Day 3:
I woke up feeling great because I had a good night’s sleep. I did wake myself up on a few occasions with a dry mouth. I just drank some water and went back to bed without any issues. I can certainly feel more pressure in my face today but nothing that bad. My biggest complaint would be that my front teeth are numb and I have some slight pain on my top row of teeth. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would call it a 2. It’s more annoying than painful.
My bruising has dropped a little lower on my face and is changing color a bit. I don’t really care about it at this point since I have a cast on my nose and I’m not going anywhere anyway.
While I did nap on and off throughout the day and caught up on some Netflix shows, I did spend some time doing work on my laptop. It was nice to break up the day since I am not leaving the house at this point. I also did some laundry and some cleaning around the house which felt good.
I’ve been drinking my pineapple smoothies throughout the day and now I’m adding protein powder to them. The nursing team encouraged me to drink lots of fluids and increase my protein intake so this has been an easy way for me to accomplish this.
I’ve also tried to be religious about using the saline spray just to cleanse everything out. It’s pretty gross because you can’t blow your nose and can’t do anything to clean it out so you just have to keep rinsing with saline spray in hopes of keeping everything as clear as possible.
Dr. Quatela called me this evening to check on me. He is so sweet and caring. I know all of his patients say this about him but he does truly care about each and every patient he treats. He asked a lot of questions to make sure I was following instructions properly and reinforced some after-care tasks. He told me that he thinks I’m going to really like my end result. Now I’m more antsy than ever because I just want to see it! It’s frustrating because even when the cast comes off, there is still a waiting game.
I’m signing off for now. They say that the first three days are the worst which is exciting because it has not been bad at all and I’ll be on day 4 tomorrow.
Day 4:
I had another good night of sleep. I’m definitely breathing through my mouth since my nose is pretty congested but it hasn’t been too bothersome. The most annoying part is just the dry mouth that comes with it but a few sips of water throughout the night helps to get rid of it.
My bruising is definitely starting to improve. It is lightening up and the colors are changing. This is one of my biggest concerns right now since I plan to return to work at the one-week point. I just hope that it isn’t too noticeable. The staff told me that they will help me with camouflage makeup if the bruising still remains at my one-week appointment.
My swelling is definitely better today. My eyes were quite swollen up until this point but I have noticed a lot of that has dissipated.
I had an appointment at the office today with Dr. Montague to remove my stitches. I was a little nervous since I read that it can be somewhat painful. He was so sweet as always and told me that everything was healing just as they had hoped. After checking everything out, he cut right to the chase and removed the stitches. Some of them didn’t hurt at all but some certainly stung as they were being removed. I asked him why my stitches were coming out so early on as I have read that other practices take them out at the one-week mark. He said taking them out this early on in the recovery process helps greatly with the scarring so that at the one-year mark, it is almost impossible to see the scar.
Other than that, I certainly feel much better today. I did more things around the house and was up and around keeping myself busy. I do find that when I’m moving around a lot, I do start to feel a little pressure in my face. When that happens, I just take a seat and relax a little and it quickly resolves itself.
Day 5:
Honestly, there isn’t much to report today. I slept well last night and I’m able to breathe through my nose more since I have been increasing my saline spray. I’ve been doing it almost every hour that I’m awake and it doesn’t feel nearly as dry and gross now.
My top row of teeth is still pretty numb which is supposed to subside in a few weeks. It’s an unusual feeling more than anything but is quite tolerable.
I’m excited to have my sense of smell back because that has thrown me off a bit. I thought it might affect my ability to taste food but it hasn’t at all. As long as I can still enjoy my food, I’m happy.
All in all, this has been a wonderful recovery. My fear of this process is what prevented me from doing it years ago so I do have some regret with not doing this sooner. I’ve actually quite enjoyed it since I have been able to read a few good books, relax for the first time in the longest and take care of some small projects around the house.
Day 6:
Today is my last day off before I return to work. Before I do, I will be getting my cast off which I’m excited about. I’m a little nervous since I have seen videos of patients having them removed and they cry because they hate their nose. I’ve been told it will be at least a few weeks before I will have an idea of what the actual result will look like. It will be one year before I see my final result which feels like an eternity! I’m prepared to wait and I understand that this is a process. I know it will be well worth it in the end so I don’t mind.
My bruising has definitely started to resolve and clear up. I’ve been using Arnica tablets that the office provided me as well as Arnica topical gel.
One thing that I’ve been meaning to mention – headaches. I haven’t had a single headache. I was worried about this heading into recovery but it has been a non-issue. I’m been drinking a ton of fluids so perhaps that is helping. I’m just happy to report that I haven’t experienced any.
*Experience and opinion is that of this particular patient. Individual results vary.
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