First 24 Hours

I can't tell you much about the first evening after surgery; between the pain pills and the anti-anxiety meds I just don't remember much. I do know that I slept. And put bags of frozen corn on my face. And slept. And put fresh bags of frozen corn on my face. And slept some more. My eyelids were swollen shut and my vision was pretty limited; I could see to move around and get into the recliner, and I could find the bathroom, but reading or watching TV was out of the question. My husband kept a glass of juice mixed with ginger ale by my side and I sipped that all night.

Eating wasn't on the agenda either. Good thing I had that big brunch, not because I was nauseated after surgery, but because the head wrap kept my mouth closed. The compression bandage was supposed to keep my ears stitched to my head in one position, and effectively kept me from opening my mouth more than about an inch. I could talk, but it came out a mumble. (Most face tightening requires that the ears are almost cut out, and then stitched back in place once excess skin is pulled up and cut off. There will be a small scar that outlines the ear from front to back. I only hope my freckles hid it.)

I didn't have any pain at all the first night, and slept well. The very next morning, bright and early, we were back at the surgeon's office for a post-op check. I was a little amused that they had us come in through the back door; no mummy wrapped bloody patients at the main entrance, please. My stomach was a little unsettled, and while I waited for the surgeon to get his supplies I kept a trash can handy. As soon as the doc dropped the back of the chair and I laid back, the nausea stopped. He removed the head wrap, cleaned everything , applied some ointment, and re-wrapped my head. Still no pain, though the stitches in my eyelids were poking me every time I blinked. He sent me home with an appointment to return in one week to have stitches removed. That seemed an awfully long time in the future.

The first full day wasn't horrible, but I was glad to have the pain pills at the ready. It seemed that I was comfortable for the first hour after I took pain meds, the second hour I began to realize that I was achy, the third hour I was irritable and by the fourth hour my husband was wishing he were somewhere else. We worked out a system where he handed me a pain pill and a glass of water every three and a half hours, and that helped.

It wasn't so much that I was in a great deal of pain, but that things were starting to itch. I was applying an eye lubricant every hour or so to keep the eye sutures soft and moist. I used up the original small tube pretty quickly and DH had to pick up a second tube at the drugstore that night. I was alternating frozen corn with frozen peas on my face, and the eye swelling had diminished enough for me to focus, so I could check my email, but any more reading than that was tiring. Watching TV was tiring, too, so after one TV show I gave that up and opted for dozing. I was starting to look like I had been run over; the bruising from my eyes was draining into my face.

The big issue was my chin, where the incisions were made for the liposuction; there was a four inch strip under my chin that itched and ached. Moving my mouth made it worse, so eating was problematic. But by mid day I was hungry! My husband is an excellent baker, and made fresh rolls for me to eat. I had to tear them into tiny pieces to fit into the little opening of my mouth and then mash them up; chewing was kept to a minimum. By evening my ears were aching, too, and I was counting minutes to the next pain pill.

I wanted to tear off the compression bandage and scratch everywhere! I wanted a shower, I wanted to comb my hair, and I wanted to rub my itching ears. But the bandage is supposed to stay put for 48 hours, and I'm a compliant patient. Sleeping the second night was much harder than the first; I'd doze, then wake and ice my face, then doze, then get up and put lubricant in my eyes. And try not to scratch.

Post Op ride home

24 hours Post Op

My big plans for Day 3; take a shower!

Nip 'n Tuck (Warning: PG 13 Photos)

I slept really well the night before my little surgery, and I think I could have done so without the little anti-anxiety pill the doc gave me. I only woke once or twice thinking "what are you doing?" and "are you sure you haven't lost your mind?" The Morning Of Surgery dawned clear and sunny and I had finished all the things I promised myself I would accomplish before going under the knife (one of DH's less funny comments); my post-surgery clothing was washed and folded and easily accessible (all those yoga pants and button up shirts), the pharmacy supplies picked up (including a nice assortment of pain pills, which is actually an oxymoron, since they are truly anti-pain pills) and a stack of reading materials, books on tape, and an updated Netflix list by the recliner. The freezer was full of frozen peas and corn to use as cold compresses, and I had a dozen little towels to wrap them in.

