By Pramila Tripathi

Copyright inquisitr

Gary, the 70-year-old retiree from Kansas, decided that once he ended his working life, he wanted to close one chapter and begin another. He had long been unhappy with how aging was showing up on his face, and he wanted to look in the mirror and finally love what he saw.

“I was just looking for a little magic in my life and trying to not go into this period of my life kind of dreading it,” Gary tells PEOPLE. “It was like, ‘Oh God, I look so old.’ So I thought if I could turn that around, it would be just a more exciting time for me.”

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Gary spent more than a year researching surgeons before making his decision. He went through reviews, stories from patients, and online results until he found someone he could trust. In the end, he chose St. Louis-based Dr. Mike Nayak of Nayak Plastic Surgery.

The choice wasn’t quick or casual, but Gary says Dr. Nayak was exactly the kind of doctor he had been hoping to find. “Everything they said that was good for a plastic surgeon to do, he was right there,” Gary says.

After waiting a year to get surgery, Gary finally went in for his consultation in March. He already had ideas about what he wanted, but he worked closely with Dr. Nayak to make sure their visions matched.

The plan they agreed on included several procedures all at once. Gary underwent a deep plane facelift, a deep neck lift, a brow lift, a lower blepharoplasty with fat transposition, and a rhinoplasty. His main concern was improving the appearance of his neck, but Dr. Nayak explains why he took a larger approach.

“The neck flows into the lower face, flows into the brow, so we did all that,” he says. Gary did not opt for laser resurfacing, something many patients choose at the end of surgery to improve skin tone, because he preferred to keep his complexion looking natural. “There’s a particular age spot, you can see it traveled three inches,” Dr. Nayak points out, explaining how that marker showed exactly how much skin movement had taken place.

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Gary’s nose turned into one of the most discussed topics in his transformation. For 70 years he had lived with it, but he finally felt ready to make a change. “Enough,” he told Dr. Nayak, making it clear he wanted to revise his nose along with his other procedures.

The surgeon agreed but avoided making it look unnatural. “His nose is bigger, and I kept it that way,” Dr. Nayak says. “He would not have been the guy to go swing for the fences and turn out this little tiny nose on a 70-year-old guy that’s 6 feet tall, it wouldn’t fit.”

When Dr. Nayak posted Gary’s results online, many commenters said his nose still looked large, but both men defended the choice. “It’s not droopy and hooky anymore, and I can say that because I have a droopy hooky nose,” Dr. Nayak explains. “It’s a proud, masculine, appropriate nose on his frame.”

Recovery went smoothly, and Gary left St. Louis after the required 10-day stay. Like most plastic surgery patients, he looked bruised and swollen in the beginning. “I looked a little beat up,” he admits. But he says everything healed right on schedule. By one month, he was already comfortable enough to leave the house, even though swelling was still noticeable.

“Two months later, no one could really tell much. I still had a lot of swelling, most of mine was really in my upper face and around my eyes. Then just gradually over the months, it would go away,” Gary explains.

Around five months after surgery, he was very happy with the results, though he noted that healing and subtle improvements would probably continue over a full year. “I’m still healing, so I’m really happy with the way it looks, but I think it continues to improve for probably a year.”

With time, Gary’s confidence grew. For years, he disliked how he appeared on video calls. That insecurity is now gone. In fact, his transformation even brought new attention that made him blush. “I liked some of the women’s comments about how I look, and I was like, ‘Whoa, really? Thank you,’” he says.

Dr. Nayak noticed the same reaction online when he shared Gary’s photos, with followers quick to celebrate how youthful and fresh his patient appeared.

For Gary, though, what matters more than the compliments is how he feels about himself. In his own words, he has indeed found the magic that he had been looking for.