4:13 a.m. - Monday, Apr. 14, 2003
Ms Leslie Gives the Gory Details
Recognizing the lesson from my last trip here, I stopped taking the pain pills. It helped me remember that I�m six thousand miles from home and injured. So I�ve spent some extra time in my room with the drapes closed, fanning a damp washcloth to cool it and then pressing it on my swollen face and neck. Coming down in this heat to write has seemed like something I could put off for a while. In the process, I missed the festivities for the Thai New Year. Is it just me, or do the Asians have about a dozen different dates for the New Year? Ah well, for the Thais, it was yesterday. I didn�t mind missing it, really. Here, it�s a big water fight kind of thing. People roaming the streets with water buckets, water guns, and water bottles, throwing water on everyone in sight. They also rub what I think must be rice flour all over each other and their cars, bikes and mopeds, making one of the most monumental messes you can imagine. It�s all their way of wishing each other good fortune in the coming year but honestly, I think they might have gotten a little carried away. So, apparently, did the Thai police, as I noticed from my balcony that three carloads of them hid their cars behind the stone wall behind my hotel and sneaked inside for an extended meal in the air conditioned restaurant while the streets were clogged with rioting revelers. To these guys on this day, I think �protect and serve� meant �protect your clean, pressed uniform by allowing the waiters to serve you cold beer and noodles�. I�m not sure I blame them.

When I last saw Ees, I asked if she would pick me up later this morning and drive me to Pattaya to see something I only know from a brochure. It�s called �the sanctuary of knowledge� or something like that. It�s basically a kind of non-denominational temple, I think, that�s completely hand carved from native wood. I�m not sure. It looked a little off the path and interesting. That�s the kind of stuff I like, so I�ll have to just see. One thing I know, I�ll need to take the pain pills along.

Although I still have a lot of swelling and some hard knots on the sides of my neck, I actually look quite a lot better. I�m no longer an object of attention when I go out in public. The girls at the hotel desk are even starting to tell me I am beautiful. This only serves to make me want even more to twist them in half. They, with their 20 inch waists, shining black hair and skin like smooth, milky amber. Honestly, the least they could do, you�d think, is quit smiling and be surly or something. On the other hand, I think it�s just hilarious that here, fat people are loved and respected. Those tiny little things are jealous of my girth. Where�s the justice?

Beautiful I may never be, but I do see that my face is more feminine every day. I can find my cheekbones without a medical manual now. Even better, I can�t find the loose skin and fat that formerly swung under my chin. My nose, still swollen, is re-shaped so as not to look like two black, fur-lined holes in the middle of my face.

I wouldn�t tell this to just anyone, but I know I can trust you with this. Did you know I used to be able to pick my nose with my thumb? It�s true, I could shove my largest digit almost all the way up there. Now I can�t even use my pinky. Recreational nose picking, it would seem, is just one more hobby I have inadvertently given up. Sales of Q-Tips can be expected to spike on the day after I arrive home.

My ears are no longer pendulous. It�s another irony that large earlobes are considered a thing of good fortune and beauty. See any Buddha image for confirmation of this. But I never really cared for the Buddha look. Dr Suporn removed so much of my earlobes that I now longer have pierced ears. I will have to re-pierce them in a few weeks.

The place where my mustache used to be has also been reduced. The doctor made an incision just under my nose and peeled the nose back to do some re-shaping of the bone and cartilage underneath. Then, when he put me back together, he cut a little strip of the area above my upper lip away. That pulled my lip up a bit, making it larger, and reduced the distance between the bottom of my nose and my upper lip.

My receding hairline is gone, but a nasty scar on my forehead right along my hairline has replaced it. Happily, the scar is getting less noticeable every day, although I�m told the numbness on the top of my head will last from a year to a lifetime. After peeling my forehead away from my face, Dr Suporn used a grinder and a rasp to remove the masculine ridges from my forehead and over my eye sockets. When he replaced the skin, he again removed a strip, which had the effect of pulling my hairline forward and pulling my eyebrows up. Continuing that forehead incision, he cut through both skin and muscle along the side of my head and down behind my ears all the way to the base of my jaw. After making another incision and liposuctioning the fat under my chin away, he pulled the muscles and skin in my face up and back, removed the excess and then stapled the whole thing back together. How tight did he pull it? Well, I can tell you that Part of my beard now lives behind my ears. I think electrolysis there is gonna hurt.

Finally, he also cut away the small amount of excess skin on both my upper and lower eyelids. Then he injected dermalive into the deepest creases in my face and in both lips to plump and shape them.

The whole process took him twelve hours. It�s going to take me somewhat longer.

Well, I�m off to shower and get ready for my day-trip. Wish me luck. When I get back, if I have nothing better to write about, I�ll tell you how I discovered why a dog grins when he eats cat turds.

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