Rhinoplasty + Chin Implant / 26 / Grad Student - San Antonio, TX

I never really noticed my profile was unbalanced until I saw a gorgeous photo of one of my friends profile for her senior pictures. I remember asking for a photo like that in my senior photos but when I got the image back, I couldn't understand why my profile didn't look like hers.
Over the next few years I noticed that I never really grew out of having a weak chin. I just never grew a chin! From the side, my nose never bothered me. But from the front, especially when I would smile a genuine, happy smile, it would wrinkle up in the most unflattering way.
I remember thinking "why does my nose look wide and bumpy when I smile big?". I started smiling in photos less and had a "side" that I would allow photos from.

It was a real self esteem killer to be honest.
Fast forward to now and I'm in my first year of grad school. I have saved and saved and finally was able to start going to consultations. I saw three doctors in the San Antonio/Austin/Houston area and decided on Dr. Garza. He made me feel most comfortable from the moment I walked in and we immediately connected on UT (his daughter also attended UT).
His patient care coordinator, Andrea, is amazing. She was so caring and even after the consultation, she and I talked for about an hour. We instantly connected and I knew that this was where I wanted to have my surgery.

I had my surgery yesterday morning at 7:30 AM and everything went well from what I'm told!
I arrived at the surgery center at 7:30 and taken into the back room where I was given a bed and a nurse came in to talk over paperwork and start my IV. She was awesome. On Wednesday I had to have an MRI (I have Inflammatory Bowel Disease) so I was worried that would conflict. She assured me it wouldn't and started the IV just above the IV that was started the day prior. I was grateful for that as that area is really the only spot where you can see my vein.
After that, I was wheeled into the operating room, given a "margarita" in my IV where I became really loopy...and then I was out! I woke up around noon and I felt no pain...EXCEPT my throat!
Oh my goodness that hurt SO bad. Seriously, that was the only thing that hurt like hell at that moment. I was BEGGING for chloraseptic (cough spray?) to help soothe my throat. They had none so we picked some up on the way home.
When I arrived home we (fiance and I) immediately started the humidifier and took a Tramadol. Unfortunately the Tramadol didn't do a THING. Tramadol is always my go-to with my IBD pain, so I couldn't understand why it wasn't working now.
I called Andrea and she immediately called me in some codeine with Tylenol. I was so grateful for her doing that because as I got home I was starting to feel everything in my face. Now I just have to be super careful of my GI-tract as codeine doesn't exactly "help" me at all...even with stool softeners.

I think that's all I'm going to update today. I will update with more before photos soon and current photos as well.
Happy healing!

Here's a few more before pics and pics as of today. It's hard to tell because of the swelling, but I see a chin coming along!

Today is Day 2 since my surgery (surgery was on Thursday, today is Saturday) and I'm getting super puffy. The swelling is definitely in my cheeks and my lower eye lids. I think a little blood vessel also ruptured in my right eye. Not the most pleasant feeling.
I'm off of the pain killers for right now. Andrea encouraged me to try and taper off of them today and so far I haven't had to reach for them yet. Though, I will probably start taking some extra strength Tylenol soon.
My face and chin area are still really tight and I can't open my mouth very wide. I've been eating things like greek yogurt and protein shakes. My sister-in-law came by last night and made some really brothy chicken noodle soup and it helped a lot as far as comfort goes.
I will say that the biggest help thus far has been the humidifier. You can't sleep with your mouth closed at all (even though I can slightly breathe out of my nose) so your mouth and lips end up really dry. The humidifier has really helped with that and I'm sure they'd be a lot more dried out if I didn't have that thing up full blast.
There's not really a whole lot to update today with except feeling pretty slugglish and very "congested" feeling. I keep feeling like I need to pop my ears (you know, that feeling you get when you're in an airplane and steadily rising?) yeah, but you kinda can't...Haha.
I'm still spitting up blood that has been trickling down into my throat...so that's cute.

My chin has been healing nicely from what I can tell. Everything is VERY swollen around my jowel area and the bandages that cover the incisions are kinda full with dried blood. I'm too scared to mess with that though because I know there are stitches underneath...so I'll probably just wait until my post-op appointment and see what Dr. Garza wants me to do.

Really hoping these next few days breeze on past! I have my post-op appointment on Tuesday at noon with Dr. Garza so I'm super excited to get this cast off so I can see my cute little nose!