Dissmissed, Offended and Still Crying - Salt Lake City, UT

I left Dr. Mobley’s office at 11:30 this morning in tears and I’m still terribly upset. I guess a good scolding will do that to anyone. I am a healthy, 45 year old female, attempting to handle the beginnings of “the sag” now so that I can do a little at a time and not get to the point where any surgery would be really obvious. Tomorrow marks the 2-week anniversary of my surgery and I am still in pain and swollen due to my immune system attacking the dissolvable stiches and encapsulating them. I have experienced this is in the past and explained this reaction to Dr. Mobley during my consultation. I reminded him again during pre-op as I was getting marked up, again the day after surgery during drain removal, and yet again the day of the removal of the temporary stiches to both Dr. Mobley and his assistant. They blew me off again, even when I suggested that they might want to address it at that time before it turned into a bad situation as I’ve experienced in the past. The pictures attached show how bad I look even after my very kind boyfriend removed the stitches he could get to, I had also just completed round 2 of strong antibiotics prescribed by Dr. Mobley. I spent a good amount of time in his office yesterday with his staff (he was in surgery) trying to remove my “dissolvable” stitches, they couldn’t get to all of them because they were swollen over and they wanted to ask him about the stitch pattern to determine if they were coming at them from the right direction. They were concerned about upsetting his handiwork. They were gracious and apologetic because they were performing a very painful procedure without local anesthesia. I was asked to come back today so that he could help them get them out. Today at his office he arrived in the examination room without even speaking with “Team Mobley” first. He seemed very comfortable with that, even proud. My condolences to anyone that has to work around that ego. So, according to my omniscient surgeon, I do not have any stitches or infection and what I am experiencing is normal post-operative healing. I told him I could feel the stitches and that my ear had been oozing, he got very hostile and said “Ok, who’s the doctor here?” (I thought that only happened in bad dramas) and “We need to deal with the facts” as determined by his expertise. I was completely silent but could stop the tears running down my face, he then glared at me and asked me why I was being emotional. I stood up and walked out, still silently crying. This afternoon I met with another surgeon who is removing my stitches tomorrow and has switched up my antibiotics. He couldn’t believe how poorly I was treated and was upset that this even happened considering it could have easily been avoided by using only removable stitches. Dr. Mobley sent me an email, restating the reasons he was right and wanting to collaborate to come to a better conclusion, i.e. trying to pull a CYA. He needs to be reminded that it is impossible to collaborate when one party is exploiting their position in an imbalanced relationship. I pretty much paid $10,600 to be dismissed and insulted all while being in pain. Now I get to pay another surgeon to clean up his mess.

Thanks to everyone posting their experience and knowledge of the situation, it really means a lot.

Well... I felt at least hopeful for a couple of days, now I am worn out and scared. When the second surgeon removed most of my stitches, my body felt like it had just kicked out an intruder, he then told me that it is going to happen again and I'll just have to work through it. I hope I won't need to go through scar remediation.
I'm posting pics of my right ear over the last few days to show the evolution of one stitch location and how rapidly they change. The file names show the date and time. If it gets any worse tonight then I will head to the ER.

From a medical textbook:
ABSORBABLE SUTURES
Absorbable sutures are placed into subcutaneous tissue to eliminate dead space and into the dermis to minimize tension during wound healing. Absorbable sutures must be placed well into dermis and subcutaneous tissue to facilitate this subsequent absorption by inflammation, enzymatic degradation or hydrolysis. If absorbable sutures are placed too superficially, they may persist for a prolonged period of time and thus possess an increased tendency to be transepidermally eliminated from the wound. This can compromise the appearance of the scar. Absorbable sutures are not intended to be used too close to the skin surface. This slows absorption and increases the likelihood of epithelization of the suture tunnels. This epithelization can result in permanent suture tracts and cyst formation.
Mohan H. Kudur , Sathish B. Pai, H. Sripathi, Smith a Prabh
Indian J Dermatol Venereol Leprol | July?August 2009 | Vol 75 | Issue 4