mother who kept her £20,000 facelift secret
(then unveiled it at her daughter’s wedding)
largest residential clinic for children with eating disorders.
During her 20 years at its helm, the London clinic became worldrenowned, with Dee acclaimed as a leading expert in the field, juggling her duties there with those as mother to Joanna, now 34, Dom, 32, Katie, 30, Amy, 28 and Alex, 23.
She retired two years ago, and finally had the time to contemplate the cosmetic surgery she had hankered after since noticing a change in her appearance three years before that.
Dee says: ‘I was confident about my looks when I was younger. I wasn’t a great beauty, but I always thought that when I put my make-up on to go out, I looked really good.
‘I didn’t realise how much I cared about my appearance until I was 62. Before that, everyone thought I was much younger, but suddenly I found that when I told people my age they were no longer saying: “Wow, I’d never have guessed”.
‘Before I knew it, I had deep lines stretching from the corners of my mouth to my chin, bags under my eyes and a saggy neck.’
she adds: ‘My husband is very good-looking, rugged and youthful — he looks 15 years younger than he is. I didn’t want people to think he was my toyboy.
‘I hated photographs of myself and I found it excruciating to go to the hairdresser and sit in front of a mirror for a couple of hours. I kept catching a glimpse of the skin under my chin as it reflected in the screen of my iPad, and it horrified me.’
If she needed a nudge to go ahead with her plan, it came in the form of a special family occasion. Katie was getting married on September 6 with a reception at the family home in Totteridge, so Dee decided to have the surgery in May, giving her plenty of time to recover and unveil her new look on the big day.
She had visited a clinic to inquire about fillers, but had been told they wouldn’t erase the lines down each side of her mouth. The doctor said only a full facelift could give her the effect she wanted.
‘I thought it would be nice to look back on the pictures and think I looked all right, instead of cringing every time a photographer came near me,’ she says.
Dee decided on Dr Julian De Silva, a top cosmetic surgeon based in harley Street ( london facial plastic surgery.
co. uk) who uses small incisions for subtle results and fast recovery.
he described the procedures he believed she needed, suggesting a neck, face and eye lift, involving subtly removing excess, saggy skin. he also suggested laser resurfacing and a fat transfer from her stomach to her face to smooth and plump out her skin where it had lost volume through ageing. Satisfied, she booked her surgery. It might be assumed that Dee felt guilty keeping the secret from her family, but she believed she was acting in their interests. ‘I knew I was doing the right thing in not telling them,’ she says. ‘I knew exactly what they’d say — they’d tell me they were scared it would go wrong and I’d look terrible. But I knew it would be fine.’
As the date of her surgery approached, she knew she had to tell her husband, not least because she would need someone to take care of her after the lengthy operation. With just days to go, she sat him down and broke the news.
eberhard says: ‘ When she told me, I wasn’t happy at all. I told her I didn’t want her looking like Frankenstein’s monster with scars all over the place. But I wasn’t upset about her deception. I just found it funny that she had gone to all that effort not to be found out. ‘I was worried she might spoil her face, which I loved. I didn’t mind her lines. But her mind was made up. She made me promise I wouldn’t tell anybody else. Reluctantly, I agreed.’
The operation on May 16 was a success. But if Dee had been hoping to recuperate in peace before her children found out, that was shattered when daughter Alex called her while she was still in hospital and about to go home.
‘ We had a quick chat, and I thought, “There’s something wrong with her”,’ says Alex, an account manager in the City. ‘She didn’t say anything about where she was, but she sounded very odd; flat and sad.
‘I decided to visit her straight away. When I arrived, I found her upstairs in her bedroom. The lights were dimmed and she was sitting up in bed with an enormous bandage wrapped around her head. She looked absolutely awful and she couldn’t open her eyes properly.
‘It was a huge shock, but after a few seconds I realised she’d had a facelift, not a car accident. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t told us. I thought we’d at least get advance warning if she ever did anything like that. I was quite upset — but then I couldn’t help laughing because she looked so ridiculous.
‘She said she was sorry, but I could tell she was really pleased with herself for pulling it off.’
Alex called her siblings to tell them the news, and one by one they rang Dee. ‘They all said: “What have you done to yourself?” and that I was very silly,’ says Dee. ‘I didn’t care, because I’d done what I wanted.’
When Katie, an advertising project manager, heard, she was on the way to the airport to spend a month working in the U.S. ‘I didn’t like the idea at all, because I thought she looked lovely as she was and feared she’d look weird and different at my wedding,’ she says. ‘I was angry that Mum hadn’t told me.
‘I thought she’d had the facelift for my wedding, but I knew it would be because she was worried about the photos, rather than because she wanted to upstage me.’
After only a couple of weeks, the swelling on Dee’s face had reduced and she and her family could see the results. ‘ I was absolutely thrilled,’ she says. ‘My face looked so much less lined and tired, and I definitely looked younger.
‘As it healed, the scars disappeared. The main ones are in my hairline behind my ears and under my chin, and the tiny ones on my eyelids have gone. The girls were relieved when they saw the results and realised I hadn’t turned into the Bride of Wildenstein.’
Katie's wedding to fellow advertising project manager Jack Bailey, 30, provided the perfect opportunity for Dee to show off her new face.
‘My best friend, hilary, told me I looked fantastic, so I came clean and told her I’d had a facelift.
‘She said she’d never have guessed. Within half an hour, word got around and lots of people were complimenting me and asking to see my scars. everyone said it looked natural and that I looked rested but not “done”. It became the talk of the wedding.
‘The day after, I was in a local shop and a man in the queue told me I looked tired. I explained I’d been up until the early hours because it was my daughter’s wedding, and he said: “You don’t look old enough to have a daughter who’s married”. I was thrilled.’
And Dee now says she has no regrets about keeping such a drastic procedure secret. ‘It was worth it, because I didn’t give my family the chance to worry or try to change my mind. And they all think I look great now,’ she says.
‘I didn’t want to give up on my appearance just because I’m retired. I care about the face I present to the world, and I’m so much happier with it now.’
For the sake of her family’s nerves, one hopes that she stays satisfied with her new appearance.