Then and Now

Last week while a dear friend was driving me on my record third trip off Cape Cod since 2004, she mentioned finding this blog and said she couldn't believe its content. She was frankly confused. How was I able to go mushroom hunting, or even sit at my computer to write so much, for that matter? As the photographer who documented changes brought about by my cosmetic surgery for over a decade, she is one of the three people with a realistic idea of my daily existence. I told her to look at the dates on the entries... the original dates on each piece; not the date the entries were posted. Nearly everything I wrote about which involved physical activity (even minimal driving, walking, photography,) actually took place last year, when I was still able to wring the occasional "physically functional" day out of my damaged body through sheer will power.

My friend's voice broke with emotion when she said "I remember all the things you used to love doing. That is what angers me most about the way these doctors destroyed your life and left you to suffer and die in silence." We were in her car during this talk, and as usual, my head was bent down, the only position in which I am able to breathe without use of "external support" (a bamboo back scratcher pressed under my chin and jaw with a constant 2 lbs of upward pressure). The emotion in her voice made me lift my head to look at her and that is when I saw the tears on her cheek.. her face was flushed red and her expression was at once sad and angry. I reminded her that I have been anything but silent these ten years.

She agreed, I had made some waves in warning the public about the dangers of cosmetic surgery and that was something, but it certainly hasn't done me any good. I agreed this is true and reminded her that my outspokenness in this regard is most likely the very reason I have been left to suffer without help from the very surgical specialty responsible for destroying my health.

I have tried as much as possible to separate the aspect of my life I present on this blog from the devastating, life robbing experience brought about by my cosmetic surgery. In a very real sense, what you see here is.. or more accurately, was- a small fraction left in my life that had not been totally destroyed by my plastic surgery disaster, physical injury caused by the negligence, arrogance and duplicity of a medical "specialty" in need of a category all its own... one that subjects normal, healthy people to unnecessary operations.

Today there is nothing left but suffering and disability. In relating what I was still able to do even one year ago, I remind myself that I did actually live life once upon a time... a past reality so remote from my present existence that the experiences of my own life "before" might as well be those of a stranger.

A Special Kind of Medicine

Almost a decade ago, I had a negative experience with cosmetic facial surgery. I was left with serious functional disorders which effect breathing, swallowing and ability to lift my head and close my jaw. I will not go into the clinical details, for that is not what this story is about. However, to clarify what follows, it is fair to say that I was blacklisted by the most competent surgeons here in the US after going public with my story. There were a few truly compassionate doctors who tried their best to help me, but not being plastic surgeons themselves, their hands were tied to a great extent.

One of these doctors is my primary care physician. She is from India, and I could not hope for a more highly skilled, kind and compassionate doctor. I had the good fortune to become her patient when she first arrived on Cape Cod, as patients gravitated to her practice like bees to blossoms. As her patients became numerous, she was forced to refer newcomers to her colleagues. As my primary care physician, my situation has been deeply frustrating to us both, as she does everything within her realm of specialty to see that I receive every possible diagnostic that might help a surgeon work out a method of corrective surgery that may improve my situation. However, in today's medical system, particularly in the realm of cosmetic plastic surgery where surgeons' egos tend to expand to phenomenal proportions and practitioners remain behind the 'White Wall of Silence', patients with iatrogenic injuries often become the untouchables of the patient population, unable to find a surgeon willing to treat them.

As my condition disabled me to the point where surviving every 24 hours has become a toss of fate and I struggle to accomplish the most basic tasks to maintain independence, I begged a highly skillful surgeon I had consulted in the past to see me again for reevaluation. This required months of e-mail communication, and I am certain he agreed to see me against the advice of his colleagues, who warned him against any involvement with my case.

After an appointment date was set, I was scheduled to see my primary care physician. I felt very hopeful on this day. My heart felt lighter than it had for years, and I looked forward to telling my doctor about this long awaited breakthrough. This was the first glimmer of hope in years of an otherwise gloomy state of existence. I am rarely able to leave my flat these days, and my monthly visit to my doctor is understandably frustrating for us both as my condition worsens with no available help in sight. I am acutely aware that my situation has made my doctor feel helpless, and my heart aches for her because she is so sensitively attuned to her patients' needs.

On this day, however, I knew our visit would be brighter than she could know. I decided to mark the occasion by wearing a lovely muted gray-green sari in honor of her homeland, India, a country I have always longed to see. I usually dress very simply and plainly these days, as adornment is low on the list of priorities when managing to do needful things requires all the energy I can muster. But this was a day worthy of a special effort. As I draped my sari that morning, I worried, just for a moment, that it would not be done properly to her eyes! However, I am used to wearing a sari, which I believe is the perfect garment for every woman, versatile as well as beautiful and suitable for every occasion. My doctor's eyes lit up when I walked into her examining room in my sari. When I told her about the appointment with the surgeon, the room filled with hope.. my hope of possibly being restored to live a normal life, and her hope for my well being.

She then began the practical part of her exemplary doctoring and gently but firmly reminded me of the risks of surgery and the possibility that things might get worse. She wanted me to think about this decision very carefully. We discussed the status of my health, and she again expressed her happiness about my upcoming appointment with the surgeon.

Then she said something that will stay with me forever. My heart fills with great emotion and my eyes fill with tears as I recall this moment. She pressed her hands together in Namaste and said "I will pray for you". I do not know if this beautiful expression of faith and hope is often spoken by Indian doctors to their patients, but this is the first time a doctor ever said these words to me. I was overwhelmed with her heartfelt expression. Her words and compassion went straight from her heart to mine and will remain with me always. I have had the good fortune to be a patient of doctors who expressed true compassion and a deep desire for my well being, but never has a doctor said they would pray for me, though I believe some of them have done so. Hearing these words spoken with such openness and sincerity is truly a very special kind of medicine. Prayer...A treatment to last a lifetime.

On my way out of her office she turned to me and said "Thank you for wearing the sari". I left there with my heart so full! I said my own prayer then, for my exceptional doctor's life to be filled with blessings always.

Time

Time

I find myself in an incomprehensible position... a situation real enough to kill me, should I lose my balance on a fraying tightrope. Yet so surreal I sometimes think my death will be nothing more than an instantaneous vaporization of the molecules I call my body.
I am dying... we are all dying.

For most of us, living life prevails over the ever present pull of entropy.
This is as it should be. We are born to experience life to its fullest until our death. But like breathing, it is that space between the breaths which sets the tone for what follows.

I do not fear death, nor do I invite it.

I reside in a world full of high tech medical miracles and doctors who perform them. It is, therefore, inconceivable that amidst these doctors and their state-of-the-art 3D scanners capable of turning the human body with its every secret and function inside out to see how things work or might be fixed when they don't, that the simple mechanics of what is killing me remains a mystery.

I am dying in real-time,
begging at the same-time,
to be fixed, or at least, that an attempt be made,
before there is no-time.

Doctors.. made of special stuff, or so we think.
Different from us.
Different from each other.
Different.




~ Lucille Iacovelli