Plastic Surgery
When I was a little girl about the age of five, I was watching my cousin play baseball with his friends. In my excitement I got a little too close to the swinging bat and ended up getting cracked in the face. My mother and auntie screamed and ran to me. I was sobbing with blood pouring out of my face. It turns out my nose was broken.
I remember seeing a picture taken around that time period. I have big black bruises around both eyes and my entire face appeared to be swollen, but in time I healed up and seemed no worse for wear, save the slight bump that had appeared on the bridge of my nose.
A few years later when I was about nine years old, I was sleeping in my bed. I rolled over in my sleep and would have fallen right out of bed, if it wasn’t for the heavy oak dresser a few feet from my face. I don’t know how I gained such a momentum, but I ended up smashing my face with such force against that dresser that my nose was broken once again and my face was pouring blood.
I remember my mother calling 911 to find out if there was something they could do for me. They told her that if the bleeding had stopped, there was nothing they could do for a broken nose and that was that.
Unfortunately, this break was not as inconsequential as the earlier one had been. Once the swelling went down and the bruising gradually went away, I was left with a noticeable bump where the bone had broken and a resulting downward angle to my nose, leaving it to look like a hook!
At first, I think my mother and grandmother were worried the most. I didn’t even seem to notice much of a difference. However, over time as my features began to change as I grew, my nose began to be more and more an object of attention and teasing, garnering cruel taunts of ‘witch’ and ‘gonzo’ in the school yard.
When I was about 14 my grandmother made an appointment for a consultation with a surgeon to discuss my options for plastic surgery.
I remember meeting with the doctor and being amazed at the size and length of his own nose. It seemed outrageous that he was a doctor doing plastic surgery every day, and yet he had yet to submit to the knife himself.
After finding out about the procedure that we were considering, the choice to go ahead was left with me. I did some research and found out the serious implications and side effects that can occur both during and following plastic surgery. At that particular time, I felt that undergoing this operation all in the name of vanity, seemed rather extreme. And so I decided against going under the knife.
To this day I have problems with my self-esteem. I often wonder how much these issues relate to the amount of attention and teasing my poor ol’ nose endured during those delicate teen years. At the same time I recognize that what others think and say should not be allowed to have so much bearing on one’s self-esteem, and so I have stuck with my decision to live with my imperfection to this day.
(c) 2006- plastic surgery
