My Septorhinoplasty Experience

I am documenting my septorhinoplasty surgery. This is how I felt, what I went through and my results. I wanted to document this journey as I researched a lot about the surgery and the recovery prior to having surgery myself. I found a few blogs out there, but definitely not enough. So this is my experience.

Thursday August 9th

Thursday morning I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. This part sucked since I wasn't able to eat after midnight. But after Rory and the girls left for the day, I watched some tv, showered and hung out with my dog. My dad picked me up just before 9 am and we headed to the hospital. I snapped a few selfies (which I am awful at taking) in the parking lot to show the befores. We checked in at 9:30 am and waited.

Not long later, I was brought back to a "room". I changed into a blow up warming gown, put on some non-slip socks and waited for the nurse to put in my IV. She gave me a numbing shot first, so I barely felt the IV go in. Then my dad and I just waited and watched tv.

Pre-surgery. Happy, nervous and excited.

The doctor came in to check on me and go over my procedure. Then the anesthesiologist came in to talk about the drugs he would be administering. I told him I get pretty nauseous after surgery, so he made sure to account for that. He gave me something to relax me and then they took me back to the operating room.

I remember sliding over to the operating table and having my arms stabilized by my sides (so they wouldn't get in the way of surgery). Then I was given some oxygen and I was out.

My surgery lasted 2 hours and 20 minutes and it was a dozy. It was way worse then they thought it would be. My septum was so crooked in many places and I had a bone spur that was so big. This was the first big fix. It is the reason why I was not getting much oxygen through that side of the nose. He fixed my deviated septum, removed the bone spur, shaved my dorsal hump, broke my nose to straighten it out, put cartilage from the bridge of my nose outwards towards my sinuses, put cartilage in tip of my nose to build it up (I had nothing in my tip at all), put other cartilage around my nostrils to widen them a bit and ground up cartilage to put on the bridge of my nose so it wouldn't slope too much.

I woke up in pain and my nurse gave me medicine to help with that. After laying in recovery for awhile with an ice pack, my doctor came to see me to make sure I was doing ok. Then they moved me to the other recovery area. The nurse helped dress me and then I drank some apple juice and hung out until my dad and Rory came back to get discharge and at-home instructions.

The drive home sucked because I thought I was going to be sick, but I never threw up. Thank you nausea patch and zofran. I settled into our recliner and laid there while watching tv and going in and out of sleep. It was hard to sleep since I was in a lot of pain.

Gorgeous right?

Around 6 pm, I had to change my nose pad, so Rory thought it would be a good idea to wash my hair since I had iodine and other surgery stuff all in it. I got in the bath tub, put a towel over my face and Rory washed my hair using the hand sprayer for the shower. Those things are amazing for surgery recovery. I didn't get any water near my face and it felt great to "get clean".

I ate a banana, a chocolate protein drink and a pack of fruit snacks. That was all I could manage to eat without hurting or getting sick.

I slept in the recliner that night, but I didn't sleep well. I couldn't get comfortable and had trouble breathing (as you might expect).