A Surgeon's Most Personal Journey: The Vertical Restore Face Lift on My Wife
There are some experiences that fundamentally change you as a surgeon. Living with someone I operated on opened my eyes to details I had never truly understood before. It made me more empathetic, and I believe it made me a better surgeon. This is the story of the vertical restore facelift I performed on my wife, Netta—a journey we decided to document from the day of surgery through the first few weeks of recovery, hoping it would become an invaluable resource for anyone considering a similar path.
Why Now? The Decision to Finally Take the Leap
Netta is 52 years old, a family medicine doctor, and the wife of a facial plastic surgeon. She knew since she was 48 or 49 that she needed to do something. For her, the tipping point was deeply personal. "I hate pictures of myself," she admitted. "I don't like any pictures anymore."
Her journey with facial rejuvenation began much earlier. At 36, she underwent a fat transfer. She had always been someone who felt pretty with little makeup, just her hair up in a bun. But after that fat transfer, she lost a lot of volume in her face. She didn't tell any friends at the time—she just went and did it. It was the best thing she ever did, she says, because it aged her beautifully through the end of her 30s and all through her 40s while everyone else was complaining about their faces aging.
Now in her early 50s, the same feeling returned. She noticed changes around her mouth, her face was becoming more square-shaped, and she spent less time looking in the mirror because all she saw was aging that bothered her. "I think the outside world thinks your face has to be falling forward and you have to look so old for you to be ready for surgery," Netta reflected. "Which, in my opinion, is 100% wrong. I would rather do it early on and look my best through my 50s."
But the hesitation was real. The downtime—a month of not doing anything—felt impossible for someone as active as Netta. She walks two hours every morning, then does an hour of a fitness class, and exercises every day from 7:00 to 10:00 AM. Her diet is exceptionally clean: only whole foods, organic, with plenty of greens and vegetables. She loves sleep and believes her rigorous exercise routine helps her sleep well.
Then something shifted. "I feel like I've felt ready to roll for a little while, I just haven't felt it stronger than my desire to not have downtime," she explained. "But now, looking in the mirror and seeing what's happening around my mouth and my neck, and feeling like I don't like any pictures, I'm like, 'Okay, just give me the downtime. I don't care.'"
What makes her journey unique is the trust she places in her surgeon. "I don't even know if I would do it if it wasn't for him," she said. "I think it'd be really hard for me to find someone to trust to do my face." She's seen patient after patient after patient for 15 years, and every single one looked natural. For her, that proof was everything. "The only way I'd do surgery is to go to the right surgeon that you truly believe is the best possible, or just age gracefully."
The Pre-Operative Plan: Mapping Out the Vertical Restore
When Netta was 36, I performed a full-face fat transfer on her. At that time, I was primarily placing it under the eyes, above the eyes, and in the cheek area. Areas like the temples, the periorbital frame, and the lips weren't part of the protocol back then. That frame still looked good, but we knew we needed to add a touch more volume to the temples, a little along the super orbital area to soften the bony look of her deeper-set crease eyes, and a tiny bit into the lips.
The big move, however, was the vertical restore. This procedure elevates everything that was bothering her: the laxity in her neck and the descent around her mouth. It lifts the entire upper face—the lateral brow area gets elevated, and the corner of the brow tightens. We also planned a lower eyelid skin pinch because when the face comes up, there is going to be some extra skin there. Taking a tiny bit prevents bunching around the eyes.
We decided against a lip lift because Netta already has a short upper lip area, and further shortening would make the mouth look a little funny. Since she didn't have fullness under the neck, we didn't need a submental incision. The plan was to bring the neck muscle upward, creating a nice firm jawline and neck.
Netta was remarkably relaxed about the incisions. "I literally could care less about my incisions," she said. "I know a lot of people always discuss, 'My God, the incisions, the incisions.' To me, having a nice facial shape, I could care less about incisions." The good news was that she had seen many of my patients' incisions heal into fine, delicate, nearly invisible lines.
