Have you ever thought about getting something done to your face to make it just a little better? But nothing too noticeable. Like getting a facial but MORE. I had similar thoughts so I decided to go for it and go to a “medspa” and get some mildly invasive easy services advertised as “lunchtime procedures”. First off, a med spa is like a spa but with needles and lasers instead of aromatherapy and lotions. A lunchtime procedure is something you can do on your lunchbreak from work then go back to work as if nothing insane has been done. How fun!

After consulting with the beautiful and professional technician, I was utterly convinced that an IPL (intense pulsed light) treatment to help reduce redness from having rosacea was just the thing. I was offered add-on services such as lip injections and botox. Why not? Yes, please! I’m going to look amazing in an hour!

The face-lasering was incredibly painful. Imagine an 18 wheeler barrelling down the highway in winter at 80mph. It’s kicking up gravel and rock salt. Your face is the mudflap. That’s what it felt like. Or instead of gravel, it’s angry wasps hitting your face and stinging you. I endured it FOR BEAUTY.

Then they injected some botox into my forehead.  This didn’t hurt and I was excited to erase all emotion from my visage.  Next were the lip injections.  Pillowy full lips, here I come.  By this time I was so brave and numb after enduring the laser that I barely felt the needles.  My lunchbreak was up and now I am going to glide back to work as a glowing goddess.

One hour later my face swelled up to the size of the great pumpkin.  The great angry red pumpkin that wins no ribbons because it starts smashing booths at the county fair while everyone runs and screams.  I started to suspect that there really were wasps in the laser.  I could barely see because my cheeks were so puffy that they came up over my eyes.  Still confident that I was going to look great after the swelling subsided, my lips turned black and I could not close my mouth and as drool poured from my pillowy lips.   I started to feel less positive.  Then my nose went numb and my upper lip turned white. Hmm that seems like a weird reaction let’s look it up online.  The blanching of skin is the first sign that a blood vessel is blocked and the next stage is… NECROSIS.  Due to lack of blood flow to the area your face is now going to die and turn black and fall off.

PANIC. EMERGENCY.

I ran to the medspa.  The “nurse” looked at my face and turned pale.  Which is always a reassuring sign.  She explains that she needs to inject acid into my lip to dissolve the filler that is blocking a blood vessel.  No anesthetic can be used due to the nature of the acid doing it’s job.  Now this pain can’t be described.  I’m pretty sure the Geneva Convention lists this as one of the things you can’t do ever.  I screamed the f-word and tried to punch the nurse.  Then I cried like a shocked newborn after being shot out of the womb.  What kind of horrible pain filled hell is this?

Back to the rest of my face.  They called in “the doctor”.  He had the same reaction as “the nurse”.  I thought he was going to pass out right there in my lap.  I had second degree burns from the laser from my hairline to my boobs.  Plus an allergic reaction to all the trauma my face and chest had suffered.  They had to call the head of the burn ward at the university hospital in the city.  They were all in a panic and a calm washed over me. Or maybe that was shock.  I smiled and felt like a glorious supermutant upon emerging from a vat of radioactive acid. I was now the Laser Avenger.  Bringing justice to all the citizens who thought they weren’t pretty enough.  As I left the medspa I smiled and drooled at all the ladies in the waiting room and slurred out “they’re ready for you” and delighted in their shocked expressions.

For two weeks I looked like the guinea pig for a Cronenberg film special effects artist in training.  Like Brundlefly but instead of going through the telepod with a fly, I went through with a slice of shepherd’s pie.  When people asked if I was in an accident, I would glaze over and look wistfully off as if I was remembering heroically saving a busload of children from a fiery crash as a solitary tear rolled down my rubble of a cheek.  Maybe after this healed I would look like one of those ruggedly beautiful characters from a viking fantasy novel and at one glace others would know that this is one dangerous and powerful individual with a heartbreaking backstory full of tragedy and triumph.

I am one of those people that has all the rare reactions that no one has ever seen before.  The form I had signed (which I didn’t read) said that I was aware of all the horrible things that can go wrong from having a ding-a-ling blast me with lasers and inject crap into my face.  So maybe everything will go swimmingly for you and you should definitely go to a medspa and get stuff done to your face on your lunchbreak. I’m sure it will be fine.

It’s much easier and cheaper to be happy with the face you have.  After all, it’s better than being a mangled swollen necrotic mutant blob.  Tell yourself that Your FACE is FIIIINE the way IT IS.  If you tell yourself anything different maybe it’s not injections that you need.  It’s ice cream and a fuzzy blanket and a pet to gaze at you like you’re the most divine thing in the universe.  But if you MUST, then go to a real dermatologist.

I look normal now besides having a permanent dent in my upper lip that’s kinda sexy in a Billy Idol sneer kinda way. I have a big white blotch above my lip that was almost dead flesh that, if not treated, would have been surgically removed and grafted with skin from my butt. My chest and face skin is still pink but I’m super ok with that.

~B