I went in for Botox and I got to chatting with Cassie, my nurse for that appointment. They have gotten to know me head-to-toe. Their job is my treat, I figure that is how it came to be know as a "Treat-ment" for me. It feels pretty familiar now, they all know me by name and a bit about my family and what’s going on in my life etc.
So, I like the sense of belonging there, not just a curious outsider. I always look forward to these treatments because, well - I’m a girl. I would take this over shoe shopping, so why was I sitting there crying? I certainly have more fun with this they do, but when Cassie started talking to me about my brain aneurysm it turned my perspective into something almost painful. Cassie had read my history and was especially interested because her last position before coming to Sona MedSpa was with Hermann Hospital working in, you guessed it, the Neuro Trauma ICU.
It’s not that I don’t know they are nurses, I do, it’s just that I don’t think of them in such serious circumstance. It gave me a better appreciation for the level of education and training coming in with the injection. As we talked it took on a weighted tone of reality that generally ends far differently. I lived. She looked through my hair to see the line of scarring that stretches from the top of my ear to the back of my head. About an 8” incision that was stapled instead of stitched, for which I was dubbed “Zipper Head"; lovely.
I told Cassie how the aneurysm occurred, blew actually and the days of waiting for the right surgeon to be found and the hope that I would survive the days it took. After 11 days at St. Lukes I was Life-Flighted to Dallas where the day after Christmas they packed my body in ice and started in with a 4 hour window to actually lift the brain and clamp the burst blood vessel called a Basilar Tip.
The odds of anyone living through that were ridiculously small. Dr. Hunt Bacher and Duke Sampson had hands guided by prayer to work a miracle. Beyond that was a second aneurysm that was bulging but had not burst, there was no time to fix it. They wrapped cotton around it to build up scar tissue that would strengthen the vessel wall and hope for the best- The best has stretched into 16 years now.
So that is why I was crying, because I can. I should not be alive and I am. I have a wonderful life I am not always viewing life through the chance I was given to raise my kids. I never lose sight of how blessed I am but I tend to forget just how close I came to missing all of this. So Cassie quietly and knowingly looks at me kind of shaking her head and proceeds. Now, a few little pricks of the needle and I think Cassie has the hand of surgeon herself. I have stopped the muscles from moving the way they have for over 50 years resulting in deep furrows between my eyebrows and on my forehead. Even around my eyes- you know the laugh lines that lose their humor when we face them in the rear-view mirror in harsh sunlight while we are behind the wheel of an automobile....
I told Cassie how the aneurysm occurred, blew actually and the days of waiting for the right surgeon to be found and the hope that I would survive the days it took. After 11 days at St. Lukes I was Life-Flighted to Dallas where the day after Christmas they packed my body in ice and started in with a 4 hour window to actually lift the brain and clamp the burst blood vessel called a Basilar Tip.
The odds of anyone living through that were ridiculously small. Dr. Hunt Bacher and Duke Sampson had hands guided by prayer to work a miracle. Beyond that was a second aneurysm that was bulging but had not burst, there was no time to fix it. They wrapped cotton around it to build up scar tissue that would strengthen the vessel wall and hope for the best- The best has stretched into 16 years now.
So that is why I was crying, because I can. I should not be alive and I am. I have a wonderful life I am not always viewing life through the chance I was given to raise my kids. I never lose sight of how blessed I am but I tend to forget just how close I came to missing all of this. So Cassie quietly and knowingly looks at me kind of shaking her head and proceeds. Now, a few little pricks of the needle and I think Cassie has the hand of surgeon herself. I have stopped the muscles from moving the way they have for over 50 years resulting in deep furrows between my eyebrows and on my forehead. Even around my eyes- you know the laugh lines that lose their humor when we face them in the rear-view mirror in harsh sunlight while we are behind the wheel of an automobile....
Fight back! Botox is my most effective weapon against nature and time. For the next 3 or 4 months, I will be making the the same expressions I always have, but it will not produce as many lines- hence the truism, “Less is More!’ and sometimes tears are tied to deep feelings of gratitude.
Kathie Turner
Kathie Turner
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