The Day of Surgery: A Very Unusual Drive to the OR
The morning of the vertical restore was surreal. Netta took one Ativan and one Xanax, washed her entire face and hair with Dial antibacterial soap, and was ready. I was driving the patient to surgery—an unusual situation for any surgeon. We headed up to the OR together, made our markings, and with a final "We'll catch you on the flip side," the journey began.
Post-Op Day One: The Hematoma Prevention Zone
Driving home from the vertical restore just finished, Netta was already eating pears. High fiber, she explained. She even had artichokes prepared because they are soft, nutritious, and high in fiber. She had packed all her nourishing foods beforehand, preparing herself to start fueling her body from a nutritional standpoint immediately after surgery.
Day one is all about preventing hematoma—a surgical emergency where a small blood vessel opens up and you bleed underneath the skin. The pressure from that blood can cause the skin to die off because it impedes blood flow. Even a smaller hematoma can cause a dramatic negative cosmetic change. In my practice, I use compression sutures—external sutures that hold the skin down against the deeper layer so there is no pocket for tissue to bleed into. We also prevent infection by keeping hands clean, keeping hands off the incisions, and using prophylactic antibiotics, antibacterial soap, and antibacterial ointments.
Netta slept for four solid hours that first night, then woke up because she's not used to sleeping on her back, went back to sleep, and got more good sleep. "No pain ever, which really made me happy because I've been waiting for the pain to come, but it just hasn't come," she said. "I just feel tight in my neck, which means it was pulled up correctly."
Days Two Through Five: The Swelling Climax and Emotional Rollercoaster
Post-op day two was her best day yet. "I actually feel amazing. I don't even really need Tylenol anymore. I did not think it'd be this easy, honestly." This is where Netta's absolute devotion to nutrition shined. She is in great shape, takes great care of herself before surgery, and during healing, she immediately fueled her body with protein, vegetables for fiber, and essential nutrients. Protein, vitamin C, copper, and zinc are all necessary for collagen production—the foundation of wound healing. She also avoided too much salt to prevent excessive swelling.
Days three through five are the swelling peak. There's a process called third spacing where the face increases the amount of fluid leaving the blood supply into the surgical area. The swelling increases progressively, plateauing around day four and five before it starts to go down. On day three, I caught Netta trying to do things again—checking the refrigerator, making her matcha tea with fiber, inulin, and collagen protein powder. She was already trying to resume normal activities.
"The eyes have been irritating, sleep has been horrible because I really don't like to sleep on my back," she said. "The pain has been pretty good. I do feel like I look really weird." The swelling highlighted her cheekbones, made her lower lids puffy, and her lips ballooned out from the fat transfer. It's a normal part of the process, but patients often get into their heads around this time: "My God, is this all going to be okay?"
Emotionally, patients go through stages: pre-operative excitement and anxiety, post-operative fatigue, then around days three and four, they get into a down phase. Netta was no different. She went through a period of being more down than before or after. But she always had faith in the process, having seen thousands of my patients go through it. The question was never whether she would look okay—it was just hard.
On day five, she had bought a small treadmill from Instagram because she was concerned about not being allowed to walk at all for weeks. She started gently walking while watching golf, and it made a huge psychological difference. The incisions we examined looked gorgeous—beautiful profile, beautiful neck, all the looseness along the jowls completely lifted.
Day Six: The Graduation Point
Day six is when we remove the remainder of the sutures—the foundational vertical restore sutures that close the skin. This stage is like a graduation point. You've paid your dues up until this point, and now everything starts to resolve. From day six or seven onward, every day gets better. The risk of bleeding remains up to about two weeks, so you still have to be careful not to exert yourself too much, but for all intents and purposes, you no longer look scary. As I often joke with patients, "You're not going to scare young children in a grocery store when you go out after two weeks."
