11-05-2025
Polly Vernon: I had an eyelift — here's what happened
I sit in the waiting room of Dr Elizabeth Hawkes's consulting suite and surgery, a converted, gracious townhouse situated near Sloane Square in Chelsea. It is 7am and I am nervous. Abiding by the clinic's instructions, I haven't eaten — even drunk any water — since the night before. This is for the purposes of anaesthesia. Oh God! I will be having anaesthesia.
A nurse collects me and takes me downstairs to the basement, where a selection of operating theatres is located. We go into a tiny anteroom where she preps me: weighs and measures me, checks I'm not (among other things) pregnant/haven't recently taken ketamine (no, and indeed, no). She gives me a hospital gown, towelling slippers, compression stockings to guard against clotting and
