I’m sitting by my dad’s bed as I write this, conscious that it’s the last few days of his fight with cancer, and I feel so immensely grateful to have this time with him. As some who have lost a parent might relate, it’s a strangely peaceful yet emotional time – lots of tears and laughter, and telling all the old stories all over again, reliving memories of a life well-spent.
My dad has been a grounding influence for both me and the clinics since coming on as an external director over ten years ago, and even though he is not yet gone, I already feel my loss. The business is in a great position under Nicci’s leadership and will continue to develop, grow and succeed, but I look back with gratitude and admiration on the pandemic times, when dad, Dee, our accountant and I would have ‘war meetings’ at all times of the day and night, on how we would navigate the turbulent times ahead. Dad has a wealth of knowledge from both local body and national politics, sitting on boards and running his own businesses, and often came up with perspectives I hadn’t considered. We didn’t always agree – in fact, when I first spoke to him about opening the clinic in Britomart, he hung the phone up on me! But I always knew he had my back.
My brother Jamie and I have been up in Russell for the last couple of weeks to have time with dad, and since the decision to stop active treatment, we have essentially been looking after him 24/7, with the amazing hospice service just a call away to help out with any concerns or questions.
I had a wonderful short break away from dad’s bedside in Sydney a couple of weekends ago, with the invitation-only Allergan AMAC conference I attended with Marj, Sanja, Queza and Hannah. I was so proud of our amazing team, and with five of us attending, we had one of the biggest groups invited from a single business. I’m also super-proud to be on the Allergan Training Faculty, as AMAC opened important conversations about diversity, inclusiveness and aesth-ethics (the ethical and conscious approach to aesthetic injecting). I love the term aest-ethics, and have always tried to work to the highest ethical standards for our industry. Hence our longer consultation and treatment times, comprehensive education process, and empowerment of our team to say ‘no’ if a treatment is not likely to be appropriate or give a great result for you. Trust and respect are at the core of our culture – hence our tagline ‘Cosmedicine With Integrity’. You can read more about our experiences at AMAC and what the team took away from the conference in the newsletter!
We also love to hear what’s most important to you, hence our comprehensive Annual Survey which you should have received recently. If you’ve already completed this, a huge ‘thank you’, as it guides how to help us help you more effectively. If you haven’t yet had the chance, we’d really love to hear from you, so please send us your opinions, we really value what you say, and would love your help to shape our clinics moving forward. You can have your say by Completing Our Survey.
While the survey helps us moving forward, we’ve been celebrating looking back at 21 years in business with an incredible prize pack! A massive congratulations to our lucky winner Georgina (drawn at random) who takes home a windfall of goodies including:
- 1x $500 The Face Place Credit
- 1x night accommodation for 2 adults at The Hotel Britomart with breakfast included (valued at $550)
- 1x $150 Food and Beverage Voucher for either Café Hanoi or Ghost Street
- 1x $50 Giapo ice cream voucher
- 1x Missy Mini vibrator from Girls Get Off (valued at $129)
- Grow Younger and More Beautiful as You Age book by Dr Catherine Stone (valued at $39.95)
- Grow Younger with Great Food book by Dr Catherine Stone and Jessica Giljam-Brown (valued at $39.95)
- Skincare Package from Advanced Skin Technology (valued at $653)
Thank you to all of you who have supported us over our 21 years of business, we could not do it without you!
Last month we were invited to be a part of Beauty EQ‘s Long Lunch, an exclusive beauty-focused event curated by top beauty editor, Trudi Brewer. Trudi is a stalwart of the beauty industry and was highly involved with us our growing media presence when I first started TFP over 20 years ago, helping us educate people on BotoxⓇ and fillers in a time when they were little known and often misunderstood. Our wonderful nursing team leader Queza demonstrated a Vampire Facelift – which uses a combination of subtle HA filler and PRP to gently enhance the shape, contour and ‘lift’ of the face – on our fabulous model Luella. It was a great opportunity to raise awareness and understanding not only of the Vampire Facelift, but also the other uses of PRP for hair loss, scarring, skin texture and sexual rejuvenation.
Over the last month, we’ve again been highly involved in training. I ran our hugely popular full-day Hyalase Workshop, teaching injectors how to use the enzyme that dissolves HA fillers. We again got 10/10 from every attendee, as we have small group practical training where they learn how to dilute the Hyalase, how to do a patch test, education and consent, and protocols for emergency uses along with everyday uses such as for lumps and dissolving unwanted filler. As always, the most popular part of the day was the role play for the extremely rare but serious side effect of filler-related blindness. In the same way we get our CPR certification every 2 years to learn how to manage a cardiac arrest (which I’ve never seen outside the hospital), we believe in being prepared with how to manage filler-related blindness, so in the very rare instance that it does occur, those who have done the training have at least run through the protocols so they feel confident they are following the latest protocols correctly.
On October 17th are holding our Profhilo Workshop, training the industry in how to use the injectable skin moisturiser, Profhilo. The morning half of the workshop is focused on using Profhilo in the face, neck and chest, while the afternoon focuses on using Profhilo in the body. Our last Profhilo workshop was fully booked and had massive positive feedback. You can read more about Profhilo or if you are a cosmetic injector looking for training in this exciting new-ish treatment, you can register for the workshop.
We are delighted to announce that we will have a new skin therapist starting at Takapuna very soon… watch this space for more details!
It’s wonderfully freeing that the government mandates have been lifted and we can go back to seeing your beautiful faces as you walk through the door, however, if you feel more comfortable wearing a mask, please feel free to continue to do so. We will continue with precautions such as our antiviral/antibacterial white coats for clinicians and the anti-viral air filtration system, as we continue to protect and support both our team and patients.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, which as you can imagine, is very relevant for me. It’s almost exactly a year since I was diagnosed with a breast cancer recurrence, and 2 years, 9 months since the first diagnosis. What only a few select people know is that I had another scare in the last few weeks. Fortunately, the biopsy came back last Friday as benign fibroadipose tissue, but negative for cancer! 😅
We know that 1 in 8 women will experience breast cancer, and we already have many breast cancer survivors as patients. This is a month to celebrate the survivors, honour those who did not survive (like my dear friend Helena McAlpine) and educate both men and women about how to check for breast cancer. Yes, you heard correctly, men can get breast cancer too! Our GM Nicci is very aware of this as both her husband and his father have had breast cancer. It’s important to check your breasts regularly so you know what they feel like and when they change – I’ve found the lump every time and felt when it changed, which has meant I have managed to catch the cancer at an early stage each time. If you haven’t checked your breasts recently, or are not sure how to do it, here is a great resource from the Breast Cancer Foundation to Check Your Breasts.
We will be donating a portion of money from every appointment in October to the Breast Cancer Foundation NZ and the TFP team will be recognising Breast Cancer month with a ‘Pink Week’ from 24-30 October whereby they’ll be wearing pink, share a pink morning tea and will have some pink treats available in clinic for our clients to enjoy. If you feel called, you can donate to the cause via our fundraiser page – The Face Place – Breast Cancer Fundraiser 2022.
The Breast Cancer Foundation NZ has a huge positive impact on women and men with breast cancer, including three free counselling sessions that can be used at any stage of the journey, which I personally found incredibly helpful. The Breast Cancer Foundation are also key advocates for breast cancer awareness, education and screening, and help to organise many of the pink ribbon events you’ll see this month. Please have a great Breast Cancer Awareness Month for October, and remember to check your boobies!
Love and hugs,
Dr Cat 😻
