Misstropolis

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Eye Job

by Davina Perl Beacham

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After icing my bruised and battered face for seven hours, I finally gained the courage to look in the mirror.

Staring back at me was a woman who was hardly recognizable - eyes black and blue, practically swollen shut. I knew turning 40 was going to be dramatic, but this was melodramatic. I gasped and looked again, noticing the maze of dried blood outlining the stitches. My mind exploded. What have I done to myself?! What was I thinking? And then I broke down and cried, because I looked like a car crash victim. Worse actually… more like a plane crash…. or a nuclear explosion… yeah, that was about right, I looked like a nuclear explosion victim. Very melodramatic.

In case you didn’t read my story, 40, A LOT LIKE 39 SO FAR, let me take you back 8 months to explain…

In a desperate attempt to look FERGALICIOUS on my 40th birthday, I spent three quarters of a year trying every diet and exercise regime known to mankind - none of which worked. Somewhere along the way my personal trainer, Jo, told me how she used to have baggy eyes just like me. She went on to tell me how she gave herself an eye-lift for a 40th birthday present. Jo suggested I do the same. I nodded in agreement, and then mentally performed a few black belt karate moves on her.
I went home, looked in the mirror, and saw a pretty good-looking gal with fat pouches in the corners of her eyes and puffy bags underneath them. I always wondered why friends were asking me if I got any sleep because I look exhausted. Now I knew why. It dawned on me, in this state of emergency, that I needed to research corrective eye surgery right away. Jo gave me the name of her doctor in Boston, and I began to make the plunge into the wonderful world of plastic surgery.

I met with the doctor a week later, and told her I didn’t want to have tired-looking eyes all the time. After close examination, the doctor informed me (in a very professional manner) that I had “droopy eye,“ and that I’d probably have to have surgery at some point. Then she went on and on about the pros of doing it now. I wasn’t really paying attention to what she was saying, because I was still annoyed about the “droopy eye” comment.

After months of chronic dieting and not loosing a damn thing, I came to the harsh realization that this was where my body wanted to be at this stage in my life. Then I decided to binge on a bag of peanut M&Ms to make myself feel better. I also decided to commit to the “corrective eye surgery” and, with the green light from my ever-so-loving-and-patient husband, I sent a deposit check to the doctor.

I didn’t tell anyone besides my husband and my friend Rebecca about it quite yet. I didn’t want people to think, you know, that I was crazy. It dawned on me that maybe I was … the slightest bit… crazy.

Three days later, Rebecca drove me to the hospital for my ‘corrective eye surgery.’ She asked if I was scared. I told her, “I’m only scared of what to say to people after. I don’t want to lie, but I don’t want people to know what I have done either - just in case they have unsolicited advice, or I’ve made a terrible mistake and end up having hamburger face, or something.” After consulting with Rebecca I decided to tell people I was having headaches, so they wouldn’t wonder why they hadn’t been seeing me around town for two weeks. And saying I had headaches wasn’t technically a lie, because my head was going to ache, specifically my eyes, but who needed to know the specifics?

I got to the hospital and laughed my way on to the operating table - 90% nervous laughter, 10% because the anesthesiologist and nurse were making wisecracks. An hour and a half later I was in the recovery room, not laughing any more. I was icing and popping Tylenol. Rebecca drove me home and I continued icing my face for 7 hours before I had the courage to look in the mirror, and… well… we know what that looked like!

For the next 4 days, besides continual icing and slathering of Bacetracin, I considered moving to another country, so no one would recognize me and say, “Why the Hell did you do that? You looked better before.“

By the fifth day, I graduated from the car crash look to some form of Jaundice, as my face was swirling in neon shades of yellow and purple. Moving was still a consideration, but maybe just to a different state. By now, my friends were leaving multiple messages on my answering machine - annoyed that I was not returning their phone calls. So, I sent them all a gracious email explaining how I had been getting “headaches.” Then I spent the next hour feeling incredibly guilty for being shifty. I wished I had the balls to tell them the honest truth, and promised myself to tell the truth after there was no evidence left on my face.

Later in the day, I took a spin on the treadmill, but only mustered a brisk walk - just in case I were to pop a stitch and possibly have my eyeballs fall out. I stepped off the treadmill twice and rushed into the bathroom to make sure this had not happened.

Day six shed a glimmer of hope… maybe I’d stay in the state of Massachusetts, but it had to be two hours from where I presently lived.

By day seven, my kids were starting to ask questions about why I had been wearing “those gigantic black sunglasses 24 hours a day, for 8 days straight.” They were not buying the, “Mommy has headaches” routine anymore. I gained the courage to lift off the glasses and my older son asked, “Why do you have pink lip gloss on your eyes?“

I put the glasses back on.

By the next day not only was I getting cabin fever, but I was also sick and tired of wearing those goddamn sonovabitch sunglasses. I decided enough-was-enough and shuffled around the house all day with them off. When my younger son came home from school, he said, “Mom, you look hurt.”
I said, “I am hurt. I need a hug.” He gave me hugs and kisses and told me how much he loved me, and that gave me the strength to keep the glasses off.

Another week passed. My friends (who still didn’t know what I had done) were concerned that I had fallen into a deep depression, because I turned 40 and hadn’t left my house in more than two weeks. I didn’t want them to worry any more, so I wrote this silly story for them. The act of writing and sharing the truth helped me rejoin society. Of course, I looked five years younger, so why wouldn’t I?