Tuesday 13 May 2014

One year on!!!

I forgot my log on details and it has taken me ages to recover them so apologies for my very belated update.

I cannot believe that it's been a year! Life has pretty much returned to normal now, I love my new look, I was in the gym today and saw my side profile in the mirror and had no urge to cringe and no heart dropping feeling of hating my appearance.

Starting with my chin, the sensation has returned entirely although this took a long time, for the tingles and numbness to completely dissipate I'd say it took close to ten months although full functionality returned much quicker.  I've read that prolonged numbness  can happen when the nerves stretch, I could feel the sensation increasing slowly from the right side of my lips until my whole lower lip was normal again.

I really like the look of my chin and don't regret it at all (now!) it's made my face look thinner and seems to have made my cheekbones more pronounced, I went on a long holiday and put on a few kilos which would usually show in my face but it didn't this time.

Now to my nose! It looks like a normal nose :) I really don't think about it at all now which is such an amazing freedom. I can breath really well and almost all of the swelling has gone, I say almost as with extensive revision like mine swelling can last up to 2 years and when I run my finger down my nose it feels like there may still be some swelling.

Sometimes it will swell again, I had a few days of vomiting and it swelled up and if I drink too much it will swell on occasion- although this happens less these days....both the drinking too much and the swelling!!!

So to sum up a year of recovery it was slow, much slower then I was anticipating or seemed to be the norm compared to others recovery blogs which I'm guessing was due to having had 2 surgeries, one of which was revision. I usually sail through this type of thing, I was arrogant thinking that I'd come off better then other people so my difficult recovery hit me doubly hard.

 I should have given myself more time to recover, having to leave home again 11 days after for a demanding and potentially career altering work event that required me to be completely focused caused me enormous stress and unhappiness. Please consider this when you are scheduling your own surgeries, I really think I'd have coped better if I could have stayed in a safe, comfortable environment.

If your recovery is hard please don't freak out. I read so many people posting on sites like real self during first month or two of healing who are in an enormous panic, I was there too. Many of them have rapid follow up surgery to remove implants thinking that they will never normalise, I am so glad I didn't take this option as I believe it was totally worth it now, perhaps if they waited a bit longer they would be as happy as I am with my results.

Be careful what you read and who you talk to. There was a woman on a plastics and cosmetic surgery forum who appeared to have a real vendetta against my and a few other surgeons.  While I was still in my freak out phase I sent her a message asking about her experiences, thankfully I was healing well by the time she replied as her response would have terrified me. (With a sane, logical mind it was very apparent that the woman herself is a little off, she uses a bunch of fake profile names to post vitriol about different surgeons, her own story constantly changes and she makes really unusual videos on youtube about her perceptions of particular surgeons. I'm tempted to post her response here as it was quite funny really, although I don't think I she meant to be amusing!)

So here's  my update, not much to say really except if you are in your recovery phase hang in there! 99%of the time you are going to be absolutely fine and will love your new look even if it takes months to get there. And sure, there is always that 1% but by the laws of probability you probably aren't it, I was convinced that I was.

I've put the photos back, having come through to the other side of healing I know how helpful they are I will get some 12 month photos up soon x