Bully for You

At the risk of sounding like a polemicist after ranting about mawkish advertising campaigns and insipid literature, I want to tell you about something I read today that bothered me and that I think I need to address to anyone who is thinking about going through with cosmetic surgery.

A gal wrote about how she had an awful nose and was picked on in school and because of that, she always felt bad about herself (she's in her 30s now), so she had just had a nose job. Being bullied is horrible and a part of growing up, of course, but, in my experience, if kids aren't picking on you for one thing, it's another. If they have nothing to go on, they'll make it up. Once you get one thing fixed (and I find myself guilty of this as well), there's always room for some other improvement. It's like getting a new sofa, and finding it makes your rugs look shabby, and then new rugs make the hardwoods look dull, and then shiny hardwoods make the paint look dingy, and so on. This has happened to me, as well, and I've really had to just mentally put a stop to it. Wow, I thought, I have this great nose, but what if my eyebrows were a little higher, and I can't really be pretty because my jawline is too wide, and my pores are too big...Before you know it, you're Jocelyn Wildenstein.

Anyway, I've been involved in a number of political campaigns and Peter, who has been an elected official up in Massachusetts (as a Republican, no less), once pointed out a very important thing about being a candidate, and I find myself evaluating people who ask me to work on their campaigns by this measure (this really is relevant, I swear). A lot of people run for office because they feel bad about themselves and want people to like them and think that, by becoming a city councilman or a congressman, suddenly they are going to wake up and be a different person. You're not. You're still the same person--you were still a nerd in high school and your finances are still a mess, that's not going to magically go away. As a matter of fact, if you win, you now have MORE problems than before and your life is MORE complicated, and if you lose, you now have confirmation that 60% of the people didn't like you at all.



The point is, by getting plastic surgery, you shouldn't expect your life to turn around. Maybe you'll be more confident (I don't wander around parties thinking that everyone's staring at my nose any more, which was probably all in my head to begin with), but it's not the ticket to popularity, cash prizes, and an obliteration of your past. In fact, you may even find out that your "issue" has nothing to do with your nose. So, I really hope that this woman isn't completely crushed if she doesn't get the reaction that she's hoping for. Unless you're seriously deformed, no one notices a difference in your appearance unless you point it out. It's cliche, but you really, honestly, have to do it for yourself or you're going to be angry and disappointed.

Sigh....And people, high school was a long time ago (for most of us). Chances are, you're not even the same person any more. Don't let some dweeb who tortured you on the school bus dictate how you live your life now. Chances are, if he's any sort of worthwhile person, he feels bad about doing it in the first place. And look at it this way: if you were the prom queen, would you put it on your resume today? No? How about wear your prom queen sash to the bar? No, not that either? Ok. It's safe to say that nobody cares anymore.

Am I saying not to have plastic surgery? No, absolutely not. I'm just telling you that you need to manage your expectations.

Ask a Rhinoplasty Patient, Part III

Dear Rhinoplasty Patient,

Can you blow your nose?

Love,

Everyone

Dear Everyone,

I'm finally getting around to this question; I get it ALL the time. I'll try not to be graphic. But first, I went to the Kleenex website looking for a picture of a box of tissues. I'd like to pre-apologize to Eileen if this is her client, but, really now, their slogan is "let it out" and they allow you, nay, encourage you to plaster up pictures of your kids or write maudlin stories about your health problem, and then other people can send you "tissues" as encouragement. Maybe I'm just in one of my misanthropic moods, but it's stomach-turning. To sum up one of my favorite bloggers writing about the website PostSecret, are swaths of America so attention-starved that they need to make strangers on the internet feel sorry for them? Don't they have family to whom they can send their kids' pictures? For a society that cares so much about penumbras in the Constitution guaranteeing privacy rights, we certainly lack discretion.

Back to your question, blowing your nose immediately after surgery is verboten. First of all, physically, you can't. Your nose is blocked up for the first week, at least, and you have the splint on. You don't want to mess up your stitches and cause a nosebleed for the couple of weeks after that. Doc just said to squirt saline spray in my nose and that when I take showers, my nose would unclog. Not really. Although this wasn't recommended, I cleaned my nose VERY carefully with Q-tips or tissues. Some people on the internet suggested putting hydrogen peroxide on a Q-tip and swabbing your nose to get rid of the blood, but this might dry your nose out. Frankly, my nose alternated between runny and dry for many weeks, so I didn't need to introduce anything else to this equation.

