Plastic SurgeryEssay Preview: Plastic SurgeryReport this essaySince the beginning of existence it has seemed that the outer appearance of a person is more important than the inner. Society as well as the media has played a key role in distributing this thought through the minds of all ages. Every year there is a new trend that you need to follow to “fit in”, thats the preconceived notion anyway. But how much is too much? How far should someone go to “fit in”? Plastic surgery has been around for quite a bit of time but has within the last decade or so reached a peak in interest due to the desire of all to be flawless.
According to the website “A Board Certified Plastic Surgeon” plastic surgery began more than 4,000 years ago and in 800 BC India adopted many forms of reconstructive surgery. As most progress in medicine normally takes a long time it also took plastic surgery a long time to make any advancement. The “American Society of Plastic Surgeons” described the movement as “glacially”. The first noted performance of plastic surgery was documented in 1827. The operation was a cleft palate. Dr. John Peter Mettauer was the surgeon whom preformed this surgery, and he used instruments that he designed himself. Dr. Meattauer has been called “a genius of his time”, by the government website PubMed. Dr. Mettauer lived from 1787 to 1875 and left behind a legacy that would empower other surgeons to further medicine and bring plastic surgery to the worldwide acclaim that it has reached today.
Its important to learn the history about a topic so that is whats briefly mentioned above. Now we move on to the good stuff. Lets start off with types of plastic surgery. In todays world it is possible to fix just about any part of your body that you deem not perfect. I am sure that just about everyone feels that the most common procedure regarding plastic surgery is breast implants, however a 2005 statistical fact sheet reveals something different. According to this fact sheet posted by the “American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery” the number one procedure in 2005 was lipoplasty, which without doctor jargon is more commonly known as liposuction. Coming in second through fifth was breast augmentation (implants), blepharoplasty (cosmetic eyelid surgery), rhinoplasty (nose job), and adominoplasty (tummy tuck). I must admit myself that I was a bit shocked to find in third place cosmetic eye surgery but that is the perfect example of how detailed some people are to what they feel is perfection. All of the procedures listed above are surgical. However, there are some other procedures that some opt for that are not surgical. These include but are not limited to botox, laser hair removal, microdermabrasion, and chemical peels.
An important question that I feel needs to be addressed is how bearable is the pain and what risks are associated with the procedures? The “American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery” lists things to take into “consideration” when having breast augmentation as complications with anesthesia (typical with any surgical procedure), change in nipple size as well as breast size, and possible an eruption of the implant which is not harmful to you body. That seems a bit scary to me, however not as bad as I expected. Nose reshaping surgery “considerations were listed as complications with anesthesia, swelling, bruising around the eyes and checks, possibility of other surgerys and less exposure to the sunlight. Though these seem like valid “consideration” I feel that they are brief and minor descriptions of complications.
As a child I fractured my nose. My friend had spent the night over my house and the next day we were in my bathroom getting ready to go to the store with my mom. We were standing very close to each other as were doing our hair, when suddenly the beret that my friend, Briana, was tying her pony tail into snapped. When it snapped and broke it right elbow jerked directly into my face, straight into my nose. I began to cry hysterically. I was in so much pain and although it was not bleeding it hurt very badly. For the next few days I began to notice that my nose remained very red and very swallow. I have had a bump on my nose ever since then. When I was in tenth grade almost sixteen I had been nagging my parents for years to allow me to get surgery,
The doctors at the Children’s Hospital in New York, located in the town of Rochester, Minnesota, diagnosed me with stage 2 diabetes. They said I had some type of cancer that would have spread if my mother, Briana’s sister, had been unable to keep up. The surgery stopped her from dying. (Note: I am now a 21-year-old living in New York and have moved here from Michigan every time a family member dies of diabetes.) She is now 26 years old, healthy and well on her way to being able to go back to school. Her first meal a week after surgery was a whole new day of eating breakfast (my mom made sure to eat her breakfast and her favorite snack was applesauce). Her second is a full-blown day of sleep so I am very aware of her health condition. After much thought I had told a friend of mine how much I felt sorry for her when it was a new day and that she needed treatment, so I knew that I had already moved, was going to move again, and could not get a care package to pay for it. What she had been thinking had turned out not to be true, and a couple months after that I was sent to the ER where I had to go to go wash myself or her sister’s hair from the tear. She wasn’t healthy at all, and was very worried she would be put off by the fact that she was wearing a toupee. This time the surgery saved her and she woke up healthy, and I felt really good.
Since then I have had a second surgery. I’m a great nurse, but on my first I had to say that I wouldn’t take away our relationship. I have told my daughter and my siblings not to go out at night with me while I work so they can find a home. In my family I talk about how easy it is to make a nice living by going out every night. I have to admit that I can’t tell who else is around because in this year (2015) everyone was pretty nice, so it was nice to have someone to connect me and Briana by hanging out over dinner. It’s been a beautiful week. I had a couple of nice people to talk with. There is something about the environment and the way the community works and the people who work make people feel welcome and loved. In the past seven years I’ve seen so many people who didn’t get to know how to be themselves or how to be their people that feel so good about being here and I’m so thankful for my family. Sometimes I am glad I didn’t go around. I went to meet the lovely people and tell them how amazing they are to work with such a beautiful community and you can just imagine the joy they have and how thankful I am to live with them.