Crowd Control

When I started writing this blog post last week, I was going to title it "Crazy Thoughts, Part III," continuing my theme of batty things that I actually think and worry about. Over the weekend, though, I've changed my mind and decided that being worried about OTHER crazy/klutzy people isn't an irrational fear.

I think I've established on this blog that I'm really clumsy. I'm off in my own little world, contemplating the universe or at least thinking about what I'm going to eat for lunch, and I ignore tables, doors, glass walls, other people and bang into them. Since my nose job, though, I've been wary of everything that might pose a threat to the schnoz. For instance, I give wide berth to people who flail their limbs about when they talk. I take the outside when going around corners so I can get the best line-of-sight and don't run into someone head-on. I stand to the side of doors when I'm opening them, lest someone come barging out, flinging the door open.

After I mastered that anxiety, THEN I started worrying about people on the street. What if a crazy homeless person comes wielding a 2x4 down King Street (yes, walking by a homeless person AND a construction site at the same time puts these ideas in your head). It would be terrifying and painful to be whacked with a 2x4, I'd think, under the best circumstances, but when your nose aches just because you've scratched it, pain derived from getting walloped with lumber seems up there with pain you'd get from ticking off the Borgias.

What a weirdo I am, I mused! Who worries about being whacked with a tire iron walking past Banana Republic here in yuppie haven?

In case you don't live here, here's a photo of my dangerous 'hood. Yes, those are topiaries. That's how we roll.

Then, over the weekend, I ended up at at bar in Georgetown, which I will just call Mr. Smith's Ninth Edition of Hell's Tavern. The bar was crowded and masses of drunk people were flailing around to 80s music. I set my drink down and someone promptly spilled it for me. I surveyed the clientele. I'm worried about off-kilter homeless people storming the Chipotle and I get myself into this place? I decided I had to leave immediately. This was easier said than done. Grabbing my now-empty plastic drink cup, I pretended like I was taking a long drink, covering my nose, and waded through the dance floor. Who cares if you look like a spaz, no one else's nose is held together by mush.

Anyhow, so I've voluntarily commited myself to near-hermit status--except for Bachelors' and Spinsters' Ball, which I've already paid for--for the next few weeks until my nose heals. I planned on going to look at the cherry blossoms today, but look at these people! One's about to point at that building in the distance and say, "Oh, Margie, LOOK!!! It's the Lincoln Memorial*!" and guess who's going to take a chubby knuckle to the face? And see these brats over here on the left--they're pulling down on that branch and won't they get a big laugh when it whips me square across the nose?

*Yes, I know that is the Jefferson Memorial. It's a tourist joke. It's actually funnier if you've ever given tours of the U.S. Capitol Building for a living and had people ask you where the president sleeps.

Here are today's photo of me, at home, being boring. STILL with the eye hemorrage! When will that ever go away???

Something and Nothing

Ok, so I can't think of anything at all interesting to write that doesn't involve research and a dissertation, which I'm far too tired to begin at this point. I came home from work, washed my face and took these pictures.

I'm really excited because my bruises are going away--nearly gone now--and my other eye is thinking about healing. Here's a weird bad thing, though--on the right side of my face, under my eye and not quite on my cheek, there's a hard spot that almost feels like bone. Of course, I've convinced myself that this is a spot of my nose that my plastic surgeon just forgot about, but I think it is entirely normal to have hard spots while you are healing.

I have my next appointment with Doc on Monday, so I'll be sure to find out then.

Good night!

Ask a Rhinoplasty Patient

I've decided to publish the questions I get from folks where the answers would be helpful.

Dear Rhinoplasty Patient,

Can you get your nose wet now?

Yes! Now that the splint is off, I'm free to wash my nose and take a shower without worrying about it. My nose is still very delicate, though, so washing my face isn't the slapdash process it once was. The bruise makeup is heavy-duty stuff, so I VERY carefully rub my face with cold cream. I've actually found it's easier to move my head around while my hands stay stationary to avoid pressing on my nose too much. Then I VERY carefully take it off with a soft washcloth and then wash with my normal cleanser in much the same process. You can't just splash water on your face to rinse everything off because you invariably end up hitting your nose and that HURTS.

