Yesterday I visited the plastic surgery clinic – which largely involved a whole lot of sitting about waiting to be seen.
Upshot was, yes nose is broken in quite a lot of places. Yes, it is a couple of millimetres off-centre. No, is not too bad. Yes, could have surgery to shove back to centre – under general anesthetic within two weeks – but there is no guarantee that it would work and a very, very small risk that it could collapse (ZOMGWTFBBQ!). Or I could wait a year and have proper rhinoplasty if I felt it needed it.
The registrar said she had the sense I wanted it fixed, I responded that I was leaning toward it, but that there was so much else going on with my face (giant gash, swelling, bruises) that had no sense of what it would end up like. She said she would start the process anyway, that way if I decided I wanted it we’d be good to go.
So it was some surprise to have a nurse call me that afternoon telling me that I was booked in for surgery tomorrow (today!). I was pretty taken aback. Things were moving a whole lot more quickly than I had expected!
Don and Joan are both adamant that my nose doesn’t really look that different. I can see the diversion, but what if it was there before? One of my big problems is my aversion to having photos taken, so that there was very little to compare to. Nonetheless, I dug through the hard-drive and … my nose ever-so-slightly points to the left.
So I phoned to cancel the surgery. Then the registrar phoned me and we talked through it all. I must say that everyone I’ve dealt with at RPA has been fantastic.
Having been through 2 major surgeries in the last four years, I really could not face the prospect of another full-on operation – and more hospital, no thanks. I’m pretty comfortable with the decision – apart from the general angst I have about decision-making in general.
Now it is just a matter of ice-packs to face and applying tons of vaseline into the wound (and avoiding sun at all costs) to minimse the chance of a giant scar between my eyes.
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In other news – university entry results were not at all what anyone had hoped for and there is a good amount of reassessing going on.
Sorry you are having such a rough time. I’m sure you made the right decision about the surgery and as for university entry I’m sure it will all work out.
I was going to say “can’t complain …”, but wait, I am doing nothing but complaining! I now feel at least more human – which is glorious – though still a bit ouchy in general.
Good for the babies to examine their motivations and assumptions about what they had chosen, I think (I feel that sentence makes no sense, but you get my drift).