By Allison
Here I am recovering in my luxury suite across the street from the clinic, with a swollen, black & blue face. And that happily means that I did go through with it, and I wasn't involved in a traffic accident.
It all began 2 months ago; I was trying to learn how to use make-up effectively, as I had no experience with it before. I had read all I could about what to do, I had even bought a video from a well known cross dresser, and after I got over the initial shock of hearing her talk with her male voice, I picked up more helpful hints.
When I finished my "canvas," I checked it out very carefully. I was horrified to see that my face looked exactly like the skin of an orange with make up smeared on it, nothing like the smooth surfaces I'd seen in all the pictures of other girls. Not only that, there were a lot more chins under my mouth than I remembered. Then and there I decided that if I ever wanted to look more like a woman than a guy in a dress wearing make up, I needed some major changes. After a lifetime of neglect of my skin, I was ready to now try to make amends to it and treat it kindly. I reasoned that since I am an older girl, less make up would be better than more, and one of the main reasons I wore a lot of make up was to hide my beard shadow.
This deduction led me to the hunt for facial hair removal, and I found that there was a new generation laser available that has had a lot better results than others, and that was affordable to me. I have written about these sessions in earlier articles in the What's New Section of the TG Forum, and perhaps you could read those in the archives. This third session was a different story from the first two, as I was practically cleared after the first two sessions, but the laserologist went on and finished up the remaining two or three sites that still had hair, and it was very successful, there wasn't any pain as there had been in the previousand did I have any questions? I noticed that the procedure said that I would be under conscious sedation, and I knew I didn't want to be conscious when they were doing this work. The anesthesiologist explained that conscious sedation merely meant that I would be breathing on my own, not that I would be awake. I may hear him if he yelled directly in my ear, and that I might fade in and out during the proceedings, but that I wouldn't feel a thing. I asked how long the operation would take, and he said less than an hour.
I then met with the Plastic Surgeon. He explained that he would be performing a procedure that cannot have guaranteed results with any certainty because he has to rely on the healing capacity of my skin to behave, as it should, and how closely I follow the recovery procedures. He said that the best procedure where he could guarantee results would be a complete face lift, as he controls how tight the skin will be with his sutures, and that the full face lift would be the "homerun" of procedures to accomplish my goals. He felt I was on the borderline of needing facial liposuction or the full facelift. There was however a significant increase in cost as it was a much more invasive procedure, much more work is involved, and the cost would be approximately $10,000 in lieu of the $3,000 for the liposuction.
For a moment I felt that I was in a used car dealers showroom and was being given the old bait and switch routine, but as he continued to talk I saw that he was really trying to be honest about his evaluation of his ability to meet my goals and the expected results. He said that it would look better, but he couldn't say how much better, that maybe he'd hit a double or a triple with lipo. I explained that I understood this, and that I want to go ahead with the liposuction as originally planned, and that I could go for the full face lift later on after a reevaluation of my goals and at that time will get the brow lifts, hair advancement, lip implants, and rhinoplasty. I told him that I was going through transition, that I was wanting him to feminize my face whenever there was a choice about what direction to go,to take the road that will lead most toward feminizing my appearance. I had to sign consent forms for both he and the anesthesiologist. sessions, and after 3 sessions, the laserologist said that I was completed. All that remains to do now is report the results two or three months down the road to determine the lasting power of these new lasers.
The second deduction was that I needed to get back to one chin, and after consulting with several plastic surgeons on the subject, I settled on the facial liposuction solution to accomplish this. It is the first step one can take on the road to a full face lift, with a minimum of intrusion into my face, and with a short recovery time, and less than a third of the cost of a full face lift. I then compared the costs for these procedures with two different plastic surgeons, and selected my favorite based on both interviews, timing, and costs.
I arrived at the clinic the day before the surgery for a final consultation with the doctor. I first met with the anesthesiologist, who went over the methods that he would be using to put me under, and asked if I was allergic to any medications, what medications I was on,
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