One other thing: because I'm a bad person who hates the Earth and will eventually be tried before the Hague for crimes against the environment, I have a special high-pressure shower head that I take when I move from apartment to apartment. I also removed the water regulator from it (stick it, Energy Policy Act!) Friends who come to visit say they feel like they're being blasted against the back of the shower. I like it this way. The water stream doesn't actually hurt my nose, but I read over at the MakeMeHeal.com message boards that you shouldn't have the shower hitting your nose directly, so I do try to keep my nose on the outer edge of the water, where the the PSI is weaker.

Dear Rhinoplasty Patient,

Criminy! Did they make your nose BIGGER?

No, wise guy. Here's the deal: most people have bad hair days, I'm going to have bad nose days now for up to a year. The bone structure heals in 4-6 weeks, but the cartilage part is going to take much longer. Some days my nose will be crooked. If I sleep on my side, that side might be more swollen than the other. If I bend down to pick something up off the ground or slouch over my computer, I feel pressure going straight to my nose, so I try to keep my head up all the time. It will get smaller--Patience!

Sheesh! My passport photos are cheerier. I'll try to smile next time. My bruises are fading, slowly but surely, and one of my broken blood vessels has nearly healed! Here are a few pictures of me--yesterday (left) and today, first thing in the morning...Not a lot of obvious progress, but there are subtle changes each day.

Put On a Little Makeup, Makeup, Be Sure To Show Your Good Side, Good Side

Any men reading this probably want to skip to another post or go back to watching the game. This evening's post has to do with makeup.

If you have a nose job and your bruises are anything like mine, they're...arresting. You'll be stared at and not in a good way. Assuming you don't want people to think your boyfriend beats you or you find an awful lot of doors to walk into, you need to cover that up. As I said before, I bought Couvrance makeup, which is supposed to be designed to cover bruises, rosacea, varicose veins, unfortunate birthmarks and the like. I gave this the full test today getting ready for work.

OK, here I am with freshly washed skin, bruises in the raw. Sorry about the rollers; I don't have all the time in the world here, so I have to multitask.

A quick note: the nurse tried to get most of the tape residue off my skin, but there's still some there. The pores are also a little bumpy. Normally, I sandblast my skin with some St. Ives apricot scrub, but because it's so sensitive, you can't give it a good working over.

I dabbed the yellow corrective concealer over the bruises. You can still see some of the bruise underneath, though, even before I blended it in. Disappointing.

Here it is, blended in. Hmm...this is no good.

Added a layer of Couvrance foundation creme with the sponge. It doesn't really blend all that well. You can't see it from here, but I look a bit like someone's grandma who can't see well enough to blend her makeup. Compounding the problem is that I can't really press on my skin to blend it. Also, from the pictures, it looks like the shade is a bit too light for my skin tone. I bought shade 2/natural.

To Hell with the sponge. Just get in there and get some on your fingers, get a trowel if you have to, and slap it on like a Texas housewife! It's still not great, I can still see some blue under the makeup, but it'll have to do. And it's cakey.

Now I have to do something about the eyes. Here are my eyelids in their natural state. Shari joked that she thought it was my color.

I used L'Oreal HIP Cream Shadow Paint in Nervy. This is more drama than I usually go for for daytime, but the usual stuff isn't going to cut it. I think they carry a nude shade. This covered the bruises--my eyelids looked completely normal. Incidentally, I really like this eye shadow in general: it doesn't crease and wear off in an hour like some cream eye shadows.

Add some mascara, some blush, take out the rollers (I really don't know what's going on with my hair here; where is Simon, the god of hairdos?) and I almost look normal! Still puffy, still piggy, still with bright red blood vessels in my eyes, but the show must go on.

Here's a better profile shot of me, as promised. The bridge of my nose, though inflated, is SO MUCH SMALLER. I stop myself when I glance in the mirror at an angle, astonished because my huge nose isn't covering up my eye and cheek. This might not make sense, but perspective-wise, with a big part of my nose out of the way, things look different.

Here's another profile shot. You can see the part between my eyes where my nose meets my forehead is REALLY swollen. It HURTS, too.

Here's a random aside about oddball things you notice post-surgery. I have the world's largest pores. Huge. They're like craters the size of your local swimming hole. Ok, so they aren't pockmarks or anything, but some of my pores are especially notable. I used to have one kind of up towards my eye on the right side of my nose and another down by the tip, also on the right side. Whenever I was over the airline luggage weight limit, I could fit a pair of shoes in there, maybe a bottle of chianti. Anyway, they have now repositioned themselves. The one that was near my eye is now smack in the middle of the bridge and the one that was down by the tip is completely MIA.

