Scarred for Life: Plastic Surgery Nightmare

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Following gastric bypass surgery and a successful 200-pound loss, I decided to surgically remove the five to ten pounds of hanging skin from my upper-arms in a procedure called a “brachioplasty.” I consulted with my orthopedist who felt that the extra weight I was carrying in my arms was causing shoulder problems and interfering with the healing process of a rotator cuff repair he had performed six months earlier.

Being a member of a state health plan, I decided to consult the handbook of doctors that was provided and search for a plastic surgeon in my area. There were three possible names and admittedly because I could not pronounce two of them, I decided to call the third.

During my initial consultation with Dr. N, he informed me that this type of surgery was very unusual and was not performed often by plastic surgeons, however, it was extremely simple, “meatball surgery,” that any certified plastic surgeon could do with his eyes closed. What I didn’t realize at the time was that he actually was going to close his eyes during the surgery. Well, not literally.

After sending in mortifying pre-surgical photographs from every angle of my hanging flesh (with my head blacked out like a police informant) to my insurance company, the surgery was approved and the date was set. On the surgery date, Dr. N met me in the out-patient prep room and pulled a magic marker out of his pocket and drew lines on my arms to delineate where he would be cutting. I should have been suspicious when he used no measuring tool, no caliper or ruler to be sure that my arms would be cut symmetrically.