Revision with Dr Hilinski (San Diego)

Hello everyone!
I'm a European girl in my twenties and I'd like to share my experience with you all in hopes that you'll learn something, avoid the mistakes I made and make the best choices for your future! Hopefully this wil help at least one person out there.
BACKGROUND STORY
First of all, I want to say how much it is CRUCIAL that when you decide to have any type of cosmetic surgery, you do it for YOURSELF. It means that if deep down you want a surgery for someone else to find you prettier or for someone else to like you more, DO NOT do it. I know it may sound like something that is so obvious it doesn't need to be said, and it probably sounds cliché as well. But believe me, it needs to be said. We all go through rough times in life and when we are at the lowest and vulnerable, we can make pretty poor choices.
This is what happened to me. And this is why I want you to understand, truly understand that :
1. beauty comes in all sizes, shapes, and colors. So do not let anyone (may it be society or your friend) define what beautiful is. If you want to change something about yourself, choose a result that YOU like even though it might be an unpopular look.
2. beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You can't be pretty to everyone and everywhere you go, so don't change yourself hoping for more people to find you appealing. This is a lost cause and it's a good thing! How wonderful it is that there is so much diversity in terms of preferences and beauty?
3. True love and beauty aren't corelated. You won't make anyone love you by changing the way you look.
The reason I want to emphasize these points before jumping into my review is because I had my first surgery at 19 y.o, for all the wrong reasons. I've always had a bad relationship with my mother, we are very different women and unfortunately I've always felt unloved by her. Beauty is her main interest in life, and she is very much into the "Pamela Anderson look", everything playmate related etc. At 19y.o, I was in my first years of University, I had recently seperated from my first boyfriend and I was in depression from all the emotional ups and downs and the stress from living on my own and University. (Yep, I'm very sensitive...) My mom at the time was obsessed with a hit girl we have over here, who basically look all plastic - your typical [RS bleep] cliché. And by the way, there is nothing wrong with girls who wish to look like that, everyone is free to have their own beauty ideals. Back to our story. My mom happened to make a few comments, saying how I was the "natural" version of that girl, that I looked like her but that it was "too bad" I didn't have her "cute californian nose". She commented on other aspects but for some reasons it's this comment that "screwed" with my depressed mind at the time. Anyway. My parents wanted to give me a gift for me doing so well at uni, so, in the heat of the moment without even giving it much thoughts, I asked for a nosejob.
My mom told me to hurry to pick a surgeron before that my father change his mind about allowing me to use the gift money for this procedure. So very stupidly, I randomly picked my surgeon, just because he showed up when I searched for surgeons in my city.
I won't bore you with the process of the first surgery and talk about how the surgeon I chose was a sorry excuse of a doctor...
Long story short : I asked him to make my nose shorter and nothing else because, despite wishing for my mom to like me more and be more proud of me, I didn't like the "cute cali nose" trend at all, in general I like classy looks. (Ex : think Natalie Portman, Phoebe Tonkin). Sadly, he took liberties during the surgery and brought the root of my nose lower, he also took out way too much cartilage on the sides of the tip of my nose as well as all along the nose.
After this surgery, I was left with a tiny nose which looked nothing like myself. I couldn't breathe anymore, the inside walls of my nose would collapse with every breath I took due to the lack of cartilage. My nose wasn't pointy anymore, it was round. I became insane because of it... I cried every day for months. I later decided to work hard to be able to afford a revision with one of the best surgeons I could find, and this leads us to 4 years later, when I found Dr Hilinski :)
Before writing my review I'd like to emphasize one more thing : CHOOSE YOUR SURGEON CAREFULLY!
My best tip is to find someone who is a specialist in the type of procedure you need. You absolutely have to check the reviews the Dr has on RealSelf or Estheticon and other highly trusted websites. Then, very important, make sure you meet him once (skype or face to face) before booking your surgery. You need to assess what kind of person your surgeon is before allowing them to do anything to you!
