4 months post op.. smooth sailing!

Growing up I've had a love/hate relationship with my nose. In one way, it fits my face and my features, and I have appreciated that it's prominence has given me an "exotic" look in my 20's. Fast forward to my early 30's, now I am starting to feel that sexy strong nose is making me look older and less soft. Last year I was certain that I was going to address this once and for all, I had the surgery scheduled and decided to consult with another surgeon for good measure. I was already having my doubts, there was something about the other surgeon's aesthetics that I wasn't quite fond of. The alternate consultation surgeon told me to leave my face alone, that my proportions were on, and the slight correction of my bridge was going to throw off my face, he said I was a diamond he would not want to crack... As you could imagine I took this as a sign to back out.

A year later I have agonized over the decision, the final factor was my wedding pictures and video. My nose seemed worse than ever for some reason!
As the aging process is starting to rear its ugly head, I feel that refining my nose will soften my face and soften what I feel is premature aging. I researched for hours and found a doctor who I felt would be a good match. After meeting with him it all made sense why the other surgery didn't pan out, he was my guy :)
I have been chomping at the bit to get this surgery under way, and Feb 5th is the big day! I am nervous and excited but also certain that everything has fallen into place. I have also decided to have my jawline (submentum) sculpted thru lipo to take some of the moderate pooch and heaviness which I feel makes me look a bit masculine along with my hard profile, so all around subtle softening and refinement.

So yesterday everything was straightened out and set in stone, i paid for half of the entire surgery and now cannot back out or I will lose 4k! I had horrible anxiety and even though I'm not a drinker, had a couple glasses of red wine to calm my nerves, it really helped! My pre-op is scheduled for feb 1st, and I have a few more questions and am looking forward to a bit more reassurance. It still seems surreal, and I am on a rollercoaster of emotion. Most importantly, I am trying my best to keep my expectations realistic, and know that there's a good chance it won't be "perfect" and a small chance it may not even be an improvement, and a slight possibility I could even hate it! My motto: "keep your standards and expectations low, and you're seldom dissapointed." Here goes nothing!

So my surgery is one week and one day away. I stay up all night reading RS, the good, the bad and the ugly. Sometimes I scold myself for exposing myself to the downside of rhinoplasty, it gives me terrible anxiety. I don't really advocate prescriptions because I am a yoga teacher, but I have resorted to Ambien to try and get off this vampire schedule. This morning I woke up with the creative idea to tape my nose because my biggest fear with rhinoplasty in elevating my columella is lengthening my philtrum! I almost want to leave it alone because even reducing the shadow scares me to have a longer upper lip. So I went Pee-wee Herman this morning and taped her up, and I gotta tell ya it worked!! I may be a Froot Loop but it gave me a great visual of what my nose will look like narrowed and lifted. Ofcourse it did nothing to deproject my bridge and tip, but wow, it actually put me at ease!! I posted a picture of my strange tape idea even!