Linda Jones and Carole Ballinger had been near neighbours and great friends for so many years, they were almost like family. And so it seemed to make perfect sense that their children would fall in love, marry and make it official.
Although the marriage of Carole’s son to Linda’s daughter was one of the most joyful experiences of both their lives, as it is for every mother who watches her child walk down the isle, the event was, for the brand new mothers-in-law, a journey that brought them more than just fond memories and extended family. Carole and Linda felt a sense of ambivalence, about being the focus of so much attention: with weddings, come wedding photos and Linda and Carole were less than impressed with the images of themselves they saw peering back at them.
This was the boost they needed. “After seeing the photos, Linda and I both commented on how old our faces looked,”recalls Carole. She had spoken to her family and friends about facial rejuvenation surgery for two years already and “I was beginning to get desperate. The hollows in my cheeks looked terrible and I was looking really haggard.”
It was at this point that these two friends decided to investigate the option of facelift surgery, a journey they would experience together and through which they would support each other. “Both our husbands thought we were mad! They both said we looked okay,” says Carole. But both Women had decided that “okay” wasn’t quite enough. “We were determined to go through with it.”
Before moving forward with plans for surgery, Carole and Linda investigated every aspect of the procedure, met with their surgeon beforehand so that he could explain the process in detail and also met with people who had already had facial rejuvenation surgery to see the results and hear about their experiences. When the day finally arrived and they entered the hospital, they saw that “there were actually eight of us who were having
face lifts, so it was comforting that we were not on our own.”
Both surgeries went extremely well and all that was left was some quiet and tranquil time for recovery. The next day, together with the other recovering patients, Linda and Carole spent their time recuperating in the garden of their hotel. “We all looked like something from a horror movie, all bloody and bruised and bandaged but still feeling good!” Day after day, Carole would look in the mirror in wonder and feel as if an entirely different person was staring back at her – a far better one – as part of her surgery involved plumping up the sagging in her face. “I now had a round face instead of a long one.”
