So I arrived in Korea on the 1st of May, and that same day, at 2 PM, I underwent my one calf revision. There was another girl that had also gotten calves reduction surgery at 10 AM, that's why I got it in the afternoon. I had worn compression stockings on the plane, so my feet and calves didn't swell up so much.
Op day - I have the surgery done with sedation and local anaesthesia, as opposed to sedation and spinal anesthesia for my first surgery. Dr. Park tells me he took out more muscle than he expected, so I already know that the recovery will be not be as easy as other people who only had minor irregularities corrected. I wake up and I'm super cold, I don't know why because I thought that was a side effect of the spinal anesthesia. I get up to go to the bathroom and I think I fainted on the sofa. Back to bed. I try to get up again, and I'm able to go to the bathroom and painfully limp around. It turns out I'm bleeding from the scar, so they put bandages all over my scar and I get told not to stretch. My foot is swollen and that the absolute worst so far. I get discharged at 6 PM and get a taxi to my hotel. I can't sleep because of the jet lag, which sucks, but the pain is not too bad. 3/10. Worst part is having to sleep on my back, which makes my back hurt and I end up trying to sleep in weird positions which make my back hurt more.
Day 1 - I nearly faint when I go to get breakfast at the hotel. I'm super dizzy and my vision gets blurred. Dr. Park did tell me I had lost quite a lot of blood. It's hard to walk because I'm not stretching. I have my appointment at the clinic, they change my bandages, and ask me to stretch. I begin to bleed again, so they change my bandages again, and I again have a lot of padding under my knee which makes stretching hard. Walking is still hard and I'm jet lagged so I can't sleep. My foot is swollen and tingly and I hate that.
Day 2 - I get up from bed just as I did on Day 1, hopping on my good leg, the one that hasn't undergone revision, until I'm able to stretch and then walking becomes a little bit easier. I'm still limping. My foot is so swollen that I can barely fit in my sneakers which previously were at least half a size too big. Dr. Park says that it's in fact, not that swollen. They change my bandages and finally, I'm not bleeding from my incision anymore, so I'm finally allowed to shower. I spend all day laying in bed with my foot up, too afraid that if I walk my foot will swell up even more.
Day 3 - Today it's Thursday and the clinic is closed. Tomorrow is Children's Day and it's also closed Now that I don't have padding under my knee, stretching is much easier. I mainly walk around my hotel room, as I'm staying in a place that has very steep slopes. I sleep during the day, and in the evening I try to go eat dinner. There are no taxis available, so I just go to the nearest convenience store and I order Shuttle Delivery to my hotel. My foot is more swollen after walking to the convenience store.
The hardest part about walking is strange, because it's, in fact, not walking. I walk with my surgery leg just fine. The problem is when I move my good leg, that my surgery leg doesn't seem to provide enough stability to sustain my weight. So I take my longest steps with my surgery leg, and my shortest with my good leg, which is in fact, the opposite of what I expected.
Stretching is a lot easier than I remembered it was the previous time. I also think I'm less bruised, perhaps because I was bleeding throughout the incision for two days.
I'm very thankful to Dr. Park for doing this revision free of charge. In my experience, most doctors gaslight you if there's any trouble after surgery, don't want to take accountability and pretend everything is fine so they don't have to do surgery again. Dr. Park immediately told me there was an asymmetry and would perform a free of charge revision if I ever came back to Korea.
I wanted to undergo fat grafting to my face, but since the recovery has been harder than I expected, I decided not to. I'm leaving Korea on Sunday, so on Saturday I'll be having my next and final check up at the clinic. The only thing that worries me is if I'll be able to do the aspirations at home, because last time I had a LOT of fluid in my legs. Hopefully my family doctor or nurses will agree to do the aspirations. Well, the 20 hour flight also worries me, because I don't know if I'll be able to stretch, and with my legs not up, my foot will swell up a lot. I plan to wear compression stockings instead of bandages on the flight to minimize my foot swelling up.
I'll be leaving on day 6 post op, which the earliest I have seen anybody leave Korea after this surgery, but it's the second time I'm going through this plus I only had revision on one leg so hopefully I'll be fine. Certainly I feel like recovery is being easier this time, but I don't know if it's because only of my legs underwent surgery or because my body is already used to the trauma and I already know what to expect or because I had less muscle taken out (even though Dr. Park told me he took out a lot).
I don't know why there's no movement anymore on this thread. I had the surgery on August 2021 but I underwent too many surgeries too close together in time so I couldn't be bothered to write my experience.
I don't think scar placements is super important long term, but after 1 year and 9 months, my scars had just faded in my left leg and almost faded in my right one. So until then, depending on how long it takes for your scars to stop being red or purple and become white, it could be pretty rough.
As far as I know, there are four doctors that perform the surgery worldwide, and Dr. Park is the one with the most experience and which leaves less scars. Dr. Liu's prices seem totally outrageous to me, but it's LA. Still, I had a surgeon in my country who performed the surgery and I still decided to come to Korea, because that surgeon lacked experience enough and also the placement of the scars is not very good.