This is so important I can't even begin to tell you how much it matters! A surgeon who will give you the best results is indeed a SKILLED surgeon but also a HUMBLE and KIND surgeon. Someone who is skilled but doesn't care about you, what you want, how you feel, and who has a huge ego, will never work with you to achieve the desired result and they won't recognize their errors if they do some. It is important that he is humble because pride blinds people! A humble surgeon will do his best, won't overdo it, won't try things that he knows deep down he couldn't achieve, and he'll be able to handle any touch up with professionalism and he'll care about you.
Onto the review now :)
REVIEW
Dr Hilinski is an amazing surgeon and a very kind person. He made me feel safe, listened and he was very humble. My previous surgeon treated me as if I was an idiot and wouldn't let me know what he'd do, claiming even his interns wouldn't understand (what an idiot)... Gladly, Dr Hilinski is the complete opposite of this type of cold arrogant surgeons. Dr Hilinski adapts his speech to his patients, he doesn't hide behind technical medical terms out of your reach, he actually explains what he'll do very simply and is open to questions you might have. I find this to be one of his top quality, it makes people feel cared for and reassured. It's important for a surgeon to be able to adapt their speech and communicate with their patient. Plus, English isn't even my mother tongue so I'm not exaggerating when I say that he explains the procedure very well! He also isn't in a rush, which is very reassuring, he takes the time to listen to you.
Before the surgery I was taken care of by the nurse who is very kind. I have to say that generally speaking, the team at their clinic is really nice! They all seem friendly with each other, the clinic is clean, modern looking from the inside and very charming from the outside. People there are polite and in my experience there was close to no waiting time whenever I found myself in the waiting room, which is surprising and really appreciable! They seem to always use the same anesthesiologist (if this isn't an English word, I'm sorry haha Went with my instinicts here), and he is great! He really tried to calm me down as I was pretty anxious about being put to sleep. Before injecting me with the anesthesic substance, he and the nurse talked to me, they put on my favourite music while I was laying in the surgery room, etc. It was an awesome experience! Honestly all these details are what makes an experience great, it felt as if I was home! And keep in mind there was an entire country and an ocean between their surgery room and my home haha.
About the surgery itself, I have to say that the most impressive thing to me was the stitches! I know it might sound silly as it's the "smallest" thing he did to my face haha But his stitches truly were a work of art! My scar is unoticeable, and the instructions for the afercare were very clear. If you follow what you are told to do, your scar will truly fade away. I think it's important for people to realize that the surgeon cannot do all the work. If they do amazing stitches but that you don't take care of it to perfection, then you can't blame them for your scar to show. The afercare is important and it depends on you!
So let's get a little more technical. I had an open surgery (obviously), Dr Hilinski took some of my septal cartilage and grafted it somewhere around the tip of my nose to get rid of the "pinched" nose look and repair the valve for me to be able to breath. He then grafted some more at the root of my nose to try to give me back the nose shape I was born with (high rooted nose). He also worked on the tip to make the area between the tip and the roots of the nosetrils look straighter, flatter.
I honestly don't recall how long the surgery lasted... Sorry!
After the surgery, I woke up feeling dizzy and sitting on a medical chair with the nurse by my side. I'll be honest with you guys, I don't tolerate anesthesia very well. I'm sensitive, and every time I've been put to sleep in the past I've woken up feeling a little dizzy, but a couple hours after that that's when I'd start to feel very sick. So I might not be the best reference when it comes to anesthesia.
Anyway... A little minor incident happened as I was waking up though. The nurse accidentally bumped into my nose, onto the right side around the middle, with her arm while trying to reach for something on the other side of the medical chair. Obviously she said sorry but let me tell you... I was crying internally cause damn it hurt! hahah I wish she'd have called the doctor to make sure it didn't move around anything, but I was sooooo dizzy that I couldn't bring myself to ask her to do so. In the end, I can't say if it had any influence on the outcome, one part of me thinks I'd be a little paranoid to think so, but on the other hand the graft placed at the root of my nose did shift (towards the left on the middle, and the tip is therfor leaning to the right at the top). But there is no way to tell if this happened after the shock or during the healing process, as the nose changes of shape a lot through healing, with all the swelling going up and down. I don't hold her responsible in my heart or mind at all though! It was an accident and she was doing the best she could at the time to take care of me.
