A NEW FACE

NOW I HAVE GOT YOUR ATTENTION!!

So here I was preparing for my trip to LA and my Facelift, with one of the best plastic surgeons in the world on Wiltshire Boulevard!!

Want to know how this all started? OK here goes……

 

It was the year of my daughter Katie’s wedding (2005) when I realised I was not looking great. I was around 55yrs old and every time I went into a changing room to buy clothes or look at my face under the lights I hated what I saw.

Of course every morning in the mirror I was pulling up my face to see how much better it would look. How many times have you done that girls?

What was happening? I had lost the volume in my face, and I had started to look like my mum. Now this wasn’t a bad thing as she was always very attractive but her skin wasn’t good and I realised then that I had inherited it…. Eugh!!

I was running my beauty salon at that time, and was invited to attend a seminar for plastic surgeons in London’s West End, and I was introduced to a (supposedly) top doctor. This lady was refuted to be one of the best in her field, which was injecting fillers, so I booked my appointment immediately wouldn’t you?

She consulted with me then & there while we were all having a coffee break looking at my face and telling me I needed to have a filler put in my cheeks which would lift my face and make me look younger.

She told me she would use a new product called Bio-Alcamid which would be permanent.

 So I excitedly called her surgery and booked the procedure as soon as I got in the car, and then proceeded to research the product and her reputation on the internet. Both looked pretty impressive and I boasted to my family that I had taken top advice and was going to look great for the wedding.

 

Of course I didn’t tell Tony how much as it was going to cost, and also that the product was new on the UK market, after all she was highly recommended and I was going to look young again wasn’t I?

So my poor long suffering husband dutifully came with me to her surgery and watched me being pumped with permanent filler.

 

I did look pretty horrendous afterwards, but I was told this would be temporary and it would settle down and look natural, which it did after a while, I can’t believe now, and neither did my friends believe at the time, that I did this the year of my daughters wedding, impulsive or not?

Once the product had settled down my face did look a lot better, I was thrilled to see the wedding pictures, I looked younger and for a while I was delighted with how I looked.

 

It was after about 4yrs I noticed a lump under my eye and a couple under the skin when I was applying cream. Of course I didn’t mention this to anyone as I had my suspicions but wouldn’t dare mention it to my friends & family, after all it couldn’t be anything to do with the product could it? 

I went back to see my doctor to ask if these lumps were related to the product.

My initial reaction when I saw her was shock…she had pumped so much filler into her own face she looked like a freak. It was then that I realised just because she was doctor she too could become addicted to fillers, which she so obviously was. It was also then that she told me the lump under my eye was to do with my sinuses and nothing to do with the Bio Alchamid and suggested I get facelift as I was ageing and I now needed to consider it! So much for the permanent filler!

 When I explained I couldn’t afford a facelift and had the product put in because it was permanent, she recommended I go to an Eastern European surgeon as they were cheaper. Of course I wasn’t going to tell anyone about this as by this time I realised I had made a big mistake and started to feel a bit scared.

You see, I was supposed to know all about these things, after all I was involved in the beauty business, I couldn’t admit that I had not done enough research and had been conned, especially as I was now starting to read awful stories on the internet about this product, people were beginning to get lumps like me and horrendous infections.

 

It was now 2012 and my face was looking worse, every time I looked in a mirror or walked past a shop window and took a glance I felt sick, actually the worst was when I was on Skype or Face Time …eugh!!  Who was that old woman with dents and lumps in her face. I started to avoid having the video on when I was contacted by Skype and Face Time was a nightmare as sometimes I didn’t have time to prepare and at least put some make up on, which didn’t really help!

I had inherited a small amount of money from my mum when she passed away but I couldn’t bring myself to spend it all on my face. I had visited 2 top surgeons in London’s West End who once again were highly recommended and both of them said they could try and get all the product out and give me a face lift, but somehow they just didn’t convince me, especially as one of them said there could be complications and frightened the life out of me.

