Bridgetenders are the worst gossips in the working world. You wouldn’t expect that, because we work alone for the most part. But that’s what fuels it. We sit alone for nearly 8 hours, which gives us plenty of time to speculate, and management traditionally keeps us in the dark, so during shift change or the rare phone call between bridges, these massive information dumps take place. And the information does not have to be accurate. In fact, like the game of telephone, as the information jumps from bridge to bridge, and from bridgetender to bridgetender, the story becomes more outlandish.
So I can almost guarantee that my coworkers are saying, even as I write this, that I’ve gotten a nose job. Which is hilarious, really. I mean, I’m 61 years old. I’ve never worn makeup in my life. Half the time I forget to get haircuts until my hair gets so long that it becomes a nuisance. Do I sound like the type who would waste my time and money on a vanity project?
But I did just miss 4 days of work because I had surgery on my nose for a deviated septum. It turns out that I get practically no air through my left nostril. Go figure. I mean, I sort of knew that, but I had lived with it for so long that I had forgotten. The only reason it even became a thing is that I also have sleep apnea, and that meant I was put on a CPAP machine, and I’ve blogged about my hate for that infernal device. Then I found out about a dental device that would get me off the CPAP, and blogged about that, too.
Now I need to do a sleep study to determine if the dental device is working (and it better be, because I refuse to go back to the CPAP. I won’t, I won’t, I won’t. You can’t make me.) But before I could do the study, the doctor did a preliminary airflow test thingy, and said…
“Do you know you get no air through your left nostril?”
“Well… yeah… kinda…”
So off to the ear nose and throat specialist I went, who then determined I had a deviated septum, which required something called, if you want to get technical, a closed septoplasty, a bilateral inferior turbinate submucous resection, and a closed bilateral alar batten grafting. And that, dear reader, in layman’s terms, is:
🡆 NOT A NOSE JOB. 🡄
I’m not going to disabuse my coworkers of their ridiculous conclusions because 1) if they don’t know me by now, they’re fools, 2) the more I protest, the more they’ll think I’m lying, and 3) they already believe so many false things about me that I have long since given up on them.
But I do have strong feelings about cosmetic surgery, and here’s why.
Primarily, why in God’s name would anyone subject themselves to a surgery that they didn’t need? I mean, I can understand cosmetic surgeries for burn victims, or for those with horrific and/or debilitating scars or deformities, and of course I can understand surgeries for health reasons, but just to improve your already natural looks? I struggle with that. (More on this below.)
My surgery was outpatient, although I was under general anesthesia. I have no memory of the actual procedures, thank goodness, but upon waking, I was acutely aware of the fact that things had been removed and rearranged and grafted and stitched up, and that my body was none too pleased with those facts. There were all manner of bodily fluids issuing outwardly and inwardly and let’s just say I was grateful for the pain pills for the first couple days. And I’m also grateful that antibiotics exist, because healing was not going to be a simple process what with all the various nooks and crannies up in there.
Oddly enough, though, the pain was short-lived. It was the extreme exhaustion and the gross discharge and the scary cleaning procedures and the utter feeling of helplessness in my own body that was the worst of it. And needing so much help and wanting so much comfort and just being scared because I felt so vulnerable. That was a nightmare.
I am not supposed to blow my nose for 10 days, although it will be normal for my nose to feel congested. Instead, I should gently flush with saline and swallow/spit. I am to avoid sneezing (How the hell do I do that???) but if I do sneeze, I’m to do so with an open mouth (which, since I’m swallowing/spitting all manner of grossness, is a whole new level of disgusting).
I’m also to avoid exertion. No problem there, because you have absolutely no idea how much the blood vessels in your nose react when you pick something up, or even just bend over, until you’ve had this kind of surgery. It’s astounding.
I have to cover my nose in gauze at night. I also have to elevate my head 30 degrees to avoid waking up to find my face covered in blood like some killer clown. But neither of those efforts are effective.
