Rhinoplasty for dorsal bump, etc.

Every once in a while I think of making an update. It feels tiring, but, I thought I would write. after all the swelling was completed, you could see that I still had a bump (which I never really cared about, it was never such a big bump) and that about 1/4 down, my nose is bent and takes a decided jog to the left, and it's crooked. It is quite noticeable in photographs. I sent Dr. G a picture of it and he recommended having filler put in on the right side to even it out. Which I thought was a really pretty careless answer, as obviously my nose would look super wide if we did that. ?! I asked about having it surgically repaired and he said he would need to see me in the office, but he did not say anythign encouraging and I live out of state or maybe I would have popped in to see what he had to say but and ... anyway. I don't feel Dr. G did a good job. He didn't listen during the consult, he was arrogant, he purposefully made it longer and wider than I wanted, and all that would have been just a big Whatever but I am writing because my nose is undoubtedly crooked now (which it never was), and so there is nothing subjective about that. There is no sense wishing I had gone somewhere else, but I definitely would not recommend Dr. G and if I ever were to do a revision, I would not choose him to do it. (Even if it was free.) Mostly for the arrogance.

I wrote the following post in June, and then decided not to publish it because I wanted to give it more time and also because I am not posting pics and I didn't want to create angst for nothing. I"m now 3.5 months post, and the past few days I've been looking in the mirror and just feeling ... okay ... not dismayed, but just frustrated. It is a fine nose, but it is certainly not a pretty or terribly feminine nose - I dislike how the columella hangs down as it does, and I also feel it is wide. I do have swelling in the tip still, it is quite hard, so there is some hope that there's swelling elsewhere, but at this point I don't think so, and even if there is, it is minimal. In other words, except for possibe refinement of the tip, I think this is the nose I have now. Slightly too long, slightly too wide. You know those women with beautiful noses? Refined tip, thin bridge, perfect size or maybe even a hair on the small side? That is What I wanted, but it is not how this went.
Here is the post frrom six weeks after surgery. I made some comments today, and I put those in parentheses, but basically my feelings from then have not changed.
Hi! I have not felt like posting in a while. I don't super love my nose. I have been conflicted about continuing my profile postings if they are going to be somewhat un-positive; since I'm unwilling to post pictures, I realize my comments will create possibly some angst for future patients without being able to see and understand my results. But, I decided it would still be better to post than not post. (Obviously I changed my mind about this.)
Basically, it's a perfectly fine nose and if I had been born with this nose, I would never have given another thought to it. So. Just to be clear, it is certainly not botched and certainly not a disaster.
My surgery was six weeks ago. The swelling is slowly going down, and all of that seems fine. My profile remains pleasant and cute, although the supra tip break (or whatever it's called) that I loved so much somehow disappeared after two weeks. I'm not sure how that could be, or if it's coming back when the swelling's all evened out. (So Far it hasn't, but even at 3.5 months I still have tip swelling and right now it looks just kind of round at the tip.)
The thing I don't like about my nose is exactly what I was trying to convey to Dr. G during my brief consult and exactly what I didn't think he was listening to me about and exactly what I did not want. (Which has made all of this feel particularly frustrating.) I didn't like the length of my tip, and I didn't like how it hung down. Basically, it used to be that the top portion of my tip hung over, but now it's just the columella that hangs, and it hangs down more than it should on a fabulous nose. (The tip, I feel, hangs just a little beyond where it should as well, but I can deal with it / hoping it's just swelling.) When I got the cast off, the columella was basically perfect, which concerned me because I knew it was all going to drop. And it did, about 1/5 of an inch, and now I dislike it quite a bit. I do not hold out much hope that it will look less hanging as the weeks and months go by - the trend with noses seem to be that tips drop, not that they go back up as the swelling goes down or what not. The tip definitely does have the most swelling left in it, and the tip is not refined at all, but I think there's still some hope that it will refine on the top part, if that makes any sense; I just don't think it will become less drooped.
I also feel my bridge is too wide, but I'm hoping that's just swelling; I"m only six weeks out so I imagine it must be swelling in there, although when I press down on it it doesn't feel squishy or hard, it just feels like a normal nose. The area between my eyes is sore, i'm not sure if that's swelling in there or just some bone soreness because of the osteotomy and things getting moved around.
I feel my nose looks not so different than it did before surgery. Absolutely no one notices, and even people I've told have no real sense what is different. That's fine, I guess. But there was a lot of room for improvement, and we only improved it about 50% of its potential. I am glad no one knew I was doing this because I feel like people would almost feel sorry for me that I had rhinoplasty and it barely looks different and I still don't have a beautiful nose. Before surgery I had a bump, which was almost fixed -there's still the tiniest bump remaining - but honestly the bump never bothered me that much. What bothered me was that my tip drooped and my nose looked long, and too wide at the tip when I smiled - it kind of spread laterally. My one good friend who absolutely tells me the truth about everything basically agreed that, yes, it would look better post-surgery without this stupid columella hanging down. She was there with me during the consult and we both shake our heads now about how all that went. I wish I had been clearer, and i wish he had listened more.
To me, my nose now looks FINE. Just not particularly pretty or feminine. I used to look in the mirror and at least think I was pretty, sometimes very pretty -- just that my nose bothered me and was a distraction. I have not thought once since the rhinoplasty that I look very pretty; something subtle that used to make me look pretty seems to have changed. I think it is that my nose is actually a bit wider now. (This is still true. I DO look younger, which i appreciate, and I look fine, but certainly not beautiful anymore, and really just plain. A plain woman with a wide, long nose.)
Hopefully, it's just that my face is swollen. (It wasn't.)
So, there it is. I am disappointed and annoyed, but I also am okay with it. Maybe I can look into having the tip redone at a later date,I've read it's not that big a deal. I also am afraid that you start fussing with a perfectly fine nose and you might end up with something weird in the end. At any rate, for now I have bigger things going on. I did write to grigoryants about this six months out, and he said more or less that my nose looked beautiful. So, I guess it's exactly the nose he wanted, but not so much the nose I wanted.
Again, CERTAINLY not a botch job and not that big a deal. Would I have picked a different surgeon if I'd known how this was going to look? Yes, I would have. However, maybe that would have been a disaster - there are enough of them out there in the world. For now, honestly, i appreciate that I survived without getting an even less unfortunate result, and I appreciate all the things that are awesome in my life, and I am trying not to think about it. As of now, every time I do my makeup I do think about it, and I feel frustrated. As soon as I move away from the mirror I feel happy, though! I have always been an incredibly happy person; I just view this as an experiment that didn't come off.
Well, that's my truth about all this. Please don't PM me asking for photos, I'm not going to post photos. I realize this is annoying of me - a displeased Dr. G post and no pictures?!? I am sorry, but I"m just not going there. I've tried to describe the situation as well and as honestly as I can.
I will post another update in a month or two, or sooner if anything amazing happens. Who knows what changes tomorrow may bring?!? xo, TM