 

It was around that time that I bumped into a very old friend who I hadn’t seen for at least 15yrs. She was known as the cosmetic ‘guru’ of the late 90’s and early 2000’s and had run a fantastically successful company. She had sold out and was now retired.

We started meeting every week for a coffee sometimes nattering for hours because we had both been successful business women and had so much in common.

After a little while I confided in Stephanie about my face, I asked her what she thought I should do about removing the product and she immediately contacted her former plastic surgeon in LA who she had worked with for 11yrs and who had been voted as no.1 in the world by Tatler Magazine.

In January of 2013 Stephanie re-connected with Dr Palmer in Los Angeles after hearing that he had removed this product from several patients successfully and would be happy to do this for me. He also expressed a strong desire to return to the UK to operate with his famous ‘Celebrity Facelift’ which was now proving to be a unique and relatively simple way to improve ageing faces.

WOW! They said I could be a case study….eeek!..... my dreams were coming true!

Because Stephanie & I had created amazing rapport with each other we decided to re-launch her business together. We set about re-creating a bureau which offered help and advice to the public in selecting top surgeons for cosmetic surgery.

Stephanie, with years of experience working with surgeons, carefully set about selecting a top team of surgeons and once again researching them fastidiously, often sitting in on their surgeries and witnessing their work before she would recommend them.

She was so highly respected in the industry that even after a long break away from the business some of her original surgeons were still eager to be part of team.

 

Within 6 months we had formed the company again and I was doing what I was best at, talking and telling the world about us and creating a website for our new business.

My position in the company was to help with the marketing of the business and to arrange road shows and events around the country where we can invite ladies to lunches etc. and hear talks from our surgeons. I would also use my years of experience in the weight loss and fitness industry to work with obese people who also may need help with body surgery.

In the meantime we had been approached by a TV channel who produced programmes showing botched plastic surgeries asking if they could film my surgery. I didn’t hesitate to agree because I wanted to expose the effects of permanent fillers to warn the public of what could happen. 

The UK had approved 140 fillers yet the USA had only approved 7!

We were also hoping that the programme on Channel 5 would help us to promote our business, so we met with them to discuss the trip to LA.

 

ON MY WAY!!!!

It is the 7th July 2013 and I am sitting on a plane on my way to LA and am excited and anxious all in one emotion. I have spent hours researching the terrible problems that innocent people have encountered through products such as the one used in my face, but the majority of these people are not as lucky as me to be given the opportunity to have it removed by such an experienced and eminent surgeon.

So there are many of you reading my story who will say….if you hadn’t messed about with your face in the first place you wouldn’t have suffered this heartache, and you are certainly entitled to your thoughts and opinions, but lets get real ladies (and gents) as we age we all feel at times that we want to re-create our youth, the cosmetic surgery industry is a billion pound business and women and men are having Botox and similar fillers injected from as young as 20yrs old.

I consider that I had taken the best advice possible and yet I was still given an inferior product.

I want to tell my story because we all think doctors are beyond reproach and they know all the answers, but they are people, just like us and they too can make  errors in both judgment and in the use of medication and in my case fillers.

When I revisited the doctor and told her how upset I was, her response was to say if I wanted to take up a case against her I must contact her insurance company as the product Bio Alchimed was fully licensed in the UK, Canada, and Europe, interestingly enough not though in the USA.

I explained I was more upset that I hadn’t been warned about the dangers and the possibly repercussions of using this product, she apparently was encountering complaints from early on with her patients, she should have offered to remove it as quickly as possible. Unfortunately the longer this product stays in your face the harder it is to remove.

 

DIARY OF A FACELIFT

LOS ANGELES 7TH JULY 2013

Day One

 

We have just arrived at our hotel after a long flight from London and are both very excited. It’s around 2pm and our ‘driver’ awaits use!! I feel like a film star with a limo waiting for us and a film crew waiting at our hotel!

Nicky from Channel 5 has called to say we must be ready at 5pm for them to film us going food shopping and walking around the streets of LA.

