I can't get over why this woman would subject herself to this. She was educated, wealthy, the mother of a successful son... and she looked fine in all the pics I have seen of her on the net in the past two days. I guess she couldn't leave well enough alone.

i can't help thinking how horrible it would be to think you are having a "minor" procedure done...and then never waking up again. the thought terrifies me.

I knew someone else whose mom had "cosmetic surgery" and died from complications afterwards. Which often means an infection - pretty common risk in any surgery, which is why a lot of people are scared to go under the knife even when recommended for health reasons.

It kind of kills me when people die from cosmetic surgeries. It's hard for me not to feel this - "oh fuck, please just turn back the clock and let this person feel fine without taking this risk, I know she didn't think it was going to have this high a cost..."

I get why people do it, though. There are plenty of times in my life when I would have, if I'd been able to afford it.

i was hit hard by acne for three years (around 20) that left me with some scars i'd still do something about if i could afford it. i dont judge donda for the surgery, for the "moral" value of choosing elective surgery (altho some extremes and some operations i may personally find unworthy of consideration). how different is it, philosophically, from whitening teeth? or tanning? but i do go through some of the feelings and thoughts you do here, as well, when i hear news like this.

well anyone who has gone through sugury because they HAVE to would question why anyone would go through it if they DON'T. That being said I have a cool scar that looks like .|. - I have a division sign scar!

But it is sad. My friend who is a republican and used to hate the medical lawyers going against doctors - well, she changed her mind. Her grandma died after going in for a simple procedure - not plastic surgury, I forget what it was. They PUNCTURED HER INTESTINES. My friends' grandmother died and now she knows what it's like to see somone go in the hospital fairly healthy, think they're coming out soon, then hear that they're in critical condition, and find out it's because the doctors made a mistake.

o.k. it's tragic to lose a loved one.but to mutilate yourself for appearance sake is ridiculous. the bible says its a sin(for the right-wingers).man,most people who do this don't even need to.why would a person give a shit what someone else thinks about them.

When you have an elective plastic surgery, you have time to research the procedure, the doctor, the facility where you will have the operation. Plastic surgery is very competitive in Los Angeles and doctors are now undercutting the price to get the patients. One doctor with professional ethics wouldn't do West's procedure but some other doctor did.

There's always a risk involved with anything medical. Even childbirth is dangerous and people die from taking the wrong combination of prescriptions.

johnnyboy,
i dont think we need to worry too much about "the right wingers" nor about "sin" in this case. and if you think you are the one human who doesn't care what people think about you, i'm guessing you're wrong. everyone cares what others think about them in some way, to some degree. and maybe she did it so she felt better about herself. maybe it had nothing to do with what "others" (this includes you) think/thought of her?

What Johnnyboy called mutilation is called "body modification" and almost all cultures have different forms of it. If you are circumcised, you've been modified.

not that i would equate RIC with elective surgery. infants don't "elect" to have the operation done. it's done to them.

but yes, jonnyboy's comment is loaded with judgmental energy. his slant here is not vague or subtle.

RIC? Please explain this TLA. (3 letter acronym)

"Routine Infant Circumcision."

Did you get one?

Just kidding ...

well as much as i'd love to pull out my chair and sit back and engage in a nice, cozy conversation with you on my blog about my penis, i think i'll just say that my point doesn't require my personal disclosure to be valid. :) i'm sure you can dig it.

It just seems like there is such a tension between pressure to be conventionally attractive (which is also inherent in the idea of whether a person "needs" plastic surgery or not - it implies that some people do actually "need" it even if you think the person in question didn't) versus the idea that it's superficial and/or silly for people to "mutilate" themselves with cosmetic procedures, especially when someone dies from it.

I had horrible skin from the time I hit puberty until I took Accutane in my mid-twenties. And people were like, ugh, that shit's horrible for women, if you get pregnant you will have a terydactyl for a baby! and whatnot. Setting aside my still-in-its-infancy grasp of how people even approach the idea of "viable" pregnancies from a disabilities-related perspective, the idea that I was taking serious medical risks for something as "superficial" as having bad skin was somewhat common. I personally didn't give a shit - until you have lived in skin where you felt uncomfortable being close enough to people for them to see you clearly, because of how ugly you felt from having bad breakouts, I don't want to hear how vain it is to take that kind of risk for clearer skin. Well, even if you have lived with that yourself and not cared as much as I did, I still don't want to hear it.

Point being, it is heartbreaking to me that people die from cosmetic surgeries, and that it's actually more common than is really talked about. My mom certainly didn't know it was a not-super-rare risk when she was thinking of getting liposuction, until my sister and I talked her out of it. And still, if she had elected to do it, I would not have judged *her*. I would still wish she hadn't felt like she needed it - just like I wished I could have felt okay with my skin even before accutane - but I wouldn't think she had taken a dumb risk or something. It's not dumb to the person living with the pressure to change how they look any way they can.

accutane, as horrible and strong a drug it has proven to be (mass action suits from some over side effects, yikes), is the only thing that stopped my acne. they tried retenoic (sp) acid, they tried antibiotics, they tried diet. i should write a post on those few years sometime. you don't have to tell me...i would have done ANYTHING to get rid of the acne at that point. it was horrible. and yeah, until you know what it feels like to be sensitive enough to how you look to feel light rays hitting your face and despair because it means you are visible to other people, you can't judge such a thing.