Tarea's Facial Plastic Surgery

Thursday, July 19th - Facial Cosmetic Plastic Surgery Day:

I arrive at the surgical center at 6:15 a.m.. This place is like a hospital. They have everything here for emergencies and the staff is extraordinary. I have so many wonderful people tending to my every comfort and need. I luck out to get Dr. Smithers for an anesthesiologist. My plastic surgeon really likes him, because he has "no ego thing" going on and does the anesthesia exactly as my plastic surgeon instructs. I have intravenous sedation (NOT general anesthesia), but they assure me that I will be kept asleep and I am. They wash my hair with a disinfectant and then my cosmetic plastic surgeon puts it in tiny bunches. He marks my face and the marks on my cheeks look like purple freckles. I am not nervous at all, but that could be the drugs working!

My husband Dick has brought his wireless phone so that he can be reached when it's time to pick me up after my surgery. My surgery is scheduled for 7:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon.  Dick has to pick up some prescriptions and get me checked into the hotel that I will stay at tonight. (I traveled to have the plastic surgery, so I am staying at a hotel for a few days after surgery so I can get to the follow-up appointments with the plastic surgeon more conveniently.

I wake up feeling great and need to urinate. I am given a bedpan.  It presents no problem.  I feel no pain.

 After a short while, the nurses help me get dressed.  I wear a big hat, which I refer to as "my helmet", and I wrap myself in a big scarf.  This is for purely psychological reasons because this disquise fools no one.

Dick drives us about two miles to the hotel that my plastic surgeon's has prearranged for us. The plastic surgery office got me a special rate. Staying at the hotel was my idea, based on the reading I had done here at FaceForum. (Thanks, Terri!)  It turned out to be a splendid idea. We live about two hours away and this hotel is across the street from the surgeon's office and the surgery center.

The room consisted of two double beds, two very comfortable chairs and had bathroom right next to the bed. (Very important!)  The room also had a kitchenette with stove and a refrigerator.

Before Dick and I left the house, I packed a cooler with all the foods and drinks I suspected I might need during my recovery period.  I packed yogurt, Jell-O, chicken broth and ginger snap cookies.  Ginger snaps or candied ginger helps for nausea.   I also had a supply of saltines and graham crackers from the hospital, but I pass on the saltines because my mouth is already dry enough from the anesthesia.

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