It's All Finally in Motion...- Saskatoon, sk

It was a septo-rhinoplasty, but the primary reason for the surgery was to fix my septum. It was 100% covered because the damage was not strictly cosmetic and caused by an accident when I was younger, so it was covered under saskhealth! Thank you :)

Aw, thank you! I would definitely recommend him even though I wasnt sure about him after my first week. My problem is I'm impatient :/. But he is super nice, and very educated. The only thing is he's an ENT, so you need to have a reason more than just cosmetic in order to get in with him. I had to get a referral from my GP and then my appointment was scheduled a couple of months later. Basically my intentions were to see the ENT about my deviated septum and then get him to fax a plastic surgeon's office I had looked into confirming the deviated septum and broken nose.... but after visiting him, he was very confident thathe could help me with everything and it would be covered under sask health. So if you have a deviated septum or maybe even just general sinus issues plus want to have your nose look better, I would definitely say Dr. Gore-Hickman is a good guy. Hope this was helpful!!!

Thank you!

I know how you feel. I was crazy nervous cuz they had me come in at 7:30am or something like that on am empty stomach.. Couldn't even take my medication for anxiety which is not good considering! Lol. I got there at my time and then my surgery wasn't even scheduled til 10:45am! Aahhhh! What a pain! So I had to sit there in the hospital anticipating the darn surgery and I was sooooo hungry haha. But i just took my phone and watched my favourite you tubers. It kept my mind occupied, plus the nurse finally let me take my medication cuz she said if I got too anxious (I was getting numb, that's how anxious I was) then my heart rate would go up and that wouldn't be ideal for surgery. So I suggest take things you KNOW will comfort you. Also, I wrote a list of concerns I had and gave it to the anesthesiologist and my doctor. They were both very accommodating and he read my letter on the spot and addressed all concerns right then and there for me. Explained many things to me, and was amazing. I can only hope your team is as amazing as mine was! As far as if my nose got better, it sure did! If there's anything I learned from this, it's just to trust the experts. I was super skeptical my nose would look better and it really has gotten better! Much better! So best of luck to you on this life changing experience and just remember to tell yourself "this is only temporary" as much as you need to! I kept having to tell myself during the recovery because it did get uncomfortable and annoying. But it's only temporary for something so wonderfully permanent!

Thank you so much for your quick response and words of encouragement! This makes me feel so much better so really, thank you thank you! My doctor is Dr. Anil Sharman. He's in the same practice as Dr. Gore-Hickman. He was really great when I had the consultation and even answered the questions that I had when I emailed him shortly after. I was booked into surgery within two weeks of my consult which made me even more nervous since I didn't have much time to process it (even though I've wanted the surgery for YEARS). When I explained that I was nervous about not knowing exactly what to expect in the results, he encouraged me to come in to see him again before the surgery so I'm going to on Friday. Although I'm super nervous, I am getting more and more excited to get it done. It's hard to believe it is finally happening! My only fear is just the 'what ifs' but like you said, you have to trust the experts! Thank you again!!

You're very welcome! I don't know if you asked this or not, but find out if you're getting dissolvable or removable packing. I thought I wanted dissolvable because I didn't wanna endure the removal of the giant tampon packing lol. He had told me he doesn't use dissolvable anymore because it can be annoying, but he ended up using it because I didn't bleed much. The dissolvable packing is indeed annoying and gross, and I would have to say the most miserable part of my recovery! The first couple of days were fine. But dissolvable in my mind was different than the reality LOL. It basically just comes apart in giant bloody gritty chunks (sorry about the tmi details) that you hack up and often times, made me gag cuz some of them were HUGE and I'd often be hacking it up for an hour or two a day. It. Was. Awful. When I say huge, I mean like, as round as a looney (a Canadian dollar lol) which is bigger than a quarter, and same thickness. So I know many people say "oh lucky!" to dissolvable packing, it's miserable for longer than the quick moment it takes to pull that long tampon out each nostril! So see if you can insist on removable. If he doesn't do that, then you can have some fun gross out stories like I do (hey, gotta look on the positive side of everything!!) hehe.

That is a great tip and something I never thought about. Thanks, I'll add it to the list of questions that I was actually putting together just now. :) You just had the hump removed and the nose straightened right (nothing done to the tip)?

Had the nose straightened as well as the septum fixed, and the hump shaved down. He didn't break it hence the minimal bruising. But nothing done to the tip. Because it was a closed surgery, there were dissolvable stitches at the front of my nose in the nostrils, but nope, no tip work.