Plastics

I've caught some illness from everyone else in the house so it has taken me a bit to get back to the results of my visit to the plastic surgeon. I'm calling this one 'the man cold' I do not get sick and when i do at most it just plops me on the couch for a day but I still have energy to fiddle on my computer or knit or something. This one left me laying in bed so as not to move my throat, talk or any other body part. Stupid germs. Around noon I felt recovered enough to move myself to the couch and now "the man cold" has moved to my nose and can be downgraded to a woman cold. If you have not already seen the Utube video about man colds I highly recommend it to gain a better picture of what I speak.

My visit to the plastic surgeon was eventful. After the preliminaries she had me show her my stomach and backside. She asked me if my butt bothered me. It doesn't but after a conversation about how just a tummy tuck would result in what they call dog ears on each of my sides I decided that a lower body lift is the only way to go. She took pictures with my underwear at half mast and minus my face. I then got dressed again and we talked about what she could do. She had some pictures of other tummy tucks she had done. I was a tad disappointed that she only had three sets of pictures-one post-pregnancy tuck, one weight loss simple tummy tuck and then finally the third was of someone with almost the same stomach issues I have. So much so that when I showed the picture to David he asked me if it was me. Her results picture even just one day after the surgery was very impressive. She went from flop to fabulous abs.

I have quite a large flap of skin hanging down from my stomach. Four kids, too many years of obesity and according to the doctor I have an 'excellent amount of skin' to take off. I asked her about whether the 30 pounds I could still lose would be important or not. She said that if I have any plans to lose it I should do it ahead of time as i would form new floppy skin. She also said that she only does surgeries by region of the body-so if I wanted to have the other areas done they would come later. First the lower body lift, then upper body work (she will do boobs and arms at the same time) and then legs if I wanted them done.

The doctor left after that and sent in the accounting person who told me the ballpark prices were $6,000.00 for a simple tummy tuck and $10,500.00 for the lower body lift. My friend went in for a leg and hip liposuction quote and leg lift--those were about $5,000 each. She said that these prices could change while I'm losing the 30 pounds.

The accounting lady was a bit of a flake and is not doing the doctor any favors. I had to ask her to write down my prices and she did so on a sticky note (you would think they could type up a formal price and mark it with an end date or something) and for my friend she left her sitting in the office for 20 minutes while she tried to figure out how much the surgery would cost. Apparently she 'lost' the proper paper work for leg lifts and lipo. The doctor when she found my friend still sitting and waiting finally tracked the accounts person down and gave her a few words.

Which brings us to the quagmire of decisions that came to a head Friday night. My new job offered me two teaching jobs over the summer, airline tickets are extremely high (1400 per person) and I now want to spend 10,500 dollars on vanity surgery.

The resulting decisions were that we cannot afford to go to Europe in June. We are going to try and talk my husband's mom into meeting us in New York (that is if it isn't too expensive to get there too!) and hang out for a week and then spend another week at the end of summer in Central Oregon with friends. I am going to take one of the teaching jobs this summer (a Saturday class) and finally I am going to try and lose the 30 pounds and have the surgery in December. If I don't quite get the 30 pounds off I am going to be satisfied where I am and if I do wahoo. She said the surgery will cause me to miss work/need help for at least 2 weeks and I should be able to do it between school terms.