As her 69th birthday draws near, Linda Truesdale is feeling more confident and has a new look thanks to a gift from her son, board-certified plastic surgeon Dr. Carl Truesdale.
Linda told People that she had been asking her son for years if she needed a facelift and was always told, “Mom, you don’t need anything.”
But after losing weight, moving across the country, and generally reaching a point in her life when she ultimately made the decision to “cut the cord to a lot of unnecessary things,” Linda considered having surgery again.
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She recounted, “Carl was like, ‘Well, mom, you think you’re ready?’ and at first I said, ‘Yeah, but let’s just kind of take baby steps’.” That’s how her two-part transformation journey began.
The mom’s goal was to adjust the changes that had developed in her face because of her age. Linda didn’t want to look totally different, even though Carl, who is popular in the industry and online for his age-reversing effects, promised to make his mother look as young as the day he was born.
According to her, she was 31 years old when she gave birth to her son. She thought it would be better if she looked 40.
So, at 68, she had her first surgery, a lip lift combined with an upper eyelid lift (also known as a blepharoplasty). She was conscious throughout the two-hour procedure, but under a numbing local anesthesia.
“I’m the type of person that wants to see it,” she explained.
Linda recovered from the surgeries almost completely, but she did have some minor issues after failing to follow the “doctor’s orders,” which included avoiding salt and keeping her head elevated.
“One night I ate half a bag of kettle-cooked potato chips and I went to pick up something off the floor,” she explained, describing how she developed post-operative swelling. However, she was back to normal within approximately two weeks, and that was about the only issue she faced.
She waited for almost four months before having a deep-plane facelift to correct her “drooping” neck, jowls, and chin line. Linda’s surgery was done in seven hours (she was not awake this time around, though she wished she had been), and there were few difficulties.
She said, “I really expected more pain. There was just one area near my hairline where he did the upper brow lift that was tender. It felt like when you get your hair braided or get a weave, and they pulled too tight.”
She declared, “If he could do any kind of surgery on me that I needed, I would go to Carl,” joking that she would get her hips done by Carl if she could.
However, she admitted that the night before the surgery, she felt a bit anxious: “I’m thinking, okay, we’re getting ready to do this thing; what if something happens to me? How is my son going to survive that? So I had some sleepless hours the night before, and just prayed about it. But, I believed that he could do this.”
Carl, on the other hand, said, “Of course, every patient matters deeply to me, but there’s something unique about operating on your own mother. As I worked, I kept thinking, ‘This is the person who gave me life,’ and I found myself wondering if my anatomy mirrors hers. That said, I followed the same protocols I do for all my patients. The only difference? Instead of going home to recover, she healed in my back house — with her son checking in on her every step of the way.”
He shared the video of her transformation on TikTok, and it has received over 78,000 likes.
One comment read, “She already couldn’t brag about her doctor son enough, now she ain’t gonna ever hush up. Big ups to you bro. What a beautiful moment with your mom and great marketing tool for your business.” Another wrote, “What a beautiful lady. It’s not looking young but healthy, clean, confident… she looks AMAZING. I wonder how old is the lady? Beautiful!”
Linda is now filled with enthusiasm as she looks forward to the future.
She remarked, “I feel better when I look in the mirror. I was at Lowe’s the other day, and this woman walked up to me and said, ‘Oh my God, you have absolutely beautiful skin. What do you do?’ It’s just good to be able to make people feel good when they see you.”
Carl usually charges $60,000-$120,000 for full facial rejuvenations, but his mother’s procedures were 100 percent free. “What I paid was giving birth to Carl,”‘ Linda said with a laugh. “That was a gift to mom.”
“How do you charge the woman who gave you life?” Carl added.
