Vanity Lesson

How far would you go to look good?

Vanity. If there's one thing about it I can't forget, it's something the great Al Pacino, playing as the devil, said in the movie Devil's Advocate. If you want to hear it, turn on your speakers, and click here.

It's true. Most people would kill and do everything for vanity. Here's one news story that caught my eye while I was searching for my daily dose of news.....

Fake Botox-Injured Pair Warns Others By David Wahlberg
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

ATLANTA --- A Palm Beach Gardens couple recovering at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta for paralysis caused by bootleg Botox said Friday that they have learned a lesson about vanity.

Eric and Bonnie Kaplan also said raw botulinum toxin, which they unwittingly allowed to be injected into their foreheads in November instead of the anti-wrinkle serum Botox, should not be allowed in the United States for any reason.

Botulinum toxin, when legitimately used for bioterrorism research, is regulated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Federal prosecutors in Miami this week filed charges of fraud and drug mislabeling against the osteopathic doctor who treated the Kaplans and four companies involved in distributing the solution. The doctor and his girlfriend, who both used the toxin, remain hospitalized in New Jersey.

A few days after the injections, they were paralyzed, unable to speak, walk or swallow. They have slowly regained most movement.

"People have to understand it's OK to have a wrinkle," said Eric Kaplan, 52. He and his wife required ventilators to breathe until recently.

"My perspective is different; I'm proud of my wrinkles," added Kaplan, a chiropractor, his voice shaking with emotion. "I'm guilty of being vain, and I've learned from that."

[PalmBeachPost.com]

I think the couple is blessed enough to have survived that ordeal; they could've died with their misadventure.

The reason botox is supposedly able to straighten out wrinkles is because it is able to block signals that tells your muscles to contract --- in short, it paralyzes your muscles. It is actually a poison, and if given in wrong doses or in the wrong form, like what happened to the unfortunate couple above, it can paralyze your breathing muscles and prevent you from breathing.

But wrinkles are part of growing old. Of course, Botox is now commercially available as a cosmetic agent to remove your wrinkles, and whereas before this wasn't even an option, people nowadays even hold botox parties to celebrate a temporary end to their wrinkle problems.

As for me, I gladly welcome whatever time and fate will give me physically. I don't think I can hide my age forever. Sometimes, when you think about it, you would even get confused why you hid it in the first place. No one is immune to aging.