“Face-lift: is it worth looking ugly for a few months in order to look beautiful?”

I’m just over a month removed from major facial surgery: blepharoplasty, face-lift and facial liposuction. This is the first time I have been able to say that I am starting to feel happy with the results.

The past month was absolute hell. Every inch of my head and face swelled up to unimaginable levels and the pain was intense. Starting at the top:

• My scalp (where the staples were) was so tender and every time I moved or tried to smile/laugh/cry, it pulled and hurt even more.

• My eyes were so hard to keep closed on their own but managed to swell almost completely shut on their own, no problem!

• My jaw area from my ears to my chin was stiff and sore. I couldn’t eat or make any kind of facial expressions – including crying from how much it hurt – without painful consequences. Further up the jawline, I was downright numb and felt like the Tinman when I tried to move my mouth. I still feel funny here, by the way.

• My chin (where I had the lipo) stayed swollen for a month straight!

I still have some residual bruising but I can finally look in the mirror with most of the stitches and swelling gone and say that I like what I see. Before that, it was depressing to think of how much pain I was in and how I couldn’t do anything AND I looked horrible! Now, finally, I can see that was all part of the journey and that I needed to have faith in the choices I made and the skill of my plastic surgeon. I do and now I have confidence that no one will even remember this time in my life in a few months.