POSTCARD FROM CAMBRIDGE: Considering Rhinoplasty?

No one tells you that after you have your rhinoplasty, you won't be able to laugh.

For the population that keeps the rhinoplasty industry in business—namely, Jewish women with large noses and a sense of humor—this is problematic.

It means that on the way home from the hospital, when your Jewish mother refers to her newly bandaged, bruised, splinted and drugged child as “Pretty Girl,” it’s not funny. It means that two days later, when your first expedition from bed promptly ends in failure when you drop the Spaghettios and need to call for help since you can’t bend over, it’s not funny. It means that four days later, when you go for a walk around the neighborhood and stun a tantruming three-year-old into silence with your face, it’s really not funny.

There are a lot of other things they don’t tell you either.

The most important of these is an accurate definition of the term “drainage.” Before my rhinoplasty, I was under the impression that “drainage” was a clear, harmless liquid that occasionally dripped. This said, I expected post-operational “drainage” to consist of an intermittent leakage of clear fluid from my nose, down my throat.

Oh, was I wrong.

“Drainage” is really synonymous with “massive, long-term bleeding from the nose that doesn’t stop ever.” Not so fun. In fact, the “mild drainage” is so not-mild that it requires an ever-attractive Mustache Bandage, which needs to be changed at least every hour for a couple days.

This information was distinctly not highlighted in the “Considering Rhinoplasty” handout I received. I would have remembered.

They also don’t mention that for your post-op doctor’s appointments, you won’t be allowed to use the front entrance of the clinic. Presumably this is to prevent the emotional scarring of waiting room patients. (My moaning, black-and-blue splinted features may have been less than an advertisement for prospective patients.)

Instead, I was relegated to the back entrance and hustled up a confusing rear stairway. At the top, I found a locked door with a sign that said, “Ring for service.” I rang. A secretary opened the door a minute later and shuffled me into a nearby back office.

The doctor came in immediately, and after the appointment, I was quickly shuffled out again, back down the secret stairs to the hidden parking lot and my mother. It was all very stealthy. I’m assuming that the high efficiency was intended to prevent the post-op patients from scaring each other.

Speaking of my mother, she wasn’t quite as helpful through this whole process as I would have hoped. Firstoff, she found the whole ordeal—which I classified as “The Worst Thing I’ve Ever Done to Myself Ever”—to be extremely amusing. She laughed at me whenever the opportunity arose, which was all the time.

While maintaining nurse-like efficiency and tenderness during daylight hours, she insisted on going “off-duty” at night as usual, quickly falling into a deep sleep while her only daughter drained the night away. “I’m not running a hotel here,” remained her response to all off-hours requests, despite my reply of, “But Mom, I’m bleeding.” To her credit, my surgery did extend her on-duty hours from 9 p.m. to 11:30 p.m., a time determined by the beginning of the Letterman monologue, during which my mother no longer has children.

She also insisted on hitting every single bump on the way to and from the many unnecessary appointments she scheduled for me during post-op week. For the random doctor’s appointment on Day 2, I looked so pitiful that the secretaries stuck me in a private waiting room. On Day 7, she insisted on taking me—in the tiny Honda that truly is one with the road—to get my passport picture retaken. (“You look fine. Smile.”) Weeks later, a customs official needed to see another form of identification before letting me leave the country.

I was also not forewarned about the issues my uvula would develop, though I’m not sure this was predictable. (For those not well-versed in the ways of the uvula, it’s the punching bag thing in the back of your throat.)

Approximately 24 hours after surgery, I noticed that something was hanging down my throat, and that if I made an exaggerated hacking sound, it would flip into my mouth onto the back of my tongue, in clear view of whoever I could get to look in my mouth. I left the unidentified hanging object alone for another day, occasionally choking. But my drugged self began to worry that I would aspirate.

This said, I attempted to perform “surgery” in the bathroom mirror, with a flashlight and kitchen tongs. It became quickly apparent that the so-called hanging object was actually my uvula.

It also became apparent that uvulas aren’t big fans of kitchen tongs.

I called the doctor’s office about my uvula, but the not-so-bright nurse didn’t seem to understand:

“So you have a sore throat?”

“No, I’m choking on my uvula.”

“Sore throats are a very normal symptom of rhinoplasty.”

Nothing.

Days later, during my Super Stealth doctor’s appointment, I was told that uvulas are extremely sensitive, and that my long uvula was “accidentally suctioned” during surgery, and now “responding negatively” in post-op.

Translation: They mistakenly squeezed the hell out of my perfectly normal uvula, causing it to swell up and me to gag.

“Considering Rhinoplasty” definitely skipped this possibility.

Plastic surgeons must plan this stuff, because by this point, my looks were the least of my problems.

“The nose is like an appendage.” This was the not-so-bright nurse’s explanation for why, after eight weeks, I still have a swollen nose. “Just like your fingers or your feet, it swells at random, like when you eat salt or absorb sunlight or spend time in humidity.”

I was unaware that my appendages swell, but okay.

“The swelling should go down another 20 percent in the next few weeks, and then down another 20 percent over the next year.”

“A year?”

“Yup. It should become finer, more delicate.”

“What about my nose bump?”

“Only around one patient a year has one, and that’s taken care of with quick procedure, in-office.”

(Since my life is ruled by Murphy’s Law, of course I have a nose bump.)

“I’m your one. What’s the procedure?”

“We just shave off the bump after the swelling goes down. It’s soft tissue.”

“It doesn’t feel soft. It feels like bone.”

“Don’t worry, it’s soft.”

Rhinoplasty Part II, here I come.