Later, I have been sick. But thankfully the team had given me some pills to take when I'd feel sick and nauseated, so I got better. I won't lie and I'll say that the first 4 nights were awful and I didn't get much sleep. Again, I'm very sensitive to pain and discomfort. During the day I'd be fine though, I advise you guys to have a TV and Netflix! You won't be able to game or to read or to move much at first because it requires focus, and honestly when your head feels a little swollen it's not the best thing to do. Then again, it depends on people.
One important detail : Dr Hilinski is very GENTLE, I was amazed to see how little bruising I had (if I had any). I was swollen and that's about it, it went down pretty quickly too. This makes me think that he really is gentle during the procedure which is something you want because the recovery is smoother!
Later I got my stitches taken off (don't remember when exactly), it did hurt but once it was done, the nose felt pretty much numb and it stayed that way for a long time :)
I followed the instructions I had been given, spent some time in San Diego and got back to Europe 2 weeks and a half after the surgery!
During the time I was there I really was taken care of. I received a few emails asking me if I was doing fine the day after surgery, and Dr Hilinski was available by email as well, which is absolutely great! During the first week you can become a little anxious and confused so being able to receive some support from the team is amazing. It might only be one or two emails but in my opinion it makes all the difference :)
RESULTS
About the results, I'm 7 months post-op so I guess there'll still be minor changes when it comes to the tip of the nose, but the shape is settled as well as the view from the side.
Overall I'm happy with the results. My nose is higher than it was before, it doesn't have a pinched/superficial look to it, it's pretty much straight and it does remind me a lot of my natural nose which is a very important point to me. I can breath a lot more than before, I still have a little bit of trouble to breath at times with the left left side but let's see if it changes with more time! I'd say the breathing is 75% perfect. I'm really happy with what Dr Hilinski achieved.
However, there are a few flaws that I dislike (there are some that I totally can and want to live with because I think a beautiful nose is a natural looking nose and therefor with a few little imperfections :) )
The flaws that I'm not fond of are the following :
- the piece of cartilage grafted around the root of my nose shifted, which gives me somewhat a crooked nose from a certain angle, and from the front view, well, it adds unwanted shadows and gives the nose an odd look in some lights
- my nosetrils seem a little less wide than before but not enough. I had asked them to appear tighter in my emails to the Dr, I didn't say it again when we met so maybe this wish got forgotten or he thought I'd be satisfied without changing the nostrils directly, not sure!
By the way, I lack of upper lateral cartilage due to my unskilled previous surgeon who overdid everything and sadly Dr Hilinski couldn't fix that. He did tell me he'd try if he could but that he wouldn't risk to mess up up there if he couldn't get a clear view. I'm honestly extremely sad about it as this dent affects how my nose look, how young I look (in my opinion) and my right eye inner corner. However I think it's absolutely amazing that Dr Hilinski was honest about it and adopted a safe approach to my procedure. No matter how bad you wish for something to happen, the best that can happen to you is having a surgeon who knows what he does and knows where the limit is between what's doable and what's not because you obviously alone cannot know this limit.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I hope you guys found some help in this review of mine :)
I am going to have a skype follow up very soon with Dr Hilinski, we will be talking about the graft shift.
What I have in mind is obviously a touch up, which is free if I am not mistaken (except for the anesthesist fees), and I'd like to see if he could do something about me nosetrils at the same time (which is probably not free haha but I'm hoping it's affordable so I can do it all at once, soon, and be done with nose surgeries!)
In the end, if you have a nose which has been butchered by another surgeon and that you don't know what to do, I'm telling you : Dr Hilinski IS the answer!
Distance shouldn't be something to care about when it comes to such things.
I'm a student, my family is from the low social class and I'm from Europe, so believe me when I say that you should work hard and save up and pick the best! Don't pick randomly just because your family has no money or because you're a broke student and can't afford a plane ticket. My best advice is to pick the best and work hard or find a way to finance your trip to have the best care possible.
Don't forget that surgeries are a serious thing, that the nose is something in the middle of your face and that it has a vital fonction!
If you have any questions, feel free to ask :)
I'll be POSTING PICTURES VERY SOON as I'm not posting this review from my main laptop.