The nose feels pretty good today, overall. It feels a bit tight, so I can't grin with abandon because the tip starts to pull and my cheeks just...stop. It's hard to explain. I think this is from the swelling and will go away. It's a little uncomfortable, but it doesn't nag on me.

The Unveiling!

Usually after you see people after a makeover on TV, they look a bit better, no? Here I am at Doc's office just after getting my splint off. Getting the splint off hurt a bit, it's velcroed to your face, so there was a lot of pulling. I expected that I might feel some relief from the pressure on my nose that I've felt all week, but I didn't get it. My nose still feels kinda stiff and it's going to be more swollen as the day goes on.

One of the nurses cleaned up my nose and gave me a mirror. I looked at her and said, "I look kinda piggy," and she laughed and said "it's from the tape holding the tip up. 100% of patients look piggy when they have the splint taken off, and it goes away in 100% of the patients."

I still have a lot of blood in my nose and the nurse said to be really careful and not blow my nose or anything because of all the sutures in there. I'm also still very swollen in spots and my nose is senstive, except the right side is a little numb.

Ah well, I'm going to take a shower and wash my own hair for the first time in over a week, put some makeup on and maybe take some more pictures for you. Sorry the profile shot is off-center--it's really hard to take your own profile photo.

Happy Easter!

Ahhhh!!! Big miracles, little miracles today. Although I didn't rise from the dead (only seems like it), today is a much better day. I didn't want to scare all my friends at Easter dinner, so I put on some makeup and did my hair and put on proper clothes today. Here's Mom and me (so you can finally see her nose!)--I'm not looking so dead today! My face is less puffy, nose is less piggy, and bruises a little softer (broken blood vessels still there, though).

Nearly everyone at dinner is a blog reader or has been by to visit already, and they all thought I looked A LOT better than the other pictures through the week. I'm looking at the picture of me smiling--hoorah! My lip doesn't curl under like I should be gumming my food! I didn't tell you folks, it was really a minor thing, but my upper lip was so swollen, the inside of my lip swelled into the space between my front teeth. I'll square with you--my four front teeth are covered in bonding, so they aren't real, either (yeah, I know, I'm on the road to becoming Joan Rivers), and my dentist was fantastic, so there isn't a lot of space there, but the skin actually managed to get wedged in there. I could actually feel it with my tongue.

Here are some of my dinner guests and blog readers, John, Christina, Shari, my roommate Stacey, and my mom (sorry Liz, Apes, Suhail, and Michael--you could have made the blog if you'd have stayed later!)

So Mom goes back to Florida in the morning, and then the splint comes off at 8:15. Doc is on vacation, so one of his partners will remove it. The weird thing is, I'm not so sure I'm happy to have the splint off--not because I enjoy the attention in restaurants and grocery stores, but because I'm so damned klutzy. I feel like I need a retainer for my nose--maybe a Groucho Marx nose. The other morning, I whacked myself on the tip of the nose while I was still groggy and YEEEEOWWWW did that hurt! I read that the bones aren't really supposed to be solid until about a month after surgery and I'm frightened to death of ending up with a crooked nose from just doing something dumb.

Crazy story: Right before surgery, when Doc came in to talk to Mom and me, Mom asked about the sunglasses prohibition (not wearing sunglasses is anathema to Mom--BIG sunglasses to keep any errant ray of light from inciting a crow's foot). Doc said I could wear the sunglasses in six weeks and if I wore glasses at all, I needed to tape them to my forehead. He had a patient who had had a crooked nose that he fixed who went back to wearing his old glasses, came in a few weeks later, and his nose was crooked again! It turned out that his old glasses were fitted for his crooked nose and had made his nose shift back to the old position! I didn't ask him if he had to get it done over again, sorry.

Anyhow...I've leave you all with some pretty pictures of a really lovely Easter lily that Shari brought for me, and some really astounding roses that John brought--the photos really don't do them justice! Thank you, guys!

Like an Orange on Toothpick

I've been pretty down the last few days and nothing much has happened lately. Yesterday, my face was still feeling pretty huge, and I was feeling a bit like William in So I Married an Axe Murderer.



I've also been worried about how much I don't mind lying in bed with an ice pack over my eyes, listening to Mozart's Requiem in D Minor, which is a bit lachrymose.

