Monday, March 02, 2009

Wearing your Wrinkles

I sat in the hot tub at LA Fitness (pool therapy for my arm), and the woman next to me blurted out, “Oh, I see you had thyroid surgery—how are you feeling?”

I thought, What is she talking about?

As soon as the words formed in my head—the woman pointed to my neck.

“Oh and I can tell you also had a cervical laminectomy, as well. I had one several years ago. See..." she said, pointing to her neck.

What the woman didn’t know—what she possibly couldn’t understand—was I became a victim of “wrinkle mania.”

I bought this "terrific" wrinkle cream, schlepped it on, fell asleep before I had time to rub it in—as the label had suggested—and woke up with two large streaks across my neck.

The problem with wrinkles; they form little crevices. While I was sleeping, the little crevices grew into deep craters. The wrinkle cream ate through my skin, forming two huge red lines across my neck—resembling surgical scars.

Okay, I’m going to make a confession here. If you lose too much weight, wrinkles appear in places you never had—like around the eyes and neck.

I don’t like the “skinny” me; I like the “plump” me better!

This all started about a year ago when my family physician said to me, “So, what do you want to do about your weight problem?”

“What weight problem?” I countered. My weight at the time was within normal limits for my height, but according to her—I was overweight. So I started myself on a very gradual weight loss program by eating less and exercising more.

The pounds slipped off.

Now, I’m sagging around the face with "thyroidectomy" and "cervical laminectomy" scars (can you tell I used to work in the medical field?).

I finally confessed to the over-inquisitive woman that I had neither surgery, but I was suffering from post-weight loss wrinkles complicated by "wrinkle-cream dermatitis."

She howled.

I did not!

My neck itches like crazy and I absolutely refuse to wear a turtleneck in the pool. I thought about wearing a scarf around my neck, but that looked ridiculous as well. And a towel—that was worse!

But today, I feel relieved that I can’t go to the gym because we had a Nor’easter overnight that dumped six inches (plus) of snow, and I can’t even see my car—much less drive anywhere.

The moral of the story: wear your wrinkles (and be thankful you lived long enough to see them!).





P.S. I think I'll just sit on the back porch and enjoy the snow!

2 comments:

Susan Skitt said...

Oh my Connie, I always love visiting to hear what's been going on! LOL! I am always afraid to try that wrinkle cream stuff ever since the lady who waxes my eyebrows said to me one time, "Now you haven't used anything with Rectin-A (or something to that extent), have you? If you have, I can't wax your eyebrows."

I've been going "plain vanilla" when it comes to lotions :)

And BTW - where did you find the info. about our COC Women of the Bible book? I didn't know it was coming out in March!

Drop me a line sometime. We just got back from college tour with Jared and things have been busy with Jim's mom and my new business.

Connie Pombo said...

Oh girl, I'm "centuries" behind in blogging. Where does the time go? I loved looking at colleges with my boys...so many precious memories! It sounds like you're having a great time.

Yep, got my book in the mail today (along with some pretty glossy cards to hand out!). Wow!