Day 1 – Jan 7th, 2014
I’ve been researching and reading about rhinoplasty for many years and I’ve always read patient stories saying there was little to no pain after the surgery. Unfortunately, I have quite a great deal of it post-operation. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t changed anything for the world! I am more than willing to endure all this discomfort to get the cute nose I’ve always wanted. The reason I’m under a lot of pain is because I had several procedures done in a single operation. My inner septum was straightened, my nose bridge was reduced and my nasal tip was deprojected and refined. The fact that I didn’t have much sleep didn’t help either. Aside from the fact that I’m feeling groggy, I also have a sore throat right now since I’ve been breathing through my mouth. My eyes and lips are swollen and there is also some bad bruising under my right eye. But the worst swelling I have is in the tip of my nose. However, this is something that Dr. Shah told me to expect since he did spend a lot of time in this area. It’s only the first day of recovery today and by this time, I’ve already cleaned and changed my dressing three times. I basically spent my first day of recovery resting in my lazy boy and icing my face every 20 minutes. Dr. Shah already talked to me about how important icing is to the recovery process, which is why I had to be very religious about it. However, I have to say that icing my nose every 20 minutes can get quite boring after a while. This is why I devised my own icing method, which I liked to call the “One Glove Frozen Pea Technique”. This way, you can at least use the other eye to read or watch TV to help you pass the time.
Not surprisingly, eating and drinking are still a challenge today. It’s quite impossible to eat when the areas around my nose, mouth and eyes are swollen and gradually getting worse. To lessen the swelling and pain, I’m taking dissolvable Arnica pills. But I have to admit that I am really questioning their efficacy since my bruising and swelling look like they could not get any worse! To aid my recovery, Dr. Shah also provided me with healing patches, which you can see me wearing in my recovery photos.
Smiling through the pain and discomfort. The first 24 hours are always the worst part of recovery.
Speaking of Dr. Shah, he also called and left me a message today. Unfortunately, I missed his call since I was busy icing. And to tell you the truth, I really wasn’t expecting a call from him so soon. I guess I still can’t get used to the fact that I was seeing a rhinoplasty surgeon who has genuine concern for his patients! In his message, he asked me how I was doing and asked me to call him back. It was really nice to hear him checking up on me after the surgery.
Needless to say, the first day of my rhinoplasty recovery was not exactly a picnic at the beach. The only bright side is that I knew that the first 24 hours are the hardest after a rhinoplasty surgery so the pain and discomfort did not exactly take me by surprise. Here’s to hoping that the worst is over!