Cosmetic Surgery Addictions

Warning: This is going to be completely pointless rambling, but I'm bored :-).

I've seen random TV talk shows about people who are addicted to cosmetic surgery. The point is usually that something is psychologically wrong with these people because many of them have had so many surgeries that they don't even look "right" anymore. I never gave these shows much thought until last night. I now find myself wondering how its possible for ANYONE to get addicted to cosmetic surgery!

I know I've mentioned several times in my postings that I just had sinus surgery, but for a little more background, this is what I had done:

~2003: Years of sinus infections landed me at an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor when antibiotics simply stopped working for me. A CT Scan was done and it was shown that I had a deviated septum. Surgery was scheduled and my septum was straightened. I also had some tubes shrunk down at the same time. I honestly have no idea what these tubes are called, but they are in your sinuses and when they shrink down, they don't get inflamed and swollen, lessening your chance of infection (at least this is my non-medical understanding of it). Once my septum was fixed, I was able to breath better and my sinuses drained better. I have always had problems breathing out of the right side of my nose, and it was because my septum was so deviated that it was actually blocking my nasal passage on the right side of my head.

~2004: My septum re-deviated. How? I was teaching preschool and a little boy was sitting on my lap. He threw his head back, hit me in the nose, and I experienced pain like I've never felt before. (so just in case Crazy Woman needs me to remind her again why I won't babysit for her immediately after this surgery, excluding the money issue, my painful re-deviated septum is the reason). The pain did subside within about an hour and I forgot about the incident. Within a few weeks though, I started having breathing problems again, and I started getting frequent sinus infections, just like before my first surgery. Another CT Scan was done and I was told that I had a re-deviated septum. The doctor explained to me how a septum can re-deviate, one way being if you get hit in the nose pretty hard. I traced that back to the little boy hitting my face, and the doctor agreed that was probably the reason. A second surgery was done, just to fix my septum again.

~2005-2009: The frequency of my sinus infections decreased but the headaches that I had been getting for years didn't decrease at all. In fact, they got much worse as time went on to the point where I was getting debilitating sinus induced migraines, that would immobilize me for the entire day. This is what led to my visit to an ENT here in Washington and the surgery that I'm recovering from now.

On a side note, I have always had a very large nose. I used to joke around and call it my Italian nose, because everyone on my mom's side of the family (which is 100% Italian) has the exact same, identical nose as me. I always said that if I had the money, I would get plastic surgery done on my nose to make it smaller. Its something that I always wanted, but at the same time I couldn't ever bring myself to do it. My first ENT who did my first surgery gave me a cosmetic consultation and it was just way too expensive. As much as I hated my nose, I really couldn't bring myself to spend thousands of dollars on a new one.

So fast forward to now. My ENT here is amazing. He is also a cosmetic surgeon and when I first met with him to discuss my problems, he went above and beyond what my last ENT did. My septum was still not perfectly straight. Also, the right side of my nose, which had always given me problems, was much smaller than the left. This doctor said he would reconstruct my entire nasal passage to open up that ride side so I can get air into it. He also planned on drilling holes into my sinuses to release the pressure that was causing my frequent headaches. He also removed my ethmoid sinus (which looks like a honeycomb, so basically he removed the honeycomb structure and made it one big opening), and he wanted to reconstruct my nasal passage and nose in general. Of course that got my attention! After a few visits to this doctor, he told me that he could actually give me the smaller nose that I always wanted, because by doing that, he'd actually be fixing the problem itself (i.e. a complete reconstruction of my nasal passage). I actually thought I was dreaming when I found out that I could get my sinus problems taken care of, AND a smaller nose, all paid for by insurance! It never really occured to me that reshaping my entire nose might solve more problems than just my issue with it being too big.

So thats what was done on Wednesday. I had a bunch of sinus work and a reconstructed nose/nasal passage. In reality, everything that I had done was for a medical purpose. BUT the inner work was called a septioplasty and the outer nose work was called a rhinoplasty. A rhinoplasty is what people who get "normal" nose jobs get. So basically I had cosmetic surgery on top of medical surgery, but for a medical reason.

Which brings me to what I have been pondering all day today. I am in PAIN! I am miserable. I am brusied. I look like a victim of domestic violence. I can't wash my face because there is a cast on my nose. I have naturally very oily skin, so the fact that I can't get my face wet is driving me crazy and making me feel disgusting. Taking a shower is also an adventure because I can't get the stupid cast wet. My entire head hurts with a dull throbbing ache PLUS the pain I can feel from where all of the cutting and reshaping was done.

