60 Years Old and Happily Lost a Decade - Northern Virginia

I've been wanting to post forever, but lots of things going on PLUS, I am not so sure what I think about my results at the 5 and 1/2 month mark. I may have to do this in a couple of postings. I also have not posted any pictures because I can't seem to take a good picture to save my life or else that is just how I look. If that's the case, its a little depressing.
So here is where I am now.
- area in front of my ears and up into my sideburns, still numb. Less numb than before, but still numb.
- still have a very tight band running up the middle of my neck. It can be rather uncomfortable and still bothers me a bit. It has improved in the last month, but its still tight. I read someone's comment about the challenge of draining the last drop out of a water bottle. I fear if I lift my chin up too far, something is going to snap like a rubber band, but I'm sure I'm being silly.
- My eyes are good. Still a little tightness where the incision was, but I can't see the scar at all and my eyelids close perfectly flush, now. It took awhile before I could wash my face and not get water and soap in my eyes because my lids were so stiff and gappy.
- It is still very tender behind my ears where the neck lift incisions are. It is much better than it was, but this is still my most sensitive area. I finally got my hair highlighted 2 months ago the shampooing and combing back there was not pleasant. I haven't bothered looking at the scars, but they feel quite lumpy. However, I wear my hair up more often than not and no one has ever seemed to notice a thing.
- The scars in front of my ears have been almost invisible for months.
I have to say I'm not really bothered by how my face feels at this point, but there is never a day that I am not totally aware that my face and neck still feel strange. From all I've read, I don't think I'm in the minority.
Soooooo......how do I feel about it all now that my face and neck lift and lower lid bleph are nearly 6 months behind me? Hmmmmm. So many things that I'm not entirely sure. I look in the mirror and I actually am pretty happy with what I see. But.... in my photos, I still have much more jowl than I'd like, very deep marionette lines (even though I had Juvederm injected into them during my surgery), and, apparently, I have those damn submandibular glands that pooch out under my jaw line. And when I look at my photos, I feel like there is almost no difference in my jowls. My PS says, yes, the pooches are my submandibulars, nothing can be done about that, and she thinks I look marvelous everywhere else, so there will be no free or reduced cost revisions. My husband says I look better but he doesn't think I really look 10 years younger. He just doesn't think its that dramatic. My brother is the only one that has ever said I looked younger. The man has never been able to tell even the slightest white lie convincingly so I consider it a real positive coming from him. Of course, I let him in on the fact that I had my eye bags removed and "just a touch of lipo" under my neck. I on the other hand, can tell white lies like a pro.....:-)
I think the most dramatically improved areas are the bags under my eyes and my neck. I don't think I had any idea how bad my neck was. If I had my head held high, all was not so bad, but the slightest downward slant and, as my husband says "the spare tire appeared". I was shocked beyond words when I saw the picture taken of me in November (pic no 1). My neck is still a bit of a mess. Those stupid glands and that band up the middle of the neck and still some crepiness at the bottom when my neck is back a bit. Oh well. It is a VAST improvement from before. I'm glad to be done with the bags. I still have somewhat of the appearance of them...its like the gouge left after a glacier has passed over the landscape and melted....but it makes me look like me. I have had major bags since I was 28 (and I didn't really mind them so much until I was around 50), so I am OK with how it turned out. The rumples I developed on the side of my face are gone. And I think the jowls are better. They are STILL there, but they seem much more taut and I honestly don't think the PS could have pulled anymore without distorting my face. She did lipo under my chin and a bit at the jaw line, but I've read where you have to be very careful with lipo near your mouth area and that is where my biggest problem lies.
Overall, I feel I am much improved, but its not startling. Now I really notice the lines! Perhaps the payoff is later down the road when people won't think I really look my age. And I have to control myself from swatting my pharmacist on the arm when she keeps asking me for my medicare card (I'm not there, yet....I'm 60). OK...so she's like late 30s. All us ladies over 60 look like 80 to them. Still!
Pictures no 3 and no 4 are the best pics I have ever been able to take since my surgery. And, sometimes, this is the way I think I look in the mirror. So, to be fair, I've also uploaded the cold hard truth with different lighting (pics no 5 and 6). And even those pics are better than the majority I take. Perhaps I'm really in between.
I have a bit more to say, but I will post that later. I am also scheduled for an arm lift in less than 2 weeks. Yikes!!!!

I'm pretty lumpy in the lower side of my face and pretty much puffed up from under my ears all the way across my neck and up through my jowls (or at least I HOPE its swelling and not just me!). Hoping like a lot of you it will go away before too long and I'll like what I see underneath.