Concern has arisen surrounding the facelift surgery of an Australian woman after videos surfaced depicting her face covered in extensive bruises and her eyelids swollen shut.
Her son, Garett Howley, shared the videos chronicling their journey from Perth, Australia, to Istanbul, Turkey, where she underwent a facelift and he received a hair transplant.
Garett informed his followers that his mother had chosen to have a deep plane face and neck lift, upper and lower eyelid surgery, lip lifting, and a temporal lift in preparation for her 58th birthday.
The pair decided to fly to Turkey, now one of the world’s most prominent medical tourism destinations, for her surgeries as well as Garrett’s hair transplant.
One of Garrett’s TikTok clips, which has racked up 2.9 million views at the time of writing, showed his mother starting to move around the hospital with the help of her son and a night nurse after the intense, six-hour procedure that cost £5,500.
TikTok users were left shocked by her appearance in the video, as they noticed the extreme swelling and bruising around her eyes and mouth that some felt wasn’t typical of a facelift procedure.
‘I’m a little concerned because this seems like much more bruising than normal with a facelift,’ one person wrote in the comments section.
Another said: ‘Oooh that looks so painful i hope they gave her some good painkillers.’
‘Is she still alive?!??’ a third wrote. ‘No I’m not kidding that’s scary as…’
After confirming his mother was recovering quite nicely, Garett also defended her decision to get the facelift after some people suggested ‘aging is a privilege’ in the comments section.
A deep plane facelift can help counteract the signs of ageing by lifting the entire face.
During the procedure, incisions are made in the scalp to lift the forehead, eyelids to lift the eyes and cheeks and in the mouth to lift the face.
Through these incisions, the skin is lifted along with its accompanying layers of fat, the excess is trimmed off (or in some cases folded) and the incisions stitched back together.
Because the whole depth of skin is being moved upwards, there can be a more dramatic effect on appearance than with other face-lifts where only the top layer of skin is moved, or where the skin is redraped over altered underlying contours.
After the video went viral on TikTok, Garett’s mother responded to a follower’s request for an update as she confirmed ‘I can see out of my eyes’ in a subsequent clip.
The short video showed her brushing her wet hair after the bandages on her head had been removed and doctors gave her the go-ahead for an unassisted shower that she described as ‘awesome’.
Several people remarked she still looked like she was in ‘pain’.
‘The recovery looks horrendous, cannot imagine the pain, but I know once she is all healed, she will be looking fabulous,’ one TikTok user said.
‘No I love the idea of a facelift when I’m older but the recovery process worries me! This must be so uncomfortable and painful?
‘Does it hurt to speak? Eat?’ another asked.
Garett replied that his mother was being able to speak and drink soup, but ‘struggling to chew’ on the second day post-op.
In response to a user that said Garett’s videos would ‘turn anyone off about having cosmetic surgery’, he noted that the ‘comments say otherwise’ referring to queries about the cost of her surgery as well as questions about the hospital and staff.
The duo later posted a breakdown of the cost of their respective procedures on TikTok on the fourth day after the facelift, as Garett’s mother confirmed she was feeling ‘good’.
The swelling under her eyes had subsided and her bandages appeared to have been removed in the clip.
Garett said the upper and lower eyelid surgery, which involved cutting away the excess skin around her eyes, as well as the deep plane face, neck, and temporal lift, and lip lift set them back by around £5,500 (€6,500).
That included the airport pick-ups and drop-off, two nights’ stay in the hospital, food in the hospital, and five nights in a hotel after they were discharged.
The cost also covered the fees of an interpreter.
Charges that were not included was the price of medical insurance, airfares, and visa fees, as well as any food and drink outside the hospital.
In total, they spent around £6,824 (AUD12,000) on his mother’s surgeries that they ‘wouldn’t have been able to afford’ back home in Perth.
Reacting to her appearance, some TikTokers said the procedure had ‘easily taken 20 years off of her’ while other praised Garett as a ‘wonderful son’ for ‘supporting’ his mother throughout the process.
