Recovery

Recovery is more important than anything. Its what determines how you get back to your own life. How you wake up in the morning, how you go to work and meet friends and how you do your daily chores and activities. It's not only the body which needs to recover, but the psyche and the "whole being." Recovery includes the way you think about your "recovery." It's how you interpret some irks about post-surgical healing...little sharp pain there (Oh no! Is there something wrong?)...little numbness there (is this permanent?)...pins & needles (its just part of healing, but am I sure?). There is fear in this, fear of losing what you have...that's before signing the consent form finally...and fear of not being able to cope with all these healing issues.

The kind of surgery determines the result, but as long as it is done correctly, then you don't have anything to worry about. So, is surgery more important? Regardless if the surgery was correctly done and the result is awesome, recovery can still dictate how you will be able to carry-on everything. It determines if you can deal with it, or if your body can take what it has undergone. It still dictates how you progress everyday, and somehow it really becomes a learning experience for the patient and doctor.

Tincture of time dictates the success of any recovery, lets just leave it to that. Not that you can do something in between; and knowing when, is part of what you've paid for in the first place

My Liposuction

Doing Liposuction is really tasking and tiring. After doing one side, you have to do the other side...and they have to be exactly the same. Its a good work-out though. So how do you end up getting the desired result you explained to your patient earlier?

My feature on liposuction in an issue of New You magazine

First of all, you do the drawings. Mark what part has more fat (since not all sides are 100% the same), what part has little fat and where you are going to concentrate giving the desired shape result. Then, while the patient is standing, you think of how can you remove those fats you just marked. Here, you think about your cannula, the point of entry, the length and thickness. Can I really reach that fat using a cannula this long and this thick? If I go thicker, will it do more damage (it will make it faster, though). You think of the contre coup entry point...meaning, you have to do a sort of criss-cross maneuver in eliminating the fat, just to remove those unwanted linear streaks (freaks) that is very hard to explain once the patient complains about them. This is a lot to think about, esp when the patient is standing almost naked infront of you.

Second, which is not much of an option, but much on availability. What kind of machine? Standard suction assisted lipoplasty (SAP), power suction assisted lipoplasty (PAL), ultrasound (VASER), combination? I believe each has its own advantages and disadvantages regarding workload, energy delivered, complications and "surgeon calorie elimination" There is just one thing important here that I always believe in...its not the arrow, but its Legolas. Your result, regardless of machine or tool is dependent on the doer, the way he appreciates the curves and the way he delivers the beautiful canvas drawn in his mind into his hands and movements. This feat is not developed overnight, nor is it developed thru months of training in a "see-one-do-one" affair (although it helps, but does not necessarily projects good outcome).

This feat is developed through years of training. Formal training which includes the works from anatomy, physiology, biochemistry and direct action and planning. This comes in two points which are: undergoing the training and doing what you've learned. Sometimes, its hard to learn and harder to do what is learned. But this is good, because we don't only learn from one aspect of a mentor, we learn from different mentors, creating an onion of experience. Weird onion right? Its just the intertwinning of skills in one bulb...and there is where you get your money's worth and the result you've always wanted in your liposuction.