Liposuction on Stubborn Flanks but Wrong Garment Has Caused Damage

I had liposuction on my flanks to remove stubborn fat which just would not shift. I kind of got pushed into using MYA (Make Yourself Amazing) cosmetic surgery. My surgeon was great, but MYA themselves, I wish I had never gone via them. They have been appalling, as soon as I gave them my money, they did not care, this should have been an early warning sign that their service was going to go downhill from this point on, but sadly I did not heed the warning. So here is My MYA patient journey:
Mine is a very long story, so I will try and keep it as brief...ish as I can. My initial consultation felt rushed and I felt pushed into having the surgery. I was informed at my consultation that they had a cancellation and if I wanted to fill that spot I would be given a discount. I was pushed and urged to book it there and then, so as not to miss out on this discount. I told them I would need to think about it and off I went. I then got a number of calls from them, again pushing me to book it or lose the discount. I caved and booked in order to obtain the discount. I paid the full £3,400 (after discount) amount up front due to my surgery date now being just 13 days away. As soon as I had paid my money all customer service went out the window. I was told I may need to stop taking the pill 14 day prior surgery, so was already 1 day over. By the time they actually got back to me regarding whether I need to stop taking the pill or not, it was only 8 days before surgery. Luckily I didn't need to stop taking it.
At my pre op check (1 week before surgery), the MYA nurse was convinced I had gone in for a tummy tuck. I was not. I was in for flank liposuction. At the end of this pre op check, I was just about to leave when the nurse remembered "oh I haven't taken any photos, please come back and get undressed again for photos". After the photos and upon my 2nd attempt to leave, I was just out the door when the nurse rushed after me again: "oh, sorry, I forgot to get you to sign these forms". So I signed the form and then third time lucky, I was able to actually leave.
I did not receive my surgery admission time until noon the day before surgery and was told that I must not have any food 6 hours prior to surgery nor any liquids 2 hours before surgery. The surgery time given to me was 11:00am. Thus, the last time I ate was the evening before surgery at about 7pm and the last drink I had was in the morning of the surgery at about 8:20am, just before I left my house to travel to the hospital. Here is the timeline of my surgery day:
- 8:20am - had my last drink before surgery
- 11am - arrived at the hospital
- 11:20am - I was taken to my room and was told the nurse would be in shortly (I also discovered that the controls for the bed adjustment were not working)
- 12:30pm - a nurse finally arrived and told me to change into my gown, as I would be going to surgery soon.
- 14:30pm - The same nurse returned and asked if the surgeon had been to see me yet. The surgeon hadn't been to see me yet. I asked the nurse if I could have a drink as I had now gone over 6 hours without any fluids. I was told "no", because I was going to surgery soon.
- 16:30pm - still nothing, so I went to find a nurse to again ask if I could have a drink (now having been 8 hours without). I was told again, "no, you are going to surgery soon". She told me she might be able to arrange an I.V. if I wanted, but I told her that if I would be going to surgery soon, that wouldn't be necessary. I heard no more on the matter
- 17:15pm - The anaesthesiologist came in and told me I would be going to surgery at 18:00
- 18:10pm - the nurse returned telling me it will be another 2 hours
- 18:45pm - The surgeon finally came to see me and told me why it was taking so long.
- 19:00pm - I was taken to surgery
- 20:45pm - I returned from surgery
- 21:00pm - I was given food
- 1:30am - I was discharged from the hospital and sent home
So as you can see, the day was completely disorganised. There was no explanation from the nurses as to why I was waiting 8 hours for surgery, and there was also no concern from the nurses regarding the fact that I had gone almost 12 hours without a drink and 24 hours without food. Each time I asked for a drink, I was made to feel like I was an inconvenience to the nurses.
But all this was nothing in comparison to what followed.
The recovery garment which MYA fitted me into after surgery was very uncomfortable and dug in, creating creases and indentations in the areas I had the surgery. There was some pain which I thought may be from the garment, but I put it down to the surgery and being normal to have some pain after such a procedure. But the garment was still very uncomfortable, difficult to put on by myself and could not be hidden/worn under my normal clothing. At my first post op check up, I asked the MYA nurse if I could have a different garment and explained why. She asked to see my garment and was shocked when I showed her it and her words were: "no wonder it's uncomfortable, it is the WRONG GARMENT! That is a male hernia binder". Then she showed me a picture of the garment I should have been given, which was a nice smooth body garment with hooks and eyes and gusset and shoulder straps to prevent it from creasing and sliding. Completely different to the elastic band with velcro which I had been given (see the pictures of the 2). She immediately ordered me 2 brand new CORRECT garments. I voiced my concern about the indentations the incorrect garment was causing and I was told to massage the areas and hope they go away. I was also told that my stitches were dissolvable, but if they did not dissolve, they would be removed. My concerns were noted, as was the incorrect garment and I was told that my PC would be informed of the issues. Other than my surgeon, the nurse at this check up was the only decent member of MYA staff, she was great, lovely, polite, helpful and actually was concerned about the issues I was having with the garment. Sadly, that was her last week there and she no longer works for MYA. She had kindly ordered me the correct garments, to be delivered to my house. Upon getting home after this check up, I checked the garment manufacturer's website to look at the pictures and description of the incorrect garment and discovered that the pictures showed the incorrect garment with the seams on the outside... So, not only had I been given the incorrect garment, but it had been put on me inside out! And I had continued to wear it inside out prior to seeing this picture, thinking that this was the correct way to wear it (since this is how I woke up from my surgery with it on me).