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

Before

It's two days before my mini-lift is scheduled and I've had my sweet, indulgent husband take "before" photos. In all the ads and all the web sites that show before and after photos of plastic surgery, the before photos are always taken when the patient looks their very worst; no makeup, hair straggly or pulled back, harsh lighting, pre-surgery anxiety adding to the horror. This, of course, is designed to make the "after" pix that much more amazing in their transformation.

Hooey.

I wanted a before photo that shows me at my current best; makeup on, hair combed, good lights. That way there would be a more "apple to apple" comparison for judging the overall results. So here they are in all their reveling glory: my Before Pictures

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This one was taken with a flash, which washes out the dark circles under my eyes and softens the lines running from my nose to my mouth. Unfortunately, such flattering lighting isn't how most people see me. This is:



The side views show where my face is starting to slide:



And there's where you see the start of Mom's double chins.

(And Honey, thanks for the soft focus, but even that doesn't help much.)

It should be said that I've spent most of the past 6 months getting myself into shape physically; I've been following an extreme workout program that has given my a body better than what I had 20 years ago. So now that I have the body of a 30 year old (OK, a 40 year old in good shape) I want the face to match. Two days to go....

A Woman of a Certain Age

I've always known what I was going to look like as I age; it's been suggested more than once that I may have been the first human clone, that's how much I look like my mother.

I always thought my mother was a handsome woman. That is, she was good looking until she hit 50. Then her face melted. Sort of slid down a little, giving her jowls and eradicating her jawline. But she was Mom, ya' know? So I didn't think too much about it. After all, she was a heavy smoker, heavy drinker, had high blood pressure, weight fluctuations for years, and generally didn't do much to take care of herself. Mom passed a few years back at age 77 with deep smokers lines and three chins.



I expected that my lifetime of healthy eating and exercise would save me from that face (with a Hail Mary that my misspent years smoking would be forgiven.) It was not to be; every day for the past five years I look at myself in the mirror and see Mom. And not the handsome-before-50 Mom, the face-sliding Mom. And though I'm past the magic age of 50, I'm not that much past 50. Seven years ago (looooong before I turned 50) when I married I looked pretty good. Last month we had a formal photo taken and holy sh*t I look old! My husband, who is six years older than I am, is pretty much standing still age-wise. At this rate I'm starting to look like the older of the two of us, and I don't like it, not one little bit. I've been whining about this for long enough, and have decided that it's time to do something about. I'm going to have a mini-lift and get my eyelids fixed. I want back the face I had when I married.



I did all the research and solicited referrals from friends, narrowed it down to a charming, young surgeon in Tampa, and scheduled the procedure for Friday, February 5. I'll post all the before and after photos, and keep a detailed record of what happens. Does it hurt, and how much. What helps, what doesn't. How long before I'm public presentable. You know, all the stuff I wanted to know before I jumped into this with both feet. Stay tuned.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

It's been a most interesting summer; the long list of things I expected to get done has languished from neglect, and a whole new adventure opened up before me. And I have only myself to blame....

You see, it all started with my friend Alpaca Joe. As you recall, I visited his alpaca ranch earlier this year, and helped with the shearing of his herd. My reward was an alpaca fleece of my very own, to do with as I pleased, and the blanket from Llarry, the guard llama. I have chronicled my experience with Ace's cria fleece.

And now for the rest of the story:

During shearing day I was overwhelmed with the amount of fiber generated by Alpaca Joe's small herd. As I inexpertly skirted the fleece, and gathered the prime blanket fiber and rolled it into storage bags, and took seconds which are leg and neck fibers and put them into other bags, I muttered over and over to myself, "what are you going to do with all this stuff?"

