Nip and Tuck

As of late I have being watching my share of medical programs. Most of the programs have to do with how medicine and surgery(mostly surgery) can change a persons life. These procedures range from gastric bypass for the morbidly obese, reconstructive surgery for people born with debilitating birth defects, and then life saving procedures to remove tumors and the likes. The program on the obesity focused primarily on two people one woman who was 657lbs and the "Half Ton Man" Yes he actually weighted just over a 1000lbs!!! Now that is a story in itself and I would like to talk about it, but I think I will save that for another day.

Then there have been the programs on plastic surgeries the latest one was on the reconstruction of sexual organs. Yes, I was astounded. Woman actually going in and having their sexual organs reconstructed because they didn't like the way it look. Then of course there were the men who were having penile implants and reconstructive surgery to improve the length or girth of their penis. Of course everything else under the sun was discussed in this program, it seemed like anything was possible.

It got me thinking, has medicine gone to far? Have we gone to far? Why can't we be happy with the way we are? Why do we have to reshape, reconstruct, lift, tuck and remove parts of our bodies. One of of the plastic surgeons made an interesting comment. He said that most women who have breast augmentation do it to impress other woman not men. Now that surprised me, and I had to ask myself why? Why would women take the chance go under general anaesthetic and allow someone to change their appearance? I remember when a dear friend of mine went and had a breast enlargement ...we talked about it for days....I begged her not to do it....I told her she was beautiful just the way she was.....her bubbly personality, her spice for life and sense of adventure should be enough for anyone especially her. But that wasn't good enough for her...she wanted cleavage. She said she would feel better....but I never did get a straight answer from her about better in what way. She skirted around the issue of her doing it to attract men.

So why, why do we allow ourselves to be dictated to in such a way that we convince ourselves that the only way to be better is to gone under the knife of the skilled surgeon.

Again I wonder have we gone to far. I have heard of reconstructive surgeries for women who come from cultures that perform female circumcision and have been mutilated. I wonder if through doctors performing these surgeries they saw an opportunity to fill the lining of their pockets.

I have heard plastic surgeons say that they won't do a surgery unless the patient can give them a clear answer as to why they want the surgery. This one surgeon said that if they can't give him a clear answer then he wouldn't preform the procedure. I wonder. I guess he wasn't the surgeon who worked on Micheal Jackson or the Catwoman. How many of you have seen people that have been nipped and tucked to the point that they look like they are some kind of creature from another planet? Or women that have been through so much Botox that you see their lips coming through the door before the rest of them. I found these staggering figures on butt implants
here.

Why can't we leave well enough alone. Are there things about my body I would like to change. You bet. Smaller breasts, tighter butt and fewer wrinkles. There are things that I can change through exercise and I continue to work on. But nature plays a huge role. We all age. We all wrinkle, droop and sag. It's life's natural process. Why do we feel we should alter ourselves? Why can't we be happy in our own skin?

There is a place for plastic surgery. My daughter was the recipient of that.....when she had a tumor removed from her hand the plastic surgeon did an amazing job of reconstructing her hand. But plastic surgery for the sake of altering one's appearance I will never understand.

And that's all I have to say about that......