that time i got shot in the face with poison

So you people want to hear about le Botox, do ya? Well, I do have a rep for spilling all the deets, so let this not be an exception...here's how it all went down for all you Curious little Georges out there....

Now I had been thinking about getting 'toxed for a few years...but, as with everything in my life, I sat around and made up excuses, daydreamed about how much better life was going to be once I was finally wrinkle free, but yet still feeling that I knew all to well I was never going to actually pull the trigger and would just catapult ungracefully into my horrid 40's looking like a Sunmaid raisin. Que sera sera, throw in the towel, what's the point, nobody likes me, everybody thinks I'm ugly, I guess I'll just eat worms.

Have I mentioned I have a flair for the dramatic?

So there I was all woe is me, approaching my late...ahem....thirty somethings and asking my dermatologist at every appointment just how much she charges again ('too much' was always the answer) when along came a groupon for $99 for 20 units. I had no idea how much Botox I actually needed to handle the mess that frowned back at me in the mirror, but 20 units seemed like a good place to start and according to Mr. Google, also sounded like a damn good price... so I took to Google once again to read reviews on the doctor and make sure he was legit and not some Dr. Bobolit quack (where's all my Nip/Tuck homies?) and without much more thinking*, I clicked "purchase", and it was done.

(*this is a straight up lie. I hemmed and hawwed for 3 days before I bit the bullet.)

That was last summer. Yes, it was. I carried that thing around with me for a year, waiting for a special occasion, waiting to lose a few pounds, waiting for it to expire so I could make more excuses about how I looked like hell and was getting old (I'm a head case, I admit it.). In the end, it turned out, $99 was too much money for me to just flush down the toilet so I had an excuse to feel sorry for myself, so, with 4 days left until the expiration date, I made an appointment for my first round of Botox.

Here are the details you all came to read...

My Groupon was for 20 units, which, my doctor explained to me is a standard starting point and what most every Botox doctor will use as a "minimum". 20 units, he said, are almost always sufficient to treat the "elevens" which are the vertical lines that show up between your eyebrows when you frown or scrunch up your brows. Go ahead and go look in the mirror and frown. I'll wait............

See? Those.

My "elevens" never really bothered me much, but my forehead was starting to drive me nuts. I felt like I was turning into that painting of the young woman who turns into that horrible looking old bag in The Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland....?

I explained to the doctor that my horizontal forehead lines were causing me strife but that I was afraid of putting too much Botox up there in case it would paralyze the muscles to the point that my lids would droop (thanks for that paranoia, You Tube and Web MD). As if I was talking to some amatuer or something.......he assured me he knew what he was doing, explained that the main muscles of the forehead are located between and above the eyebrows and that in order to treat my horizontal lines, he was recommending an additional 10 units....20 units for the area between my brows and then, dispersing the last 10 units along the very top of my forehead about an inch or so below my hairline. I told him he was the expert and to get the party started!

He rubbed some numbing cream all around my forehead, which by the way, did not do shit, and then showed me the fresh vial of Botox so that I would know we were using a new, sealed product. Botox by itself, it looked like to me, is actually just this yellowish powdery residue on the bottom of a tiny glass jar.  Each jar contains enough of this substance to make 100 units of Botox, so what he did was take the equivalent of 100 units worth of water, injected that into the top of the jar, shook it up to mix it well, then, inserted a syringe that had little markings on it (indicating the amount of units), extracted 30 units worth of the Botox into the syringe and then proceeded to stab me in my face. Repeatedly. And for this abuse, I paid him handsomely.  But seriously, the actual injections took no longer than 30 seconds. He moved from spot to spot lightening quick and then when he had finished injecting all 30 units, he gave my forehead a quick rubdown to spread it all out and I was good to go with a little gauze pad he instructed me to press against my forehead for 2 minutes.

I drove away feeling like a Real Housewife.

I know you all want to know if it hurt and I'd be lying like the lady who chatted me up at the doctor's office if I told you all it didn't. It does. You are being stuck in the face with a needle, BUT it's a very small needle, and it's quick. The closest thing I can relate it to is a bee sting. It felt like about 12 super quick little bee stings. My eyes watered, I had to give myself a little pep talk...but I'm kind of a wimp too, so don't take it from me.

It took 3 full days to kick in. The internets told me this ahead of time, but I was still utterly convinced on day 2 that I was the only poor sap for which Botox will not work and that I had thrown my hard earned money out the window. But, the proof is in the pudding.

What do you think?

please excuse my lack of mascara. god, what is wrong with me?

If you have any more questions, feel free to email me or leave them in the comments and I'll answer you as best I can. I am really super in love with the results and am afraid to admit I might be hooked. When I look back at the "before" pictures that I didn't think were all that bad at the time, I wonder how on earth I lived like that for so long and why I didn't go sooner!  I feel like I can leave the house now without makeup and not look like something out of Creature from the Black Lagoon....and possibly the best compliment of all? When I came back in to work Tuesday after having gotten the Botox on Friday....2 different people insisted that I had lost weight! Isn't it the greatest when people know you look good but they can't put a finger on WHY??

Yay Botox!