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Ever since middle school, I developed a strong hatred of my nose. It is very long (which is uncommon for my ethnicity), wide and has a bulbous tip. To make matters worse, my nose became crooked with a deviated septum and bump during a robbery where the assailant broke my nose (and stole my money). I always wanted to get a nose job but I never thought I would actually get one. I managed to save enough money for the procedure but my biggest problem was finding time to actually have the surgery. I'm currently a 2nd year Grad student and my classes are year round. I've taken 4 classes this summer on top of giving speech therapy. Since I had a two week break between the end of summer classes and the beginning of fall, I decided to go for it and have the surgery! I will upload some before pictures soon!

Having a big nose takes away from my other features. The fact that I have small lips makes my nose look even bigger. My bridge sits very high and the tip is overprotected. After speaking with my surgeon, he decided that it was best for me to have alar base reduction, osteomies (breaking nasal bones to narrow bridge), and shaving the bridge down a bit which would also remove a bump I have there. As you can see in the photos, it will probably take a miracle to get a smaller nose lol. I was very nervous, especially after hearing so many horror stories. Hopefully, this surgery will give me the confidence I never had.

I had open rhinoplasty....AND I have thick skin so the amount of swelling I'm dealing with is depressing. I've maybe had one day where swelling was at a minimum and that was the day my cast was removed. On most days, the swelling makes my nose look even bigger than it did before surgery. I know that this suppose to be normal, but that doesn't make things easier. I only gave myself 2 weeks to recover before the start of classes and I didn't think about how long it would take for the scars to heal after the surgery. Makeup has been my best friend. Oh and another thing that sucks is that the Hibiclens I was told to use to wash my face with caused an acne breakout (I've never had acne). What a stressful journey.