Dr. Anthony Berlet performed a facelift on his wife, Kerry. Here, they both recount the experience
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)/Woman-Gets-Facelift-from-Doctor-Husband-042726-8a58a3378bb3431993b0bc4212caba9c.jpg "Woman Gets Facelift from Doctor Husband (Exclusive)")
Credit: Kerry Berlet
NEED TO KNOW
- Kerry Berlet, 51, turned to her plastic surgeon husband for her recent facelift
- The New York-based plastic surgeon tells PEOPLE that he’s “proud” of the work he did on his wife
- Kerry shares some of the things she did to help her recover from surgery
When Kerry Berlet decided to get a facelift, there was only one person for the job: her husband.
The 51-year-old, who hosts the podcast Once Upon a Surgery to interview her husband's patients, tells PEOPLE that as she started to really look at herself on camera, she noticed the aging process really taking effect. When she would see her face at rest, she says she just looked "horrible."
She'd already had the conversation with her husband, New York-based plastic surgeon Dr. Anthony Berlet, about a facelift in her future, but up until then, he'd told her it wasn't yet time. But earlier this year, that flip switched, and Kerry says he told her he did see some tweaks he could make.
Credit: Kerry Berlet
Dr. Berlet tells PEOPLE that he'd previously operated on his wife — as well as some other family members — but it was still a big moment when the two decided to do the facelift.
"I don't know if I was ready for it," Dr. Berlet admits. "I've done facelifts on my mother, on my sister. I have a twin brother, and I did his eyes, so it wasn't completely unnatural to be working on a family member. I was talking to somebody [recently], and I was thinking, 'I don't think I really measured the consequences of it not going well.' I don't know if that was my ego or what. She had no question it was going be me."
Dr. Berlet jokes that Kerry put herself on his schedule, and the facelift was officially in the books.
Kerry got a facelift and a lip lift to address the elongation in her philtrum. The plastic surgeon was also careful with Kerry's hairline to ensure that not only did it not change, but that it hid the scars properly. He adds that because she is fair-skinned, her scars were easy to hide.
Her surgery was performed awake while she was on Valium, which gives the surgical team the ability to have her make small adjustments to her head while the procedure is happening. Kerry says she would have to slightly turn her head this way and that to give Dr. Berlet a wider range of motion while operating.
"You're zoned out in a haze," she describes of how it felt to be aware of the surgery.
Kerry's surgery went exactly as planned, and Dr. Berlet tells PEOPLE that her recovery has been better than he could have expected.
"Our classic is you're restaurant ready in two weeks, runway ready in three months," he says of what he tells his patients to expect. "I would dare say she's almost runway-ready now in two and a half weeks. She looks amazing."
As part of her recovery, Kerry has been diligent about aftercare. She says she was "combing" her bruises out with pressure on her skin to try to help circulation, as well as coconut oil on her lips, iced green tea baths and red light therapy. Her healing went so well, though, that she and her husband went to a masquerade party just three days after her surgery. Being able to wear a mask to cover some of the bruising certainly helped disguise the healing process, but she felt confident enough to go.
Credit: Berlet Plastic Surgery
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The hardest part about the recovery, she tells PEOPLE, was having to sleep upright. As a stomach sleeper, that simply wasn't working for her.
"I had one day when I was like, 'I'm just going to sleep,' and I did a face plant, and I was completely swollen," she says of sleeping face down too early in her recovery. "As the day goes on, as you're recovering, and I think you look better and better because as you're upright. I used one of those airplane neck pillows and that helped. But I'm stomach sleeping now, I'm just dealing with it."
Mere weeks after her surgery, Kerry is feeling great about her results — as is Dr. Berlet. As her surgeon, he says he's "proud" of the work he did. "She's super happy and she's showing it. She's telling me every day how happy she is," he says. "She's spending a lot of time in the mirror."
"Day one, I had the most insane looking lips, and that was the one day when I was mad at him," Kerry jokes of how she's feeling about her appearance, adding that her two adult children were also "harsh critics" before she was healed. "But now I'm happy."
As Kerry's husband, Dr. Berlet has different feelings about her results. He says that as a surgeon, he often has to think about what spouses will feel about a patient's result. From that perspective, he was "concerned" she would be a "different woman" in terms of her appearance. But that didn't end up being something he needed to worry about.
"I was walking up our stairs a couple days ago as she was coming down. I just thought, 'Holy cow, I'm not even sure I can look at you,'" he says. "She just looks so ridiculously good. She's definitely walking tall."