So why in the world do people get addicted to this?? Or a better way to ask that might be - HOW do they get addicted to cosmetic sugery?Maybe just a plain old nose job wouldn't be as painful as what I am feeling right now since a plain old nose job wouldn't also involve drilling holes into sinuses, but I can't imagine that its something that would feel GOOD on its own!

I am obviously pretty bored to even be pondering this thought in the first place. I traded my Vicodin this morning for regular old Tylenol so I'm not feeling quite as loopy as I was for the past few days. Now that my mind isn't high on narcotic pain killers, it leaves plenty of time for me to lay around, focus on my pain, and wonder why in the world some people chose to do this over and over and over and over. (Can you tell I've also been watching daytime talk shows for the past 2 days?) Clearly there has to be something mentally wrong with those people. I completely understand wanting cosmetic surgery. If I could have afforded it a few years ago, I probably would have done it instantly. Even though I'm experiencing a lot of pain and discomfort right now, I can see that my nose IS smaller and I am liking that (of course, I can't really see what its going to look like until the cast and bandages come off though). I would probably go through this again - ONCE. I just can't imagine going through this over and over. I am simply miserable right now. I couldn't imagine dedicating my life life to reshaping my entire body. If I never have to have anything done to my sinuses or head ever again, I will be the happiest person in the world. I want to tear this stupid cast off of my nose. I want to sleep laying down (I've been propped straight up on the couch for the past few days). I want to wash my face. I want to breath normally again (at this point I'd settle for the way I was breathing before this surgery, because all the blood and crap in my nose right now makes for uncomfortable and painful breathing). I have woken up nauseous for the past 2 nights because of all the crap from my head that I am swallowing in my sleep, so it would be nice to wake up feeling healthy.

Bottom line. I think people are crazy who chose to do this again and again. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. I guess some may argue that the healing process sucks but the end result is good and I could agree with that. I'm already looking forward to Tuesday when I can see what my nose actually looks like now. But thats all I can agree with. Cosmetic surgery addictions are just not normal. Thats the conclusion I've reached. And now that I've babbled endlessly about something completely insignificant and unimportant, I am going to go back to my couch and watch some more day time drama :-).

No More Sinus Problems....hopefully...

I wanted to write this as an update since I got a few emails today asking about my surgery. I'm going to apologize right now if this isn't completely coherent (thank you Firefox for underlining words that I spell wrong). I've got a lot of pain medicine in my system and while I feel like I'm coherent right now, I'll probably reread this tomorrow and realize that I wasn't.

So I am alive and well after surgery. This morning wasn't fun at all. My surgery was scheduled for 10:00am, which means thats when I checked in, not when I had the surgery. So I had had no food since midnight last night and was starving by this point. I don't think I was actually put under until about 11:45.

I made it through the morning without any major anxiety attacks which I'm happy for. The worst part of the morning was the part that I would think wouldn't be bad. When they got me into the operating room, the anesthesiologist put an oxygen mask on my face before giving me anesthesia. Obviously oxygen is needed to breathe, but I felt like I was suffocating when he put the mask on my face. It was really strange because I would think it would have been easier for me to breathe at that point. I guess it didn't matter much though because the last thing I remember about the morning was feeling like I was suffocating, and the nurse telling me that the medicine in my IV was going to make my arm ache. I felt an achy arm and the next thing I knew, I was awake and the surgery was over.

I'm currently pretty uncomfortable and in a lot of pain. More work was done on my nose this time so the pain feels different than the last time. I have a cast on my nose this time around, and I was too out of it to even think to ask about how I'm supposed to take a shower with a cast on my nose. That will be a phone call first thing in the morning.My face is badly bruised to the point where I look like Mr. V punched me in the face a few times. The bruised areas also keep swelling so that hasn't exactly been fun. And for added fun, I have a huge gauze mustache (yes they actually call it that) to catch all the spare blood that is draining from my nose. I hate medical stuff, so that is probably the most disturbing thing to me right now.

The good thing is that the day is almost over, which means that each day should only get better. I keep telling myself that each time I start to really feel the pain again. I have to sleep sitting up for the next 72 hours so this will be an adventure. I remember that from my previous surgeries and its really hard to do. I am making myself sleep on the couch because I know that I will probably roll around and lay down in my bed in the middle of the night, out of habit.

So thats that. I'll update more when I am not drugged up. I just reread this and it makes sense to me, but we'll see how it sounds when I'm off the meds. Thanks to everyone who sent me concerned emails and messages today. I'm alive :-) and I really appreciate everyone's concern!