Hi!
Here are the pictures I said I'd post, sorry for taking this long to post them. As you can see I took the "eye hiding" thing to the next level haha Sorry about that, I'm really not comfortable posting the pictures without hiding my face. (Especially as my family doesn't know about this revision rhinoplasty, so who knows! Yes, being a little paranoid here.)

So :
#1, #2, #3 => pictures of my nose before the revision and after it got ruined by my first surgeon. As you can see, there are areas which caved in around the tip. You have no reference as to what my nose looked before the very first surgery but compared to my natural nose, the nose I have in these pictures is wide and looks pretty much like a "pig" nose in my opinion. I was very uncomfortable with it... It made me feel like a whole other person that I wasn't.

#4, #5, #6 => 7 months after the revision with Dr Hilinski. As you can see, it looks less pinched. The areas where there used to be harsh shadows are now a lot softer. You'll notice that from the front view it's not symmetric unfortunately. The tip, on the left, seems wider, and the bridge is going a little bit too much to the right (that's the graft which moved a little due to swelling the days following the surgery). You can also see that from the profile view it looks straighter, it's rooted higher and overall it just has a better appearence in my opinion.

UPDATE : So, I still couldn't get in touch with the Dr unfortunately! I'm waiting for his answer via email because our skype appointment got cancelled. I guess I will know more about the assymetry when he answers.
I also find the tip of my nose to look a little wider than it used to but that might be due to the fact this is the last area to heal completely. I'm not sure if it's supposed to be fully healed by 7 months. Again, I'll know when I can get in touch with him. When I do, I'll let you know! So that if you encounter the same issues or if you are scared to encounter the same issues, you'll know what it is all about and what will be of it in the end :)
Also by the way I asked if it'd be possible to narrow my nosetrils (if a touch up is needed I'd do that at the same time). I used to have a longer nose horizontally and my first surgen made it short, which resulted in making my nosetrils wider. I'm waiting to have his thoughts and suggestions now. Meanwhile... I hope these pics helped some of you!

Feel free to let me know your thoughts in the comments!
It's always nice to have other people's opinions.

Hi :)
Here is an update where I answer the questions I've received in my inbox from you guys and I'll attach a picture with side by side comparison for you to see the results better.
First of all, Dr H answered my email the very same day I posted my previous update haha I was more than overly happy to read his answer because what he offered is just amazing! Basically he said he thinks he can make the results look even better without even getting me under complete anesthesia. There'd only be local anesthesia involved and I'll only pay for the Equipment used (200$)! I'm so happy! I really hope that it'll turn out good. I'm very optimistic about it because my revision surgery was so good with him. By the way, don't assume your touch up will cost the same amount as me, I think that what you pay depends on a set of factors (type of anesthesia, type of touch up needed, etc, I don't know so always make sure to ask him personally).
Onto the questions :
Q: What type of graft did he use?
He used septal graft. Basically, it means he took some cartilage from inside my nose in an area which doesn't affect your appearence. Originally, we planned on taking the cartilage from my ear but when he saw that I had quite a good amount of septal cartilage left inside my nose, he decided to go for it because harvesting ear cartilage would have caused me more pain than needed.
Q: Are you happy with the results ?
Yes!! I thought I made it obvious haha. I'm very happy with the results. Of course, there are flaws, but what he managed to achieve weighs much bigger in the end result. The flaws didn't make me unhappy because overall the revision was a big success for me. My nose looks a lot like the nose I was born with, it looks so much more natural, I can breathe so much better, and I am not scared of pictures anymore! I've been avoiding cameras for 5 years... And I can tell you it's no fun when these five years count for the supposedly "most fun and beautiful" years of one's life (beggining of my twenties...) I don't feel ugly anymore, I recognize myself in the mirror (finally!) and I don't cry anymore because of my nose. So again : yes yes yes, I'm happy of the results! I am sure he will successfully deal with the flaws :) And I can't wait to be even more happy about this whole experience.
Q: Will you have your nostrils reduced? Aren't you scared of the scar?
I think I will. I'd love to. But I'll wait for the Dr to see me in person to let me know what he thinks is best to do. As I'm in Europe, all he could see was pictures of my nose as it is now. And, no I am not scared of the scar to be honest because Dr H really is an artist when it comes to stitching! Plus, I know I'll be very careful about them and clean them properly and everything. I am more concerned about them looking natural after being reduced, as in keeping the natural "curve" we all have which connects the nosetrils to the face. I guess I'll need to do my research and see some of Dr H work on this type of surgery :)
Hopefully, I answered to everything!
I'll keep you updated.
PS: sorry, I know my picture is ugly with all that grey. I was in a rush when editing to post it quick! Hopefully it doesn't distract your eyes from appreciating the results haha