Here We Are Now, Entertain Us!

My friend Carter suggested that I needed some nice photos of myself up here at the Rhinoblog. I guess the no-makeup self-portraits of me in the bathroom or at the dresser aren't all that flattering, but, well, this is a public service here all in the name of science. I aim to give you the unvarnished story of my surgery, no glamor shots allowed. But, because I'm also here for your entertainment, I will happily indulge my readers.

Last night was the Bachelors and Spinsters Ball at the City Tavern Club and also the first time I've had social photos taken since before the surgery. Here's one of Carter and me waiting to get in to the CTC. No more bumpy nose! This isn't my best angle for photos, though, and I think it looks bigger here than it is in person. Oh well, I suppose my nose will remain persistently un-photogenic.

I wish I had some better shots for you all, but my pictures didn't come out all that well. This next one is a little fuzzy if you click it into to full size. Sorry.

Anyway, that's all I have right now. I'm not putting the ones up where I look fat or shiny, which is pretty much the rest of them. I know I said no glamor shots, but the posting of fat photos violates the Standards and Practices here.

In other news, since I'll be at the three-week mark tomorrow, I've decided to start taking some exercise again. You may have noticed that I'm starting to get a bit pudgier (I sure have!), which is completely unacceptable. I think running and swimming are still out of the question, so I'm going to give the elliptical machine and the exercise bike a shot and kick the diet back into gear.

Ask a Rhinoplasty Patient, Part II (UPDATED)

Elle Woods asks: First, is the 4th Season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer the one where Angel goes bad? I loved that season best. Second, if it takes a nose so long to heal how to celebrities sort of get away with hiding it?

Dear Elle,

Thank you for asking! No, the fourth season of BtVS was the one where Buffy went to college and Angel ran off to L.A. (and his own show). Angel goes bad in “Surprise,” during the second season. I agree that season two was probably the best of the series. The fourth season marked a decline in the quality of the story arcs and the remainder of the series suffered from the introduction of the more irritating characters like Tara, Dawn, and Andrew, and while the better ones--Oz, Cordelia, and Joyce—were sent packing.

As for celebrities hiding during their plastic surgery recoveries, I just did a little research on this. I sort of assumed that they just lolled around their well-appointed houses and sent the help out for takeout sushi. I also assumed that their houses were probably much more interesting to hang around than a 9^th-floor two-bedroom condo in west Alexandria. They also don’t have to worry about getting out the TPS reports at the office; as long as she’s ready for her next movie, no one would probably wonder where Catherine Zeta-Jones has been for the last two weeks. Probably off gallivanting to a private island; who would bat an eyelash?

As it turns out, I’m not so far off base. A little Google research revealed that a favored plastic surgery destination for celebrities is a place in the 90210 called Hidden Garden. According to Victoria Duckett (quoting an interview with somebody-or-other in Star magazine) in the book, Meta-morphing: Visual Transformation and the Culture of Quick-change (which examines “digital morphing…as a cultural practice specific to our times and as a link to a much broader history of images of human transformation”--enthralling topic, I’m sure), this clinic “sneaks celebrities into a plush Bentley or Rolls-Royce that delivers them—via a private garage—to a door that leads directly to their room where they hide out in pampered luxury until the swelling subsides.”

So there you have it. Celebrities aren’t confined by the strictures of corporate America’s vacation policies and also have more money than I do. I should also note that everyone is different with their recovery times. Some people have no bruises at all, some people are still bruised a month after surgery. This depends on surgical techniques and what you’re having done. Some folks just have a much more traumatic and invasive surgery than others.

I’ll leave you with today’s photo. Have a great weekend!

***Ahem*** Elle Woods was unsatisfied with my reply, so I will try to clarify--you're only really badly swollen for about a week and a half, and some people not even that. My nose is still definitely swollen, but if you passed me on the street today, you wouldn't notice. Anyhow, there is a whole cottage industry devoted to finding out who had what done in Hollywood.

I Can't Feel My Face, Steve!

I don't watch TV. OK, occasionally, I'll put on the History Channel or Discovery, but there hasn't been a show that I HAD to watch since the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I only have cable because it comes free with the rent. As a result, most pop culture references go over my head. Supermarket tabloids puzzle me: I don't know who most of the "famous people" are. My roommate sometimes starts talking about something going on on American Idol, when she of all people should know that I have no idea what she's talking about.

