The Official Rhinoplasty Handbook

So the other week (weeks seem to be running together on me lately), Doc's office sent me a short guide to my surgery, including the scariest part of all this, the anaesthesia bit. I learned who my anaesthesiologist is going to be, whom I'm going to call Sleepy here on out, and I'll get to meet this person the day of the surgery.


The crux of the book can be summed up as follows: Don't. Ok, there are some Do's; very few, however. Do wash your face with Dial or Purpose antibacterial soap, take a multivitamin, wear loose-fitting clothing to the surgery.


There is a three-page laundry list of things to avoid starting immediately: vitamin E, smoking, anything with aspirin--which evidently includes Pepto Bismol, who knew?--or ibuprofen (Tylenol is apparently OK), random other stuff that I've mostly never heard of (including garlic--note to self, ask Doc if this is just garlic supplements or if I should avoid crushing a half-dozen cloves of it into everything, as I'm wont to do), and then any herbal supplements and birth control pills and patches. Not a problem. Except the garlic. Oddly, the book seems to leave out the no-drinking for two weeks part that he mentioned in my consultation: I planned my surgery around a vacation for this reason! That's going to be a tough one; I suppose I could make it a late-in-coming Lenten resolution.


The day before the surgery, I can't eat or drink anything after midnight (except a sip of water if I had any prescriptions I have to take, which I don't, at least at this point) and it looks like I have to take some pre-op sedatives? The book is a little vague at times.


The book then goes on to talk about what the surgery is going to be like and what the risks are (weird! your voice can change!) One strange thing I heard from a friend is that sometimes you can't feel your nose, and this can be somewhat permanent, and it's like you have a phantom nose. Another problem I'm curious about is tip swelling (this can be permanent!?!) I wonder if it still hurts if it's swollen? Doc's book doesn't have this, but I've also heard some people have lost their sense of smell--yikes! I have a pretty formidable sniffer (aside from it being so large I'm having surgery): I used to drive people (mainly my Mom) insane with my "can't you smell...?", "something's burning", "this smells icky", that no one else could smell. I can't imagine life without this ability.


After the surgery, you simply must have someone drive you home, they can't just throw you in a taxi and they are adamant about this. Fortunately, my Mom is coming up from Florida to take care of me/spend Holy Week and Easter. What a way to spend your vacation, watching after a bloody and sedated person! Thanks, Mom! Mom's actually pretty excited about the whole thing, I think...she's been sending me plastic surgery websites and things, so I'm really fortunate in that I'm not having to fight with family members. The decision to have surgery is scary enough and you have doubts ALL THE TIME as it is (am currently writing a post about all the crazy things that are going through my head; it's not ready for prime time yet); I can't imagine having parents and aunts and uncles and cousins giving me the business about changing a "family trait," as is the case with some people you read about.


Also afterwards, you have to sleep in a propped-up position, so I need to figure out a way to not roll into my usual facedown position. Other things: eat dry crackers and non-carbonated liquids because you might be nauseated; use a bag of frozen peas as an ice pack, unless it hurts, then don't; don't drive for at least two days, preferably five; don't smoke, don't drink while you're taking pain pills; use a vaporizer since I'll have to breathe through my mouth for a while; bruising gets worse for the first couple of days before it gets better in 10-14 days.


On exercise: No aerobic activity for three weeks, no strenuous exercise for 4-6 weeks, and I'll have to get the go-ahead from Doc anyway. In case you're wondering, this also applies to sex. This part freaks me out: who wants to have a small nose all the while turning into Jabba the Hut?


Oh, and also, no sun exposure. And there's a bunch of gross stuff about nasal dripping and blood crusting, which I'll spare you.

There's also an anaesthesia information sheet and a questionnaire to return to Sleepy. They ask you just about everything, including if you have any dental work since they shove a tube down your throat. This part is the scariest, especially since I have a heart murmur and sometimes get chest pains (generally associated with stress, from what I'm told), and I really don't want "died on the plastic surgeon's table" as my epitaph. Anyway, the last time I went under was for a tonsillectomy when I was seven; I remember this vividly and it was horrible.


The most fun part of the book is the emotional section: it's filled with drawings meant to illustrate your expected emotional trajectory, post-op. Apparently, being a nut case is completely acceptable and I should expect wild mood swings and random crying jags for a few weeks.


So on Wednesday, I'm going to have drinks and talk with a friend-of-a-friend whose had her nose done...Will give a full report!

Arnica Update!

So I had a date tonight, and I went wearing what I'm now going to call my "Home By 10" dress. I think I look pretty flash hot in it, however, both times I've worn it, my evenings have ended with me in flannel pajamas by midnight.

