Confessions of a Park Avenue Plastic Surgeon
Page 26
I hoped that I could catch lightning in a bottle. After dating a lovely woman for two years, I decided I was ready again to try marriage.
I proposed.
The World Is My Museum
Autumn.
The best New York season, end of discussion. It’s a particularly crisp fall day, with the faint smell of woodsmoke in the air. Yellow, orange, and red leaves are scattered like handprints across Fifth Avenue. A perfect day for a crunchy Michigan Red Delicious apple, or a New York Mcintosh.
I have just come from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where I’d popped in for forty-five soothing, invigorating minutes studying and luxuriating in the beautiful paintings, particularly the portraits.
I walk briskly to my office. With so little free time, walking to and from the office is one of my stolen pleasures, doubling as exercise and head-clearing.
Do you really have time for me?
That’s what she had said in response to my marriage proposal. I knew it was really just a polite way of saying no.
After many years of being single-minded (figuratively and literally), I had thought I was ready to embark on a new personal journey – marriage and family. Unfortunately, the woman I’d hoped would join me on the journey was not in the same frame of mind. Timing is everything.
Another lesson learned.
Yet my soul was nourished, continually so. I thought of Dr. Henry Ransom, the accomplished professor emeritus of surgery at the University of Michigan who’d given me, at age nineteen, a chance to work in his department, the first step in the series of steps that had led to my fulfilling my professional and creative dream. When I’d met Dr. Ransom in his eighties – white-haired, distinguished – he had already lived a wonderful, productive life. He had been a great general surgeon and an excellent teacher. He had touched the lives of many surgeons and doctors and patients, who had in turn touched many more. As to that little matter of his not having found time to have a family himself? So what?
My father had. Dr. Ransom had not. Dr. Sabiston had.
Hard-driving doctors all. Good lives all.
The deepest unifying theme for the three of them, I thought, was this: They’d all led lives of dedication.
It is late afternoon and the light is turning golden. The reflections off the high windows soften, and shadows slant across people’s faces. I walk a block east, to Madison, and now stroll down the west side of the avenue, passing the elegant antiques stores of the high Seventies. The sidewalks are not so crowded that it’s one big mass of people. Instead, you can see them individually. It’s a touch wintry outside and people are bundled up. It’s not easy to get a sense of their bodies.
I concentrate, as always, on their faces.
I try first to make them out from far away. From a distance, the first thing I notice is the overall shape of the face.
Her’s is an almost perfect oval.
He’s got a square jawline.
Her neck is too soft.
The next thing I notice, as they get closer, is the animation.
His eyebrows arch unusually high.
Her lips pucker asymmetrically.
As they get closer still, I notice the size of the lips.
Then the eyes.
Then the textures. Of skin. Scars. Hair.
I scan passing New Yorkers as if they are each a painting in a museum, but paintings that change from instant to instant – nuanced changes in their movement, their expression, the failing sunlight, my own perception.
She’s one of those beautiful ones with almost preternaturally clear eyes. And though her chin is small, it’s not weak.
He’s got a Latin complexion but the jaw anatomy of an Eastern European.
Wow, she looks angry. If I could only do an endo browlift on her, she’d stop scaring her friends and coworkers.
Just before they pass, gone forever, I discreetly glance sideways, for one last, different angle.
What a nasal hump.
Uneven pigmentation.
A slight – and sexy – overbite.
I can’t help myself. This is who I am.
Acknowledgments
I gratefully acknowledge the invaluable assistance of the staff at Gotham Books – in particular, Bill Shinker, Lauren Marino, and Hilary Terrell – without whose encouragement and help this book would never have happened. I am similarly grateful to Matthew Guma of Inkwell Management for his skill and enthusiasm.
I am deeply indebted to the many professors and mentors I’ve been fortunate enough to encounter through the years.
I could not do what I do without an exceptional staff. I wish to thank all those who’ve assisted me in the past, and who so expertly continue to do so today.
Above all, I’m indebted to my patients. They are not merely foremost in my mind. They have made my life worthwhile.
About the Author
An internationally renowned plastic surgeon, Dr. Cap Lesesne (pronounced le-SAYN) has been in solo practice for over twenty years. He is the only plastic surgeon in New York holding two academic appointments at two teaching hospitals, and has also served on the executive committees of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Educated at Andover, Princeton, Duke, Stanford and Cornell, he has consulted for ABC and NBC News as well as numerous magazines. His office has an accreditation by the Joint Commission on Hospital Accreditation, the highest a plastic surgeon can achieve in the United States.
Cap Lesesne lives in Manhattan but his consultations take place across the globe and he frequently travels to London for consultations, where he has been consulting royalty and selected British clients for 15 years.
For more information on cosmetic surgery and skin care, visit www.caplesesne.com
Praise
‘For anyone who has ever contemplated plastic surgery – or even if you have not – this is great read. Informative, humorous and touching, Dr Lesesne bares his soul. I couldn’t put it down and it keeps you guessing who’s who.’
NICOLE MILLER
‘Where the beautiful people go to become even more beautiful, and the powerful go to turn back time.’
Daily Telegraph
‘While the dishy read contains plenty of gossip, those titbits are interspersed with practical advice for people considering body modification.’
Elle (US)
‘Confessions is full of juicy gossip … reading like a string of blind items – from the actress who gets a brow-lift “between movies” to the royal European family that jets Lesesne to an undisclosed Middle Eastern locale for Botox. Most captivating, however, are Lesesne’s general observations on the self-esteem business.’
Forbes
‘A must read for anyone thinking of plastic surgery.’
New York Post
‘A must for anyone considering plastic surgery.’
CBS Insider
‘The inside world of celebrity plastic surgery.’
Boston Globe
‘A great read.’
ABC Radio
‘The inside scope of a cosmetic surgery practice.’
Princeton Alumini Weekly
Copyright
HarperCollinsEntertainment
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First published in the USA by
Gotham Books, a division of Penhuin Group (USA) Inc. 2005
Copyright © Cap Lesesne 2005
The Author asserts the moral right to
be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engine
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EPub Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN 9780007382132
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