3.30pm

We are here! The Hotel is nice its like an apartment and with both of us being total snobs we are vigilantly checking out whether its clean etc.

First complaint…We decide I will have the sofa bed but the mattress is too thin, cant be doing with this as I have a dodgy back so off we go with the first complaint!

The poor guy comes up to our room carrying a double mattress so we can make it thicker, but he can only leave one as that what is what he was told to do…problem is it’s the same size!! Anyway after another call to reception now sounding just a little fraught after not sleeping for 24hours we finally get 2 mattresses on the bed!

4.45pm

Nicky arrives with one nice guy and a boot full of cameras and another little body builder assistant, we have now changed and made ourselves look decent and they tell me to sit on the bed for an interview. Stephanie is at the door with our little video camera taking some film too.

We both now get the giggles, its beginning to look like a porn movie and when we look back on own bit of filming it now looks like we have gone into a new porn business …we are both hysterical.

Off we then go to the local supermarket, the cab driver got lost so we escaped from his cab because he couldn’t speak English and we finally find a food market.

In the trolley first…the wine! Then goodies to keep in the room as today will be the last day for a few days for us to go shopping.

We are now beginning to wilt, gone is the intention of finding a nice restaurant and going out for a meal, we just want to get back to the hotel and crash out with a snack.

 

7pm

Back in the room, its now 3am London time, we have been up since 5am the night before so we are now feeling like we are in a fog. No wine for me just a last dinner as I can’t eat after midnight, so we finally get into bed for our beauty sleep!

No such luck, after 2 hours I am up for the rest of the night, dozing off and on and every time I go into Stephanie she too is wide awake.

The dreams about my face are now getting scary….eugh! What will I look like? Will my family recognise me? Are my friends going to look at me with that look that says she must be mad! North West London will be buzzing with gossip about Jackie Commissar’s face!

Oh well we can always go into the porn business!! Only joking of course, we are both going to look great!!

 

THE DAY HAS ARRIVED!!!!

 

5am

I finally decide I can’t toss and turn anymore and we not leaving until 7.45, I don’t need any time to put make up on or do my hair so I am just going to watch Stephanie have breakfast, cant even have my first cup of coffee!

We have already had the poor guy from room service up here 3 times as its not easy making a cup of tea from frying pan…no kettles in America!

Probably would have been better at the Beverley Hilton Hotel, but who wants to see us battered and bruised so its going to better hiding away here for a few days!

 

8am…time to go

Stephanie has a full day of filming as she has hired her own private film crew so she can have her ‘Celebrity Face Lift’ film to keep for the business, so she comes with me to the surgery and then leaves me with Robyn the nurse and the film crew. Don’t know why but I am not really nervous, I think I am just excited to get it all done and cant believe the day has finally arrived.

Seems strange to think I am going to have an operation in the doctor’s office, its a luxury suite with a few rooms and a small but well equipped little theatre. They start off by filming me arriving. Now beginning to wish I didn’t have to keep working with the cameras, decided I am not going to be a film star, haven’t got the patience to keep walking back and forth!!

Finally they tell me I can have a consultation with the doctor and once again they film us while he tells me what he is going to do. He reassures me he will get out as much product as possible, he is going to suction out a lot of it by doing liposuction then he will perform his famous ‘Celebrity Lift’ which is going to lift all my lower face, pleased now he decided not to my eyes as well, he wants to concentrate on removing the product which is why I am here…will save the eyes for next time maybe!!

Just to let you know that a ‘Celebrity Face Lift’ is not a full face lift, Dr Palmer has created a very simple way of lifting the jowl area and neck without an anaesthetic, just using sedation, and it is very effective but only lasts for a few years.

 Off I go to change into a gown and then after chatting with the anesthetist I’m out like a light!

 

ITS DONE!

