few months have praised his skill highly. The doctor I usually see tells me that he's one of the two best plastic surgeons in the area. Several of the nurses in the hospital (in addition to admiring his very suave appearance and Armani suits) had great things to say about work he'd done on relatives. One of the oncology nurses said that he did a wonderful job on her daughter's lip. The lady who does referrals for my primary care physician's office told me that he was the one she'd go to if given a choice. I have no complaints about the job he did on repairing me. I'm quite amazed at how natural the contour is (aside from a disconcerting flat spot...I wonder if anything can be done about that).
I'm not sure what I expected from a plastic surgeon. He seems quite personable, but I find his manner oddly unsettling (and he does seem to have a wicked sense of humor). The general surgeon who performed my biopsy (and later the mastectomy) warned me before I went for my consultation not to expect a great deal of sympathy from plastic surgeons. "They're a strange breed," he told me. Since they're in the business of making money and are more concerned with aesthetics than saving people's lives, I shouldn't go hoping for a shoulder to cry on. At that point, I honestly didn't want sympathy. I was up to my ears in proffered shoulders. I was tired of trying to calm down friends, relatives, acquaintances. Encountering somebody with a cool, detatched demeanor might be good.
I was not prepared for the encounter. The office was difficult to find, as there was no signage. There were no windows. I had no assurance until I walked in that I was even in the right place. The office staff was more "made up" than any medical staff I'd ever seen in my life, and I wondered if it was a job requirement or if they got discounts on cosmetic procedures. The waiting room was sprinkled with Vogue magazine, and not the usual Newsweek or Parenthood to which I was accustomed. I had left the fax of the biopsy results in my office at work, and so did not have it for the doctor to look at. I imagined the lady who led me to the room was disdainful of my lack of preparedness. I looked over the brochure she left for me with different reconstruction options.
I'd seen them already on the ASPS website on reconstruction. The brochure had identical graphics. I hoped I'd be able to have the tram flap procedure, since I really wanted something more natural in appearance than silicone or saline could approximate. Since only one breast was going to be removed, I thought it would be ridiculous to have an eternally young perky thing next to a 30 year old companion that was only going to droop more and more as I age. Combine that with the myriad disadvantages of introducing foreign material to the human body (not to mention the distastefulness of having to deal with weekly visits to be inflated like a bicycle tire), and I was decided.
The doctor seemed surprised that somebody my age would be opposed to artificial implants. He didn't spend an inordinate amount of time explaining the procedures in the brochure (although I did find it fascinating that some of the saline expanders can also serve as the final implants...the little valves get removed as the implants are sealed, which avoids further surgery), and accepted immediately what I wanted. I was a little surprised at the complete lack of pressure. The only issue was my body size. "You're a little thin," he surmised. (Hahahaha! This is my favorite thing about Michigan. Anywhere else in the country I'm fat. But here I'm a bit on the thin side.)
I told him that I carry my weight around the middle (I was camouflaged that day with slim cargo pants and a blazer), but he appeared skeptical. At any rate, he left the room and the lady who had brought me to the room gave me a paper gown to wear, open at the front, please. I sat on the weird chair thing in the office, and the doctor came back in to examine the raw materials. My embarrassment was acute. Having my body parts squooshed by medical professionals has somewhat lost its novelty to me now, but then it was agonizing. I tried very hard to neither laugh nor cry. He noticed immediately the disparity in size (made more uneven by the biopsy), which nobody besides me ever had. He explained that the natural droop of the other side (I must have turned several more shades of red at that one) was very difficult to duplicate, and that the upper part of the chest might be flatter than the other side. He tries to do a skin-sparing procedure, if possible, for the most natural results.
Then he wanted to see my belly.
I undid the front of my pants and reflected that never in my life did I expect to be in exactly this position. The kneeling man squooshed what was there, looked up at me, and waggled his eyebrows. What? What did that mean? Is that bad? Why is he looking at me like that? "This is great," he said, squooshing some more. I further never expected to hear anybody telling me that my marshmallowy midsection was great.
My midsection made me a good candidate for the procedure I'd asked for, and the doctor explained how it would simultanously rebuild my breast and give me a tummy tuck--which they do a lot of. He would send the assistant back in to take photos, and I could call to schedule the surgery. Then he went off to go do doctorly things, leaving me bemused.
I felt weak with relief until I realized what was coming next. Just so you know, if you visit a plastic surgeon's office and are thinking about any kind of surgery, make sure that you have performed the necessary, er, grooming. When I was told to don the tissue underpants and stand against the wall for the pre-operative photos, I was mortified. Mercifully, none of the photos showed my face.
There are things those makeover shows just don't cover.
