My name is Pat Bordel, and I'm 69 soon to be 70 years old. I've had a few surgeries done mostly on my face and my eyes. I had surgery on my eyes for cataracts, and I also had PRK, and as a result of it I had a lower eyelid that did not touch my eyeball. After looking at the website, and talking to some people I decided to come to Dr. Fernau, and one of the things that he is trying to do is he's using Artefill to try and build up the space below my eyelid to see if my eyelid will now touch my eyeball like it's supposed to, and it seems to be working.
Another surgery that I've had dealt with a partial facelift. Unfortunately, in the past, I had lost... well, fortunately, I lost a lot of weight, and as a result I had excess skin, and I wanted to have the excess skin removed from my neck. I went to a cosmetic surgery, I did not know the individual was a cosmetic surgeon. The surgery was performed, and as a result I had puffy cheeks. One was much larger than the other, so I came to Dr. Fernau, and after several consultations he performed some surgery, and as of now those cheeks are almost exactly the same size because he is a real plastic surgeon who knows how to correct anything that has been performed on you in the past. Those are the two major areas that I think that I have been extremely pleased with.
I'm not sure that you could say that it's changed my life drastically, but I'm so much happier now with the way I look. I have absolutely no makeup on right now except for lipstick, and my skin is nice and smooth. The puffiness in my cheeks they're virtually gone if you look at both sides. One was extremely puffy, as you look at me, my right side, and it looked like I was a little misformed, deformed, and I've always had confidence, but I think now I have more confidence. I like the look now.
My friends think I'm crazy, but I'm adventurous. I'm willing to try something. Don't always take what you see on TV because there are a lot of people who are advertising on TV who aren't plastic surgeons, they're cosmetic surgeons. Go to the websites, read what is on the websites, look at the pictures. Pictures will tell you a lot more than what somebody is stating to you on the TV shows. Everyone's skin reacts differently whenever plastic surgeons are working on you. Some skin response really well, some skin does not. The different plastic surgeons they will do a very, very good job compared to cosmetic, so investigate.
Well, the day before the surgery, for whenever I had the partial lift to deal with the problem here, the hospital called me, they told me exactly what was going to happen. I came in probably about 2 1/2 to 3 hours earlier. First of all, Dr. Fernau, of course, came to see me, but the anesthetist came to see me, told me exactly what would happen. The nurses gradually put me under, they took me in, I came out of it, never even knew it had even occurred. When I came out I was black and blue, and I had to be careful the first couple weeks, but for the most part, I would say within one or two days, I went everywhere.
When I came out of the anesthetic that evening I was fine, I had a little bit of pain. I think I took Tylenol, I didn't even take anything that was stronger. The next day, I think, I went out. Yes, as a matter fact, because I like to eat out, I like to go places. People will look at you because you've got some bruising, but I didn't care. I didn't put anything on it except what the doctor told me to do. Basically, I was up and around quite quickly.
One thing I would like to mention is the fact that Dr. Fernau is extremely knowledgeable, and when you talk to him he will tell you everything that you really need to know. He walks you through it, he tells you how long it's going to take you to recover, he tells you exactly what you're going to experience whenever you go into the surgery. He'll tell you approximately how long the surgery' going to take, he tells you what you're going to look like afterwards. In fact, he showed me pictures of people, what they looked like a day, two days, three days afterwards. That's exactly what you look like. The more knowledge you have the better off you are, and if you can get that knowledge, I think, that you will be better off in making a good decision about what you want to do, and whom you want to have do it. I would recommend that if anyone does have a problem seek out a real plastic surgeon such as Dr. Fernau.
