I always wanted to be a doctor - part 2
End’s well, all’s well?
I believe that every experience makes a person stronger. If you touch the bottom, you start to perceive not only everything around you but also yourself completely differently. And when you come back home afterwards, you are a different person. And those who stayed seem different as well. And of course, you appear so to them. You are a foreigner again, this time in your own country. You go through a culture shock again, you don’t know what happened one, let alone eight years ago.
And your son? Didn’t he lose a part of carefree childhood?
I think that if a child has a strong positive motivation you can load a lot on them and it won’t break them down. And he had it. He didn’t want to lose his dad. It is true that he lived a bit further (5000 km, but in Canada it is seen differently), but my son could go there any time. He flew to see him for Christmas and during holidays they would spent whole months together. Our son had a lot of work and duties, but he learnt to be modest, responsible and hard-working. Today he is a very even-minded, satisfied and successful young man.
You came back and started from scratch again. Was it so even with a place of living?
Yes, I started in a studio and I didn’t even have a coffee cup.
Do you enjoy furnishing?
Yes, very much. I was running around secondhand and antique shops and looking for individual pieces of furniture. I like old things with patina and history and therefore it became a hobby for me as well. I also got and inherited many things from my parents and grandparents and those are the most precious pieces of furniture for me. I also enjoy very much playing with shapes and colors.
What makes a flat to be a home for you?
Every object in my home has a history, I have a personal relationship to it, I know where I bought it or who I got it from. Those pieces are valuable for me regardless their financial value. For example I have a picture of my grandma on my bed-side table and sometimes we have a good old chat together (but that is a different story).
How do Canadians live?
I cannot generalize that, but the culture of living is a somewhat different from here. What might appear to us as kitsch is considered there to be beautiful. Canadians are more practical. They give more space to the technical equipment, e.g. they have a special room for a washing machine and a drier. I was quite surprised not to see many bookshelves in their houses. They do have a bathroom on each floor, sometimes even two, but books are not their priority. Also I did not see there as many paintings and pictures on their walls as we can see in our flats.
But you had an exhibition of paintings there!
That was as a part of humanitarian event. I am not a painter, but it is my hobby. I have always given away my pictures. Now I only paint very little and if I actually get started, I cannot leave an unfinished canvas even if I was to stay up all night. It’s one of my typical characteristics: I want to have everything finished within details. My mum is the same way, she would always have tidied up, everything in order, just a perfectionist. But today, when she comes over to my place, she says: “You are even worse than me.”
But perfectionism is a perfect characteristic for a plastic surgeon!
Certainly, as well as aesthetic feelings and manual skills.
Do you look back at the last eleven years with satisfaction?
Not everything can be accomplished within the first try, but when someone is enduring, they can achieve their goals. I have met excellent colleagues, outstanding doctors and amazing and devoted nurses.
Is plastic surgery in demand in Canada?
The Canadian women are rather conservative in this way, unlike the American ones. Natural process of aging is for most of them normal and matter-of-course.
Do you recommend plastic surgery to anyone?
Definitely not to anyone. On the contrary, I quite often try to dissuade people from having one. Aesthetic surgery helps to remove certain physical disproportions and can help to mitigate manifestations of age, but not everyone is suited for it. Everyone has to get ready for such a procedure. They have to be completely healthy, have enough time for after-operation care and mainly – have realistic expectations. We cannot perform miracles. On the other hand, if something is bothering you… Everybody should be nice to themselves and allow themselves to be spoilt here and there. I know from experience that a woman who goes through plastic surgery is cared for by her whole family and she usually looks at this time as at a very nice period. Additionally the women gain better looks and therefore better feeling about themselves.
Isn’t the fact your son to whom you sacrificed a lot lives on the other side of the ocean painful for you?
I have to stress that I have never felt like I have sacrificed myself to my son. All parents do for their children what they consider to be the best for them and that is no sacrifice, but a part of being a parent. We visit him in Canada every year, spend our holidays together, he comes here and always says he’s coming home. That’s beautiful, isn’t it? Of course I often miss him, but I also have my own parents here, my brother with his family and my friends. This is just my home.
Are you planning Christmas together?
Yes, we are. My son is coming, we will go to my parents and the family will be together. And that’s how it should be. Beautiful, peaceful and cheerful Christmas. We have almost dismissed the whole present thing, we only give each other some thing small for pleasure. The important thing is that we are together.
