Ear Surgery for an "Old Guy" - Pasadena, CA

I'm 54 years old and I've had the same longish, over-the-ears hairstyle since I was about 14. No doubt this is a familiar story to anyone with protruding ears. Not only did my ears protrude, but they were (are) also on the largish side. This had a very unwelcome synergy in that it made my ears appear larger and more protrusive than had they been just one or the other -- thus the hairstyle that I grew out of around 1986 but kept for another twenty years past its expiration date. I had thought about otoplasty on and off over the years and finally just said to myself, okay, it's now or never. Do I want this absurdly out-of-fashion hairstyle on my deathbed? No, I did not. So I started looking. I live in Pasadena so I wanted somebody nearby, and I wanted somebody who specialized in ears. I also wanted a woman. I don't know why, exactly. A more 'symathetic ear', perhaps (can you tell I had ears on the brain)? In any case, that's where I started. The first cosmetic surgeon I visited was absurdly out-of-synch with me. She basically tried to talk me out of it. Firstly, after examining my ears, she didn't think what I wanted was really doable. She was also worried about the age of my ear and its "old cartilage," saying that "old ears can have trouble recovering from surgery because of hardening and circulation issues," and then she related to me a worst case scenario anecdote about how some ears had been known to actually "snap off" post-op! This is no joke; she actually said that. In the end she passed on the privilege of performing the requested surgery, having little idea (or did she?) that I had rejected her the moment she looked at me askance, even before she opened her mouth. I totally dodged a bullet because my next stop was Dr. Lee. Thank God! Please realize I had been thinking about this surgery for a looooonnnggg time; decades, really, so I wanted somebody who not only had the technical expertise but also the bedside manner and what's more -- probably the most important attribute -- the right aesthetic approach. You see, I wanted an artist. I also wanted a "partner" who could hear all of my concerns and fears and work with me to achieve my hopes. Dr. Lee fulfilled this vision to a greater degree than I could have thought possible. She instilled in me total confidence that she was the right person for the job. I brought her various pictures and tested her patience with my endless talk about "softening angles" and "reducing the silhouette perimeter," etc., etc. Ultimately I told her that I didn't want my ears to really change: I still wanted them to be my 'original' ears, I just wanted them a little closer to my head. I knew I couldn't change the size, but actually the size didn't matter because after endlessly observing other people's ears over the years I noticed that large ears are not particularly noticeable as large if they do not protrude. It's the two things together that creates the problem. What I wanted were ears that changed just enough to satisfy me but hardly be noticeable as changed to anyone else. I wanted people to see that I looked and felt better but didn't know exactly why. And that's exactly what I got. Of course, nobody has actually seen my ears in 40 years so it's not a completely legitimate basis for comparison -- I mean, how would they really know they're different, right? Answer: they won't (and don't); but they see I have shorter hair, and that I'm now, for the first time in my adult life, conspicuously up-to-date. Bless you, Dr. Lee, for bringing me into the now! I truly couldn't be happier with your work and I give you my unequivocally highest recommendation for anyone -- no matter what your age -- exploring the notion of otoplasty.