I don't think I'm more happy, rather that I just don't care so much.
I have not done more plastics
@Settledownnow. I'd really REALLY like to do my neck and lower face but I'm freaked that I'll have red scars around my ears until the day I die.
I won't bury the lead: am I glad I had an LBL? Yes. Although it didn't meet my expectations which I grant may have been too idealized, it did allow me to zip my pants without catching thin belly skin and my ass cheeks no longer droop into the toilet.
As for my LBL scars, they have faded quite a bit in back but are still rather red in front. It seems that if one were dark skinned they may hide better, although the surgeon said scars ultimately turn white and so hide better on alabaster skin like mine. Every surgeon I saw said my skin was "perfect" for hiding scars once they turn white but who knows how long that will be. (A dog bit me in the calf two years ago and its still red.) The color of the scars is of no importance though if they're always covered by clothes.
My midriff is still loose but my abdomen below the navel is flat. The belly button is still small and adorable -- far cuter than my original. My ass cheeks still look like parentheses with a gap between. My butt has sagged a bit so now the left cheek is sort of a double parenthesis. This isn't obvious in clothes. The autologous augmentation for which I think I paid $2k additional is merely a slight thickening, about 1-1/2" wide, running perpendicular to the top of my butt crack. (Not visible, but I can feel it with my fingers.) I really think I could have done without it.
My thighs are a swaying, wrinkled disaster from crotch to knees but these were not addressed by an LBL. I still feel that, for me, a knee to groin scar would be as embarrassing as the floppy skin so I will not have that surgery. I found long, snug shorts (clamdiggers) to tops of knees which hides all that. Swimming suits are not in my future. I look ok in clothes although my critical eye sees that the thighs are too thick b/c of the excess skin and the flat ass is odd looking, but one has seen plenty of women, especially older women, with this same flat ass.
My upper arms are not bothering me quite as much but it looks like I'm smuggling a pound of bread dough in my lower armpits. Most armholes are enormous on my small upper arms (and always have been) and always showed the sides of my bra and now the doughy puddles show. This really bothers me so I do not wear shirts with sleeves above the elbows. I have one sleeveless shirt with very small armholes which hides much of this, and if I keep my arms in the correct position, they don't look so bad. I'm considering seeing if I can sew up the armholes on a few sleeveless shirts to see if I can hide the dough. Surgery to remove the baggy skin in the lower armpit is apparently very difficult to fix as it's not the armpit but the skin around the entire torso that is causing it. I won't try surgery.
My unstuffed breasts look fine in a bra so the question is: how good do I want my breasts to look naked... when the thighs are still a saggy wrinkly mess, I have a red scar the circumference of my body and weird ass cheeks like parentheses. I'll have all of that if I have a breast lift PLUS a bright red lollypop/anchor scar around and down each areola and have a better than 50% chance of losing all feeling in them. Is it worth it just to have breasts that stand up without a bra?
I just turned 65. I have younger friends who have never been overweight in their lives and yet their faces/arms/breasts look as bad as or worse than mine. (Uh, but I do win the saggy thigh contest.) The truth is, I really look awesome for my age and I feel great so I think I'm done slicing and dicing.
is related to the autologous augmentation, either directly as in the underlying tissue (my original ass) is too thick as it approaches the sides and is pulling the cheeks apart (unlikely as the skin was so thin) and/or indirectly as in this area is still very swollen which then has the same effect PLUS one has to be quite thin. Per the surgeons I consulted and looking on RealSelf, I am far thinner than the vast majority of people undergoing LBL. I don't think my surgeon has ever had this happen to a patient before and he has done hundreds of LBLs, but only a handful on someone as thin as me. Net net: I don't think he did anything wrong. It is still swollen and when I walk a distance I can feel the area below the incision getting tight (I guess from swelling -- feels like I'm wearing a weighted fanny pack) and then can feel my cheeks opening even further, not just at the mid longitude hole, but the base of the cheeks, too. In time the swelling may go down, the buttock skin not be pulled apart and the hole may close. If not it'll get fixed, maybe turning a small teardrop breast implant sideways?? I wish I was brave enough to post a picture of my butt!!
