Some Kind of Connection^^

 

In life, I think connections often begin unexpectedly and then grow strong and healthy.

Looking back, I feel that many seeds of connection in my life have sprouted, borne fruit, and even spread their seeds again so that yet more connections were born, enriching the world around me.

Two years ago from now, it was around the time summer was beginning.

A male student who, at first glance, did not seem to have a particularly large face and still had the innocence of a boy opened the door to my consultation room and spoke about his concerns regarding facial contours.

His concern was that he wanted to reduce the shape of the cheekbones, which determine the contour of the middle part of the face.

I began with a simple consultation, but the questions he asked about the surgical method were so technical, and his expectations for the changes he wanted were so high, that I spent quite a long time explaining.

Thinking that I would not be able to finish the consultation even if I talked all day, I ended it by using another waiting patient as an excuse.

A week later, he opened the door to my consultation room again for another consultation. He came in with his laptop open in one hand, placed it on the desk in my consultation room, and sat down.

On the laptop, videos were being played as clips across 9 split screens.

The reason he showed me the laptop was to explain that he wanted changes in the same direction as the cheekbone contours of the person in the videos.

Once again, the consultation took quite a long time, and I became concerned that he might be fixating on something too unrealistic.

I sent him back still with many unanswered questions in mind, and I felt considerable concern.

Three days later, he came to my consultation room again. Since he had called the reception desk in advance to book his consultation as the very last appointment of the day, I no longer had any excuse. During that third visit, I suggested that after the consultation, we should instead go to a chicken-and-beer place near the hospital and talk comfortably over a cold draft beer.

The reason I made that suggestion was that he was a medical student. From my perspective, there did not seem to be any real reason for him to undergo cheekbone reduction surgery, and because his expectations about the post-surgery appearance he was fixated on were so high, I thought I should discourage him from having the operation.

He had invested a whole month just in consultations for the cheekbone surgery he had in mind, and he had undergone more than 70 consultations at 32 plastic surgery clinics.

While drinking draft beer at the chicken place near the hospital, I spent nearly two hours talking with him about his future as a medical professional and about life in general, in an effort to persuade him to give up the cheekbone surgery.

However, he did not give up, and I found myself deeply troubled. The reason for that concern was as follows.

Even then, he had not yet decided to have surgery with me and was still torn between several places, but his knowledge of cheekbone surgery was extremely deep (far more specialized than that of anyone else I know), and above all, he was obsessively fixated on cheekbone surgery.

Even for me, if I were to operate on him, I could not imagine what the postoperative situation would be like.

My greatest wish was for him not to have cheekbone surgery at all, and even if he did undergo it, I wanted nothing to go wrong, even slightly.

After that, he came for several more consultations with me (I checked the medical records, and he made a total of 10 visits before the surgery), and in the end he decided to have the surgery with me.

I think he decided on surgery after the seventh visit, and the remaining three visits were for bringing me a 3D-printed model of his skull and asking whether I could perform a mock surgery in front of him. I turned him down, stunned, and he said he had spent so much time in consultations that summer vacation was almost over, so he would have to postpone the surgery until the following winter vacation. I was secretly very relieved to hear that.

But in the end, he decided to go ahead with surgery again, and the day of his operation arrived, a day that was a big burden for me as well. On the morning of the surgery, I met his mother for the first time, and I apologized to her first. I told her that I was very sorry I had not stopped her son from having the operation... But his mother smiled gently and instead said she was sorry that her son had put me through so much trouble.

His cheekbone surgery went smoothly and was completed in about the same amount of time as a typical case.

The moment the surgery ended, I thought to myself: from now on, the hard part begins... How many variables and minor anxieties would I have to hear about in the postoperative course, which he had been so fixated on all this time...

After the surgery, when he had become fully alert in the recovery room, I asked him whether he was in much pain. But his answer was completely unexpected. He said he had no pain at all and felt very comfortable. The fact that he had no pain was not something I could explain even with my own common sense, so I asked him several times, over and over: “Really, you have no pain..?” His answer remained consistent, and even regarding the subsequent recovery, he did not mention a single complaint that was really hard to believe in its triviality. It was the exact opposite of the postoperative reaction I had expected from him before surgery.

Not long after he had surgery with me, an unexpected change came to our clinic.

Around the time I operated on him, it had been less than a year since we had started under the new name “Labiang Plastic Surgery,” so we were not well known and were not especially busy.

However, starting in the autumn a few months after his surgery, many people considering facial contour surgery began to take interest in our clinic, and as a result, new chains of connections began to form.

At first I could not tell what had caused this change, but after a few people had come by, I understood why. In an internet community where people interested in plastic surgery share a lot of information, the information and details he had obtained during his consultations were introduced to many people, and he himself was also quite a well-known figure in that community.

In any case, I do not know how many healthy and warm connections began as a result of my connection with him, which at first seemed extremely unusual and strange enough to make even surgery feel hesitant.

It has already been two years since my connection with him began, and I always hope that he will be happy and continue achieving his dreams.