I had my latest appointment with Dr. Shah last August 12. It has officially been 8 months since my surgery. And when I realized this, I couldn’t believe it! Time really does fly fast when you keep yourself busy. In my other posts, I mentioned about many rhinoplasty patients tend to worry about their appearance post-surgery and become impatient when they learn that final results do not become visible until after a year or two. Well, thankfully, I learned from my past experience that patience is a necessary ingredient in recovery. This is why I made the decision to get back to my normal life as soon as I could. Within days of the surgery, I was already going out of the house, running errands and getting back to work. Not only did this save me from the stress of worrying about my nose, but it also helped me stay positive through the most trying months.
My appointment with Dr. Shah was at 5 in the afternoon. First of all, I would like to share something awesome that I learned about parking and this can really help you if or when you decide to go see Dr. Shah. As long as you arrive after 5 p.m., you can have your parking fee reduced from $30 to $6 IF you buy something from one of the stores at Watertower place. 24 bucks is a pretty good deal, right?
The appointment itself went very well. I had to wait for about 15 minutes before I can see Dr. Shah. During the wait, one of his lovely assistants took pictures of my nose in another room. I recommend documenting your progress with pictures if you’re planning to undergo rhinoplasty. When you see your nose on a daily basis, it’s almost impossible to notice the differences taking place. But when I compared my month 1 photo to my latest month 8 picture, wow! There were some definite remarkable changes.
Month 8: Here’s a picture I snapped right before my appointment with Dr. Shah.
My profile picture. Where’s the beak?!?:)
After taking photos, I finally got to see Dr. Shah himself. He said my progress was looking good, but there was still about 15% swelling around the tip of my nose. Again, I would like to stress that when Dr. Shah talks about a bit of swelling on my nose, it’s only visible to HIM since he’s an expert. In short, an ordinary person wouldn’t be able to notice anything. In any case, he administered a heavy dose of Kenalog to bring the unnoticeable swelling down.
Finally, I told Dr. Shah that my left nostril was feeling a bit congested lately and he gave me a free nasal exam. On top of that, he gave me a prescription for a nose spray called Nascaort. He explained that the reason behind the congestion was that my turbinates (small bones inside the nose) were swollen.
So that’s pretty much it. Dr. Shah instructed me to see him again in 8 more weeks and that’s going to be in October. I’m definitely looking forward to that. Not only will I have more progress by then but it will be fall, my favorite time of the year.