What does this have to do with my nosejob? Well, I didn't want to just go straight home, and there was an accident on the Beltway anyway, so I took the back way and stopped off at a CVS that I might say is --err-- not my neighborhood (I did need things other than Arnica; I'm not obsessed...maybe a little).

I wandered around for a while and found that this particular CVS has what I might call the "hoo-doo section." It was pretty random stuff in other languages, or with just very straightforward labeling like, "Gas Relief Drops" with a crying baby on the front. Then, I came across a "bonus pack" of De La Cruz Arnica Salve! It was packaged with Pomada de Azufre, which is a sulfur ointment for pimples. Kind of an odd combination, you'd think, but as it happens, I have a really offensive pimple on my chin (the kind you can't see, but feels like you're growing a conjoined twin) so that kind of worked out. I'm going to try it out tonight on the nose bruises.

And, as an update from the other Arnica tablets, my nose is less swollen and hurts less when I squeeze it since this morning. I took about 9 more during the day.

Want to know some fun trivia about Arnica Montana? It's also called Wolf's Bane. [Caution: Nerd Alert] If you're a Harry Potter fan, this might sound familiar--Snape made wolfsbane potion to keep Lupin from turning into a werewolf. Arnica is also known as Dumbledore's Delight (because bees like it and dumbledore is an old name for a bumblebee).

It was also mixed with snuff in Elizabethan times for its intoxicating effect. It's apparently used more widely in Europe.

OK, so enough about that. This CVS also carried Vichy Dermablend makeup, which I played around with for a while. They didn't have my shade, so I'm going to keep looking for that, too. It looks like the CVS is supposed to have a consultant there to match your skin tone? They had chairs, lights, and mirrors as if you're at the Bobbi Brown counter. I don't know about you, but having your makeup done in a CVS is a little...odd. However, this is supposed to be great stuff for covering up your post-op bruises. People even cover up tatoos with it! It's a wee bit expensive for makeup you buy at CVS ($25 for the foundation, plus you have to buy the setting powder, I think, which is another $20). I promise a full product review.

Anyway, I have 15 minutes to get into my flannel pajamas (ones with big coconuts and pineapples on them) so I can keep to my dress curse.

I did a trial run….

…into a glass wall. Ouch! But who am I to turn up my (bruised, swollen) nose at lemonade when life hands me lemons?

Backstory: At a Super Tuesday election night party, I was walking (walking, nay, striding forcefully) down a hallway that had a bunch of televisions tuned to the news networks. I remember looking at the crawl on one that said that Mitt Romney won Massachusetts and mused that he better have! I turned my head forward again only just in time to have my gait violently interrupted by aforementioned glass wall, with the old nose taking the brunt of the trauma. [In case you’re wondering, as my roommate did, if there were witnesses, it was just three girls on their way to the ladies’ room, so public humiliation was kept to a minimum].

Anyway, my nose HURTS. It’s swollen. It’s bruised. I see this as good practice.

In the manner of war heroes, I put up a brave front (“no, no, I’m totally fine”) even though I was dying (Ok, ok, Washington cocktail parties aren’t quite like being shot at in a war zone, but it sometimes seems like it). I didn’t actually ice the schnoz until after I got home several hours later. I got two bruises and the bridge swelled up.

Today is Friday. Lessons learned so far: Sunglasses HURT. Swim goggles are uncomfortable for about the first 20 laps and then they HURT. Washing your face HURTS. No one really looks at your nose until you point out that it’s bruised and swollen. Or else they’re just being polite. I’ve had a slight headache for three days.

On Wednesday, I called up Doc’s office. They didn’t think it was broken, but offered to take a look at it. Most importantly, they told me they could still do the surgery even if I’d broken it.

So I’d read that a good homeopathic drug to take for bruising is Arnica Montana, and some doctors recommend it after surgery (haven’t asked Doc about this yet), so I thought I’d give it a try. It is also very difficult to find. A chucklehead pharmacist at the completely useless CVS in Old Town asked if perhaps I was looking for Hannah Montana. I didn’t know they gave out pharmacy degrees at clown college!

I finally found it in the GNC section at the Fox Chase RiteAid, but it’s actually marketed as a backache medication and the Arnica is not as concentrated as it should be for bruising. I bought it anyway, and will keep looking. Very bizarre little tablets: you stick three under your tongue and they dissolve kind of like powdery cotton candy. I took some last night and this morning and my nose seems to be less swollen.

In any case, I'd better get used to it. In other news, I got my pre-surgery information packet from Doc yesterday...More on that--and an amazingly sexist and racist (even for stoical me!) book on noses I found and simply must write about--to come!