I know now why surgeons wear green. It’s to match their faces. I have just got back from “scrubbing in” as they call it in Grey’s Anatomy. I am at the La Prairie Clinic just outside Montreux researching my next book and having a perfect time. This place is paradise. I have slept for ten hours each night, eaten the healthiest food I have ever seen and been pampered from head to foot. If you’ve got the dough; go.

Today I interviewed their plastic surgeon, a charming man called Sabri Derder. Dr Derder was rushing off to operate when we met so we only had 20 minutes to chat.

“What sort of operation is it?” I asked.

“Breast lifting, liposuction and a nose job,” he said. “All on the same woman.”

I said I would love to see that. “Come along,” he told me. “But you should have lunch first.”

In the restaurant I was too excited to eat. The thought of all that green kit, a real operating theatre and real live Dr McDreamy (pictured left) just made me lose my appetite. So off I charged to the female dressing room in the operating block where I was given a whole new (green) outfit, complete with plastic green clogs (slightly last season but we are in Switzerland) and a cute little scrub-cap (although I can see why McDreamy and co have their own designer ones). Oh and a mask, which looked truly unsexy with glasses but what the hell. I was told to wash my hands and forearms and then cover them in antiseptic. I was a little worried about how the antiseptic would mix with the seaweed wrap I’d had earlier but it seemed OK.
On the operating table lay the victim. Dr Derder was busy pushing metal poles into her hips. Through a plastic tube a mixture of fat and blood was pouring.

“Have you had lunch?” asked Penny, the English scrub-nurse. “It’s always better to eat beforehand.”

I coped well with the liposuction. It was the breasts that did me in. You know how when men get a football in their crotch other men inexplicably always wince? Well, you should have seen me wince. I won’t go into too much detail but a boob-lift is not as simple as it might sound. This woman’s nipples, for example, were moved up by four centimetres.

I have thought about a boob-job, especially after the mammogram left my breasts less perky than they once were (see below blog Flat as a Pancake). I also thought it might be a painless way of dealing with any impending mid-life crisis. Believe me, it isn’t.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007