At the end of the day, covered in sweat and dirt and alpaca spit, happily exhausted, I asked that question of Alpaca Joe. "Joe, you're a busy guy. You can only spin so much of this fiber. The animals are shorn every year. What do you do with it all?" His response floored me. "It piles up in the barn."

I went home with that answer playing over and over in my head. I dreamed of alpaca fleece piled up and up and up until it burst out of the barn. I imagined myself rolling around in a bed of soft soft soft huacaya fiber. And then it came to me. What Alpaca Joe desperately needed was a way to sell his alpaca fleece to the many handspinners like myself who could appreciate its fibery goodness. An online store! So I emailed Joe with my brainstorm; why didn't he open an Etsy store and sell the fruits of his labor?

"But I'm swamped as it is," he told me. "I can't possibly manage a store in addition to the ranch, my day job, and a little spinning time of my own. It's a great idea, but I just can't do it."

And before I could stop it, my mouth opened up and "But I can. And I work for fiber" came out.

So that's how www.alpacajoe.etsy.com came about. Joe puts up the fiber, and I put up the work. It's been a lot more work than I originally anticipated, but it's been a lot more fun, too. The Etsy store sells luxury fibers raw, as roving, as batts and as yarn. The intro says:

Alpaca Joe is the place to find fiber at its finest. Though the emphasis is on the beloved alpaca, you will find luxury fiber of every sort; cashmere, angora, silk, various breeds of rare wool, bamboo, cotton, tencel, mohair and more may grace these pages from time to time, almost always from local sources. Alpaca Joe is dedicated to providing an exceptional experience for the fiber enthusiast, be he or she spinner, knitter, felter, weaver or fashion afficionado, beginner or advanced.

Take a moment and visit the site. You'll see how I spent my summer!

Ace of Hearts

Ace is one of Alpaca Joe's youngest alpacas. This year was his first shearing, and he handled it quite well. Since I was skirting, I had the opportunity to bury my hands in the ultra softness that is a yearling fleece. I've heard that the softest fiber an animal will ever have is the one it is born with; from there, maturity adds coarseness. Ace was bred to have a fine fleece, with good crimp. And his color is lovely; soft apricot, like an early morning cloud.

Very few hand spinners ever have the chance to spin a cria fleece (that's what a baby alpaca is called, cria, pronounced "kree-uh"). It's not that they are rare, it's that they are made of velcro, and every piece of hay or stray or debris that the animal has ever come in contact with is part of them. It's as if the young alpaca first rolled in glue and then rolled around in a feed bin. Unlike older animals, where the vm can be combed out, trying to comb debris out of the tips of cria fiber just spreads it around, contaminating the rest of the fleece. Processing mills won't take cria fleece, and most breeders won't try to sell it to spinners since it's all but impossible to clean.

But nothing compares for fineness. A well bred, young alpaca has a micron count that rivals cashmere, but with a longer staple length that makes it so much easier to spin. So what's a spinner, who covets that quality, but hates the vm, to do?

Why, trim the lock tips, of course. See that box next the the pile of locks? Those are the very tips of the locks, carefully removed from the fleece with very small, very sharp scissors. The majority of vegetation that was plastered to the outside of Ace came off with them, making the rest of the picking, if not easy, at least possible.



I took handfulls of the fluff, put them in my clothes dryer, and tumbled them on air fluff to shake out any loose vegetation. It worked much better than I had hoped, and a lot of sand and dirt and chaff was caught in the filter. Then I washed it, rinsed it, let it air dry just a little, and tumbled it in the dryer again.

And this is what the cleaned stuff looks like. Can't wait to start spinning. Ace has stolen my heart.

