'Twas The Night Before Rhinoplasty - Melbourne, AU

Ladies, Gentleman & any aliens looking for updates on plastic surgery...hi!

This is going to be a quick update (hopefully quick as I do sometimes go off on tangents. The word 'tangents' always makes me think of tangerines, yum). Anyway...

I've had two nights of no sleep. Woo. It's okay though as I'll catch up soon, but I just can't sleep when breathing through my mouth alone, it ends up closing within seconds of me falling asleep. I've been in quite a bit of pain: it's mostly a burning sensation inside my nose and my teeth ache. I wish I could hug my nose right now and give it some TLC, it's been beaten up bad, poor nosey thing.

My swelling around my eyes has been worse today, slightly subsiding now as I'm constantly icing it (haha, not with icing sugar). I've seen people mention arnica cream...is it worth me getting some tomorrow to decrease the swelling or does it just relieve the soreness of swollen skin? Can anyone recommend anything else for swelling? If you can let me know, that'll be really...SWELL! As I type this I feel myself dozing off, so I shall leave it here and sign off with a joke I'll make up on the spot...

How many plants does it take to make a big one? TREE

For being in pain and being half asleep, that wasnt that bad now was it! Most recent photos are included. Warning: images contains severe swelling/bad skin.

I set my alarm for 5:45am as I had to be at the hospital at 7:15. As I was getting ready, I noticed my gel polish on my feet and started googling whether I needed to take it off - there were a variety of answers! As gel polish takes a very long time to get off, I thought I better leave it and just mention it to the nurse when I got there. The traffic was pretty bad and my mum and I ended up being 30 minutes late, so once I got there, I was asked to strip down to my underwear. The nurse asked me to do this in the nicest way possible though!

In a matter of moments, I was in my gown, the anaesthetist explaining his role and what he'd be administering - general anaesthetic, local anaesthetic, an antibiotic & painkillers after the surgery. Then my surgeon came to see how I was feeling - I was doing okay considering the morning rush and the prospect of my face soon being broken by him. As for the gel nail polish on my feet...absolutely fine as they needed my fingers to monitor my blood pressure during the surgery (just 1 finger, but I gave them all 8 as I was feeling generous!)

As I hopped onto the surgery table, everyone made me feel comfortable by asking me questions about my work, my British accent and anything other than the surgery itself to keep me distracted I suppose. And then came the oxygen mask - I inhaled deeply and the anaesthetist told me I would soon feel a cold sensation up my arm which was normal. By the time I registered the cold sensation, I was out. When I awoke, my eyes were cold and I knew why - the nurse had pre-warned me of what I would be waking up to so I didn't panic. By the way it was ice packs on my eyes, not cold-blooded frogs in case you were wondering :-)

I was content just laying in bed, coldness on my face, breathing through my mouth and being given sips of water by the kind nurses. I was staying over night in hospital so they could monitor me closely: hours went by and I was hooked up to the IV saline solution. During the evening, The nurse introduced a drug within the saline solution that decreases blood loss and the drip would last for an hour. This is the only thing that made me feel woozy during the entire time there. After 30 minutes of it entering my body slowly, I started to feel nauseous, my head was spinning erratically and my body and face started to produce beads of sweat - so I hit the panic button! My nurse at that time, Sheena, dealt with the situation immediately and with ease. She seemed to Magic a wet towel onto my neck within seconds, ask one of her colleagues to pull those tight socks up to let my feet breathe and cranked up the air con in the room. She also stopped the drip for a while so that my body could readjust. Within minutes, I was feeling better again and she slowed down the drip as there was only a little more left to do - after that, everything was A-okay!

