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My day as a Swiss scrub-nurse

21st February 2007 by Helena 9 Comments  

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.”

Mr McDreamyIn 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


Filed Under: Life, Women, blog --> Tagged With: nurse, scrub, swiss

9 thoughts on My day as a Swiss scrub-nurse

  • Jonathan Miller says:
    22nd February 2007 at 9:20 am

    Very interesting, Helena. I am glad you have been dissuaded from surgically perking up your lovely breasts which are just fine, in my humble opinion…

    Are women subjecting themselves to these procedures for the benefit of men, or for themselves? Please don’t imagine we much notice.

    On behalf of most men, I am certain, can I just say: we don’t care. We would really rather you left nature to take its course.

    Of course if this is because women are constantly inspecting one another then the male influence is limited.

    I hope your new book will address this question.

  • helena says:
    22nd February 2007 at 1:12 pm

    Hello Mr M
    I certainly will look at this in the new book. I think it’s a mixture of self-esteem, wanting to feel good about oneself and also wanting to be attractive (ie more attractive than other women). But there are limits……
    Hx

  • mad muthas says:
    22nd February 2007 at 11:26 pm

    what a great idea for research. why don’t i ever come up with ideas like that. the most exotic location i’ve written about is … corwall. tragic, eh?

  • mad muthas says:
    22nd February 2007 at 11:26 pm

    er – make that cornwall

  • janejill says:
    23rd February 2007 at 12:25 am

    I would say it was worth every minute, considering the alternative view you had, of the so-handsome surgeon; is Jonathan Miller the journalist who used to make my Sundays (or perhaps it was Saturdays )in the Times but who went off to Pezenas? I have been searching for him (to read his articles of course) ever since. Did the TV licence people ever get him? Please do tell…
    I did catch that plane but have missed a few since…

  • Rupert says:
    23rd February 2007 at 5:59 pm

    Are Jonathan Miller and Janejill the same person? If not, this could be a cyber romance in the making…

  • Peggy says:
    23rd February 2007 at 9:49 pm

    Just saw your piece on breast surgery, after writing to you about your nora ephron woes. Listen, the mammogram has not permanently maimed your breasts. I have some great, simple exercises you can do to keep them from sagging. They really work! I am 50, have never had surgery, have largish breasts and can practically go braless. Not that I would. Wearing a good bra and wearing it most of the time also works wonders.

  • janejill@fastmail.fm says:
    23rd February 2007 at 11:21 pm

    One can admire a person for their mind you know …. if you look at my blog, I think I have proved I am female.(see “Tenderness in Tenerife” Now it is up to Jonathan to prove his existence…

  • spymum says:
    27th February 2007 at 4:28 pm

    Aach! The large lunch I just ate is now feeling quite unsettled after reading that post! Wow HFP, you do get to do some really cool stuff.

    And MadM – I think Corwall sounds better! 🙂

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor in chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group. She writes a beauty blog www.beautyorbeast.uk.

Her third novel, The Arnolfini Marriage, based on a romance that evolves around a van Eyck masterpiece came out in 2016. As well as contributing regularly for newspapers and magazines, writing short stories and studying for a Masters in Creative Writing at the University of Cambridge, Helena is also working on a thriller called Welcome to Smullö that will be published in spring 2020.

Her latest non-fiction work Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles came out in hardback in 2016 and came out in paperback in April 2018.

Helena was educated at Durham University and lived in the Languedoc region of France for eight years, where the family still have a home. She lives between there and London with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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