Alright, ladies. Having spent the better part of ten days getting my body and spirit back into the same place, I guess it's time to talk about how my FFS/BA went.
This will be a *long* story, even by my chatterbox standards and I will break this up into multiple “chapters” instead of one long “War and Peace” type of post.
Anyway, lets go back to the beginning. No not that far back, just to the Friday I checked into the Staybridge hotel where I would be recovering.
Dr. Zukowski put together a really remarkable manual for his patients called the FFS Success manual. Each one is customized for the client that he will be operating on. In there are descriptions of all correspondence, a description in detail of each of the procedures that are going to be performed, a pre-surgical check list, a day before check list, an explanation of what to expect on the day of surgery, what to expect after surgery, ongoing post-surgical maintenance, and for those clients from out of town, the names of the recommended hotels, what taxi services are available and known to be reliable, a list of restaurants in the general area, and maps on how to get to the clinic and hotels from just about anywhere in the major metropolitan area. Whew!.
Plus there is a DVD that he produced that is broken down into three major sections. One is a roundtable discussion from "Z" girl alumni (and that is the official term, "Z" Girl) about their experiences with FFS primarily, how long it took to heal and how long it took for all the various pieces of procedures fit together. And these girls of the discussion have been post-op for anywhere from a few weeks to several years.
The second section of the DVD is the doctor working with an actual patient who had FFS just the day before. He came and described the procedures that the person had, then removed the outer bandages to examine the state of the recovery, then re-wrapped the lady for another twenty four hours. The next segment returns twenty four hours later and does a final unwrap of the outer bandages, unpacking the nose from the rhinoplasty and then cleaning and redressing the incisions. He then describes the most difficult part of the patients recovery. Namely the facial massage that the patient MUST do at least three times a day in order to help the soft tissue re-seat on the cartilage and bone and also force fluid that will drain from the face into the lower jaw. It is a function of gravity. This massage must be performed for several weeks post op if you want your procedure to look as good as possible. The reason I say that this is difficult, besides taking about twenty to thirty minutes to do each time, is that it is initially painful, and after a few days is simply very uncomfortable. But it must be done. I personally have noticed how well my healing is coming along because I am trying my best to maintain this regimen. Face it girls, you've just become a high-maintenance woman! BTW: No makeup, wig or other adornment like jewelry for at least ten to fifteen days. You have incisions that need to heal, and putting makeup into those incisions is just inviting an infection. Deal with it.
The other part of the postoperative maintenance that the patient must perform is the wearing of an admittedly medieval torture device called a compression garment. I know it is medieval because the instructions are in Latin and the last person it was used on was called Galileo. It does what it says. It is an elastic garment that will compress your lower jaw and cheeks so that there will be less swelling between massages. This must be worn at all times if possible. Once you return to work you don't necessarily have to wear it, but it should be worn at all other times for the following two to three months. Trust me you really look like a fashion plate wearing it! It's ugly, uncomfortable and needs regular cleaning. Realize, ladies, that these procedures require you to play an active role in your healing. Unlike other surgical procedures, like an appendectomy, all you have to do is reduce your activity and your body will heal on it's own. That is true here as well, but you must help direct your body HOW to heal! Otherwise you will spend many weeks recovering and you will really not get the results you were hoping for. It's not fun, it's not painless, but after all the money you spend for this would you want to do anything but take the very best care of yourself as possible? Think of it like buying a new car (it costs about the same). When the instructions say, for example, don't over-rev the engine for the first five hundred miles, do you really want to endanger having to install a new engine just because you felt like over-revving the engine?
The third section of the DVD covers the major issues displayed in the second part, but this time in a more clinical session using one of his staff as a demonstrator, Basically Dr Zukowski explains in great detail again the need for constant care of your face and the need for the three times daily massage.
I went to work on Friday with the intension of driving from work to the hotel. Naturally, that day like the day before Christmas was about the slowest time I have ever spent sitting at a desk.
Driving from downtown Chicago to the north side was tedious. Fortunately I had a friend of mine call me just as I was getting on the expressway and we chatted all the way up there. Thanks Wendy!
When I checked in, there was a message left for me from Lisa Lopez of Compassionate care. She was offering to go out to dinner with me, as it would be my “last supper”. When I got settled in, I called her and accepted her offer.
I also had an appointment at the clinic for a lymphatic drainage session. Rena the lady who performs the process is a seven-year post op female and extremely joyous in her outlook on life. I invited her to dinner too. It turns out the “last supper” is kind of a tradition for girls who are going to go through major surgery who have to stop all food and drink after midnight, so the plan is usually to live it up a bit before you have to go dry. One of Rena’s friend was there as well and I invited her too.
