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...