Aaargh! My throat is really sore and dry, not sure where I am but someone is getting my clothes back on me and I am being pushed in a wheelchair towards the lift. I am being taken to the ‘Serenity Clinic’ which is a post operative care facility. I had been told what would happen but am still really woozy so not taking much in. I have a bandage under my chin and over my head I must look delightful! For the first time I don’t really care that I haven’t got my make up on!

My first emotion is relief that its over, like everyone I wasn’t thrilled to be having an anaesthetic especially as this particular face lift is normally done under deep sedation, but he had to remove the Bio-Alchamid so he needed to put me out. The first question I ask is whether all of the product is out and the answer is yes so I am really relieved.

I am wheeled down into a garage and put into a car and taken to the clinic, it seems a long way away and I just want to get there and sleep, they greet me when I arrive and wheel me into a lovely room which is all ready for my care.

Am now starving as I haven’t eaten for 24hrs and they bring me a smoothie some jelly and some strained apple, mmm…. not exactly gourmet eating but I finish the lot, it helps my throat too, apparently they had tubes down my throat hence the discomfort.

Dying to look in the mirror and I get a quick peep when I go to the bathroom, hard to tell as I have a bandage on but the skin looks tighter and the bruising is starting to come out. He has marked my face so I have felt tip squiggles all over my cheeks and under my neck, very attractive…not!

I have a really lovely nurse sitting in the room with me and I don’t feel any pain or discomfort just tiredness, so I try and sleep but every 20 mins they bring in ice packs to put on my eyes, this continues all through the night so every time I doze off they wake me to put the ice on! They did it hourly throughout the night but I knew I had to do it to reduce the swelling so I behave myself and do as I am told.

 

Tues 9th July

 5am

 

Wake up starving I have been sleeping on and off throughout the night all the hours have been drifting in & out of sleep, but I feel good so I eat a big breakfast and wait to be collected to be taken to see my surgeon and have the bandage removed.

The TV crew have filmed the whole operation so if and when I am ever ready to see it I will know exactly what he did!

Everything is starting to feel uncomfortable now and I have a headache and some discomfort from the pressure of the bandage, cant wait to have it taken off. Spend the morning watching TV and dozing off and on and watching the clock and waiting for the nurse to check me out of the clinic.

 

10.30am

 

The nurse brings me lots of pills to take for pain and some antibiotics and I am wheeled out to go down to the garage to get driven to my surgeon’s office. Beginning to feel like a celebrity being wheeled into the underground garage incognito, I guess they are used to this, but it’s hardly the norm for a Mill Hill grandma!! Feel so important!

Arrive back in the surgeon’s office and the TV crew are there ready to film me having the bandage taken off. The nurse cleans up all the felt tip marks off my face, I look like my grandchildren have been colouring all over my face!

We then wait for the surgeon to come in to take off the bandages as he is finishing off my friend Stephanie’s surgery.

He comes in the room after a while and tells me he has managed to get almost all the filler out and he is delighted with the results. He explains that he used lipo suction to help remove it and also on my neck.

The unveiling then commences! WOW! All my jowls have gone, I can see that he has got the product out but my face is still swollen but he is thrilled with it and so am I.

It’s a relief to get the bandage off and I keep thinking how much harder it is for people who have had full face lifts and brow lifts etc. as the bandages have to stay on longer. I am lucky that it was only on for 24hrs.

The nurse finishes off cleaning me up and the camera crew give me a last interview to ask how I feel, to be honest I am not sorry to see them go as now feel I need some ME time!!

Time to be taken back to my hotel now and the cab driver is waiting for me so I make may way down to the lobby and am finally going to get into bed to sleep!

 

2pm

I arrive in our room, because we are staying in an apt/hotel we have our own kitchen and I am using the sofa bed in the living room so I settle into bed and dose up with pain killers and am now starting to feel some pain.

I sleep for a bit, but am now having to get used to sleeping on my back on pillows and am almost frightened to move my head in case it snaps off!!

 

7pm

Now feel a bit hungry so order room service and have my favourite sea bass & veg…forfeited the wine tonight, feeling in enough of a fog so will manage with water!

