Botox

"Mirror, mirror on the wall, why do we bear these wrinkles at all?" I murmur to myself as I inspect my face. It's a never ending battle to keep up with my vanity. Rivulets creep down the sides of my eyebrows. There's a washboard where my forehead should be. Gravity has taken command of my cheek muscles leaving me with my mother's jowls and deep crevices between my nose and mouth. My lips are thinning, creating little canals so my lipstick can irrigate my upper lip and chin giving me a stunning spider web look. No wonder people keep asking me if I look tired. My face is a towel that's been washed and dried too many times for too many years. I'm a mature woman who is automatically given the senior citizen discount and is called "Madam". It's a nightmare.

I know it's a war I will loose, but the 30 something woman in me says, "Fight the battle. Hang in there as long as you can!" Being a practical, if not an emotional person, I decide to take old age by the wrinkled throat and do something. But, the thought of face lift surgery gives me nightmarish visions of eyebrows at my hair line and cheeks stretched to my ears. I'm not THAT old yet! The solution, I conclude, is non-invasive Botox and Juvederm, if you can categorized being shot-up with needles and fingered in the mouth, non-invasive. Botox relaxes the muscles in the forehead to remove wrinkles. The second fills up the cheek crevices with "hydraulic gel". I by-pass using it to fill out my lips. Let the lipstick run into my face for a few more months, I decide.

After a talk and a few drawings to see what my options were, Nurse Tracy (the State doesn't allow hairdressers to do this, lucky for me) pulls on her plastic gloves with a snap, cleanses the areas on my face where she'll use the needles, covers my eyes with gauze, pops on the bright light, pulls over the big magnifying glass, then proceeds to inject my cheeks and jaws with Novocain. "We want to avoid any pain," she advises calmly. While my face below the eyes goes numb, she assaults my forehead wrinkles with a dainty needle, strategically cramming Botox between and at the sides of my eyebrows. The location is home to the big frontal muscle that creates those devilish wrinkles. If it's not done right, I could end up with my eyebrows falling over my eyelids. A few little injections in my forehead proper and it's all done. It's a piece of cake. No pain at all. Shouldn't be any bruising. Feels like pin pricks. I'm ready for more!

Then, smiling and speaking softly, Nurse Tracy hands me two rubber balls to squeeze. This is definitely getting more serious. The needle is gigantic. I feel the gel snaking through the needle into my cheek muscles. I'm grimace. I'm shot! I squeeze like hell! I moan. Tears come to my eyes. Nurse Tracy senses my discomfort and tactfully gives me more Novocain. Now I have no feeling at all in my lower face. I'm drooling. ACK!

In just a few minutes she's laid the needle down. With both hands in my mouth, Nurse Tracy begins to massage the gel into place. She wants to get it just right. I'm glad, but after five minutes and substantial drooling, I've really had it. It's done. Finally. "There will be a little bruising for a few days," she explains. "Would I like a heavy cover makeup to take with you?" she asks. "No, I'll be fine." I rejoin, thinking to myself, "I'm a soldier. I can take it. I can endure it. I don't bruise that easy."

I wake up two days later, Saturday morning, to find my whole mouth area totally "black and blue" as if I've been punched in the mouth. My cover makeup completely fails. Instead of covering, it highlights! I rush down to the Estee Lauder counter at Macy's, grab the artist by the arm, begging, "Can you fix this? I'm going to the opera tonight and traveling to Michigan on Monday to work in front of a crowd of people." Sensing total desperation on my part, she turns, smiles and cheerfully beckons me to her bar chair behind the counter. "I can fix it completely, my dear. Just come with me," she promises. I go with her.

The $27 complete coverage make-up feels like a Halloween mask, but makes the bruises disappear. The bill is $158.32 -- I just had to get the eye makeup and lipstick she tested out on me. I was saved! My face? Well, people now tell me how rested I look. I'm back to a late 40 something look for the next six months, then I can do it all over again. Will I? Absolutely.