Best Decision Ever

I got a lip lift performed by Dr Rodriguez yesterday. I sent in pictures of my face at all angles to his office as requested and filled out all the forms and had a virtual consultation with him over Skype 3 months before in the beginning on December. He said that I was a good candidate for a lip lift, so I scheduled the surgery for the 28th of February (I could have scheduled before this date but I wanted to give myself time to mentally prepare). I flew in from Seattle on the 26th, had a face-to-face meeting with him on the 27th where I showed him how high I wanted to go and he measured my lips at their current length (1.5 cm) and where I pulled up my lips to show where I wanted them to sit (1.1 cm). He was calm and answered all my questions. I picked up all my medicine from the pharmacy--anti-anxiety, pain killers, anti-inflammation, and antibiotics.
My surgery was at 2:30PM the next day. He took me in at around 3:30 because the person before me took longer than expected (no problem, I'm happy with him giving each patient the best care). I was put in a gown, laid down on a medical chair that looked a bit like a dentists chair, and he put in two shots next to my nostrils. He warned me they would be painful but it was alright. It hurt but just in a slightly teared up kind of way. After that, my lips literally felt like a rock hard piece of meat on my face. I didn't feel a single thing through the procedure and was even able to carry a conversation for a couple minutes.
Once he was done, I got dressed and took an Uber back to my hotel. I took my antibiotics once I returned and took my pain killers the moment I felt the anesthesia wear off a little. I had relatively little pain, but definitely BED REST. Even just walking to the bathroom and washing my hands would get my heart rate up so high, I'd get dizzy and nauseous. Once I collapsed into bed again, it would go away. I spent the day laying and texting friends and listening to podcasts while laying still. I honestly felt pretty good and went to sleep at around 12:30, elevated at a 45 degree angle.
I will update as I progress!

Alright, promised update number 1! I was pretty swollen for the first 3-4 days, but it was actually way less than I thought it was going to be. I expected it to be like a dental procedure where you had to be on a liquid diet, but I could eat most everything as long as long I cut the meal into small pieces. The worst part was probably the nausea and lightheadedness that I got from the hydrocodone, but I was easily able to stop taking it on day 3. That being said, there's something to be said about reintroducing food back slowly. I just went and had a normal, relatively heavy meal and threw that up the first day. I was fine once I learned my lesson.

On day 4, the small annoyances started. It constantly feels like my nose is running! And there's nothing I can do about it because there's glue on my philtrum. It's a really cringy, distracting sensation that made it hard to get back to work for me since I do research that usually requires my whole focus. Outside of that though, pretty comfortable.

On Day 5, the itching really kicked in, and since it's under the glue, again, there's not much you can do. It's not the biggest deal if you're just relaxing but it woke me up at night last night and made it hard to go back to sleep for a bit. The informational packet says take Benadryl for this, so I might try that tonight.

I spent Day 4 and Day 5 sleeping a ton still and did feel myself getting more tired than I normally would. By Day 6, I felt pretty much back to normal and energized once again.

I can already see the shape coming into itself. My lip is not super swollen anymore. The left side of my philtrum and lip and the tip of my nose is numb, which feels a bit weird in the wind. I've had VERY minimal bruising so far, just a small strip of yellow on my left smile line.

Dr. Rodriguez called me Sunday to check up on how I was doing, which I felt like was great patient care. On top of that, his front office called me Monday to further check on how I was doing. Really can't emphasize how much I appreciate that; I always look for that in a good medical care system.

Hi I'm back! Things are going really well, and I'm back to normal for the first part. The left part of my lip feels less numb now (though it's still there). I can talk and eat completely normally. The only thing that's left is the last bit of swelling to go away throughout my lip and inside my nostrils over a long period of time. The swelling does inhibit my lip from moving upward or downward enough to do extreme facial expressions like large smiles or tiny pursing of the lip. I just look a little silly doing a big laugh since my lip doesn't move up but it's fine and doesn't bother me! I have started applying my silicon gel at the 2 week mark. My lips look so good that the scar doesn't even bother me right now even though its visible. The scar is looking like its healing well though! I expect it to fade nicely, even though I'm happy with it even as is.