I was in danger of becoming Winona Ryder's character from Beetlejuice ("I am alone...[crumble paper] I am utterly alone. My life is a dark room. One big dark room")--some kind of goth emo kid, so I made myself watch Eddie Izzard's Dress to Kill to get cheered up.

Here I am yesterday (left), in the course of doing absolutely nothing except for dealing with some gross peeling on my less-swollen eyelids and blood in my nose that you really don't want to hear about. Breathing through my nose is a bit easier today, but I'm still mainly breathing through my mouth. Since I can't properly blow my nose and I don't want to risk pulling out stitches, I'm still kind of stuffy.

Today was a bit more exciting. Being as how I have a whole bunch of people coming over for Easter, it behooved me to get my hair washed, which hasn't been since Tuesday (completely appalling). Here I am (right) with clean hair at Clyde's, where Mom and I got lunch afterwards. Although I know for a fact that people stare at me (apparently only the Harris Teeter gets regular visits from rhinoplasty patients), I'm pretty convinced that they were sending the entire waitstaff over to our table. I've never had THAT many different people bring food, drinks, a new spoon, etc., to my table. Mom said that they a couple of waiters were talking about cosmetic surgery in the hall when she got up to go to the ladies' room. Really now, people. I worked in a restaurant one summer, I know I can't be the biggest weirdo to come in the joint.

We went to the CVS which happened to be clearing out a brand of cover-up makeup called Couvrance and I bought their yellow concealer stick ($4.50), which is supposed to neutralize the blue tones in bruises, and compact foundation cream ($5.50). I'm not terribly impressed with this makeup--I usually use L'Oreal True Match--and really it didn't do much of a better job than the regular, ordinary L'Oreal foundation and concealer that I already had. Here I am (left) with some makeup on so I didn't look so shocking while we went out for supplies for Easter dinner. I'm not sure if I want to invest in the Dermablend stuff; we'll see how the bruises are by the time I go back to work.

I'm still pretty tired today, but it's getting better, even though I'm still kind of spacey. I was making a pavlova and nearly stuck it in the oven without half the ingredients. I'm not sure I can blame that on the anaesthesia any more.

What's a pavlova, you ask? I'm so glad you did. I'm not sure I can blame my puffiness on swelling so much any more, either. Head! Move!

You Take It on Faith, You Take It to the Heart...

...the waiting is the hardest part.

I feel like I'm taking an awful lot on faith these days, what with the fact that I look like Miss Piggy.

Here I am dressed to go out to the store. No, I'm not wearing that gown to the store, that's me on the right! Mom didn't think I looked too bad today. I asked her, compared to what? To which she replied, "Tuesday." I continue to be astounded at just how humongous my cheeks are and it just feels like my face is never going to get back to normal. And my nose is turned up in a disturbing sort of way, but I just keep thinking to myself--it's just swelling, this isn't how it's always going to look.

I also burst two blood vessels in my eyes--ick. I'm not sure if I just haven't noticed this before since my eyes were nearly swollen shut or if this happened recently. The swelling under my eyes has gone down a lot during the course of the day; it was extra-scary when I got up this morning and my right eye had randomly swelled up.

Other than that, it was pretty uneventful today. Shari called to say that Pommie made it into the "Our Town" local newspaper--he is a finalist in a photo card contest that Hallmark is running (vote for him here)--and yours truly also made it in also as Shari's "friend and fellow Alexandrian" who found him on petfinder.org and suggested she adopt him.

Mom and I did some shopping for Easter dinner...The cashier at Harris Teeter took one look at me and said, "nose job?" As if nose job patients come wandering through there for their organic broccolini and brown rice sushi-to-go all the time (maybe they do). "Did you have that done today?" he asked. "No, Monday." He winced. Hmmm...a whole lot more waiting to be done, I guess.

Letter to the Editor

Most bloggers probably don't give a flying fig what their readers think. Most bloggers probably weren't the features editor of their high school newspaper, either. Because I learned that journalistic integrity is important whether you're writing about the talent revue in The Seneschal or about wounded soldiers in the New York Times...um...scratch that last part...I'm publishing a letter to the editor from someone who feels that he was misrepresented in a recent blog post. One might think you could just use the "comments" section...Anyhow, I've taken the liberty of editing it for grammar and spelling because, well, I edited this reader's grammar and spelling for three years while we were dating, so no point in stopping now.