NIGHT NIGHT!!

 

Wed 10th July.

5am

Seems like this is my new waking time, but haven’t really spent the night sleeping anyway, keep dozing off for a while and then waking. Now beginning to feel awful! Got some pain in my ears where the stitches are and a dull throbbing headache.

Help myself to some yoghurt and fruit which we bought from the supermarket (as per usual my appetite is not affected!) and catch up on some family calls, then feel a bit sorry for myself as am uncomfortable….but hey, every time I look in the mirror I feel better so I stop feeling self pity and start getting excited for how I am going to look…..I just swallow the pills!

I have now seen every advert and every morning TV programme on TV so have started watching the shopping channel and even managed to order a no-tangle brush for my little granddaughter…yep still managing to shop & eat, nothing changes!

 

12.30pm

The door opens and in walks my friend Stephanie who looks like she has just come from a shopping trip not from having a facelift…OMG she looks 20 yrs younger, she has had the surgery done without any anaesthetic and was chatting to the surgeon all the way through while she was under sedation!

Her's was a straightforward ‘Celebrity Facelift’ unique to our surgeon and created for his celebrity clientele who haven’t got time to recover from a standard procedure! WOW!!! Amazing! Not a bruise in site, Stephanie’s face looks fabulous, all I can think of is that is how mine is going to look, can’t wait!

It’s really nice to have some company now but I am not great company for Stephanie, I try to be chatty but feel very groggy and sleepy. We both spend the day resting and putting on ice packs. I think this the 3rd day when they say you feel your worst as all the anaesthetic is wearing off and you feel emotional, but I just keep looking in the mirror and reminding myself why I did this!

 

7pm

Ordered room service again, and fish again, its all I can face really and Stephanie joins me too. We forfeit the wine again…beginning to feel like I am on a detox programme! Will make up for it when I feel better that’s for sure!!

 

8.30pm

Get into bed and hope that tonight I will actually sleep through the night as it will be a first if I do. Feeling a little bit better am hoping I wont need pain killers in the night.

 

2.30am

No such luck…Tony bless him gets confused and calls me in the middle of the night! Serves me right for leaving the ringer switched on the phone. Oh well never mind we have a chat and I manage to get back to sleep until 5am again!!

Wake up feeling so much better, no pain killers in the night, fog is now lifting and not so tired. Have breakfast with Steph, she looks great, I still look bruised but the swelling is starting to go down so may have a shower today and put on a bit of lipstick!

 

Thursday 11th July

 

5am

Feeling quite good this morning we decide we are going to venture out today and go out for lunch, feel like I have been in prison all week, fed up with looking at myself in the mirror, still look bruised and decide that am going to try and use the cream I bought in Spain for the bruising even though I was advised not to use anything…that’s the rebel in me!

We both spend the morning in the room and I finally have a shower but decide to wait one more day to wash my hair, I now look like witchipoo my hair is sticking up everywhere, what with the bruising and the swollen face I am not a pretty site. All my promises of sending pictures home to my friends and family are forgotten I decide I am going to save them for when I start looking human again!

 

12pm

We get ourselves dressed and venture out, we have no idea where we are going but we soon realise we are very near to a great café for lunch so we sit outside and have a great salad and don’t really care that everyone can see our stitches around the ears , I take a hat to cover up my witchipoo hair so we at least look fairly normal. Here in LA it is the norm to see people looking like us, so who cares.

We have a nice lunch, I am still feeling very weak and a bit foggy but really pleased that we have gone out for some fresh air. We go the pharmacy to pick up some more bits and pieces and then arrive back at the hotel around 3pm feeling like we have been out on the town for hours!

 

5pm

We decide that even though we had intended to go out for dinner we are too tried so we order in food in the room again and non stop chat starts again!

We treat ourselves to a glass or two of wine and have yet another early night!

