The folly of the facelift

I was convinced we were in for a bit of an Indian Summer come September and I was just getting ready to feel bitter about it as I’m due to go into hospital for my next operation, writes blogger Emma Suddaby.

So our consistently depressing weather may be an anti-climax but at least I have a reason to be cheerful.

I do have to go into hospital again, but I definitely won’t be missing any hot summer action. Sorry to be selfish about it and condemn the rest of the population to suffer wind and drizzle, but I don’t see why you lot should enjoy a spot of sunbathing while I’m in hospital relinquishing yet another piece of my skeleton to rheumatoid arthritis!

This time my last remaining hip will bite the dust - yes - I did still have one lurking somewhere among the scaffolding. Though by the time you read this, I’ll have the full bionic complement of two artificial hips and two artificial knees. I do still have one elbow of my own . . . though I probably shouldn’t have said that, I never seem to learn!

A former boyfriend once asked me with a horrified look on his face, when the surgeons would stop? How much of me could they replace before they ran out of, well, me? And I sympathised with him as I was starting to wonder the same thing myself.

I’d imagined that eventually every bit of me that could be surgically replaced, would be, and that would be that and off I’d skip into the sunset, give or take a bit of creaking. But how shortsighted could I have been?

Because now I realise that only Mother Nature is capable of creating something that doesn’t require maintenance and repair.

Humans are incredibly clever and our medical science is constantly advancing, but no matter how brilliant the operation or how successful the results, after a while, it’ll all need to be done again in an operation called a revision.

I wonder how many girls who’ve paid through the nose to have their assets re-arranged in their twenties, realise they’ll probably have to go through it all again in their thirties and maybe even their forties too if they want to remain in the peak of perkiness. Time, I’m afraid takes its toll, on hips, knees and noses and even unmentionables.

So it’s a good job I didn’t have anything surgically enhanced before I was diagnosed. Keeping my medical marvel of a body running is a bit like painting the Forth Bridge as it is - I don’t think my surgeons would be too impressed if I started asking them to slip a little bit of breast uplift surgery in between the joint replacements and major bone surgeryÉ

So think twice before you go under the knife in the name of beauty. You never know what’s going to happen in life, just imagine if I’d been a fan of tattoos, I’d look like an ordnance survey map by now!

Emma’s Word of the Week:

This week the word is PEACOCKERY, and it’s a corker.

Peacockery is a brilliantly self-explanatory word for describing vanity, triviality or affectation.

As in: “Look at you in all your peacockery.” Or: “I’m sorry Emma but giving you a hip replacement trimmed with diamanté and dancing bells would be medically unsafe and pure peacockery!”