Until the new (CORRECT) garments arrived, I had to continue wearing the "wrong garment" (no longer inside out though) and massage my surgery areas (which was extremely painful to do). The correct garments eventually arrived which meant I had been wearing the incorrect garment for almost 2 weeks. The new, correct garments were much more comfortable, did not cause pain and could easily be worn under my normal clothes. They were the complete opposite to the wrong garment which MYA had originally provided. Upon another check up, all but 1 of my stitches had dissolved. The un-dissolved stitch was rubbing and getting irritated, so I asked for it to be removed (as I was told would happen previously), but the nurse (yet another of MYA's staff who really did not care) refused to remove it, telling me to leave it, stick a steri strip over it and let it dissolve on its own. I also voiced my concerns again over the indentations caused by the incorrect garment. The nurse was not in any way bothered with my concerns, simply scribbling them down and telling me to carry on massaging.
A few days after the this consultation, the un-dissolved stitch became a spitting stitch and I had to go in and have it removed. This was also the 1st time I had seen my surgeon since being taken into surgery (my 1st check up with my surgeon was scheduled for a few weeks later, but we brought it forward so that my surgeon could remove the spitting stitch and do the check up at the same time). I voiced my concerns to my surgeon, about the indentations and I was told that it can take up to a year before the full end results of the surgery would be visible, so to continue massaging to try and even them out. Almost 4 months after surgery, with the indentations still present and not improving at all, I decided to put in a complaint to MYA. My 2nd check with my surgeon was almost 5 months after surgery. My surgeon asked if I was pleased with my results and I told her that overall my figure does look better as there is no more muffin top, but the indentations were still causing me concern and I told her I would be fully happy as long as the indentations go away. My surgeon again told me about the time to wait for end results and to continue massaging. This was the last I saw of my surgeon via MYA, despite being told by my surgeon that I would have a 1 year check up with her. This 1 year check up never happened.
So that was my patient journey so far, the next part of my journey was the complaints procedure.
I put in my complaint in Jan 2013, in an attempt to get a full refund in order to pay for corrective surgery to fix the indentations. I eventually got a full response in March 2013. The response simply refuted my claims and concerns, and fobbed me off with a mere "sorry" at the end of it. There was then months of back and forth with MYA, trying to get them to accept some responsibility for the poor treatment, issues caused, and the wrong garment they provided, but they refused. My complaint continued into late Oct 2013 and in Jan 2014 my Mum suddenly and unexpectedly died, thus my complaint with MYA got pushed to the bottom of my "to do" list. In March 2015, when I was able to get back on track I got back onto the MYA complaint, explaining the situation of my Mum's passing and the response I received was, sorry for your loss but the last correspondence was in Feb 2013, too much time has passed and the complaint will not be continued. I corrected them and explained that I had not had a response to my last letter in October 2013. So it was actually MYA who had stopped correspondence. The response I received from MYA next was "I have been unable to locate the correspondence which you refer to". MYA asked me to relist my original concerns (basically, redo my complaint because MYA have misplaced it all).
I did as requested and MYA reopened my complaint. Again, the complaint continued for months, back and forth. MYA were still refusing to accept any responsibility for the wrong garment they provided me and the indentations it had caused. I was told that irregularities were a risk of surgery and it is the surgeon's technique that has caused the indentations. This was despite MYA agreed that the indentations were very ambiguous and the indentations lined up perfectly with the creases and seams of the incorrect garment. I had also contacted the garment manufacturer and they agreed that it is possible for a wrong garment to cause damage.
After getting no-where with MYA directly, I eventually took my complaint to ISCAS. Upon receiving the ISCAS report in May 2016, I was shocked to find that behind the scenes MYA had contacted my surgeon in 2015 and my surgeon had agreed that the garment was the cause for the indentations! My surgeon also suggested that an appointment should be made for me to see her. MYA had failed to tell me about this. I had no idea that my surgeon had been contacted regarding the issues, and I certainly had no idea that my surgeon agreed that the garment was to blame.
It is very clear that MYA contacted my surgeon and did not like the fact that my surgeon agreed that MYA was at fault for providing the wrong garment. So instead of telling me this, they went and got their own medical director (who is obviously biased) to state that it was my surgeon's technique to blame.
Upon hearing this new information that MYA had kept from me, I managed to get in touch with my surgeon directly. I Found out that she no longer worked for MYA and when MYA contacted her in 2015, she told them that she would be happy to see me to discuss the issues (info which MYA had hidden from me). Since then, there has been more back and forthing, trying to get this sorted. ISCAS partially upheld my complaint, agreeing that the wrong garment was supplied. ISCAS also upheld other parts of my complaint. The complaint is still on going (now almost 5 years on) and the indentations are permanent. I need to have corrective surgery to fix it.

Was the liposuction worth it, well yes and no. Yes because I no longer have muffin top, which is great, but no because the incompetent company I went with gave me the wrong recovery garment which has messed up my results.
If I did not have these indentations, then I would say it was completely worth it.