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The Perfect Woman? - continued (page 2 of 3) I was stunned, but I knew right away she was serious. I also knew I approved completely. Although of course I'd never mentioned it to her, the idea had occurred to me. "I could spend years in therapy trying to undo the feeling that something was lacking in my body," she said. "Or I could save a lot of time and anguish, and change my body to fit my body image." Suddenly I felt as if I'd been lost in the desert and an angel had just offered me water. Salt water- in a super-duper little silicone container. During the following weeks we rode a wave of dreamy excitement. As commonly recommended, Christine tried on different sizes of bra padding and pranced around in them. We looked at lingerie catalogues together and got hysterical, like kids trying on grown-ups' clothes in the attic. I felt a little like I had won the lottery-I honestly questioned whether I deserved such a generous gift. I couldn't help feeling some guilt-that I would reap many of the benefits while Christine took all the risks-but she assured me she wanted to have the operation for herself, too. We ruled out the inexperienced surgeons in our region and turned instead to San Francisco, a cosmetic-surgery mecca. After checking with the California Medical Board to make sure he hadn't botched any operations, we settled on Dr. Andrew Barnett, a personable man who had performed thousands of breast augmentations. He skillfully drew us out on what we wanted (big, perky) without making us self conscious. He treated me like a respected participant. I acted cool-the informed consumer seeking hard data. Dr. Barnett laid out all the risks and described the operation. After the patient is put under general anesthesia, a one-inch incision is made in the armpit. From there a pocket is made underneath the muscles of the chest wall next to the ribs. Then the implant-basically an empty plastic bag with a valve-is inserted. A saline solution is pumped into the implant and the valve is sealed. The whole thing takes about thirty minutes. It all sounded pretty straightforward, until Dr. Barnett showed us some before and after photographs of recent patients. We were suddenly disappointed. The patient's heads were cropped off, making the aesthetics hard to appreciate. They certainly didn't look like the Playboy centerfold. Smudgy doubts began to accrue. Then a recent patient arrived for her two-week checkup. Upon learning why we were there, she surprised everybody by inviting Christine and me into the room while Dr. Barnett examined her. She was a slender, attractive woman in her late twenties. Her new bust was not very evident through her sweater, but when she took off her bra, Christine and I gasped. They were large, firm, and gorgeous. Dr. Barnett asked if I was going to need CPR. We were sold. When it came time to decide on Christine's "new size," I left her alone with Dr. Barnett. That was her decision. Plus, I liked the idea of her surprising me. There's more, click next to continue
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