Did my last real exercise workout for a while (no bending, lunging or side kicks for two weeks) and made sure it was a good one; I'd like to get back into the same size pants in two weeks as I wear now, and only extreme exercise seems to make that possible. After 312 cross-legged sit ups, crunch frogs and oblique V-ups, I washed my hair one more time, and I was ready. Per doctor's instructions, DH and I were to have one more balanced meal before I hit the clinic. My pick, so IHop for eggs and pancakes with butter pecan syrup (a real no-no since Tony Horton and P90X entered my life.) On the way out I had my sweetheart take one more "before" shot, this time absent make up or combed hair. At 12:35 we pulled into the clinic parking lot and spent 15 minutes reading the paper (well, DH read the paper while I tried not to hyperventilate.)
A lovely young woman named Monica took me, along with all the prescribed meds and the whopping check to pay for the procedure, to the surgical suite and sent DH to go waste a couple of hours on his own. The "surgical suite" looked like most exam rooms I've been in over the past few years, with the addition of a wide reclining chair. She took the required Before photos against a stark beige wall. After I was seated, she gave me another couple of anti-anxiety pills, took my blood pressure (123/87 which was waaaay on the anxious side for me) and "prepped me for surgery." This included tying back my hair, draping me from chin to toe in blankets and then surgical sheets, and scrubbing my face with antibacterial soap. By this time I was calm, almost serene; better living through chemicals.
The surgeon came in to check on me, reviewed the procedure with me one more time, and left for what I guess was a minute or two but may have been longer because my sense of time was distorting. When he came back, the fun began.
The actual procedure I was having was a "reduction" of my upper and lower eyelids, a liposuction of my chin and a tightening of my face and neck by making incisions around the ears and pulling the skin taut. This is all done with local anesthesia; no "going under," and is usually considered a "mini lift." I took the anti-anxiety pills about 1:30, the doctor began his work just before 2 p.m. and I was in the car on the way home by 4:30.
The most uncomfortable part of the procedure was the "numbing medicine." Both the doctor and his nurse referred to the injections as "numbing medicine"; not novacaine, not lidocaine, just "numbing medicine". This seemed funny to me at the time, because I wanted to ask for numbing medicine for the numbing medicine. Those needle pricks hurt! The worst were the ones along the eyebrow; I was convinced the doctor was using a 4" long needle and he was gong to inject it into my eye (it wasn't and he didn't). But once those injections were done, nothing hurt. In fact, though I was awake for the whole procedure, it wasn't even uncomfortable. My only complaint was that my left hand, kept outside of the blankets so a blood pressure cuff and oxygen monitor could be attached, was cold.
The surgeon began on my right side, and completed the liposuction first. If you've ever seen a TV show where liposuction is performed, it looks pretty much exactly like that; a long skinny metal straw attached to a plastic tube is inserted into a hole the doctor makes under the chin (I like to think the hole was between my 1st and 2nd chins) and the excess fat is sucked out. It's a pretty vigorous procedure; the surgeon appeared to be playing a violin for the most part (or that was my impression, because I kept my eyes shut for most of it.)
He then moved on to my right ear. I could hear what he was doing, and thought it sounded a lot like someone sawing a piece of styrofoam. I tried to follow along with what I expected him to do and what it sounded like, but my train of thought was often interrupted by old songs and I'd have to stop listening to the doctor to sing along in my head. As he finished with my ear, it felt as though he gathered up a number of threads and pulled them very tight, then tied them into a knot (which may be exactly what he did, I guess.) Then he moved to my right eye.
I can't begin to explain what the surgeon was doing with my upper eyelid; my best guess is that he put a small clamp on my eyelid, sort of like those big hair clips that hold twisted hair up on the back of your head, and then snipped off the excess skin sticking out. I can only guess because I couldn't actually see what he was doing, and I only caught a glimpse of some tiny scissors, much like cuticle scissors. It didn't hurt, and it didn't seem to take long.
I'm totally clueless about the bottom eyelids; I guess I was in LaLa Land for that portion of the procedure. I woke up with teeny tiny stitches along the lower eyelid, but that's all I know for sure.
After the right side of my face was complete, the doctor rolled himself around to the other side on his little 6 wheeled seat and did the same thing again. Throughout all this, his nurse was by my side, and she usually had a comforting hand on my arm or shoulder. The thought occurs to me that she may have been holding me down, but it was comforting all the same.
When the surgeon was done, he got up, shook my hand, told me I was going to be even more lovely, and left for a moment. The nurse finished cleaning me up; this included a compression bandage that runs up, over and around my head at ear level. She then helped me up and to the door where the doctor met us and walked me out to where my husband and the car were waiting. The nurse turned me over to my husband, gave him some post-op insturctions, and we were on our way home.
I think this is the point where I say "You should see the other guy."
Tomorrow: Recovery Begins
No comments:
Post a Comment