So Where Exactly is That Line?

 Recently I saw a clinic here offering botox, fillers and lip injections in a wooden shack about like this one.

Not that I'm in the market for that stuff. It is big business here, and before COVID 19 shut down the borders cheap plastic surgery and cosmetic alterations trips from the U.S. to here were popular. They advertise the plastic surgeons along with the discount dentistry in all the travel magazines. But there are the cheap and nasty local places that do it for pennies on the dollar if you don't mind the dirt and the squalor. It's only your health!

I'm not entirely opposed to plastic surgery. I have a good guy in Northern Va, that is the only one I let touch the skin tags on my face. He's done scar revision on my breast tumor scars too. He's good with a very light touch on the scalpel. If my eye lids get any saggier he'll be lifting them for me so I can see.

The other junk, the fillers, the botox, are a big no no to me. I'm allergic to so many things I can just imagine the freakish way I would look if I plumped lips or cheeks and I swole up like a massive toad. Years ago my doctor at Johns Hopkins thought about treating my vocal cord dysplasia with injections of botox right into my vocal cords. But first he gave me the tinest bit in my forearm, where you'd test a fresh hair dye or other chemical for beauty. Hello swollen up stuffed toad arm! I reacted quickly and negatively. Eventually though it smoothed out and that patch of my arm looked great! Younger even. No thanks. 

We decided the botox in the vocal cords was not happening and I was much better off with three months of OT Occupational Therapy. I started seeing a Hopkins therapist at their Bayview location three times a week for three months to figure out how to breathe through an asthma attack trying to shut my vocal cords. It worked. I still use their rescue breathing methods I learned there. Well worth the time.

There is a role for plastic surgery, I'm just not sure inflating body parts to freakish dimensions, nor trying to deny your age is the proper role for it. I've earned my wrinkles and silver hair, and have made peace with it. Although it might have been nice to get a tummy tuck when they did my hysterectomy seventeen years ago. They'd already cut me from hip bone to hip bone, might as well tighten it all up.

That's my line, for me personally. It does not mean it is yours. But I am starting to wonder where those bedrock boundaries run for everyone. Not just for plastic surgery either.  I'm watching someone giving out flawed medical advice in the middle of their own medical crisis, and listening to their ever changing medical scenarios. I'm actually quite afraid for her now. 

Here's my medical advice, borne from my MRSA adventures on my face and various body parts. MRSA hurts like the dickens, much worse than the usual skin infection or popped zit. Anything involving your face or your head is serious because your brain is so incredibly close to any infection on the exterior of your head. It's too easy for a serious infection to spiral in a day, and leap to your brain, or someone else, or even take you permanently out of the game. If it's on your head you must get to the doctor and get checked out.

And it's not just a matter of plastic surgery or not, or behaving like a raving exhibitionist online while ill. There are other lines, how far would you personally go for a dollar? Whenever I see online pundits speculating on the sexuality of minors, or exposing information about children without a care I know I'm dealing with someone for whom everything in life is merely fungible. I'm not a fan of people that do these things, and then shriek that the freedom of the press justifies it, when I know the real thing driving the action is money. The money they will make exploiting other people. 

Yet at the same time I am looking on at the sheer strength, the iron willed bravery of fellow Patheos author Ed Brayton. I've known Ed for quite a while. A few years ago I discovered that my beloved husband knows Ed's uncle of a similar name and the world felt just a little smaller. I always found Ed courageous for the fact that he never seemed to let the laundry list of serious medical issues surrounding him dim his enthusiasm for life, great cuisine, politics and writing. Ed plodded on, even from his hospital bed.

Now Ed has taken his biggest step yet, a real true blue line moment. He has decided, in sound mind and great reasoning, to stop the hospital, stop the treatments and enter hospice. This in my book is true bravery. Ed's calling the game, and has decided to leave it. I would normally say "Godspeed" to him for his exit, but Ed is one of my dear Atheist buddies so we're just going to say 'Universespeed' and we will miss you. Ed is facing something that I think nearly everyone with chronic illness must face, and cross that Rubicon on their own.

Please whatever deity exists, please help me to stay true to myself, like Ed is, to be courageous and fearless, leaving the petty and venial behind the lines because in the end it really does not matter.