Returning from a US Vacation to Malta

Recently, the bags under my eyes were really starting to bother me. Another teacher at my school told me about this plastic surgeon she had gone to see about getting some Botox. She paid him 40 Euros plus a 5-Euro clinic fee to be told that Botox wouldn't help her; instead, she needed a full brow and facelift that would cost her 6000 Euros. She declined.

I checked out this doctor and something made me want to see this surgeon anyway. So Mr. S. and I trudged all the way over to St. Phillips Hospital, one of the small private hospitals in Malta.

First thing-the 5 Euros to just sit down in the waiting room. Meanwhile, I'm looking at this brochure on some great new product that's supposed to fill in the crevices in your face with no pain, no time away from work and immediate results. Fine.

Then the doctor calls me in and looks me over. He tells me that I actually look pretty well-preserved for 56 years old, and that he wouldn't recommend any kind of facelift now. Wait a few years, he tells me.

I'm thinking I should take that as a compliment, and also give the guy credit for not trying to rip me off. But then I remember when I last heard about someone being well-preserved; it was a three thousand-year-old female mummy archeologists dug up in Egypt a few years ago.

When I asked the doctor-who I started getting very attached to after five minutes-what I could do about the shopping bags under my eyes, he tells me about a special "filler" product. It turns out to be the one I had read about in the brochure in the waiting room.

It will be 250 Euros, he tells me, and it will last from nine to 12 months. Not bad. He will have to give me a shot of Novocain in my upper gums to numb my face from my nose up to my eyeballs so he can administer the "painless' injections. Ouch.

I tell him I'm going back to work in two days. He asks me if it's a new job. I say no, and he says that it should be okay if the people already know me. Hmmmmmm.

Then he tells me about four rare but possible side effects from the injections that could occur. One of them is ending up looking like Woody Allen.

The doctor tells me to think it over. I ask when he could do it-and he says he could do it right now if I want.

I decide to throw caution and 250 Euros to the wind and go ahead.

The doctor goes out to get his equipment.

Meanwhile, Mr. S. spies a silicone plastic breast implant on the doctor's desk and starts to play with it. The doctor walks in while Mr. S. is comparing the feel of the silicone breast to other things in the room-like me.

After that little embarrassment, Mr. S. decides to return to the waiting room.

The doctor draws on my face, gives me the Novocain and then starts injecting the filler into the selected places under my eyes. I don't feel the injections, but I do feel intense pressure as he molds the filler into my face.

It all takes 30 minutes. And the brochure is right on target. I do see immediate results. The area under my eyes swells about two inches and turns bright red.

The doctor says this is normal and should completely go away in two weeks-first the swelling and then the bruising.

Yippee! I'm going back to face students in two more days!

But the doctor is very supportive and gives me his mobile (cell) phone number and personal email to ask him anything, anytime. I then begin to question his sanity.

I ask who I pay and he says him-in cash. Uh huh. Cash. He says he doesn't have a credit card machine in his office.

I tell him that I don't have the 250 Euros in cash and I start to hem and haw. He says no problem-just bring it in the next time I'm around and leave it with the receptionist in an envelope he gives me. He says he knows who he can trust.

I'm now questioning my sanity. Is this really happening? A doctor performing a cosmetic procedure and letting you go out the door without paying? In the US, they would pop out my eyeballs as collateral if I ever tired to pull that.

Mr. S and I come back early the next morning with the payment and leave it for the doctor.

I email the doctor because I'm afraid I'm beginning to look like Woody Allen when he played a robot in his movie Sleeper. To my amazement, the doctor emails me back, thanks me for the payment and reassures me that what I'm seeing is normal and will improve everyday.

I'm starting to see improvement now, in fact, after four days and I'm pleased-with one eye-and hoping the other will catch up.

But the best part of all is that it's Mr. S's birthday soon. I remember what he was so fascinated with in the doctor's office-and I finally figure out what to get him as a present (Mr. S.-not the doctor).

Ilene Springer is author of An-American-in-Malta.com.