Would I do it again?

In a heartbeat.  Day 2 post op and despite some swelling I couldn't be happier.  My lower jaw/chin is pretty stiff which makes it a little hard to chew and to smile, but that will normalize soon enough.  I took a couple pictures so I could see that difference.  From the front my face currently appears a little longer and wider, but this is because of the swelling.  From the side, what a difference it has made to my profile.  You actually get to see a picture that I never before would have allowed to be seen by the public - because I disliked it so much.  It was kind of strange to go run a couple errands today, and to find that I did not feel the need to hide my profile.  I didn't try to make faces or to cock my head to one side to change the way my face was viewed.  I actually felt secure enough to allow people to see me from any angle.  It was a wonderful, incredibly confident feeling.  One that I haven't ever had in this regard.

Surgery

Surgery is done and I'm off to today to have a follow-up appointment with the doctor.  They will remove the compression tape that is still strapped to my chin.  It will be hard to tell for a few more days what the final look will be since there's still a fair amount of swelling.  It seems to be improving since I don't have twinges of pain when I purse my lips this morning, whereas yesterday I couldn't have used a straw if my life depended on it. 

Yesterday was pretty nerve-racking.  I've had surgery before to repair my broken nose - a few times - so I wasn't uncomfortable with the idea of being knocked out.  And I also was very comfortable with the surgeon after meeting with him a few times.  But this was the first time I had been knocked out since having my boys.  There's some sort of immortal feeling you have prior to starting a family.  It's that you feel like you can't be injured.  You are more willing to take certain risks.  And whether people recognize it, there is always a risk with a surgical procedure.  I recall starting to drift off when they were fixing my nose, thinking "please let this be the last time I have to do this, and I hope it goes great".  This time around, all I could think about was the possibility of not waking up!!  AHHH!!  As if that's what you want to be thinking about when you're going in for an elective procedure.  And how selfish would that be to have a cosmetic procedure done that then caused you to be missing from your children's lives??  I would love to take a peak at what my blood pressures were running as I was laying on that operating room table.  They must have been through the roof.  Tears rolling down my face, sniffling under the oxygen mask.  At first I think the nurse thought I was so upset because of the IV.  Legitimate thought since there are a lot of people who have trouble with needles.  I don't think they could have knocked me out fast enough once I told them what was running around in my head.  And the next thing I knew I was waking up.  No dreams in between.  You aren't really sleeping.  It's as if time stands still for a moment - one second you're finally drifting off on the table and the next moment you're groggily opening your eyes in the recovery room.  What do they call that, suspended animation?  Weird.  And wouldn't I love to be an observer in those recovery rooms.  I certainly have never been one to withold information.  In fact I'm pretty much an open book about anything.  But I don't know if the recovery room nurse needed to know that.  And I'm sure there are a lot more discreet/reserved people who find themselves waking up in those rooms just rambling on about all kinds of intimate details of their lives - embarassed later.  I told a friend, who is finishing up her bachelor's in nursing, that she should go into that realm and then maybe I could listen to some hilarious stories.  :)

So would I do it again?  Well, the recovery has been as easy as I could hope for.  I did not need the heavy pain killers that I snagged at the pharmacy.  Tylenol and some advil didn't completely take care of the pain, but they took the edge off.  I have a few more days of that regimen before the majority of the swelling will go down.  I won't be able to run for a couple weeks, which is hard to do without since it had finally become such a great routine, but worth it.  As for appearance, I honestly couldn't tell you what this artificial body part looks like.  It's still taped until lunch time today, and even then I don't know if it will show it's true form amongst the swelling.  In a few days I plan on taking a couple pictures of it, and for most people you will get to see a picture of my profile for the first time - which I have carefully hidden or burned any evidence of up until now.  It is a little strange to think about a strip of silicone sitting in my face, but I'm sure I will get used to it.  And I've become okay with the fact that I have altered something about my appearance that I didn't like.  As my sister told me, people come to her salon all the time to alter their appearance so she really doesn't look at this as being any different - just a little more permanent.

