Editor's Note: What Price
Beauty?
We’re not talking about
beauty. We’re talking about normalcy. Our cover story
on “plastic surgery” is actually about “reconstructive
surgery.” But the insurance companies don’t see
it that way. That means only the HIV positive people who have
extra cash laying around can get the surgery it takes to make
them feel normal again.
No one wants to feel ugly—or
to look abnormal. We’re so used to thinking in terms
of “vanity” that we don’t see surgery (or other
tools) as something that can be constructive. We forget that
real people have real pain, and that diminishing looks can
be a true source of distress. It’s not necessarily a
matter of superficiality or spiritual vacuum.
This is more true when the
diminishment comes from a life-threatening disease. When do
we stop making excuses for medical indignities?
All along there were those
in the health industry who chided people with HIV about drug
side effects. The attitude has been, “You’re alive,
so what if your life is ruined by diarrhea?” Or maybe,
“So your feet are extremely painful—would you rather
be dead?”
Well, for many people, yes.
And now the past several years have brought disfigurement
from HIV medications. When will side effects be taken seriously?
When people with HIV began
to discuss the wasting away of their face or the humps growing
on their backs, so many people seemed to think this was petty.
It’s not. Surgery is
not easy. It’s not fun. Some of the people I talked with
loved their results, but most seemed saddled with some disappointment
for their time and money, even when for the most part they
were satisfied. You don’t go back to looking the way
you did before disease got to you.
But wearing AIDS on your face
or your back could make you feel worse. So the question rises
again as ever in medical care: when will insurance companies
learn compassion?
Enid Vázquez
Interim Editor
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