I want to say for the record that I was not afraid of Jen because she was repulsive. I worked in a hospital for 6 years – I’ve seen worse.

I was worried for Jen. She looked very uncomfortable and I couldn’t possibly imagine being at the DMV forty-eight hours after major reconstructive surgery.

Plus, I thought she was beautiful with the old nose. I’ve known that she has wanted to do this for a long time and I support her decision. I think it will be good for her.

--Peter Francis Atherton, Alexandria, Virginia

And on the Third Day...

....God made trees that bore fruit, and whaddya know, my surgery is bearing fruit today, too, and it's not just because I'm turning into a pineapple.

I woke up REALLY swollen--my cheeks are hard, my eyes are puffy, my nose is drippy, I just look gross. Dad was coming today, though, so I got myself dressed and washed my face with witch hazel (I'm too afraid to even scrub my face with a washcloth; I don't want to get any water on my splint). Mom called up Doc, and we STILL aren't allowed to clean out my nose, and won't be able to for several more days. Grrr!!! I do long to blow my nose!

The day was pretty busy--aside from Dad's visit, the Purple Heart people were coming to pick up my old car and I couldn't find the title for it, Dad was going to split the cable so I had a line going to the TV in my bedroom and also hang up my new stereo, so we had to go run some errands. I was pretty grumpy today and actually yelled at a guy in the DMV parking lot who nearly hit my car...He ran away from me. I guess that's a benefit of looking like the living dead. In a story much too long and boring to recount here, I saw Peter while I was at the DMV and he didn't even want to hug me; he thought I looked like I might break. I told him it was too late, I was already broken. Stupidly, I asked him if I looked that bad--duh! Of course I do! Who says there's no such thing as a dumb question? After that, Dad and I went to WalMart for some cabling supplies. The WalMart makes me angry and annoyed on my best days, so I was ready for a nap after that little adventure.

In other fruit-related news, Mom's friend Mary sent me a fruit bouquet--check out the chocolate-covered pineapple bunny! They're adorable! And yummy!

Shari came by around 4:30 and I woke up MUCH less puffy; I'm able to smile again! Shari's a dear and she brought me the spring fashion issues of Vogue, Elle, and InStyle. The Purple Heart towing guy came about the same time to cart the Purple Pughmobile to West Virginia. A part of my youth died today...Farewell, Purple Pughmobile! The poor car has been doing the urban equivalent of sitting on cinder blocks in the front yard...It's been taking up my assigned parking space for the last...well...a long time. I finally have my space back and hopefully someone deserving benefits.

And, aside from being less puffy, the bruises around my eyes are starting to change to yellow, and my nose is starting to open up! Mom bought some hyacinths for Easter and I think I may have actually caught a whiff of one after dinner this evening! Hmmm...God also made flowers on the third day...

Itchy, Not Scratchy

WEIRD!!! There are some parts of my nose that aren't covered with a splint or tape and sometimes my nose ITCHES. And I scratch it. Or try to. And I don't actually feel myself scratching my nose! Now THAT is a weird sensation!

"You Have To Suffer For Beauty"

When I was a little girl in the 1980s, my Grandmother used to take me to Pam's Salon to have a perm done. Pam's was an old-style sort of establishment that might remind you of a Yankee version of Dolly Parton's salon in "Steel Magnolias." Aside from the fact that I came out looking like a poodle (which I guess was all the rage around 1986), perms burned--they HURT! Pam had a number of Virginia Slims "You've Come a Long Way, Baby" posters up depicting old-style hairdressers (see poster at right, depicting women with their hair rolled up into curlers wired into the ceiling). Maybe it was supposed you make you feel like you were going through a far less barbaric process in 1986 as opposed to 1906? It sure didn't feel like it.


(I'm pretty excited that I actually found one of the posters online that was on her wall--Pam must have ordered one using this form!)

Of course, I complained about this and Granny and Pam used to tell me, with a sigh and shake of their permed heads, "you have to suffer for beauty." This stuck with me, which is why I scoff at women who rave about how their sweatpants or their Crocs are so comfortable. Hmph! That's hardly the point, now, is it? You have no business going around wanting to be comfortable!

So this self-flagellating mindset that I was raised with has come in handy over the past two days.