Nowadays, since I know my wounds have healed, I do blow my nose. It's not terribly effective, but it's getting easier as the weeks go by. The problem is that my nose is stiff and, if you try blowing your own nose right now, you'll notice that you (probably) squeeze your nose and move it around a bit. Squeezing my nose is impossible and moving it around hurts.

So, yes, I do, but it's not the same.

The other part of this is sneezing--you have to sneeze with your mouth open. Yes, this is very weird. No, it's not hard at all to make yourself switch to sneeze through your mouth, it actually comes naturally. I suspect your body knows these things subconsciously, which is why you don't roll over onto your nose while you're sleeping.

Monday was seven weeks post-surgery. I do see little changes from time to time, but mostly, it's the same. I'm pretty sure even posting my photos here is little more than an exercise in vanity because I doubt you can see much of a difference any more. My nose hurts a little less. I do wear my sunglasses when driving; I have these cheapo ones that I've found I can get to stick to my forehead if I don't have to move very much, but it's still hard to walk down the street with sunglasses banging on your nose with every step, so I don't. I'm starting to be able to make scrunching faces with it, so I'm looking forward to the day when I have a full range of expression involving my nose (and perhaps my nose wrinkle).

What Is Beauty?

Elle Woods and I often have conversations about plastic surgery and various other cosmetic enhancements (dunno, Elle—had the shine treatment done last weekend…hair doesn’t seem much shinier). Anyway, we had a discussion about how your face gets thinner as you age and about how things like Restylane make you look younger (evidently, it doesn’t just “fill in” the wrinkles like you might think, it just sort of puffs your skin up…I don’t know…this isn’t the WrinkleBlog…one thing at a time here). And then I started telling Elle about some of the interesting things I read about what makes a person beautiful and what makes a person look young.

When I was researching my nose job, I came to realize that roundness of features is what makes one look young. I never really thought about this—in fact, I’ve always thought that fat people, whom I’d think were the most round-featured people, look older than their years. But there has to be a reason that people have fat pads stuck into their cheeks. After I read this, I started worrying about getting a sharp nose since Doc said he wanted to “define the tip” as if he’d have me going out of there looking like Ichabod Crane, and therefore aging me in the whole process (this didn't happen, but I didn't feel like writing a whole "Crazy Thoughts" post just on this).

Another interesting thing I came across was a mathematical theory of beauty. Why math? Like Jodie Foster says in Contact, “Because mathematics is the universal language.” I don’t pretend to understand this intimately, but the Golden Ratio has been described as “nature’s perfect number”. For instance, plants grow according to the Golden Ratio because, through that growth pattern, they can make the most efficient use of sunlight. The theory is, essentially, that which is the most logical is the most beautiful. Evidently, this was in The DaVinci Code, but you’ll have to ask someone who has actually read that book, which is, apparently, everyone else on planet Earth.

As an aside on The DaVinci Code, one of my favorite columnists, Jay Nordlinger of National Review—whose language notes in his Impromptus column I furiously apply in my own writing and speaking—wrote a segment years ago about the name of that book:

The mistake of referring to Leonardo as "da Vinci" is so entrenched, I'm afraid it's uncorrectable. I have had to fight with editors about this: You say "Leonardo," and they want to say "da Vinci," thinking it's his last name — thinking it's the same as saying "Reynolds." They think that, when you say "Leonardo," you're saying the equivalent of "Joshua." Actually, to say "da Vinci" is to say "of Orange," instead of "William."
…

You have to learn at some point. I remember when I learned — when I was a college student in Italy. An art-history teacher asked whether I was interested in a particular artist, and I answered, "da Vinci." He looked puzzled for a moment. Then recognition crossed his face, and he said, "Ah! Leonardo."

I wanted to crawl under a rock — but I learned, as, sooner or later, one does.