Alpaca Joe

I met "Alpaca Joe"* a few years back at a spinning class. It wasn't surprising to me that an alpaca rancher would want to learn to spin; with all the silky fiber at your disposal, how could you not. What was surprising was that "Joe" was, well, a guy, and I have met so few male spinners that they must be very few and far between. During the class, as Joe revealed his avocation as an alpaca breeder, I commented on how very cool it would be to visit an alpaca ranch. To my delight, Joe extended an invite to visit at my leisure. I thought it might seem impolite to ask if I could just follow him home, so I waited an acceptable few days to ask if I could "drop by." Turns out that "dropping by" was an 80 mile ride each way up into the mountains. Joe and his small herd live on a parcel of land nestled high up where the spring comes a month later than it does in the valley. Joe kept not only alpaca, but a good sized garden and an impressive variety of chickens. For a girl from the suburbs, it wasn't just interesting. It was lovely.

Now, let me digress for just a moment. I learned to spin on alpaca fiber. My knitting preference has always been alpaca, and when I decided to learn to spin it was so that I could fondle the soft fluffy fiber in a more elemental way. My fascination with all things alpaca precluded hearing the voices that said that alpaca was a fussy fiber, best left for a spinner with a healthy dose of experience. My innate love for the stuff was in no way diminished during the learning curve. So a chance to see my favorite fiber on the hoof was not something I could pass up.

I've made several visits since then, and with each visit I learn a little more about these amazing creatures. Last year my husband and I volunteered to help on shearing day, but our timing was off and we didn't manage to get there. But this year there was nothing that could keep me from being part of the annual ritual and dance that separates the fiber from the animal.

And it was something.

Shearing starts early in the day; 8 a.m. in this case, while the air is still cool. I didn't know that shearing would be hot and dirty work. (Well, I expected dirty, having watched alpacas in their native habitat roll around in the dirt whenever possible. But I forgot that under all that fleece is a very warmblooded critter.) I've seen sheep sheared, and it's very physical. Usually the shearer (a truly underappreciated vocation) handles the sheep himself. Alpaca, though not really big, are taller and more gangly than most sheep, and more than a handful for one person. So the shearer binds the animal's hands and feet and, with help, the animal is stretched out with it's feet in front and in back. The shearer has no trouble running the clipper over the animal to remove the pelt.


Belly fur, too coarse and matted to be of use, is sent to the compost heap. Then the prime blanket is carefully removed from the animals back and sides and set aside to be skirted. The upper legs and neck are trimmed and set aside as "seconds." Finally, any additional areas, such as the face, tail and lower legs, are trimmed. It takes several people, dancing around one another, to efficiently shear alpacas and their larger cousins, llamas. But the whole thing, if well coordinated, takes less than 15 minutes. A handful of us sheared 18 alpacas and three llamas in just about five hours.

Once shorn, alpacas appear to be slightly embarrassed by their significantly smaller size, But they are certainly cooler without the fur coat!

When alpaca are sheared, it is usual for their hooves to be trimmed and their teeth to be filed down so that they don't hurt each other if they fight. Though not painful, sometimes the animals jerk or pull away. Ever been to the dentist and had a little "pink in the sink" when you were done? Same thing happens from time to time during shearing. This is Doc, and it isn't near as bad as it looks. He complained for five minutes and then seamed unaffected. By the way, his "before" picture is the first one at the top of the page. Doesn't look the same, does he?



At the end of the day, (well, it was only midday, but you know what I mean) I was exhausted, and I had the easiest of jobs! I was assigned to the skirting table, which means I helped remove the blanket as it was clipped, carried it to the skirting table, separated as much guard hair, 2nd clips and debris as possible in the 10 minutes it took to finish clipping that animal and get the next one set to clip, and bag up the fleece and move it to temporary storage. (And my apologies to whoever must prepare the fleece for processing. I promise to do better next time.)

All in all it was a fascinating experience. In payment for my labor (and that of my husband) Alpaca Joe allowed me to pick a fleece for my very own. He also gave me the blanket from Larry, the Guard Llama. Last year I would have picked the fleece based on color; this year, because I was more experienced, I picked based on the fineness of the fleece, and Ace's blanket came home with me. Next time I'll share with you the pros and cons of choosing fleece from the first shearing of a one year old alpaca.

*Names have been changed to protect the innocent.