My son, who is a theater make-up artist, had been encouraging me for years to have a facelift. I never got around to doing it - until now. I am presently on vacation for two months on a small Thai island The Thais are renowned for their cosmetic surgery skills, I have plenty of time to recover in a relaxed atmosphere and the price is right. And I would finally like to look as young as I feel inside! So I decided to go for it!I made an appointment through an organization called "Beauty Med Thailand". They offered me two possible hospitals on the Island Koh Samui: Bangkok International Hospital or Bandon International Hospital. I researched the two hospitals and discovered that with the exception of a huge price difference (Bangkok Hospital would have been 5 times as expensive as Bandon International) there was apparently no difference in the quality of the work done and the care given. So I decided to go with Bandon International and made an appointment with the surgeon, Dr. Choomchoke. He examined my face, made suggestions and answered all of my questions. What I had originally wanted done was a mid- and lower- face and necklift as well as correcting a droopy eyelid which resulted in one eye being larger than the other. Upon examining my face, Dr. Choomchoke, who speaks good English and answered all of my questions, informed me that I had an "hyperactive eyebrow" which means that one eyebrow was 1/2 to 3/4 of a centimeter higher than the other. True. So we decided on an upper facelift as well to correct the positioning of the eyebrows. He would do the upper eyelid surgery at a later time after the major portion of the swelling from this original operation had gone down.So the pictures here are of a full face- and necklift as well as the lower eyes. Most of the swelling has gone down now and I am scheduled to have the upper eye operation in three days. So I will add further pictures at a later date.I arrived at the hospital on Monday morning about 11 a.m. and the pre-operative tests and examinations including blood tests, EKG, lung X-ray, etc. were done. (Another thing I loved about this Thai hospital experience was that there was no time wasted waiting for examinations or doctors to have time to examine you. Everything went as smooth as clockwork.) Everything was okay and late that afternoon Dr. Choomchoke started operating - the operation took about 6 1/2 hours. I woke up in my room with the nurses at my side. I spent two nights in the Hospital and was very well cared for. I had the ubiquitous IV drop and also two blood drainage containers (Is that what they're called ???) as well as a catheter - so I wasn't exactly mobile! I also looked horrible for the first week. The doctor told me that in the 30 some years that he has been performing such operations he never had a Patient that bruised the way I did. In the meantime though almost all the bruising is gone, the swelling is going down and I am happy, happy, happy!!What I found absolutely amazing is that there was no pain whatsoever during the entire healing process. Some stiffness, some tightness, a bit of tingling where the nerve endings need to renew themselves - but that was it. The only painkiller I had was for a bit of a headache immediately following the operation. There were also no after effects from the anaesthetic. Would I do it again? Immediately!!!!
Regrets? Why did I wait so long?
Regrets? Why did I wait so long?