Add to this that I stopped listening to regular radio and listen almost exclusively to the 80s channel and the new wave station on XM. When the Drudge Report today said that Mariah Carey beat Elvis Presley's record for most #1 songs, I thought to myself, but Mariah Carey hasn't had a hit since I was in college, right? And isn't she supposed to be in a straightjacket?

In high school, Mom used to look over the Billboard hits listing in the Sunday newspaper and say, "I don't even know who any of these bands are! What is this?" and my 15-year-old self would roll my eyes and say something like, "Like, duh, Mom, it's Oasis," or whatever it was teenagers said back then. But now I've turned into my mom--who are these people? What are they talking about? Hang your coat up!

Anyway, I digress. So I was at the Capitol Hill Club with some friends the other night and I invited my friend whom I'll call Julian McMahon because he looks just like him, except not old. I was telling everyone about how it was weird that my nose would itch, but I can't actually scratch the itch because I can't feel my nose. Julian's all--oh, like that GEICO commercial with Joan Rivers, ha ha ha! And everyone at the table is cracking up, so I just smile and nod because I don't need to call it to everyone's attention that I'm off the grid.

So, for your benefit, in case you are also pop culturally illiterate, I went and found the commercial on YouTube. It's funny! Am I smiling? I can't tell!


Also, then, here's today's picture of me. Not much different. My nostrils are getting a little uneven--if you click on the picture, it makes it larger and you can see how one is a little wider than the other. This is all caused by swelling and is perfectly normal. the tip of the nose is actually the last thing to heal. I was reading an article in Elle magazine (the one that Shari brought) about a woman who had her eyes done and she started complaining to her plastic surgeon about something or other and he said to stop freaking out and that "the complaints department opens in six months." Just something to keep in mind. I think a lot of people expect instant gratification, and it is a little discouraging sometimes. I wonder if people on the street are thinking, look at that piggy-looking girl! Or if people are thinking, she paid for her nose to look like that??? I know that my nose is a work in progress, and I probably shouldn't worry about what other people think, but geez, if I didn't care what I looked like, I'd just wander around with my big nose and wear track suits everywhere, wouldn't I?

Post-Op Visit

OK. I've about had it with these pictures with this screwed-up eye. I look like I am Quasimodo, or someone with a wandering eyeball. This picture is from today, incidentally. I shouldn't really complain; my bruises are light enough that I can cover them up pretty effectively, it's just the blood in the eye. Incidentally, when you break a blood vessel in your eye, people feel compelled to tell you about it, in case you didn't have any mirrors in your house and may have missed it. I tell complete strangers about my nose job to head off the shocked looks on their faces. No, no! I don't have leprosy, just a nose job!

So I had my first visit with Doc since the surgery yesterday. It was completely uneventful and lasted less than five minutes. He was very pleased when he walked in with how my nose looked. The second thing he said was that the blood in my eye will go away, it just takes time (yes, I've figured that out, Doc...I even creep out my doctor with my scary eyeball. The man cuts into flesh and breaks bones for a living, for crying out loud).

I asked Doc about the bump under my eye and he felt down the side of my nose and said that I actually had that bump on both sides, just one was more pronounced than the other. That was where he broke the bone. This, whatever it is, is supposed to be reabsorbed. I guess it's whatever makes bone heal?

He said that right now, my bones are sort of set, but if I were to be hit in the face with a baseball or something, it would screw up my nose, but shy of that, it's not moving, so I don't have to sleep on a pile of pillows any more. Also, I don't need to ice my nose any longer since it won't do much good at this point. I asked him when it's going to stop hurting when I touch my nose and he said that the bones should heal in a few more weeks and then it will stop hurting and just be swollen. Anyway, I don't have to go back for another two months unless anything bad happens.

In other news, I'm starting to feel flabby with all this not exercising. To tell the truth, my diet hasn't been great; last week was a succession of Easter leftovers and this week I'm just eating...stuff...that I come across--a can of she-crab soup, a grilled cheese sandwich, popcorn, just anything. A friend suggested the Perricone diet, so I might check in to that. I'm hoping I can start doing SOMEthing soon, but walking makes my nose hurt. Not so much in rubber-soled shoes, but when I'm walking down the hallway in dress shoes at the office, with every step I feel my nose going boing, boing, boing!

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.