Recovery: 6 weeks Post-Op

It's been 2 weeks since my last update, let me tell you a lot happened.

First off, I caught the worst cold ever, which turned into a sinus infection. I felt like the first week after surgery, tons of pressure and couldn't breathe at all through my nose. How frustrating! I ended up getting anti-biotics and it blew out the infection after about 10 days. I now finally feel better, but of course I caught a new cold. This one is just a normal cold though so hopefully no return of sinus infection. I'm doing the neti pot daily to keep my nose clean and clear. It helps a lot and gets a tone of the mucous out, and after I can breathe extremely well! At this point I'm feeling great, and have excellent flow through my nasal airways, feels like a normal nose again which is awesome.

On the downside... one week ago a scary thing happened. I was playing with my adorable 1 1/2 year old Luna, and she head-butted my nose (by accident of course). She was below me and kind of jumped up really fast, and her little head directly hit the tip of my nose, in an upward direction. Ouch! It hurt really bad for about 30 minutes, but didn't bleed. But then it instantly swelled up, and i saw a hump on my nose, ACK! I freaked out and called my doc asap. He said to wait a few days for the swelling to go down, then come in so he could take a look.

Here's a pic of me one week after the "hit", frustrated and mad that I wasn't more careful:


Thankfully no bones were broken, but he did say that sometimes when that happens cartilage could shift and essentially create a small bump. BUT he seemed to think it could be fixed pretty easily. He said we won't know for sure what happened - if anything - until my 3 month checkup. So worst case scenario is that the cartilage shifted, i have a small bump, and have to get that fixed. I don't know the details of "getting it fixed", but he said it definitely would not require full on surgery again. So that's good news.

Of course i'm totally obsessed checking my nose all the time. The swelling from the hit seems to finally have gone down, but I swear it feels a little different, and I can see a very small bump that wasn't there before. My hubby thinks it's all in my head, and he can't tell any difference. But I'm so worried that all my doc's wonderful work was ruined. The hardest part is that there is nothing to do except wait for my 3 month checkup! So another test to my patience. And there is also the chance that everything is fine, and it's just healing like normal. Who knows! Will update again next week.

Recovery: 1 Month Post-Op (photos)

It's been exactly 1 month since my surgery date, and feeling pretty good! Here are photos from today:

I had a little challenge/set-back the past 2 weeks. I got a really bad sinus infection (Not fun at all after a rhinoplasty!). For the first week I was totally congested again, and because of that my nose puffed back up a little and got more swollen. But the past 1 week my sinus infection is clearing up a lot, and now I can breathe really well! Get to sleep with my mouth closed, it's so great. The swelling is also getting better, and looking good.

You can see there is still a very slight hump on the profile, which the doc warned me would be there for a while. But i still am amazed and really happy with how things are looking. My nose overall is feeling a lot more "normal", and finally feels like it's my nose again. The tip is still numb and feels a little strange, but the rest feels really good!

I've stopped taping the nose at night, and the last of my stitches came out last week.

One side note... i think using a neti pot is essential to recovery, as well as just normal health. It helped a ton while i was sick, and it's amazing all the junk that comes out of your nose when you are sick!