And yet I have no regrets. I needed this surgery, even though it has been an ordeal. I can already tell that this is going to make a vast improvement in my breathing. My nose feels cavernous now on the inside. I don’t really see a difference on the outside, and I didn’t expect to. But even if I did, it’s not a procedure that I’d ever do just for pretties.
The fact that people feel the need to have surgeries just to improve their looks, or in an attempt to prolong their youth, says a lot of horrible things about society. The messages that we are sent about beauty standards and body image, and the bullying aimed at appearance that we allow to happen even more since the advent of social media, and the fact that many of us connect our self-esteem to our exteriors rather than to the content of our character, is disgusting.
And we can’t place the blame solely on the shoulders of Hollywood and the fashion industry and advertising, either, although they certainly do play a major role in perpetuating the horrible standards that we accept. We voluntarily pick up what they put down. Granted, it’s much easier to consume the meal that is placed before you, but it’s also our responsibility to inject reality into our lives whenever possible.
Stop criticizing one another. Stop making comparisons. Stop striving for unattainable goals. We can’t all be a size one. Focus on health goals rather than going for weight-oriented or appearance-oriented goals. Stop acting like appearance is your most valuable commodity. In fact, it’s not a reliable commodity at all. None of us look the same from one day to the next.
When I was a teenager, I had a bunch of cavities (it’s amazing my mother allowed me to survive to adulthood) so I had to go to the dentist a lot. My dental hygienist at the time was really into getting cosmetic surgery. I mean, she even got it on her knees and elbows. I remember thinking that I couldn’t recall ever even looking at someone else’s knees and elbows, let alone passing judgment on them. (That’s true to this day.) What constitutes an acceptable elbow? I can’t even see my own elbow, can you?
I felt really sorry for that woman. I assumed that she was really mentally ill, and that no matter how much she added or subtracted from herself, she’d never be satisfied. It had become an addiction of sorts—that desire to fix herself to be loved and accepted. She probably had an eating disorder at some point as well. If she passed away, I hope she did so long before she realized that she had been taken advantage of by a doctor who was willing to profit from her addiction, and was never going to say to her, “lady, why the hell are you wasting your time getting your elbows done? Find some beautiful place to sit and enjoy the view and stop torturing yourself.”
If she is still alive, which is highly doubtful, she’d be in her late 60’s or early 70’s now. I bet she did not age gracefully. With all the scars, her skin most likely didn’t stretch in natural ways. And she probably got into botox as well, so parts of her that should be mobile would most likely be paralyzed. The most predictable end result is that she has turned herself into the person she feared she had been all along. Something that people look upon with revulsion. Such a tragic story.
We can all think of people who have done this. I had a relative who got such a bad facelift that she looked like she was in a constant state of shock. I won’t name any actors names, male or female, because none of them admit to “having work done”, but I’m sure a few names spring to your mind. A few, in fact, are so shockingly altered that the only way I recognize them is when they speak and their iconic voices issue forth from these completely alien faces. The pressure to stay young, to stay marketable, to remain a commodity, in the end, led to their destruction, because those actors who allowed themselves to age relatively gracefully are, for the most part, still beloved, and no one gasps when they see them. Aging is a natural process.
The one tragic and undeniable story we can cite without hesitation is Jocelyn Wildenstein, who looked like a normal human being in her youth, and would quite likely have remained so as an old lady, but instead she attempted to make herself look like a cat, thinking this would make her look exotic. And in doing so, she rendered herself barely human. There is nothing so heartbreaking as watching someone become the architect of their own destruction.
Before you decide to “have work done” that can’t be altered, and that may very well go very badly for you in the long run, maybe consider working on your interior. Take a class. Expand your skills. Learn to do something you’ve always wanted to do. Read a book that makes you see things differently. Do something healthy. Go somewhere you’ve never been. Do something for someone else. Be kind. Help someone else feel better about themselves. Take the money you would have spent on cosmetic surgery and use it to make a positive, lasting impact on your community. Those are beautiful things, and people will see that beauty in you.
Meanwhile, I’m going to sit here and try not to sneeze.
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