Older Than Dirt Gets Upper and Lower Blepharoplasty - Palm Beach Gardens, FL

When my husband passed away 19 months ago I knew there would be many emotional changes in my life. I never expected the physical changes, however. My eyes started drooping to the point where I had trouble seeing out of my right eye. My whole face became old and tired looking. We had been together almost 50 years (married for 48) and he was and is the love of my life. Seeing myself in the mirror made me want to crawl into a closet and stay there forever. My appearance did nothing to help me overcome depression. I realized that if I were going to survive, I needed to change my life around. One of these changes would have to be my appearance. With the encouragement of several members of RealSelf, I had the surgery last Monday. This is the first chance I've had to post because my vision has been very blurry and my right eye is extremely swollen. You will notice in the photos that I have stitches on my forehead. Dr. Rubin removed a cyst at the same time. It seemed foolish to leave it there if I was going to have "beautiful" new eyes. Tomorrow I will be having the stitches removed. I hope that will make me feel more comfortable. Right now, everything is tight and pulling. I am concerned that my eyeballs feel as though someone is pressing on them. The stitches in the outside corners of my eyes are pinching. At this moment, it doesn't look like much of an improvement over my "before" pics, but time will tell.

I had the stitches taken out today. Still can't close my right eye completely. Doctor says my eyeball is slightly swollen, and he gave me some drops to alleviate the problem. He said it was due to the extensive work he had to do on the right eye.
Removing the stitches just felt like little pinches except for the two large stitches at the outer corners of each eye. Those were a bit of a pain, but easily got past it. The Dr said to continue sleeping with my head elevated in order to relieve the swelling, and to use warm compresses and/or ice packs for comfort and to lessen the bruising on my cheeks, whichever I preferred.

In my opinion, I still look "older than dirt" and as if I've just lost a match to Apollo Creed. Yo Adrian!

I'm still sleeping sitting up, but I notice the under eye area is very swollen upon awakening. It does go down somewhat after I apply warm compresses, but this is the second morning it has happened. I follow a "clean" diet, so I'm sure it isn't from anything that I am consuming. Swelling on the left upper eyelid seems to be subsiding as well as the bruising below the eyes. The right eye is still quite swollen, though. I'm not liking the scar on the forehead where the cyst was removed, but the doctor assured me it will heal properly. It looks red and angry.
I still feel a tightness and pulling at the corners of the eyes, but fortunately, no itching. All in all, feeling much better than I have since I had the surgery. This is the first day that my vision hasn't been totally blurry. I was able to do a little cooking and not be afraid of chopping off my fingers along with the onions and peppers!