I decided to try and enjoy myself as much as possible despite feeling in pain - my teeth were aching so much and my nose burned from the inside - that was expected though! So I developed a fun way of eating yoghurt with an upside down spoon - some good tongue action but most importantly, I didn't need to open my mouth much. I dropped the TV remote/panic alarm device and as I couldn't bend down, I thought I'd try and pick it up using my toes - it took a few minutes, but I managed it! A small part of me was really proud of myself for doing that, I guess I was a little bored too.

i didn't sleep for more than a few minutes at a time as I wasn't used to breathing through my mouth alone and needed to sip water but it didn't irritate me - this is something I chose to do so how can I possibly complain about anything. I can't smell anything (which is OK as my puppy sometimes smells bad!) but I can still taste food which I didn't expect and is great. So that you don't miss out on normal food, I recommend blending anything you like to eat (I blended chicken, carrots and some rice today) and it tasted good and was soft enough for me to eat comfortably. I'm drinking coconut water as it's nice and cold from the fridge, but I wonder whether that would contribute to my increased swelling - hmm, let me check the salt content...oh my goodness!!! 21mg per 100ml! No wonder - I've already had about 500ml of this stuff and my face is feeling tighter and tighter so it can't be helping. Back to water - which is what I should have stuck to in the first place! Lesson number 1 learnt - avoid salt (especially high doses!)

I've attached today's photos for you to see - it's a bit surreal knowing I have done this and I am intrigued to have the first viewing of it on 24th November! I will be posting those photos (and my progress in general) so that it can benefit others who are contemplating this procedure or wondering what's involved.

My rainbow cool mist humidifier just arrived by the way - it's great for adding moisture to them surrounding air especially when you have to breathe out of your mouth, so I'll let you know whether it helps.

I think I probably titled this review the way I did as I have just watched a Xmas movie and The Night Before Christmas was the movie that came to mind when I started typing. Although rhinoplasty is in no way like Christmas(!) it has some similar features. There's the rush - before surgery to ensure the house is clean, food supplies (the softer & healthier the better) are ready and your hair is washed! Then there's the joyous occasion (the surgery): nothing remembered as the alcohol (anesthetic) plays havoc on your memory. Then there's the cleaning up: 7 days of cleaning my nostrils - lovely. And finally there is the gift: seeing my nose, but a more refined version.

Mr. Richard Bloom at Arc Plastic Surgery is going to be giving me this gift and I was well-informed at my consultation that the final result won't be seen straight away due to swelling. However I'm sure I will still notice a major difference as I've looked at my nose for 30 years (not constantly, that would be strange) and any change to my face is going to stand out...to me. By the way, the price I have noted is correct in US dollars (equivalevent to 15500 AUD/7250 GBP). This is quite pricey, but none of my hospital stay or anaesthetist fees and covered).

In less than 12 hours I'll be in surgery and right now I'm feeling nervous, scared, excited and in a state of calm-shock. I am actually doing this...at last. I was always very conscious of my nose, especially my profile (people seated next to me at work/seminars, stopping at traffic and cars pulling up next to me, laughing at something and being conscious of people seeing how large and curved my nose was). These things sound ridiculous to many people, but I know this resonates with so many others who have felt/feel the same. I always knew my nose was larger than many people mainly because of the hump, but I didn't pay much attention to it. As life has developed into a more photo-taking, social-media orientated world, seeing myself in photos would remind me of how my nose actually looks to people. I remember being in my singing lesson at 16 years old and a boy my age was staring at me. He liked me at the time but it didn't stop him from making a simple & honest comment: he said "your nose is really big". I look back and half-laugh about it because it's childish but it hurt me so much and I felt even more conscious about my nose after this.

I've attached some photos to give you guys an idea of what I am currently working with. I have asked my surgeon to remove the dorsal hump, narrow the width ever so slightly, reduce the size of the tip slightly and marginally decrease the general size of my nose. You'll notice that I've used words to describe small changes because I don't want my nose to look completely different (although I would have loved to have been born with Megan Fox's nose - even though she wasn't born with it herself haha). Still my nose but a more refined version as Richard Bloom said.

Apologies if I've written a novel here, I haven't told anyone about this except my mum and best friend so I guess I needed to type out a few thoughts on here. I hope to update you after the surgery to inform you along the way of what to expect, any tips I can offer and help anyone that is thinking of undergoing this specific procedure.

Thanks for reading - you have great patience if you got this far :-)
Either that or you're a doctor and you have lots of patients! Hmm, I'm definitely nervous about tomorrow, my jokes are appalling.

Sierra Bravo