After my session with Rena, as I was on my way back to the Staybridge, I got a call from Julie,too as she is known around here. She said she could come to dinner, but Julie Marie could not make it as she was being pulled into a last minute dinner with a high ranking member of the company she works for and felt obligated to go. Of course I understood and told Julie,too to call me when she got on the road so I could tell her where we were going to end up since none of us girls had a clue about what we wanted to eat.
They were all supportive of me choosing, but I really didn’t care so long as it was good food and we could have a good time.
Well trying to get four women to agree on just about anything can be more difficult than getting a resolution through the United Nations! We must have thrashed for almost half an hour before we came up with an idea so that is the way we went.
Another friend of the group of us called Liz called Rena, I think, and we invited her to dinner as well. What a gaggle of girls!
Liz met us at the bistro just shortly after we got seated.
Julie,too had not quite shown up but was only about twenty minutes late by time we got seated.
It was a wonderful upscale type of “place” which I think actually specialized in bowling and bocce ball but had a top-notch bistro.
Anyway by time Julie,too showed up we were still trying to decide on an appetizer! We were such chatterboxes! Anyway we split a few different dishes between us (there was a lot of food) so we all had a chance to try different things.
And we talked about *everything* you can imagine a bunch of woman could talk about. After what seemed like a short time later, I looked up and noticed we were the only ones left in the restaurant! God that was fun!
I’m sure the waitress got quite an earful from us! Let’s see, two GG’s and four transsexuals, most pretty well lubricated with excellent food, friends and liquor. We were in rare form. I had a blast!
By time we left I had only about half an hour left before I turned into a pumpkin and had to be completely dry and without food. I didn’t bring any food from the bistro back with me because I didn’t want the temptation. But we said our goodbyes in the parking lot and hugged a lot and Lisa and I hustled back to the hotel. She would be staying there while I recovered.
I got back to the room and Lisa checked in on me just to make sure I was all settled in. I had two big glasses of water and finished them just as the clock on the microwave changed to 12:00.
Ok, I thought, here is where the roller coaster REALLY starts. I climbed into bed and tried to get to sleep. Actually sleep came pretty easily for me. After the drive up there and the wonderful time I had with my friends at the bistro (and the triptophan in the pasta I had) I dropped off pretty quickly.
I had set the alarm for 5:00 so I could take a shower before I was to be picked up by the doctor at 6:15 AM.
One of the last thoughts I remember having before I drifted off was “Oh boy! This is where it finally starts!”
-Sandy (More to come!)
This will be a *long* story, even by my chatterbox standards and I will break this up into multiple “chapters” instead of one long “War and Peace” type of post.
Anyway, lets go back to the beginning. No not that far back, just to the Friday I checked into the Staybridge hotel where I would be recovering.
Dr. Zukowski put together a really remarkable manual for his patients called the FFS Success manual. Each one is customized for the client that he will be operating on. In there are descriptions of all correspondence, a description in detail of each of the procedures that are going to be performed, a pre-surgical check list, a day before check list, an explanation of what to expect on the day of surgery, what to expect after surgery, ongoing post-surgical maintenance, and for those clients from out of town, the names of the recommended hotels, what taxi services are available and known to be reliable, a list of restaurants in the general area, and maps on how to get to the clinic and hotels from just about anywhere in the major metropolitan area. Whew!.
Plus there is a DVD that he produced that is broken down into three major sections. One is a roundtable discussion from "Z" girl alumni (and that is the official term, "Z" Girl) about their experiences with FFS primarily, how long it took to heal and how long it took for all the various pieces of procedures fit together. And these girls of the discussion have been post-op for anywhere from a few weeks to several years.
The second section of the DVD is the doctor working with an actual patient who had FFS just the day before. He came and described the procedures that the person had, then removed the outer bandages to examine the state of the recovery, then re-wrapped the lady for another twenty four hours. The next segment returns twenty four hours later and does a final unwrap of the outer bandages, unpacking the nose from the rhinoplasty and then cleaning and redressing the incisions. He then describes the most difficult part of the patients recovery. Namely the facial massage that the patient MUST do at least three times a day in order to help the soft tissue re-seat on the cartilage and bone and also force fluid that will drain from the face into the lower jaw. It is a function of gravity. This massage must be performed for several weeks post op if you want your procedure to look as good as possible. The reason I say that this is difficult, besides taking about twenty to thirty minutes to do each time, is that it is initially painful, and after a few days is simply very uncomfortable. But it must be done. I personally have noticed how well my healing is coming along because I am trying my best to maintain this regimen. Face it girls, you've just become a high-maintenance woman! BTW: No makeup, wig or other adornment like jewelry for at least ten to fifteen days. You have incisions that need to heal, and putting makeup into those incisions is just inviting an infection. Deal with it.