Ever since I read that, whenever I go home to Allentown and drive past the brand-spanking new “DaVinci Science Center” next door to Cedar Crest College, I get disgusted. /rant

Anyhow, there’s this fellow out in California who studied this and has come up with a “beauty mask”—actually rather scary-looking--of what the perfect face should look like based on the symmetry and harmony of the Golden Ratio (just like the tag line under my blog title!) If you want to play with it on the faces of some celebrities, click here.

If you want to read some more about it, this is an interesting website, and, if you’re so inclined, you can take a picture of yourself and measure your face and see how you match up.

So what is beauty? If there's a universal formula for it, what does it say for beauty being in the eye of the beholder?

Anyhow, Monday was the six-week mark. The pictures here were taken on Monday and Tuesday of this week. One thing I did notice this week is that I can flare my nostrils again! The whole nose is still pretty stiff, though it seems like some of the woodiness is going away. And slowly, I'm starting to get some feeling back on the right side. Oh! And my bloody eyeball FINALLY cleared up. Criminy, that took a long time to heal! It hasn't been enough for people to notice over the last few weeks, but still and all--it's been six weeks!

Excuses, excuses

A wise person once said, don't complain, don't explain. Well, my readers generally ask me what the hell I'm doing if I'm not blogging. If you must know, my roommate's been out of town, so I've been luxuriating in the...luxury...that's afforded one who is once again living alone, albeit temporarily, namely, wandering around the apartment en déshabillé, reading books (just knocked off Kitchen Confidential that Carter loaned to me and started in on The Satanic Verses--by Salman Rushdie, did I have to explain that? No, I'm not going to sacrifice my roommate's cats to Beelzebub or start biting the heads off lizards), listening to Marvin Gaye as loud as I please (and dancing around, singing the Tammi Terrell parts of their duets into a hairbrush), eating peanut butter out of the jar, and generally goofing around.



I know you've all been worried sick over the last week about whether my nose has fallen off or developed some sort of grotesque deformity. You'll be happy or sad to know that all's normal. The last of the stitches (I think) came out of my nose the other day at the gym, so THAT's over with. My next visit to Doc isn't until June 9.

So one thing I've noticed lately is that the swelling between my eyebrows went down, about which I'm very glad. Not to throw in yet another Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference here, but I felt a little like the monster of the week with that part of my face swollen. It doesn't even hurt so much to the touch any more (on the bone part, that is) and the cartilage is feeling a little more supple, though nowhere near a normal nose's squishiness.

So, I went to see my Aunt Dee Dee and Uncle Richie last weekend and my aunt agreed that my nose looked a lot better in person than it does in photos (Aunt Dee Dee was all excited anyway, this was the first time she has

seen me since before the operation). In person, we both thought it still looked a little wide, but just from the swelling. Anyhow, the photos I'm posting today (5 weeks post-op) are my attempt at slightly better photography and I think my nose looks truer to reality in them. I'm all gussied up because I took them while I was trying on dresses for a ball I'm going to next month (yes, another one), and I thought I'd try to look a little pretty for you all.

Happy Anniversary!

Once upon a time, I worked a few cubes down from this guy whom I call "Sexual Harassment Dave." Dave was a goofball, and not in the funny, lovable sense, but more in the what-are-you-thinking sense. Dave used to do things like proposition the receptionist and send vulgar Christmas cards to the ladies in the building's hair salon. We actually didn't know about all this until after he left. Weird things he did that we knew about included writing an album's worth of songs about Princess Diana, distributing copies of the disk to everyone in the office asking for our opinions on it (I still have this in case it's ever necessary for evidence in court or can be sold to a media outlet), and blowing off a big deadline because it was his and his girlfriend's three-month anniversary.

So, anyway, I'm going to make a big deal about my one-month rhinoplasty anniversary, but I want you to know that I'm slightly embarrassed and am not trying to be Dave.

To celebrate, let's do a little retrospective for the benefit of those just tuning in and leave it at that.

Here I am at one of the last functions where I'm allowed to have an alcoholic beverage two weeks before the surgery.

March 17, T-about 20 minutes here. Wow...I can't say that's a look of confidence on my face there as I get ready to go into surgery. Ashen is, I think, the appropriate word here.