Yesterday's surgery went very well. Mom and I got there around 9:30. I took a few phone calls from friends on the way over and I probably sounded like I was on my way to the firing squad. Even though we were a half-hour early, they took me right in and I got changed into my operating gown and socks (you can keep your underwear on!). The nurses came in and went over everything with Mom and me, then Sleepy came in and talked to us (this was Mom's worst part, she doesn't like anaesthesia, she was afraid I wasn't going to wake up...I'm not sure who was more nervous, her or me!), then Doc came in and he said, well, I have it written down, but what do YOU think we're going to do to your nose? And I pointed to my mom's nose and said, look how nice HERS is!!! He laughed and said it was very pretty.

Here I am waiting to go into the OR. Last picture taken with the old nose!

We hung around for a bit while they got everything together, then Mom went over to the waiting room and they took me into the OR. What a flurry of activity! Sleepy tied off my arm, another nurse started cuffing my other arm with a blood pressure monitor and padding and tucked it in, then Sleepy couldn't find a vein, so they had to do the whole thing all over again with the other arm since my right arm has much more fecund vein territory. Sleepy stuck something in the IV to relax me, and after a few seconds, the nurse asked me if I felt relaxed yet and I said no, so we talked a bit about work and what-have-you (seems that I'm pretty resistant to drugging since we had this conversation for several minutes). Then I said, I think I'm ready to close my eyes now, she said "ok" and then I was out.

Next thing I knew, they were putting my socks on ("Oh! They're like New York!" the nurse said--I was wearing my NY taxi and Empire State Building socks, they always cheer me up) and my sorostitute pants (circa 1998, when they were all the rage--very convenient for getting dressed when you don't have all your faculties...hmmm....) and wrestling me into an old linen dress shirt (circa 1993, when Express still labeled as "Compagnie Internationale Express" and sold a lot of flowery stuff and jumpers and things, which were also all the rage at the time, at least in Allentown, Pennsylvania, rather than the Eurotrash sort of thing they have going these days). It was really a high-fashion sort of day.

The nurses put me into a recliner and my mom came in and, although my eyes weren't open yet, I'm pretty sure she was freaked out. I think the nurse and Mom talked about how to bandage me up or something, I was pretty out of it. They made me open my eyes, which might as well have been sealed with cement. Finally--it could have been five minutes, it could have been five hours--they sent Mom to go get the car and they put me into my coat and into a wheelchair and wheeled me downstairs.

I did manage to navigate home, I think Mom was still pretty nervous since I look like I took a few rounds with a baseball bat and she tried to take us South on 95 to who-knows-where Beyond the Beltway. Mom doesn't like the Beltway, even though she learned how to drive on it--with a manual transmission, no less! It's probably a lot different than when she lived here in the 60s and 70s, and the drivers are crazier. Mom said on the way home that Doc came out after the surgery and said that everything went very well, but I had swallowed a lot of blood, so they had to suction it all out (blood in your stomach makes you nauseated). We got back home around 1 or 1:30.

Here I am, first thing after we got home and put on my pajamas...I know my nose was bleeding A LOT and my hair was bloody. I was also really thirsty, but I wasn't allowed to drink very much since water could upset my stomach. Fortunately, I have a strong stomach and I never vomited...I think that would be AWFUL to compound having this surgery with barfing up blood. I took a Percocet and ate a few water crackers (VERY hard to eat when you can't breathe through your nose) and fell asleep.

I woke up a couple of hours later and took another Percocet and Mom gave me a cup of Chicken n Stars (BEST idea EVER--you don't have to chew this or anything) and toasted a slice of cheese bread that I'd picked up at the Falls Church farmer's market after Saturday's lymphatic drainage massage, which was also very nice. Most of the rest of the day was spent in and out of sleep, responding to a few e-mails and text messages (sorry if you've received a not-very-coherent one from me) and taking a few phone calls. The bruising spread outward from my nose across my eyes.

Later on, Mom and my roommate went out to WalMart and Mom bought me a new stereo for my bedroom! My old stereo's CD player stopped working, so Mom got me this nice new one that I can mount on the wall, it's pretty fancy! Bergeron and Kerry, if you're reading this, your CDs have christened the new stereo!

