Chicago Trip

Last Saturday I did my pre-admittance trip to see Dr. Z for my upcoming face beating … whackawhacka …

But first … I stopped at a craft show in a small town along the way because my aunt was in town from Arizona selling her crafts (it really is a big business for some I guess) … and my mom and dad were there gabbing as well … kewl !! 🙂

So my aunt wanted to give me some of her tee shirts, but said “they’re mainly girl shirts” … *snicker* … she doesn’t know … but I swear I sensed a look of fear from my mom over what my response would be … no fear mom … not out to freak you … I politely said “No thanks, but they sure look nice.” … Anyways, let’s be real … tees with pictures of dogs on them are definitely not my style … v-neck tees, sleeveless tees or just normal girly tees with attitude sayings on them are definitely my style. Oh, and I tend to like baseball style tops for some reason now too. Odd phase I’m going through. I think I have about 20 of such type.

Then Dad wanted to get some food so we stopped for a burger (I ate a salad, the first of something like 8 for the weekend) and gabbed some more … finally I hit the road.

Unfortunately the little excursion to see my aunt took me slightly out of my way … actually …. more than slightly out of my way, so Chica Amy had some time to make up …

And I was making great time … until I hit the Illinois state line on the Skyway Toll Road … holy phuck … I’ve never before seen a traffic jam of that nature … total standstill … I stopped counting cars when I reached 111,501 … so after I moved about 10 yards in 45 minutes … I finally called Dr. Z.’s office … to tell them I’m running a bit late … but that I’d be there. Another 30 minutes later and only another 10 yards of forward progress … I called again and asked for Dr. Z to call me when he was available … a few minutes later … I’m talking to Dr. Z.

“Hey bad girl !”

*hmmm why is that said to me so frequently?*

“Just drive careful, don’t rush, and get here when you get here.”

Kewl … so moments later … traffic finally broke and I made good time … for about 10 minutes … oh well … unlike Shaft, I love Chicago driving and enjoyed the congestion … Shaft prefers Detroit traffic … which I totally despise, because the aggressive drivers there are also stupid … anyways … I finally made it to Dr. Z’s office about an hour late.

By the time I arrived, Dr. Z was in with someone else … but he came out after being told I was there and took me into another prep, meeting room … along the way he commented how it looks like “you lost, what? about 15 pounds?” … hehe … keep talking doctor …. that’s music to my ears … (I wasn’t going to say anything, I might have lost 15 pounds, but I think he found it since the last time I saw him *snicker*) … so I plopped myself down in the big oversized, leather cushy chair … oooo love the cushy leather chairs … and he gave me all my waivers to read while he was finishing up with his other patient … of course, being the anal retentive attorney, I read them thoroughly … which took about 30 minutes.

Dr. Z returned as soon as I informed them I was finished reading the waivers and then spent the next 2 1/2 hours with me … I felt so special ! 🙂 yeah right.

First, he went over in excruiating detail each of the waivers,

What could go wrong, what to possibly expect, recovery times for different procedures, blah, blah, blah.

Then we started going over in detail what he’s planning on doing with my face … he was so patient with me … I asked questions regarding cuts and techniques … I had a whole list of questions on my m500 (so outdated, I know) … but by the time he had finished talking and we got to my questions, he had already knocked off practically all of the questions on my list … so in order to hear myself talk, I often asked the same question in slightly different ways. 😉

He explained things in medical terms and then translated for me … then he showed me pictures from medical texts about what he was talking about to help visualize it … then he’d showed me before and afters of some of his clients on the procedure we were talking about so I could visualize it even more …

We talked in detail about my nose work, my brow ridge work … maintaining my nerve bundle in my forehead … and of course … my lip issue. Speaking of which, a compromise was reached with my lip issue … he’s confident that the augmentation is the way to go for me, and from the feedback I received here, most of you think lip aug is the way for me to go too … but he understands my anxiety with having too much lip expansion while still playing in the boy mode at times afterwards … so he said that he’d go a bit conservative on the lip augmentation this go around and then when I was ready later … he’d do an additional lip augmentation for no charge … good compromise. 🙂

I did get a chance to see a few more pics of some of his patients and was very impressed. My only area of anxiety with Dr. Z’s technique compared to Dr. O’s is the forehead area. As I mentioned before, but have never revealed, at least as far as you know 😉 … I have deep set eyes. My forehead isn’t sloping sloping, but I have a very substantive brow ridge. It’s my second greatest tell … my nose is the first.

Anyways … I’m working on assembling a bunch of scans and descriptions of Dr. Z’s technique, just so people can tell the difference between what he does and others do … but for now … in hopes of getting this entry completed this month, here’s the lowdown on what’s going to happen to me …

1. An endoscopic bi-planer brow lift;
2. Orbital rim, brow ridge forehead recontouring;
3. Scalp advancement;
4. Liposuction and lift around inner eye folds;
5. Fat grafting for augmentation in my temple region and lips;
6. Rhinoplasty (a bunch of nose work actually, I can’t remember all the names, it’s been broken a few times and I’ve got some nasal passage closure issues that he’s going to also rectify)

I’m not doing any chin work, neither Dr. O nor Dr. Z felt is was necessary for me. Dr. O tossed out the possibility of doing some jaw work, but that it wasn’t that much of an issue for me (not his exact words). Personally, I like my jaw, a somewhat stronger jaw on a woman is sexy I think. So I’m going to keep mine. 🙂

The main scar I’ll have residual is the same one we all have for the most part that do this type of thang … that one all the way across my brow line. With the bi-planer approach, it allows him to preserve the nerve bundles in the forehead going to the crown and he’s able to do the scalp advance and brow/ridge work all in one step (no return trip for the second stage), but I do think it limits his ability to get as agressive in the forehead recontouring and the final scalp advancement as Dr. O … fortunately, at least I think so for now, my forehead and scalp advance needs don’t require too much aggression. I did scruntinize the be-jeebers out of some befores and afters on his forehead work and was quite surprised at the amount of improvement he was able to accomplish with his technique. Of course, you kids get to be the judge if it worked for me !! 🙂

Estimated surgery time is 5 – 6 hours.

Total cost for the fun … $12,700. My tracheal shave was $3,600, so after all is said and done, my final cost for ffs related stuff is around $16,300 plus travel and prescriptions. Less than Dr. O, but not substantially so (rough estimate because I don’t have Dr. O’s quote in front of me, but I think for the equivalent work (though he was quoting Type III forehead work for me, which is considerably more aggressive and time consuming for the surgeon), he was around $27,000 for me, plus travel and prescriptions) … I don’t think this decision should be based on the $$ issuuuue, but on the technique preferred and what will work on your face. I think both doctors are super nice, their staffs wonderful and their results mind-boggling. I hope I continue to think so !! 🙂