My New Face

I wanted to start my story at day one of recovery .. which is today. I’m going to be very thorough for others who have questions that may not have been answered in other reviews.
I began my search about 2 years ago for a facelift surgeon. I started near where I live in Maine. I had a consultation with a nice doctor but there was something that made me not want to choose him so I kept thinking about it. I think it was because his revisions weren’t aggressive enough. I didn’t want to go thru all this and spend the money but only see a small change. I also didn’t want to look “like I had a facelift”... there is definitely a fine balance. I wanted to look refreshed and ten years younger but not have people wonder what I did. I felt like I started to really age after 50, maybe at 52. Prior to that people often commented that I looked much younger but the comments stopped right around 50 ):
I hated the jowels I started to see, my marionette lines, my loose neck and fine smile wrinkles.
During the boredom of Covid, I started my search again. I considered going abroad to Turkey or Brazil because I heard about great cost savings and great doctors. But after consulting a doctor in Turkey thru an online plastic surgery service, I felt it wasn’t personal enough. I had also asked the surgeon if he could do a facelift, upper bleph AND breast aug revision all at the same time. It was mostly a safety test question. I’m a Type 1 diabetic on an insulin pump... surgery is risky especially pushing my body to the limit. The surgeon agreed to do it ALL together saying I would be under general anesthesia for 8 hours!! Visions of never waking up or waking up with complications in a foreign country where English was not the primary language sounded too scary even for this daredevil. So I kept searching. I found Dr Galitz here on RealSelf when I decided “why not go somewhere with nice weather to reconver rather than Maine”. I knew I wanted the surgery when I wasn’t tan so I chose January and worked the surgery into a vacation.
My initial visit with Dr. G was via Facebook .. I immediately thought he was kind, down to earth and friendly. He showed me around the office and surgery center, showed me before & after pics, explained the surgery and his recommendations for me. He said I would do well with a facelift and I should get an upper bleph because I might be disappointed if I had the beautiful face but left out the eyes. I appreciated his advice. His office girl, Lily handled the rest. She gave me some dates to choose from and went over the price and payment methods. I found $8500 affordable for my budget and I chose to use CareCredit which came with zero percent interest for 6 months.
And off I went, traveling from Maine to Florida pulling my little camper with my Jeep. I spent a week in southern Florida with two of my sons making great memories before my surgery. I chose to recover at a modestly priced VRBO condo with a beach view and full kitchen (knowing I wouldn’t want to go out for a while) in Hollywood Beach, which was only a 15 minute drive to Dr. Galitz’s surgery center in Aventura.
My pre-op appointment was one week prior to my surgery where I got to see the office, operating room, recovery room and met Dr. Galitz to further discuss the details. He handed me a mirror and explained what he was going to do, pulling my loose skin back and showing me how “beautiful” it would look after. I appreciated his gentle & friendly bedside manner. It felt to me like he could be my uncle. I liked him a lot and that made me feel very positive that I made the right decision. At first when entering the office, I was a bit hesitant because it wasn’t as glamorous as I envisioned in my head... but Dr G took the hesitance away and I figured why not have lower overhead and pass on a good price to your patients. I’m not a Miami socialite so I didn’t need the glitz. The reason I chose Dr G in the first place was because of his years of experience, the before & after pics and the fact that he had an art background... giving him great aesthetic knowledge.
That’s the beginning of the story. My next post will describe the surgery.
Are you ready?

It’s surgery day! I am having a facelift and upper bleph .. while awake!
One of the good things about having a local anesthesia facelift rather than being put under is that the doctor wanted me to eat a big, good breakfast!! Yippee... no fasting! The only limit I had was no caffeine. They wanted me relaxed. I got to my surgery appointment at 8:30am with my good friend along. The doc looked at my face again and told me how great I was going to look. The nurses took me to the recovery room where I changed into a gown, got a warming blanket, received sleepy & relaxing meds (Valium) and listened to soothing music while I chatted a bit with my friend. I guess it took a while to be relaxed enough as I did not go into surgery until 11.
I was told by one of the nurses that the most painful part was gonna be the numbing injections. She was right. It was uncomfortable. I hate needles and injections anyhow ... crazy cuz I should be used to it as a diabetic. Once I was numb, the doc started his cutting. I couldn’t feel much.. it sounded like he was cutting plastic rather than my skin. I was relaxed and able to talk. They checked several times having me smile, open my mouth, etc. I told the nurses I wanted a video & pics to show my son who is in the surgery field. They obliged which is cool. The stitching kinda pulled a little bit nothing remarkable. After both sides of my face were done, it was time for my upper bleph. The eye numbing was worse than the face. I did not like that part and swore a bit. Receiving injections into your eyelids feels like it’s going into your eyeball. Unpleasant. The eyelid surgery itself was worse than the facelift also. Maybe my meds were wearing off or maybe it is just that the eye area is more sensitive. I had a lot of fat in the corners of my eyelids. Removing the fat was the worst part of the entire surgery. Pain level maybe an 8 ... not my worst pain ever but definitely memorable. Stitching the eyes was also uncomfortable but totally survivable especially since the nurse told me we were nearly done. And then, it was over!! I think we were done about 2:15 or 2:30. So 3.5 hours total. It didn’t feel that long. The nurses had me sit up and wrapped my head in thick gauze and ace bandage. I was able to walk to the recovery room and get dressed. They tell you to wear a button down shirt which is a necessity as your wrapped head is giant. My friend showed up to drive me. Recovery time was about 20 minutes. Crazy! I have had multiple general anesthesia surgeries and recovery seems like hours. I was wide awake and aware and walked into my recovery condo with my scarf over my head and sunglasses. I can’t say I was in pain... my head felt heavy and clogged and my eyes were difficult to open and close. I will post recovery days in another post.
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Home from surgery.
I had filled my prescriptions prior to surgery. Took one antibiotic with breakfast as instructed. When I got home, I had my prescription of Tylenol with codeine. One 30mg tablet every 6 hours. I felt my bandages were too tight under my neck and since I did not require a chin incision, the doc told me I could cut the ace bandage at the neck. It felt like my blood was pulsating so I cut the gauze too. It relieved the problem. But there were times when I felt like I wanted it to feel tighter again so I wrapped a scarf around so I could take it off & on as I felt I needed it. Pain? Everything felt tight, not necessarily painful. I got to the condo at 3:30ish and took my first pain med at 6. I had a “headache”.. more literally tho. I laid on the couch and fell asleep a while. I had a soup & sandwich dinner. It’s slightly hard to open your mouth wide. The drains and blood pouches kinda freaked me out but they weren’t really bothersome. The pic shows me at the condo with my head wrapped and the blood drains attached to my head wrap. One side drained quite a bit more than the other. I felt the doctor had to be more aggressive on my left side (not sure why) which was the side that drained more. My friend stayed overnight with me and did everything for me which really helped. I feel I could have managed alone but since I’m diabetic, I wanted someone with me just in case. I managed my blood sugars very well for the surgery and after. Having good control of my sugars will help me heal best. I applied ice cold gauze on my eyelids almost constantly to help with swelling. I took my antibiotic again at bedtime and my pain meds at 10pm. You have to sleep upright with two pillows. I managed to get sleep and didn’t need another pain med until 4am. The pain was rather easily managed. I would say the immediate post surgery was rather easier than expected. The day after will be my next post.

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