‘Forget plastic surgery, there are people with real medical needs’

I was watching morning television recently with a bowl of healthy cereal and an apple to eat, when this apparition came on. “I want to look like Barbie,” she simpered. Adjusting her heavily blown up bosom and trying to get words through her plastic lips, she went on to reveal how many operations it had taken to get her to this ‘amazing’ point in life. It must have cost thousands; I thought she looked like a blow-up doll.

The saddest thing, I feel at least, is that this woman has children and this is the example they will have in life. How will this role model help them? I feel it will teach them that having money doesn’t mean you have a brain. I feel it will teach them that the main goal in life is based on appearance.

How much better it would have been if she had just spent a little of that money on a caring for her children and teaching them instead to help others … To share the wealth they have now and then. With so many operations she must have been away and out of their lives frequently too.

Of course, the flipside to this is that it’s her money and her choice, but when I looked at her face and her inflated body I had no envy; just some real despair at the vagaries of life, and the strange people out there.

I suppose this sort of behaviour frustrates me when I consider that these operations did not even have to be done. There are people in real medical need, awaiting a hip replacement or a hernia operation.

We are not all blessed with perfect looks and most of us have flaws we live with, perhaps we compensate by being a better person and in that way the beauty of the soul shines. I know some wonderful people who spend all their time helping on stalls, making gifts for under-privileged children, visiting people who are home bound and sick. They are the lifeblood of our small town. They are not glamour girls, but they are beautiful people.

If someone is spending thousands on surgery that is really not to save their lives, they must have issues about their self-worth. Perhaps they need someone to help them see they could be just as happy without it.

Many of the Hollywood set have appeared with over-inflated lips and sculpted cheekbones, which at 80 is not a good look in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I am guilty of trying to look my best, but have to achieve my colorful image with cut price make-up, not surgery. For me that will be enough, without make-up I look very pale and wan, so prefer a touch of paint. There are also stunning women of my age who need no enhancing, some are blessed with good hair and good skin, and thank goodness grey is now fashionable.

I feel society is at last starting to appreciate that being over 60 is not an end to good times, it can be the start of them! I love life, and try to enjoy things we can do to make it more exciting.

My husband and I have recently been through a really bad time. He nearly died with a burst appendix, so we are slowly taking steps to make life normal again after more than two months of a sort of hell. Every day for us becomes a bonus, am looking forward to spring, and getting outside again. Without the surgery my husband had he would not be here. I’m looking forward to sunny days, picnics, music and fun with friends.

Life needs to be lived as well as we can do it. Hopefully, we can do so without any more unexpected intervention from a surgeon.

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