Bring on the Scalpel

About a month ago I was talking with a friend about things that bother us about ourselves these days and that we would like to alter.  What struck me as interesting was how this has changed over the years.  Starting around adolescence and all the way up through early adulthood I definitely recall comparing myself to my friends and other girls.  One might have had bigger boobs, and I thought mine were too small.  Another one might have had pretty curly hair, and I was blessed with stick-straight hair.  I couldn't tell you when this changed.  At some point I no longer looked at what physical attributes others had and compared myself.  Instead as I grew more mature I could appreciate beauty in my friends and other women, without feeling like I was lacking just because I was different.  Small boobs?  Who cared anymore.  I mean big boobs just slapped you in the face if you went for a jog, whereas my little mosquito bites weren't likely to get out of control.  Curly hair?  Yes, still beautiful, but the straight mop on my head worked out great for the bedhead look.  So from the conversation with my friend I think we determined that once we hit that level of maturity where we are no longer in some form of competition with those around us, we start looking at changes we want to make to ourselves that are completely personal.  And what did I come up with for myself?  Well... it's something that has weighed on me since I was in 9th grade, and after a movie day with my boys where they asked to watch my wedding DVD over and over again, I decided it was time to do something about it.

When I was in 9th grade I got a couple extra adult teeth that I was not anticipating.  They broke through my gums in the wrong place.  This prompted a trip to the orthodontist for my braces consult.  The orthodontist said that he could correct the teeth but would not be able to fully correct my overbite because it was the result of a retrognathic jaw (upper jaw protrudes out and lower jaw does not come up and meet properly).  So off to the oral surgeon I went.  There I was told that in order to fix the problem, they would remove pieces of the upper jaw and screw it back together so that the lower jaw would meet correctly and if this did not fully correct my ... "abnormal, recessive chin then an implant could be put in."  Really, now what kind of doctor tells a girl in her adolescence that her face is abnormal???  We did not end up proceding with the surgery, but instead found a different orthodontist that used braces to align my teeth and fix the overbite (sort of).  I couldn't honestly tell you if I gave too much thought to the abnormal/recessive chin for a while after that as it was almost 20 years ago and I had a laundry list of other insecurities; but I never forgot those words. 

To this day I have never had anyone make a comment about my facial profile.  In fact everyone I mention my upcoming surgery to says they have never noticed anything or they think I'm crazy.  However, I never knowingly allow a profile picture to be taken of me and my husband constantly asks if everything is okay when my mouth is closed and he's looking at me from the side (because he thinks I'm pouting, when in fact that's just how my face looks) - talk about frustrating.  I don't like driving in the car because I know the passenger will be looking at me from the side if we have a conversation.  In fact, preparing for my wedding was nerve racking, because I knew that as I stood on the alter everyone in attendance would be seeing me from the side.  So this past summer, during our marathon session of watching my wedding DVD I suddenly realized that without him knowing how much my profile bothered me, my brother had managed to catch images of me from the side... repeatedly.  I love my wedding DVD.  It was an amazing day, and beautifully captured by my brother; but having to watch myself from the side with that profile I had loathed for years made my stomach turn.  When my husband returned home from work I was in tears at having to look at what image I was displaying to others routinely.  It didn't project the strong, secure image that I felt I gave from the front.  In fact I didn't feel like that profile fit with my personality at all.  After a long discussion with my husband, who thinks I'm beautiful no matter what, I made an appointment at a local cosmetic center.

So what happens next? Well, next Thursday I go under the knife. I'm beyond excited. They will make an incision in my chin, slide in an implant and stitch me up. My situation is further complicated by the fact that resting over my recessive chin is an overactive muscle. This means that when my mouth is closed, the muscle is active and noticeable. Can they correct this with surgery? Nope. The only fix for that is periodic botox - which I instantly declined. I mean if they make it so that muscle isn't active, then how could I possibly make the ridiculous faces that show up in most of the candid pictures people take of me?? I can't run or exercise for a couple weeks afterwards, which has me bummed because I was finally starting to take that bull by the horns. I also have to avoid full contact sports, or anything where you might get hit by accident - explain that one to my energetic boys. Put those two together - no exercise and no possibly injuring activities - and it looks like my husband who is due home soon from deployment will be sadly disappointed. But I soon will have a facial profile that mirrors the strong/dominant woman I am... no more of that recessive/weak crap. :)