Jane's letter finally arrived a couple of weeks after my last consult with her on 4th May. It made interesting reading and I felt nervous about some points.
It's been a challenging few days for me at work this week - some stuff is stirring there - some of it perhaps caused by my taking 3 weeks holiday which clashes with the other secretary in the team - and I've spent the whole weekend in duress - you know how your heart feels when you've broken up with someone and feels broken in two ... well that's how mine feels as I have decided it's time to leave my group after 3 years and apply for another position in the firm. I've been feeling undervalued in the group for a while and have put up with poor treatment and this was the final straw for me. The other assistant put in a formal complaint that I've been ignoring her at work and that she's really upset by it - geez if I could have said the same about her as I have felt insulted by her behaviour towards me the past year or so and have just tolerated it. It's a long story I won't get into ... office politics is always ugly and especially so in investment banking. It's been one thing or another for me lately ie with the car incident as well 2 weeks ago.
Anyway back to the letter ... (sighs) I'm so down about work I don't even know where to start to write and share this ....
I have some eyelash ptosis which requires minor surgery on the upper eyelids to evert the lashes by a small anterior lamella reposition. There is also a little bit of a dip in the upper lid salci which will have Coleman fat injected into. This is the part where Jane warned me could get lumpy - she really wanted me to have Restylane here but I won't. I can't afford to have Restylane injected every 5-6 months for the rest of my life. I'll share pixs at a later date as to how my upper eyelid looks now which has changed a lot since the last pix I shared.
I'll need a bilateral lower lid small skin blepharoplasy (redrape) with tightening of the orbicularis up to the orbital rim and release of the lower lid retractors on the left side for the eyelid to go up. Any fat will be released bilaterally into my tear trough region and Coleman fat infiltrated into the area as well. Coleman fat will be taken from inside my knee - injection discreet to avoid bumps but adequate to fill the dips.
There will be puffiness and bruising for up to 3 weeks after surgery and mild puffiness for about 6 weeks that I will notice but others won't. Fingers crossed about this one!
The Coleman fat may require resculpting at a later date if there are any small lumps visible. The lower lid retraction on the left may recur minimally as an eyelid which has already had previous surgery does have unpredictable healing. If this does happen, Jane suggested she would have to put in a hard palate muscosal graft taken from my mouth to raise this up. Geez - this is the first I heard of it as she didn't mention it during my last consult. I'm still not sure what it means but it sounds scary and expensive!
I suffer from recurrent episodes of ocular exposure and keratisis which is very painful.
My heart hurts from thinking about my meeting with HR tomorrow and the other assistant and I can't write too much more .... my surgery is in 14 days and I'm feeling very nervous. Life is certainly challenging right now and I'm struggling to stay afloat and keep positive for all around me.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Consult with Jane Olver : 4th May 06 re lower eyelid reconstruction & fat transfer
My consultation with Jane Olver finally came round today 4th May 06, 5 months post surgery from my Y-V endow brow lift and bilateral upper eyelid reconstruction.
To summarise, my next surgery is going to be a bilateral lower eyelid reconstruction where she will remove a small amount of skin and remove / smooth out the lumpy area on my left lower eyelid and tighten up the lower eyelid and remove the bulges at the end (which I didn't realise I had! doh!), and inject a tiny amount of coleman fat into my lower eyelids.
She's going to perform a sort of cantopexy on my left lower eyelid to pull it up or fix what the original butcher surgeon did and re my upper eylids, she is going to cut a bit of skin in the creases to lift the upper eyelashes a bit (or something along those lines - until I get her formal letter I am not familiar with the terminology) in both upper eyes and for the left upper eyelid where there has been that crinkly skin cos the original butcher surgeon took out too much fat, I asked her to do some coleman fat transfer from my knee there.
Jane did tell me that she felt coleman fat transfer onto my upper eyelid could feel lumpy and would take a year to settle before any final results could be judged etc. It felt she really wanted me to go with Restylane as that is her speciality but sorrie, I won't touch Restylane mainly cos I've had it before and found Restylane to be lumpy, and looked lumpy plus left bruises on my cheek for ages, I don't like the thought of it hydraulic acid dissolving slowly in my body, and in this case upper eyelid for weeks on end and I don't like the thought of having repeat injections every 6 months or so to top up as Restylane is very expensive.
My crinkly look on my upper left eyelid has sunken even more than it had before and I wonder what it looks like to the untrained eye. I've not noticed any of my work colleagues staring at my eyes since my Y-V Endo Brow Life and Bilateral Upper Eyelid reconstruction which means they're fooled (smiles) into thinking all is well. Whew! That was such a painful period to notice people staring at my eyes and more so flicking away at their own eyes when they could see the lumpy bump on my left lower eyelid - which is not as noticeable as it was before and no one is flicking away at their eye anymore, not even people in the shops and I don't notice it myself too much these days either. So thanks Jane :)
I should have written this on the day of my appt while it was fresh in my mind. Now I'm writing this a few days later, I've lost the flow of words ....
