Quick blog, but I was just texting back and forth with a patient who is one day out from surgery. She is a repeat patient. I operated on her years ago to fix what her babies did to her body, and as time and aging occurred, she had need for some help for eyelids and facial aging, so we did eyelid surgery and fat grafting to the face. She wrote, “My lips look hilarious.” I wrote back, “Warned you. I promise you I didn’t do anything crazy.” (*of note: when I do fat grafting, particularly to the lips, they like to swell for the first week or two. And they can swell. A lot. But it isn’t where they will end up.) She wrote back, “I trust you.”
I trust you.
Those three words are so incredibly important, and I am honored and grateful to have them. Having someone do repeat surgery with you is the highest form of praise. That trust is an amalgam of many things: my technical abilities, my training, my staff, the experience of office visits and surgery, good connection and communication, and confidence in me as their plastic surgeon.
So in her case, as she knows I am super blunt about healing, when I tell her she will look crazy for the first week or two, she does not worry. My patient population is a totally natural, very “non plastic surgery” type, so when you are healing from fat grafting to the face and your lips look like you hopped out of the Kardashian family, you may worry. But when you trust, you know to believe me when I tell you not to worry.
Such a privilege to have that trust.
Thank you.
.