Day after surgery. Oooh...I don't miss this part one bit.

One week post op. Scary, unbandaged person.

And here we are earlier this week at four weeks. Not much different on the front view, but the profile is a bit of all right.

Crazy Thoughts, Part III (Plus Bonus Crazy Actions!!!)

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while, friends. It's been a busy few weeks here in my world and I'm broadcasting live from next to a stack of unread books, some stuff I keep meaning to take to Goodwill, and a highboy whose drawers I can't shut all the way without refolding their contents. The point is, my life has given in to entropy lately.

Anyway, my biggest nose news of this week involved a trip to Doc's office. I've already told Elle Woods this story and she warned me not to gross out my readers, and Peter made me stop telling it because we were sitting next to some people in a pizza parlour who were eavesdropping and he didn't want to spoil their appetites. So...how to put this as delicately as possible? Well, I noticed what turned out to be dissolvable stitches that weren't dissolving. Let's just say that I found out through some rather medieval means that, internally, my nose wasn't healing the way it should. And it was scary.

There is a hypochondriac gene in my family and I have it. I try to repress it and not be outwardly dramatic but, to my great embarrassment, I've been to the doctor thinking I had skin cancer when I really just had a wart. In this case, in my mind I was sure my nose was going to become gangrene. Abscesses. Perforated septum. Just plain fall off. I'd be some odious ghoul and would have to be sent away from society. And Doc was going to look at me, indignantly: What Did You Do? he'd ask. I'd immediately have to go in for emergency surgery, I was certain, costing thousands of dollars, and it would still be deformed. Oh, the shame and horror!

Oh, and I'd forgotten my cell phone that morning, so I didn't have anyone's number to call and ask them to pick me up after they operated on me, so I worried about that. You thought I was joking, didn't you? No, really, I'm not kidding about the hypochondriac thing.

I called Doc's office around one o'clock on Monday, told them what was up, and they asked me to come in at 3:15. Oh, well, this confirms it, then. They want me there, now! You're in Michael Jackson territory. I told my boss that I had to leave at three because the doctor wanted to see me, right away. No, no, nothing to be alarmed about, I said, trying to contain the theatrics.

At 3:15, the office was pretty empty--there was no one in the waiting room. One of the nurses called me in and I explained what happened, waiting for a reprimand and the emergency team to swing into action. She took a cursory glance up my nose and told me I'd popped a stitch and to swab some Neosporin over it. Nothing to worry about, it'll heal completely! She said.

So you all will be happy to know that my nose is intact and still healing nicely.

Monday was also the four-week point after my surgery. I have to say that I'd have thought my nose would stop hurting by now, but it still does. I still have to be gentle with it when washing my face. I saw stars after I whacked it with an apple while taking a bite. I put out the question on the MakeMeHeal.com boards--everyone else was pretty curious about this, also. I got one response from someone who was at the five-month mark who said that it finally stopped hurting around 3 1/2 months.

Oh well...I knew this was a tough row to hoe from the get-go (I didn't really mean that to rhyme), so no complaining.

And, by the by, sorry there are no photos here--will try to update this post later and hopefully Blogger photo upload will be working.


UPDATE--Ok, whatever Blogger's problem was is now fixed, so here are my Week 4 photos. My eye's much better here, you can't even see the red in the photos and there's really just a little spot left. Still a little swollen, and that comes and it goes.

Wearing a Face That I Keep in a Jar

To further prove to you that I DO wake up and put on proper clothes and some makeup and brush my hair and go to an office and do something all day that doesn't involve this blog, here's a shot of me dressed: not in a robe or a nightgown, but an ironed shirt and all kitted out to go to work.

My bruises are all gone, I'm just still waiting on that one eye to heal, but it's coming along. The strange thing about how my eyes are healing is that it seems to come in fits and starts: one morning, it's significantly less red, then no progress for days.

This morning also marked my return to an exercise routine--35 minutes on the elliptical machine followed by The Firm's Ab Sculpt routine. I think the elliptical is a good choice for this stage of the game because it's not jarring or particularly strenuous.