My secret Sunday addiction

I remember first seeing this photo a few weeks ago on Postsecret. Visiting the site has become a nicely anticipated part of my weekend, sort of like the soul-satisfying thud of the Sunday Times, ready to be perused and lingered over with a steaming cup of coffee.

That postcard, that image, that secret have stuck with me, for some very obvious reasons.

But it makes me wonder again about what a charged topic breast augmentation truly is. As a plastic surgeon, for whom it literally becomes an everyday kind of thing, if you're not careful, you can quickly become inured to the whole idea: Woman wants larger, fuller breasts. Woman gets implants. Woman is thrilled.

It is, however, so much more complicated than that. As the confessor in the postcard implies, there is so much emotion and judgment and conflict and mystique wrapped up in breasts and the concept of augmenting them. And not just for the women who are thinking about it, the women who are planning to have it, and the women who have already done it; but also for their partners, friends, family, coworkers, and acquaintances.

In the end, it is a very personal decision. And it should be.