Hello real selfers :) I had surgery 9 days ago ... I am amazingly not too swollen, especially compared to where I was on day 2-3. I have some stubborn under-eye bruising, which doesn't look very pretty (I went to venice beach and some guy asked me if my husband had hit me, which made me feel so sad. The next day my husband and I went to a big home show at the LA convention center (he flew in for it), and people were perhaps looking at us funny. (Perhaps all in my head.)

My nose looks pretty good! The tip already is refining,it is actually not the most swollen part at all! The most swollen is the bridge - I had an osteotomy, so I guess swelling there makes sense. Still some between-eye swelling, too, but really I am out and about in my hometown; if it wasn't for the bruising I would have gone to a party tonight!

I flew home yesterday, it was fine. I was a little bit worried about the cabin pressure, but I barely felt anything.

I'm sleeping upright and taping at night, but I"m almost able to breathe through my nose now (I actually just now found a stitch up there! I just took it out myself, it didn't hurt). I am not cleaning, q-tipping or fishing around too much up in the nostrils, they are tender even when I spritz with simple saline spray, so I'm more or less just swabbing it with olive oil and vaseline, and leaving well enough alone.

The stitches at my base left almost no mark - but I apply soooo much sunscreen on any scar or new skin areas so I don't end up with permanent hyper pigmentation.

Please PM me if you'd like information on the great place where I stayed in LA. She has an airbnb and the address is 216 east california in pasadena, so you can look it up that way, but for Dr. G's patients she is willing to offer a separate deal in which she offers pickup and drop off for surgery and appointments and she'll do the shopping and help you make your food the first few days (I wouldn't even have been able to mash a banana into some yogurt without her help). She's also walking (15 minute) distance to old town pasadena (FUN FUN shopping!! I went out with a cast; I'm shameless). I didn't realize it was such a boon to be close to Dr. G's office / the hospital, but she is 7 miles away (15 minutes) and traffic can be ridiculous in that town, you could easily spend an hour or more traveling to see him. I think her exact price would depend on what your needs are or develop to be, but I can fully endorse her as one of the nicest, most upbeat, super accepting and reasonable people I've ever met. Plus, the room is so cushy and comforting, it was a great place to heal.

My daughters are 5 and 7 - I thought for sure they would notice - they notice EVERYTHING - but they didn't. In fact my eldest just said, "I feel like something is different about your face." That is extraordinary to me, but it really does look pretty natural except that it is extra wide right now.

Thanks everyone for your nice comments and PMs. I'm sorry to those commenters and private messages requesting pictures, but I'm not going that route. I realize that my review is less valuable and helpful without the pictures, but there are so many other really amazing reviewers with pictures from Dr. G's office that I feel there's enough information about his work out there without me posting mine. I do look nice, though, and I'm super pleased.