My friend Dawn and I recently attended an evening meeting of the Houston Society of Plastic Surgeons. Since we were invited guests, and not plastic surgeons, we didn’t stop on the way into the lovely formal dining room to pick up our name badges because the organizers had not made them for us. On the way out, however, we both noticed clear plastic perfectly formed oval objects sitting on the table, looking for all the world like crystal paper weights. I picked one up and it slithered out of my hand, slippery as a water balloon. It was then that I realized that the beautiful paper weight was indeed, a silicone breast implant made by the company that sponsored the dinner. After all, what do you expect when you attend a gathering of the plastic surgery clan?
I have learned in medicine to expect the unexpected. The reason that I got in my car and drove 970 miles from Santa Fe to Houston was that my father, Dr. Melvin Spira, now nearly 91 years old and an emeritus professor of plastic surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, had been asked to give several lectures as a visiting professor for the residents and fellows in training. Several is a bit of an understatement. He was actually asked to give five separate talks, including three on consecutive days at 6:30 a.m., because as we know, surgeons start their days early. After assuring Dad that I would not be getting up to attend any 6:30 a.m. lectures, I set out for Houston in the midst of some of the worst rainstorms and flooding seen in that town in over thirty years. Dad has had to curtail his practice over the last few years due to significant health issues, and when he came down with a bad cold days before the trip, I tried to no avail to convince him to stay home. He, of course, wouldn’t hear of it.
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