Managed to sleep through most of the night but my right ear is really sore, cant wait now to get some of these stitches out, we decide after we have been to the doctors surgery to get the stitches out we are going to hire a car to take us around Rodeo Drive and take in some sights, I realise its actually been 40 years since I was last here so a bit of retail therapy will definitely speed up the healing process!

 

Friday 12th July

 

6.30am

Hallelujah I wake at a normal hour and am now feeling a bit more human. I look at my face for the millionth time and it looks like the bruising is better than it was, maybe that cream does work or maybe its just going down anyway! So excited to wash my hair today and get some of these stitches out.

Had a shower and finally washed my hair and feel human again, we get dressed and make ourselves look glam to go to Rodeo Drive.

First we visit the doctors office, we both have appointments at 10.30 and for some reason we think we are going to get some stitches out but they are not ready to be removed so we will have to wait until we get back to London and have them out on Tuesday. I have 2 stitches in my face that Stephanie will be able to take out for me Sunday apparently its very easy so Stephanie will now be my nurse!!

Robyn (the surgeons wife) and Andy his assistant can’t get over how great we look they are so excited but I wonder if they say this to everyone who comes back for their first visit! Who cares anyway, they make us both feel great and take some pictures and we hug and kiss and say goodbye.

Feel a bit strange and delicate finally going out, its very hot and we want to keep ourselves out of the sun…wow that’s a first for me considering I have always been a sun worshipper!

We take a cab to Rodeo Drive and find a fabulous coffee shop and keep check ourselves out. I can see Stephanie’s stitches and she can see mine under my chin but they are obvious, I guess someone would think I have some old lady hairs I haven’t plucked! Anyway who cares no-one knows us and we look pretty good, we are dressed and made up and we both feel great,

After a little walk around the shops we have lunch at the Cheesecake Factory and then take a car to drive us around the famous spots in Beverley Hills, great day but exhausted at the end of it.

We get back to the hotel around 5pm and I finally allow my son Rob to see my face, he calls me on Facetime so I can chat with my little granddaughter Sky and because he lives in Florida and I know he wont be seeing me for himself so I give him the honour of seeing my new face first before his sister and Dad!!

Both Rob & his wife Dom cant get over how much bigger my eyes look at first, and then they keep saying how much younger I look, they have decided to give us both a nickname and call us Patsy and Eddie from ‘Ab Fab’. We both laugh as we realise we do sound like them!!

We treat ourselves to a lovely meal and have a couple of cocktails with it as a celebration! Crash out at 9pm but am wide awake at 11.30pm and now my ear is throbbing and I finally give in and take more pain killers.

It’s now becoming a pattern as I wake every night for a couple of hours mainly because I have to sleep on my back on high pillows which is not my best!

Dying to curl up on my side and get comfy.

 

Saturday 13th July

Am awake as usual at 6am and wait until they serve fresh coffee in the lobby and go down to get some. It’s a beautiful day and we decide to go out for some breakfast today.

Stephanie calls United Airlines to ask if we can get upgraded to Premier Class as we have had surgery and we have a letter from the Surgeon. She does a wonderful job of explaining our story with her best English accent and they give us front row seats in Premier Class!! Hopefully we will get some sleep going home now.

 

10.30am

We walk to the ‘Urth Café’ down the street for a wonderful brunch, they bake their own nut bread which I could live on but got to watch the weight now with my new face. Starting to get used to this life we are getting more & more like Patsy & Eddie!!

We make sure we are back in time for our meeting with the hotel manager as we have a list of complaints!! We have been really disappointed with the hotel/apt and Stephanie has decided to make him aware of them.

Just listening to her listing out the complaints is an experience in itself and when she finally stated that we were only prepared to pay 50% of the bill and nothing for any food we had eaten in the hotel I had to look away as he agreed immediately!

OK….. so its then human nature to say we should have asked for more, especially as he agreed with everything we said without a fight, but hey, we had succeeded in getting a great deal so we just thank him with our best English accents and walk away heads held high!

