to the op. It’s like those cameramen and women who film a zebra being stalked by a hungry lion. Don’t they sometimes want to put the camera down and shout ‘He’s behind you!’?
But above and beyond asking her countless times what the hell she’s thinking and saying ‘Don’t do this!’, I don’t feel I can go any further. No more so than I could do with my own sister. Ultimately she is a sovereign individual and she’s mistress of her own destiny. And if her own family can’t stop her, then what hope for me? Arriving at the swanky plastic surgery clinic where she is to be pumped up, I go up to meet Sheyla in her hospital bedroom. She’s dressed in a plain white bed gown – as dressed-down as you’ll ever see this woman. I kiss her on both cheeks and ask her how she’s feeling. She clearly hasn’t had much sleep and her face is puffy. I recall my chat with her sister the night before.
‘She is obviously quite upset about you know, your operations,’ I say.
‘I don’t listen to anyone except myself and I don’t like people try to change me. People who try to change me I just keep away, them away from me.’
‘Even the people who really care about you like your family?’ I ask.
‘Even the people who care about me because is all about me, I know what I am doing and I happy to do what I am doing. That is why I wanna go bigger, because I want to be bigger, I wanted to break the world record, that makes me happy. I think my breasts is the most beautiful thing I have on my body and as long as I am awake I am going to keep them, keep growing.’
We are interrupted by a nurse coming in to give Sheyla a pill of some sort. This last exchange is typical of what I have learned about her. She is driven, an unstoppable force, her mind uncluttered with concern for the upset she is causing to those around her. This is not to be harsh about Sheyla. This is something she is sincere about having to do. It is a compulsion. This is genuinely what she wants and has to do. Whether she should be allowed to do it is another question. Her plastic surgeon is no doubt the best money can buy, but I ask myself whether she could go as big as she’s about to, in America or Britain; I’m not sure it would happen. Brazil is number two in the world for the most plastic surgeries behind the USA, but here the range of what you can have done, and to what extent, is greater.
As for today, it isn’t just her breasts that she is having fiddled with. She is also having a chin lift, liposuction and botox. Well, you know, when you drop the car into the garage for a new clutch, you normally ask the mechanic to fix that wonky wing mirror and faulty taillight while he’s at it. So what’s the difference, right…?
From the moment Sheyla and I first met, she has been imploring me to go into the operation with her. I’m actually not that squeamish about that kind of thing and have always found all aspects of medicine utterly compelling. I think being a doctor or nurse has to be the closest you’ll get jobwise to really making a difference in people’s lives. Dead or not dead. Well or not well. That is often the consequence of a medic’s day at the office. As Sheyla is wheeled into the theatre, I have the slight concern that, as she is such a force of nature, perhaps she is immune to anaesthetic, and will chat incessantly during the procedure about her boobies and her undying regard for ‘Dolly Part’. Fortunately she is not immune and one of the few upsides of this regrettable exercise, is ninety minutes of silence. As tubes pump and machines bleep, I’m struck by the stupid irony that in parts of the world there are no hospital beds for people who need them to carry on living, while elsewhere there are people having ops that are resolutely unnecessary. Maybe I’ll be eating my words when I go in for my brow lift in ten years’ time…
So instead of having new implants, Sheyla is having her existing ones filled to capacity. I was shocked at how serious an operation it was. The surgeon cuts right at the lower edge of her areola, that’s the round darker circle that circumnavigates the nipple (OK, I can’t describe breasts). He essentially slices into what looks like the most tender part of the bosom. It’s then flipped open, like the wide round lid on a plastic sports bottle. Visible immediately is the clear bag – the implant. Sheyla looks at this point like a particularly creative drugs mule. The salty water is injected into the implant via the narrow tube Sheyla was waving around in front of me the previous day. At this point the areola is flapped down again and stitched up. Ow.
I make my way out of the theatre and head to the canteen for a tea and a plain biscuit. I feel like I’ve been operated on. I wait for Sheyla to come round. I then hear that the operation was OK and that she is now a world record holder. Officially the most enhanced woman in the world. Clutching the best bunch of flowers a Brazilian petrol station has to offer, I head to her room. As I open the door, as always with Sheyla, it’s not what I’m expecting. She’s lying in the bed, bandaged, bruised, groggy. That’s understandable. But in the room with her is a photographer with a massive camera, snapping away. He asks her to sit up a bit. ‘Look this way. Look that way,’ he says. What’s going on? Before I get to asking, I greet her with a kiss. I try to be upbeat. She’s just had a significant amount surgery and is fragile in every possible way.
‘Look at this lady. How are you doing?’ I say.
‘Is that flowers for me?’ she asks sweetly.
‘Of course they are for you, who do you think they’re for?’
‘Oh my God, you did not need to!’ she replies.
‘Of course! So, who’s the photographer?’
‘This photographer, he’s for my publicity,’ she explains, slurring her words from the medication. ‘So when I need to tell my story I have those photographs.’
‘Are you really in the mood to do publicity?’ I say. ‘You’ve just had a major operation.’
Sheyla abruptly barks at the snapper, ‘Come on, take some pictures.’
‘But you’ve got, like, bandages on and everything.’ She takes no notice of me. It’s a macabre scene. She’s still got the lines that the surgeon’s made with a pen for the lipo. And she’s got bandages on her face and yet she’s doing press photographs. She’s a control freak out of control. I take this opportunity to ask her about the record now.
‘So are you the number one now, the world record holder?’ I ask.
‘As far as I know I’m the world record in breast implants.’
‘And how does that feel?’ I ask.
‘I feel great. I just, I can’t be jumpy now cos I just got them done.’
‘You can’t what?’ I ask.
‘I just want to jump,’ she says.
I wouldn’t if I were her.
She then turns to me, Bambi eyes, and says, ‘Do they look bigger to you?’
‘They do look bigger, yes,’ I say diplomatically. I can’t tell. They were always too big. And just terrible.
‘A lot bigger?’
‘Yes, they’re even bigger.’ There are men the world over having the opposite conversation about their wives’ arses. Oh the vagaries of the female psyche.
And still Sheyla seeks the validation of a near stranger.
‘Are you sure?’ she asks. ‘But you see I can add a little bit more.’
‘What,
