DAY 1 POST SURGERY
Today I made an appointment with the clinic (pls email me to enquire more about which clinic i went to) to have my surgery at 11pm. Reached at about 10.30pm and the staff brought me into the consultation room and gave me a bag of medicine (consisting of pain killers and antibiotics), ice pack and gauze to reduce swelling and lists of what to do and not to do after surgery (will write about these in details in another separate post).
After this, I was brought to another room to have a final consultation with Nicole before my surgery. Nicole showed me before and after pics of their patients and asked me what kind of nose I want. I told her that I wanted a more defined nose with a higher bridge but I wanted it to be natural, she assured me again that dr yoo is very good at making his patients look natural. This was exactly what I wanted.
I was then ushered by the nurse to the recovery room and operating theatre on the 4th level. Dr Yoo was a little late and Bonny kept coming into the recovery room to check on me and apologized continuously for making me wait.
Last look of myself before surgery
Finally after about 30 mins, I was ushered to the operating room. About 5 nurses were attending to me, adjusting the positions of my hands and legs, wrapping my head with towel, preparing the sedation, basically preparing me for the surgery. The last thing I remembered was Bonny telling me that they are putting me on sedation and I asked her how long would I take to fall asleep, she said one minute. Soon after that I fell asleep.. (I think it took slightly longer than a minute lol)
When I regained consciousness, I felt the surgeon operating on my eyes, I could feel the sewing and removing of thread but I couldn't feel any pain. He asked me to open and close my eyes a couple of time and asked me to sit up twice so he could take a better look at my eyes and see if both sides were balanced. Soon after this, it was over!!!
As the nurses helped me up and brought me back to the recovery room which was just next door, I felt a little intoxicated, like i was a little high on alcohol, drowsy but still aware of what's going on.
They then asked me to rest for an hour and put an ice pack over my eyes. Before they did that they have me a mirror and I saw what I became!!
There was a piece of gauze in one of my nostril because it was still bleeding from the surgery. These pics were taken about 5 minutes after surgery.
The bruise on my eyes got so bad it's not blue black, it's literally jet black!! Ok I'm exaggerating, more to charcoal black.
Not only does my face suck, my hair sucks too.
Soon then I drifted in and out of sleep. At 4pm, the nurse came into the room with a tray of corn soup and soya milk.
My upper lip was still very numb from the anasthetic, I couldn't feel anything and I couldn't open my mouth too wide cuz of the bandages. I had a little bit of difficulty finishing the soup. And suddenly.. I saw little splatters of blood on the blanket and Abit on the wooden retractable table.
I asked the nurse where the blood come from cuz I checked the mirror but couldn't see where, she said my nose. So I used a piece of tissue and gently cleaned the sides of my nose and openings of my nostrils.
Then it happened again, the blood when into my corn soup.
I gave up drinking it and finished up the soy milk.
I felt well enough to go back to my hotel and left the clinic. I even strolled along the streets outside the clinic with my bandaged face for a while. They said this was a very common sight in Seoul and indeed, no one even took a second look at me.
DAY 2 POST SURGERY
Face is slightly more swollen now and I didn't sleep well the night before because of blocked nose and I'm not used to sleeping facing the ceiling, I'm always sleeping on my sides. And it was advised to sleep facing the ceiling on elevated pillows to help in deswelling for one month!!!
Didn't really feel much pain, only slight pain that only lingered a while around my ear area.
The only disturbance and discomfort was that I couldn't breathe thru my nose which is making me rather annoyed cuz I can't sleep.
DAY 3 POST SURGERY
I went back to the clinic again this afternoon at 12 noon for follow up. The nurse removed my bandages and pasted small translucent square stickers on the areas I had fats grafted.
Most importantly, she cleaned the insides of my nostrils and airway is cleared, I can breathe properly thru my nose again now!! Last night was a torture, I couldn't sleep at all, I had a running nose and wanted to sneeze but I tried my very best to control this which made me so uncomfortable, the mucus was all stuck at my nostrils and I was almost chocked many times. But now after the nurse cleared my nose, I finally caught a proper rest!
Lastly, she gave me an antibiotic jab, I feel so much better now.
Here are some pictures of me after removing the bandages:
My eyelids are still very swollen and purplish, so are my checks, my lips especially my lower lips are thin and receded due to the swelling on the other parts of my face and I was told they will be back to normal once swelling subsides.
Now, I don't look like super Mario's gf anymore, instead, I look more like Avatar's gf! Hope the swelling and bruising subsides fast...
After a good nap on day 3, I was well enough to get out for dinner. I'm so thankful I'm in Korea in this undesirable and scary state. The Koreans treat this as nothing and I didn't receive any weird stares at all from them. Instead, they didn't even take a second glance at me with those terrible bandages, bruises and swelling all over my face. for an instance, I thought I was invisible. If I was in singapore, I would probably be on stomp by now for walking around in public like this...
DAY 4 POST SURGERY
i went back to the clinic for removal of the bandages. I was left with only the nose splint, eye stitches and ear stitches.
And off I flew to Jeju Island!
The custom officer saw me with the cast in my nose and made me sign a form declaring that I am fit enough for the flight and that they will not be responsible should anything happen to me on board.
I was really feeling very well and normal, no pain, no discomfort.
I could smile but not as wide as before due to face swelling.
DAY 5 POST SURGERY
Swelling continues to subside. I went sight seeing, did lots of walking, ate like normal. In general, I feel very normal and didn't get tired easily too. My friends were surprised and said that I don't behave like someone who just had surgeries done.
Found a hair salon opposite our hotel in Jeju and went for hairwash at 12,000 won. It was equivalent to finding a gem! I had difficulties washing my hair on my own as water wasn't supposed to touch my face especially my eyes and my nose.
DAY 6 POST SURGERY
My face is still swollen but the swelling around my eyes have subsided significantly. The bruises around my eyes have changed from black to light purplish.
DAY 7 POST SURGERY
Went back to the clinic to get my stitches and nose splint removed.
I read somewhere that removing of stitches is very painful and I was rather nervous so I asked the nurse about it and she assured me that it's not gonna be pain.
And true enough, its like ant's bite! I was worried for nothing, in fact I feel eye brow plucking is more painful than this. But it also depends on your threshold for pain I guess.
The nurse said I can now put on make up, wash my face like normal (but not too rough), apply moisturizer and resume my normal skincare routine.
This was how I looked after removal of the splint and stitches.
I wasn't very pleased at first. My dark eye circles were so obvious and eyelids were still purplish due to swelling, my nose seems a little deviated, I still can't smile properly, my lips are still receded and my chin seem too sharp. I look like I got beaten up.
)
)