The other part of the postoperative maintenance that the patient must perform is the wearing of an admittedly medieval torture device called a compression garment. I know it is medieval because the instructions are in Latin and the last person it was used on was called Galileo. It does what it says. It is an elastic garment that will compress your lower jaw and cheeks so that there will be less swelling between massages. This must be worn at all times if possible. Once you return to work you don't necessarily have to wear it, but it should be worn at all other times for the following two to three months. Trust me you really look like a fashion plate wearing it! It's ugly, uncomfortable and needs regular cleaning. Realize, ladies, that these procedures require you to play an active role in your healing. Unlike other surgical procedures, like an appendectomy, all you have to do is reduce your activity and your body will heal on it's own. That is true here as well, but you must help direct your body HOW to heal! Otherwise you will spend many weeks recovering and you will really not get the results you were hoping for. It's not fun, it's not painless, but after all the money you spend for this would you want to do anything but take the very best care of yourself as possible? Think of it like buying a new car (it costs about the same). When the instructions say, for example, don't over-rev the engine for the first five hundred miles, do you really want to endanger having to install a new engine just because you felt like over-revving the engine?
The third section of the DVD covers the major issues displayed in the second part, but this time in a more clinical session using one of his staff as a demonstrator, Basically Dr Zukowski explains in great detail again the need for constant care of your face and the need for the three times daily massage.
I went to work on Friday with the intension of driving from work to the hotel. Naturally, that day like the day before Christmas was about the slowest time I have ever spent sitting at a desk.
Driving from downtown Chicago to the north side was tedious. Fortunately I had a friend of mine call me just as I was getting on the expressway and we chatted all the way up there. Thanks Wendy!
When I checked in, there was a message left for me from Lisa Lopez of Compassionate care. She was offering to go out to dinner with me, as it would be my “last supper”. When I got settled in, I called her and accepted her offer.
I also had an appointment at the clinic for a lymphatic drainage session. Rena the lady who performs the process is a seven-year post op female and extremely joyous in her outlook on life. I invited her to dinner too. It turns out the “last supper” is kind of a tradition for girls who are going to go through major surgery who have to stop all food and drink after midnight, so the plan is usually to live it up a bit before you have to go dry. One of Rena’s friend was there as well and I invited her too.
After my session with Rena, as I was on my way back to the Staybridge, I got a call from Julie,too as she is known around here. She said she could come to dinner, but Julie Marie could not make it as she was being pulled into a last minute dinner with a high ranking member of the company she works for and felt obligated to go. Of course I understood and told Julie,too to call me when she got on the road so I could tell her where we were going to end up since none of us girls had a clue about what we wanted to eat.
They were all supportive of me choosing, but I really didn’t care so long as it was good food and we could have a good time.
Well trying to get four women to agree on just about anything can be more difficult than getting a resolution through the United Nations! We must have thrashed for almost half an hour before we came up with an idea so that is the way we went.
Another friend of the group of us called Liz called Rena, I think, and we invited her to dinner as well. What a gaggle of girls!
Liz met us at the bistro just shortly after we got seated.
Julie,too had not quite shown up but was only about twenty minutes late by time we got seated.
It was a wonderful upscale type of “place” which I think actually specialized in bowling and bocce ball but had a top-notch bistro.
Anyway by time Julie,too showed up we were still trying to decide on an appetizer! We were such chatterboxes! Anyway we split a few different dishes between us (there was a lot of food) so we all had a chance to try different things.
And we talked about *everything* you can imagine a bunch of woman could talk about. After what seemed like a short time later, I looked up and noticed we were the only ones left in the restaurant! God that was fun!
I’m sure the waitress got quite an earful from us! Let’s see, two GG’s and four transsexuals, most pretty well lubricated with excellent food, friends and liquor. We were in rare form. I had a blast!
By time we left I had only about half an hour left before I turned into a pumpkin and had to be completely dry and without food. I didn’t bring any food from the bistro back with me because I didn’t want the temptation. But we said our goodbyes in the parking lot and hugged a lot and Lisa and I hustled back to the hotel. She would be staying there while I recovered.
I got back to the room and Lisa checked in on me just to make sure I was all settled in. I had two big glasses of water and finished them just as the clock on the microwave changed to 12:00.
Ok, I thought, here is where the roller coaster REALLY starts. I climbed into bed and tried to get to sleep. Actually sleep came pretty easily for me. After the drive up there and the wonderful time I had with my friends at the bistro (and the triptophan in the pasta I had) I dropped off pretty quickly.
I had set the alarm for 5:00 so I could take a shower before I was to be picked up by the doctor at 6:15 AM.
One of the last thoughts I remember having before I drifted off was “Oh boy! This is where it finally starts!”
-Sandy (More to come!)
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