Re-Inventing Randy (Part I)

Shall we cut to the chase?

I did it!!!!!!!!

Last week, at this very moment, I slipped into la-la land (well, let’s face it, more like SNOOZE CITY) in a last-ditch attempt to regain my youth...Ha. Kidding. I’m under no such illusion. Actually, the simple truth is that after a year of peering at myself in the mirror each morning and thinking I don’t wanna go through the rest of my life looking like this woman who’s become a stranger, I plunked down an obscene amount of money and scheduled a face lift plus upper and lower eyes.

Yay, me!

See, it’s not ALL about vanity, although (raises hand), there’s obviously a component in there somewhere. For me, more importantly, the decision to lose my surgenic virginity (yeah, I just made that up), boiled down to two issues: one, my friggin eyebrow muscles were exhausted from the effort of hoisting up my eyelids when I wanted to do stuff like...oh, I dunno...SEE; and two, the whole saggy thing going on with the rest of my face translated (in my mind) to sloppiness. (Longtime blogreaders will recall my love/hate relationship with sloppiness−I’m some sort of recalcitrant Virgo.)

Anyway, then this weird chick started showing up in my photographs. She wore her hair the same way as I, and she visited the same vacation spots. But I didn’t recognize her face−namely, her smile−and then it came to me. That poor smile has to prop up those big fat bags under her eyes−no wonder her lips are straining. Of course, that girl was me.

Lastly (okay, I guess I lied−we’re up to four issues now, aren’t we?), it came down to that lonely but necessary task we women face (no pun intended) every morning of our lives. I’m talkin’ about staring into that lighted make-up mirror−the one with the magnification so that our aging eyes catch those rogue hairs sprouting from our chins. (More lying−I don’t own the kind with the magnification but the lights are bad enough.) I mean, is that any way to start out a perfectly good day when you’re 55 years old? You’re practically doomed before the coffee cools off.

So, yeah. Cosmetic surgery was definitely on my radar and the blips were growing in frequency and decibels.

But first, as you know, I had to quit smoking. Major stumbling block, and it took months getting around to. Trust me, I get it. When it comes to healing, you definitely want your oxygen carrying blood guys firing on all pistons, and guess what−nicotine (and all the rest of the crap in cigarettes) tends to screw with the efficiency of that whole system. So, yeah. First up, I had to quit smoking.

Then, of course, I had to schedule time off. Hey, January’s as good a time as any.

Finally...well, let’s just say, business turned around mid-way last year, allowing me to feel comfortable spending a chunk of money on....ME.

I’d already done my research and in-person consults back in April, so I knew the name of the surgeon I wanted wielding the knife. He came with the added bonus of being local (between my driveway and his office, there are only two turns!−okay, spread out over about 5 miles, but still...), and he’d performed surgery on a friend of mine. (Total coincidence! I found him first! I found him first!)

Anyway, so that part was easy, and on a Wednesday in January, I found my fingers punching out the numbers to his office where the lovely Nicole suggested a date not even two weeks away.

Gulp.

“Okay,” I said, “let’s get ‘er done.” (So, see? Remember all that stuff I blogged about−the switching of the beds, the upgrading of the TV, etc. etc.? Ha. That was my version of pre-op prep!)

Also high on the prep list was securing the services of lifelong friend Kathleen. A respiratory therapist by profession, I knew that if she were available, she’d be here in a heartbeat, ready to hold my hand and take care of the yucky stuff. Little did I know that having her on-board would also make the experience...er, dare I say it...FUN?

Coming up tomorrow...oh, who knows? I haven’t written it yet. Maybe something about fear. Yeah, that’ll be good. What do you suppose my two greatest fears were?

(Note: I have no idea how many posts this’ll turn out to be, but I promise pictures at the end!)