Netta admitted, "It went so quickly, it wasn't too bad in the first week."
Day Eleven and Twelve: The First Outing
Keeping the incisions free of sun is critical. Netta adopted a trick we picked up—a combination of a hat and a face covering that looks crazy, but it ensures the incisions get no sun. She'd been doing this for years for her melasma anyway.
By day twelve, she put on eyeliner and lipstick for the first time and went out for a social evening. "I haven't gone ready in a long time where I love looking in the mirror and love looking at a camera," she said. "But I am still so swollen. I don't know if many people would actually go out at day 12, but I am feeling like I want to be social."
One Month Later: A New Relationship with the Mirror
At one month and two days post-op, Netta reflected deeply on the experience. "Before my surgery, I just kept thinking about this May 5th because that was my goal—to get to the one month. I'm so happy May 5th came a lot faster than I thought. For anybody who's going to go through this, believe me, the recovery goes by really fast."
She noted that her face was still very numb on the sides and felt hard to touch. "I feel a lot more swollen than I think I look swollen, because people say I look great. When I look in the mirror, I love what I see." The numbness didn't bother her, and she knew it would eventually go away, but she admitted she could live with it forever if necessary.
Her absolute favorite moment came during her son's graduation in Michigan. "After a long day of walking, I remember looking in the mirror, and in the past I'd always be like, 'Oh my God, I've walked all day, I've been out all day, and I look so tired.' I went in the bathroom and I was like, 'Oh, I actually don't look tired at all.' It's amazing. Very little makeup, and you just kind of feel like when you did when you were young—just refreshed. It's weird how much it's exactly me, just a really rested, younger version of me."
Three Months Post-Op: Natural and Completely Transformed
Three months after the vertical restore, fat transfer, and lower eyelid skin pinch, Netta could hardly believe she had undergone surgery. "I almost forgot I even did it. I feel so great, and I feel like I can't even tell it's there. I have to look at the before to be like, 'Wow,' because I look so natural that it's very easy to forget you've done anything."
The results speak for themselves. The jawline angle and neck angle are incredible. The hairline shows literally no change—no shift, no divot, no loss of the temporal tuft. The ear anatomy is completely normal and natural with no tension on the earlobe. Everything looks like she naturally aged beautifully.
"I love my incisions. They never bothered me, I never noticed them," she said. "It's so important for my hairline to not have been moved. These things are so critical. I'm really happy."
The Surgeon's Reflection on a Wife's Recovery
For me, this was emotionally the most challenging surgery I've ever done. Being able to see the minute-by-minute, day-by-day experience of recovery from the patient's perspective made me a much more empathetic doctor. I gained a deeper understanding of what our patients actually go through—the fatigue, the emotional downs, the struggle of sleeping on your back, the constant temptation to resume normal activities too soon.
Netta was a handful because she is so active. Keeping her contained was not easy, but she understood the importance of preventing hematoma and controlling swelling. The compromise of allowing light treadmill walking made a real difference psychologically.
The most important lesson for patients is this: the first two weeks are the hardest, but they go by faster than you think. Sleep on your back, keep your incisions clean and out of the sun, fuel your body with protein and nutrients, and trust the process. The swelling peaks around days four and five, then everything starts to resolve. By two weeks, you can go out in public without scaring anyone. By one month, you start to see the real you emerging.
Netta's favorite part of her journey is the jawline. "I'm obsessed. Just obsessed. Not having what was happening around my mouth, I feel like now I look way more like the face I see in the mirror and the face I see in pictures. I feel so happy that I did it, it's behind me, and I don't need to do all these non-surgical procedures to try to get what I got. I'm done, and I really, really love it."
Every patient's journey is different, but Netta's story proves that with the right preparation, the right mindset, and the right surgeon, a vertical restore facelift can be a truly transformative experience—one that restores not just the face, but the confidence and joy that comes with looking as young as you feel.