surgery – Starshine Roshell

Tales of a Tetchy Ticker

It starts with a flutter: butterflies in my chest. Not sweet, delicate butterflies but twitchy, back-alley ones, like monarchs on meth.

If you’ve ever danced hard, hiked fast, or run far, you know the ribcage-rattling thuds I mean; they’re life-affirming when you’re deliberately exerting yourself. But they happen to me when I’m eating breakfast. Or driving my car. Or trying to fall asleep at night.

For more than 20 years, I’ve had an arrhythmia that sets my heart racing at up to 210 beats per minute for no apparent reason, at inopportune moments. On a good day, it leaves me breathless and lightheaded. On a bad, it sends me scurrying to the ER for relief.

Have you had this conversation at home? “Mom, the other kids are picking on me at school. They say I’m fat.”

“Oh, sweetheart. Kids can be cruel. The important thing to remember is that we love you. And we’re saving up for your lipo.”

No? Good.

Cosmetic surgery is certainly hot — as hot as ever. More than 12 million procedures were performed last year, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. And while teens accounted for more than 200,000 of those (oy, a column for another time), most parents still believe a good “beauty’s on the inside” talk trumps an adolescent collagen injection any day.

What’s good for the gosling, though, may not always fly for the goose. Having ridden the ole “love thyself” buggy about as far as it’ll go, lots of grown-ups opt for a nip or a tuck these days — then find themselves at a loss for how to explain it to their kids. How do you preach self-acceptance and practice self-alteration simultaneously?

Tag: surgery

Broken Hearted

Tales of a Tetchy Ticker

The Nip/Tuck Talk