Wanted my Nose to No Longer Be an Issue, Highgate Clinic, London, UK

Hi I had surgery with Mr Gonschior in October 2012. I was always bothered by my "witchy" nose and had always wanted a job done on it. However, about eight years ago I fell face first down 16 stairs at my place of work and the result was having to have corrective surgery a year later as could not breathe through my right nostril. This surgeon at Chase Farm Hospital in Enfield was top class. It was a septum op to repair my smashed nostril and enabled me thereafter to breathe. I was happy with that but more unhappy with my longish nose with hump as it now had been pushed very much to the left side of my face and was not only too pointy, humpy and long but now very twisted; a look borne out in photos. The NHS refused surgery for aesthetic (or what they termed cosmetic) reasons and finally my partner paid for me to go to MYA. I did feel constantly irritated by some of the staff at MYA, it all seemed so shallow, and fake somehow. The one girl I really respected was a nurse at MYA, who seemed very down to earth. Anyway, my nose was pretty smashed up; I guess; Mr Gonschior told me after surgery that he had found many fragments of bone that he had to pick out (I had open septo-rhinoplasty with him) and I was happy with my new nose for a long time. Basically, I went in not thinking that I would now have Hollywood looks but that my nose would no longer be an issue, as in I would not sit at traffic lights turning to look directly at people in cars next to me rather than looking ahead (fundamental to safe driving!?) because I was so paranoid about my profile and believed (and still do) that they were thinking what an ugly nose I had. To that end, this has been achieved more or less. It's also true that facial (especially) surgery will not make an unhappy person with many other issues of self-esteem, suddenly become a happy madly confident soul, but there are of course fundamental things that have to gel. I returned to see Mr Gonschior and all was well. He spent maybe five minutes with me the first time and just looked and said yes, very good, and smiled and looked very pleased. The second time, around six months ago, having waited two hours to see him, he spent literally two minutes with me with a smiling "muse" of his standing at his side wielding a clipboard. The reason I had gone back to see him was that I have much trouble breathing through my nose now and it has not really improved. I do yoga so obviously learn to breathe through my nose and that was never an issue (except when I first had my accident until the septum was repaired by the very able surgeon in Enfield). I get asthma and feel that I need to breathe through my nose rather than my mouth, this is fundamental to all of us really as our nose is our natural filter system which prevents many pollutants reaching our lungs. Mr Gonschior did not even touch my nose/face, just looked and said very nice. I said breathing is an issue (I had started to get quite anxious about this) and he said it would take a revision of the exact proportions of his previous work on me to rectify that! He also said that he may have to get cartilage from somewhere on me and "prop up" the nostril inside for the breathing ability - and that some people don't like that as makes the tip look wider). He told me that he was happy to see that my nose hadn't dropped anywhere near like he had thought it might -!!!? but then he looked at his notes and said oh yes, I remember this was such a difficult job - and to be fair he did say immediately after the op that it had taken three hours nearly and that he was a little concerned about my very fragile cartilage. I said will my cartilage hold up then? (groggily obviously) he said I hope so. Anyway my nose now is still better than it was; it absolutely has dropped and is now not such a straight profile line as it is low and very slightly concave at the top to middle mid line, which is better than sort of umped as it was prior to the op. But it is slightly bulbous at the end now; consistent with droppage. At some angles I feel it looks rather fat and large at the end now but dead-on profile is still quite acceptable. This month (11th) is the two-year anniversary of my op. I want to be able to breathe but as he told me it would take another op of the same proportions and magnitude of his original operation, I am loathe to go for that - big question anyway - would I be charged again. My op cost me £6,000! Obviously I am still paying that sum back as a loan and could not even think about paying again. Can't see MYA going for that. Is this perhaps why people are compelled to sue Gonschior/the Company??

You know, all I want from Gonschior is the respect of him listening, looking properly at my nose and giving me a solution to the breathing problem. I understand fully that my nose was quite shattered from my fall down the stairs so, on balance, I am believing (hoping) that he did the best he could with his amazing skills with, given the structure (or lack of it) he had to work with. I don't expect to wait two hours, to have to be in a room with him for two minutes with no privacy, just a vacuous shallow young girl watching. Why do we have these people as so called chaperones - if we need a chaperone it should be a NURSE - someone who has studied not some girl who is just there to make the place look pretty? He sent me away feeling somewhat distressed; that maybe I will never breathe properly again. He said come back in a year (as I prompted that by suggesting it - he did not propose it). But the aesthetics are not my biggest issue; I will not have the nose I saw on one of my friends that I would have liked; you cannot get a nose to order, I get that; I went with my eyes open, knowing that I wanted my nose to no longer (after 55 years) be an issue, that I wanted to live life without that self-conscious element holding me back from feeling free. But I am not impressed by arrogance. You pay a lot of money for this procedure/service. MYA itself is quite flawed in some ways, they forget to phone you, seem very vague about who you are when you call. It's all the big expansive SELL when you go there but even in between the selling and your op they can be quite dismissive; then after your op, they come across as very pleasant and smiley but bemused at your requests to come back for follow ups. This is not a criticism of the staff as a whole in any way. I think they are working within the parameters of their employers restraints and consciousness of the £ signs. Yes, in some ways I do wonder if I should have gone to the private doctor my GP recommended rather than answer a MYA ad. I also feel their image is very tied up with this celebrity TV status crap. I have never seen TOWIE thank God but am aware from going to MYA that their whole company is SOLD on the fact that they have worked on so many of these "celebrities that no one knows why they are". Perhaps I should have been alerted by this fixation on and advertising that they have altered the "look" of some many people who are on reality shows but hey, I was at last getting my dream nose and I went ahead. I am very conscious of the fact that Mr Gonschior could not have known what he would find until he went in but there were no pre-x-rays or anything to show him the inner structure of my (our) nose - perhaps that is not feasible anyway. I also feel that my concern at the time was very much that I think I "went down" to surgery mid afternoon and that how many ops had he had to do already that day, let's face it ('scuse the pun) it is intense, consistently intense, skilled work and how tired would he be once he got to me? etc. I'm hoping my musings - both I think happy and concerned/disappointed slightly are helpful to others on the forum. I can only give my experience and take on it. To summarise; aesthetically I am not unhappy with my nose; I realise he worked with what he had and it is indeed an improvement (although of course now people tell me I had a very aquiline, classy nose before) but I remain concerned that it could drop further and become more sunken at the top half and bulbous at the tip; but my main concern is the breathing issue.

Kimmi