 

12.30pm

Stephanie has a meeting with the surgeon to discuss plans for promoting him in the UK, I have a few hours of ME time to enjoy in Santa Monica where all the shops are!. I get a cab there and head straight for MAC to buy some make up.

I am so excited to cover up the bruises and make my face look better as up until now I have been frightened to touch the bruised area and I still have a stitch in each cheek, but I decide I can now use some new foundation for my new face.

I wonder around the store trying out liquid foundations until I find a colour I like and try and squirt some on my finger, problem is it squirts instead all over my lime green blouse and my handbag! Feeling a bit of an idiot as am using a wipe to try to get it off but its spreading all over my top! Oh well another excuse to spend some money I will just have to buy a new top in Mango across the street!

The assistant helps me to chose the right colour to match my skin tone and I get talked into a new brush and a concealer and a pump, to help get the product on to the brush! I am the ideal customer for any store assistant I get talked into everything, but this is a celebration and she applies the foundation and I have to admit I look great! Yippee I am now starting to look really good!

 

I am really enjoying feeling normal and wondering around the shops for an hour or so until I start to feel a bit dizzy. I guess I am not ready for a big shopping spree yet, its only 5 days since my surgery and the antibiotics I am taking are making me feel sluggish so I decide to sit down and have a drink. Stephanie calls right then to say she has just arrived so we meet up and have a coffee and chat about our plans for when we get back to the UK.

She tells me she had spoken to the surgeon at length about my surgery and he had taken a lot of product out especially around the eye area, he said I was lucky as it could have travelled further into my eye socket causing major problems with infection etc. He was amazed at how much fat he had lipo’d out of my neck too, hence the discomfort I had been feeling and the bruising, but he was really pleased with the result and that it could take some time before everything settles and I may notice some lumps for up to a year after surgery but that is just from the lipo and that will settle down.

I am feeling incensed now about the problems that all this Bio-Alchamid has caused and I am determined to make sure that other people don’t go through what I have. I chat with Stephanie about how I intend to do research on how many doctors are still using permanent fillers and how we can warn the public about the dangers of having it put in.

We talk about the fact that the doctor who used it on me was supposedly one of the best in her field and how I had researched her and the product yet I had still finished up with a major problem.

Bio-Alchamid was a relatively new product when it was used on me and there had been no long term research carried out on it. We discuss how the doctor had no right to use it without explaining the risks and also that as we age and the face drops the filler will also be misplaced and finish up in the wrong position, and in this case it had broken up into lumps.

I promise myself that I will be on a mission to expose both the product and the doctors that are still using dangerous permanent fillers in patient’s faces.

I say a silent prayer of thanks that I was able to have this amazing surgeon to get rid of almost all the offending product, I am aware that others may not be as lucky as me and may still be going through the misery of seeing lumps in their faces every day in the mirror.

 

After our chat we manage to summon up enough strength to shop in TK Max and then decide to get a cab back and chill out for our last night in LA.

 

Sunday 14th July

 

I’M GOING HOME FINALLY!!

 

Wake up at 5am again but this time I feel well rested and had managed to go through most of the night without pain killers.

So excited now to get home and see my friends and family and also to get into my own bed again.

We start packing up and get ready to take our flight which is not until late afternoon so we decide to go to our favourite ‘Urth Café ‘where I can have some more of my favourite nut bread!

Enjoy a lovey breakfast now getting excited to see family and friends, slightly apprehensive about the flight hoping I get some sleep. Still a bit of discomfort in my right ear but feel good today. And can’t believe we are finally going home.

We finish our breakfast and have some time to kill so we take the courtesy car from the hotel to the local shopping mall which is a first…wow I must have been poorly not to have been shopping there yet!

We finish off shopping and take a car to the airport, we arrive very early and get checked in with un upgrade to Premier Class as Stephanie explains about our surgery, we have a letter from the surgeon and try to get upgraded to First Class but no such luck its full, never mind we have great seats and we settle down for our 10 hr flight back to London.

 

 

Mon July 15th

 WE’RE HOME!!!