I've been working out to the Biggest Loser DVD the past 3 weeks or so and oh boy, it's hard work! I'm thin for my height but I do have a high fat percentage, as werid as that sounds - about 27% according to my scales! Though that's based on me being 39 and not 41 - so perhaps it's different. I don't know how to change my age on the scale! For the first time in my life my thighs seem to be changing shape (stubborn fatty areas of cellulite!) and also my stomach is toning up. It'd be wonderful at age 41 to finally get a 6 pack and also biceps (smiles)! I'm working on it. I'm also watching my diet and bought a heart rate monitor watch which I couldn't afford to monitor my heart rate and how much fat I burn with different workouts. I'm closing on burning about 2000 calories a week, and working an 11 hour day - not bad! The weight is coming off, but slowly. I just want to tone up and build some muscle. And also increase my stamina as I hadn't worked out since my last surgery with the butcher doctor (ie my original surgeon).
When I finish the next surgery, the intention is to resume working out fairly soon after ie perhaps 4-5 days - only in the sense of walking outside and around the block which is fairly low impact. It's so easy to rest and recuperate, eat as much as you want and think you can burn it off later. I made that big mistake - doh!!
To summarise, my next surgery is going to be a bilateral lower eyelid reconstruction where she will remove a small amount of skin and remove / smooth out the lumpy area on my left lower eyelid and tighten up the lower eyelid and remove the bulges at the end (which I didn't realise I had! doh!), and inject a tiny amount of coleman fat into my lower eyelids.
She's going to perform a sort of cantopexy on my left lower eyelid to pull it up or fix what the original butcher surgeon did and re my upper eylids, she is going to cut a bit of skin in the creases to lift the upper eyelashes a bit (or something along those lines - until I get her formal letter I am not familiar with the terminology) in both upper eyes and for the left upper eyelid where there has been that crinkly skin cos the original butcher surgeon took out too much fat, I asked her to do some coleman fat transfer from my knee there.
Jane did tell me that she felt coleman fat transfer onto my upper eyelid could feel lumpy and would take a year to settle before any final results could be judged etc. It felt she really wanted me to go with Restylane as that is her speciality but sorrie, I won't touch Restylane mainly cos I've had it before and found Restylane to be lumpy, and looked lumpy plus left bruises on my cheek for ages, I don't like the thought of it hydraulic acid dissolving slowly in my body, and in this case upper eyelid for weeks on end and I don't like the thought of having repeat injections every 6 months or so to top up as Restylane is very expensive.
My crinkly look on my upper left eyelid has sunken even more than it had before and I wonder what it looks like to the untrained eye. I've not noticed any of my work colleagues staring at my eyes since my Y-V Endo Brow Life and Bilateral Upper Eyelid reconstruction which means they're fooled (smiles) into thinking all is well. Whew! That was such a painful period to notice people staring at my eyes and more so flicking away at their own eyes when they could see the lumpy bump on my left lower eyelid - which is not as noticeable as it was before and no one is flicking away at their eye anymore, not even people in the shops and I don't notice it myself too much these days either. So thanks Jane :)
I should have written this on the day of my appt while it was fresh in my mind. Now I'm writing this a few days later, I've lost the flow of words ....
I've been working out to the Biggest Loser DVD the past 3 weeks or so and oh boy, it's hard work! I'm thin for my height but I do have a high fat percentage, as werid as that sounds - about 27% according to my scales! Though that's based on me being 39 and not 41 - so perhaps it's different. I don't know how to change my age on the scale! For the first time in my life my thighs seem to be changing shape (stubborn fatty areas of cellulite!) and also my stomach is toning up. It'd be wonderful at age 41 to finally get a 6 pack and also biceps (smiles)! I'm working on it. I'm also watching my diet and bought a heart rate monitor watch which I couldn't afford to monitor my heart rate and how much fat I burn with different workouts. I'm closing on burning about 2000 calories a week, and working an 11 hour day - not bad! The weight is coming off, but slowly. I just want to tone up and build some muscle. And also increase my stamina as I hadn't worked out since my last surgery with the butcher doctor (ie my original surgeon).
When I finish the next surgery, the intention is to resume working out fairly soon after ie perhaps 4-5 days - only in the sense of walking outside and around the block which is fairly low impact. It's so easy to rest and recuperate, eat as much as you want and think you can burn it off later. I made that big mistake - doh!!
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