Day 7

As I approach the 5 month mark, here's the latest outcome...

Sooooo, I've just passed the FOUR month mark since having the surgery, and this is the result right now. I am very happy. There is still a bit of swelling in my tip, but it's been going down gradually. As my doctor told me in late April, it will take 8 months for the swelling in my tip to subside completely and that was 3 months ago. 5 more months to go!

I'm celebrating 6 weeks post op by sharing a photoshoot I did this week. I had my follow-up appointment with Dr. Fazel Fatah yesterday. He said I am healing very nicely, and my results are beautiful and very natural. This is what I asked for, as I did tell him I would not have liked it if my nose was too pinched (Jackson family-esque). I still wanted to keep the ethnic structure of my nose, and this was greatly achieved.

He used my own cartilage to build my tip, but added none to the bridge. He told me all he did was bring in the bones closer together slightly. I was only in surgery for 2 hours and it went well. No complications. I told him the swelling in my tip isn't going down as fast as I would like it to, granted, a great deal has in deed gone down, but not enough. It doesn't look bad at all, but I'm just soooo impatient to see my final result!

He actually squeezed my tip, and said the softness was coming back, and that my tip still being swollen is perfectly normal at 6 weeks. I don't even know why I raised this as an issue at just 6 weeks. I already know this prior to research. I already know that the tip takes the longest to go down especially on a thick skinned person like myself who had an OPEN procedure. But as I say, the waiting game is killing me slowly. Lol.

Dr. Fatah said most of the swelling should subside in another 8 months. But as I approach the 2 month mark, my nose is becoming more and more refined week by week. Sometimes it's real swollen in the morning when I wake up and as the day progresses, the swelling goes down.

Most people have cited 4 weeks where they started loving their results. For me, 6 weeks is definitely my turning point where I am actually seeing GLIMPSES of what my final result will look like. And I can't wait to see what my nose will look like at 2, 3 and 6 months.

I've stopped taping my nose, because after a while it doesn't have an effect. I was doing the taping at night for 4 weeks. Now I just put a wet wipe underneath the cold water tap, and then dab my nose with it. Or just use it to cover my nose entirely. I do this for 15 minutes a day, and I think it's helping just a little.

One more thing. I went to the gym last week, and by my standards I assumed I was taking it lightly. I didn't do weights. I stuck strictly to cardio and didn't push myself. OK, maybe I did a little but I was still holding back TREMENDOUSLY. I'm the type of person that thinks going to the gym is pointless if you're not prepared to sweat it out. Well anyway, after my work out, I came home and my nose had BALLOONED to epic proportions. I was WTF-ing at myself in the mirror completely gobsmacked. It took TWO days for my nose to go back to normal. So I mentioned this to the doc, and he told me I should wait a few more weeks to return to the gym. I will go back in a month's time.

Overall, my nose is healing great and the right amount of swelling has gone down at 6 weeks. Apparently, my healing process is right on target. My next and last appointment is a few days before Christmas (December 21st.) I probably won't update for a while, but will definitely post a photo update once I get to the 3-month mark in June.