Here's me after I woke up today, and it wasn't so bad, just very swollen. I'm actually trying to smile here, but my upper lip is pretty puffy, so it makes it difficult. One thing I didn't expect was that my eyelashes itch--I think they're poking into the swelled-up flesh and it feels a bit like if you've ever had an ingrown eyelash. As for everything else, I'm still taking painkillers, but really, it's just uncomfortable. The worst part is trying to swallow and breathing through your mouth--my mouth is very dry and my throat kind of hurts, probably also from the tube they stuck down there during surgery.

Mom called up Doc's office and they said to go ahead and take out the packing, but not to clean my nose out just yet. Around 10, she took the tweezers and took out two cotton plugs and that was it. It didn't hurt at all, but didn't provide the breathing-through-my-nose relief I was hoping for. I ate a little (I can start in on the pineapple again, hurrah) and wandered around the apartment for a bit and then noticed my eyes were getting REALLY puffy. I mean, really, really puffy. Better lie down again.

Mom kept herself from going stir crazy by cleaning out the refrigerator and the cabinets. I've heard A LOT about expired cans of soup, how many tins of cocoa I have open, and a lime that got stuck somewhere in the refrigerator that was collecting Social Security checks.

Dad called, and he's going to come and visit tomorrow and bring down a ham and kielbasa and my favorite chocolates for Easter as well as pick up a recliner I bought for my aunt and uncle for Christmas and take it back to Allentown for them. Shari is also coming over to see me and bring me some magazines, so tomorrow will be a busy day. I can't have people seeing me in the shape I was in, so Mom and I went over to a hair salon in a strip mall not far from here and had my hair washed and blow-dried. The hairdressers were very curious about my nose and asked for the doctor's name and number; the daughter of the lady who did my hair wants her nose done. They want me to come back to show it off when I have the splint off.

After that, we went to the "international" grocery store to pick up some fruits and veg. I'm pretty sure I frightened everyone in there. Mom and I laughed on the way out because people were staring, blatantly. We got home and Mom fixed me a grilled cheese sandwich, and then I went back to bed, that was enough excitement for today.


Here I am with freshly-washed hair. Tomorrow I'll set it so I can be...something like presentable for my visitors.

Other than that, the latter part of the day has been pretty frustrating. The swallowing, the itchiness under my splint, the scary swollen eyes, the constant stuffed-up feeling in my nose has just made me very impatient. Suffer for beauty, suffer for beauty is my mantra. I'm trying to not think that it all wasn't worth it--I mean, what's a few days going to be in the grand scheme of things?--but sometimes I just feel like I'm NEVER going to get back to normal. I'm also trying not to be short with people, but sometimes it's laborious to talk (what with no breathing through the nose, I have to stop, take a deep breath, speak, and sometimes repeat if people don't understand me) and sometimes I just don't FEEL like talking to anyone, I just want to lie here with my ice pack.

Sigh....Today is supposed to be the worst for swelling, I hope tomorrow's better.

Ready As I'll Ever Be

So today is my final day with my old nose. Mom's here; on the way back to the house she said she hoped I knew what I was doing. Of course I don't. For all I know, I could come out looking like Miss Piggy or a Jackson family member. She and I stayed up late and I showed her the closed rhinoplasty video and she was thoroughly grossed out. Then she wanted to see the video for a facelift and she screamed.

Mom and I went shopping today, I picked up some Chicken 'n' Stars (I can't be the only one who wants this and a grilled cheese sandwich when I'm laid up), water crackers, Gatorade, Ocean Saline Nasal Spray (to clean out my nose), more pineapples, and some odds and ends. Mom brought a filter for my vaporizer, and I set that up and have it running. I've got some frozen peas to use as an ice pack. I'm eating pineapple, drinking pineapple juice, and popping arnica like it's my job. CVS actually managed to fill my prescriptions without any sturm or drang, so I have those all lined up with a bottle of extra-strength Tylenol.

I managed to kill the cold by way of lymph drainage and a lot of lazing around. I'm not sure there's any reason to get sick ever again now that I have found this little secret. Lymphatic drainage massage is, in a nutshell, rubbing your neck and face. Your lymph system is responsible for clearing bacteria and foreign substances from your body and a full third of your total lymph gland count is found in your neck. Anyway, my massage therapist told me to lightly rub my face in a triangle from below my eyes to my jaw to stimulate the lymph system right before surgery.

Otherwise, I'm petrified! Yes, I know I was cool as a cucumber, get it done, get it over with a few days ago, but now I'm panicking. Eeek!