Surgery day + recovery

Finally!!!

When I arrived at LIFE I was greeted by a temporary English consultant. LIFE got her from another hospital so I would have someone with me the day of surgery and for my first checkup. I was given a locker for my bag and then got changed. After washing my face and disinfecting my mouth they took my pictures again. I then had one final consultation with Dr. Kim. We went over everything I wanted and he drew correction marks on my face.

The consultant then lead me into the surgery room and the nurses began preparing me for surgery. I actually don't even remember falling asleep...but I know I was at some point because I have no memory of them doing stuff to my nose. I think I woke up around half way through the surgery? Pretty sure I actually FELT them inserting the chin implant through my mouth, at one point that had to drug me up more! It wasn't that bad tho whatever pain I felt quickly went away. After what felt like an eternity I heard the English consultant talking to me. Surgery was finally over. She helped me up and walked me to the recovery room.




I maybe only spent like 30 minutes there? I felt great just a little woozy. When I told the consultant I was ready to leave she called a nurse to remove my IV drip. Then she gave me a bag with the after care medication, surgical masks, instructions and an ice pack.

I couldn't believe how good I felt there was absolutely 0 pain, that kind of ruined my perspective for things down the road thinking that healing would be really easy. There also wasn't that much swelling After taking the subway home I watched tv for a bit, tried to eat and then slept.

Day 1 post-op I didn't have any pain again. Near the end of the day though the gauze in my mouth was really beginning to bother me. Tomorrow I had to go back for my first checkup and wouldn't wait for them to remove it.

Day 2 For the first checkup a nurse removed the gauze from my mouth and cleaned my nose. Cleaning was really painful, some of the dried blood was so hard. It was such a relief being able to breathe slightly better from my nose though.

After checkup I kind of became ambitious...and decided to shop at itaewon and myeongdong which somehow turned into a nearly 7 hour outing oops. I was also semi-successfully able to eat at Mcdonalds. In retrospect this was a pretty bad idea but #yolo #swaggie #BuyARTPOPOniTunesNow

They told me I was welcome to come in any time I wanted If I had questions/concerns, the temporary consultant also gave me her kakao.

Day 3 Decided to spend the entire day at home relaxing, only went out for a short walk at night. My face still wasn't really that swollen. My chin and nose tip felt odd, like it was numb but sometimes there would be this weird pinging/tingly sensation? A bit hard to describe. Overall nothing serious though, but my lips were starting to give me some issues. They started to become very very dry, every time I woke up they would be stuck together. The lip stitches made eating extremely difficult too

Day 4-6 On day 4 I had my second check-up. They did some more cleaning and applied ointment to my lips. This is when the swelling started to get pretty bad. I'm actually surprised my lips didn't swell more cause they swell really badly alone when you just do chin work, but a reduction on top of that...

I did not get used to lip stitches, if anything they became more unbearable the longer I had them. My lips being so dry also caused like thick layers of skin that needed to be peeled off. I carefully managed to get it off (using q-tips, which will be your best friend for nose surgery btw I nearly went through 200 while there)

Day 7 Today bandage were finally removed, some of the stitches also. Getting the stitches removed was by far the worst and most agonizing part. The nurse was gentle but there is absolutely no way to make this process painless, unless they drug you. The lip stitches were the absolute worse, especially the top one. In order for her to get a clear view I had to make a "O" shape with my mouth, but I couldn't because of my fresh chin implant. Every time I tried my mouth would automatically start to shake. She had to call one of the girls downstairs to actually hold my mouth open while she took out the stitches.

I still have some stitches left in my nose and all the stitches inside my mouth from the chin implant. I was told to get them taken out in a week, which is this Thursday. Do I just randomly show up to walk-in clinic btw I should probably look up on that!

I felt much better with most of the stitches and bandages off. After saying my goodbyes to people at the clinic I went home to inspect my face in detail. Dr Kim's work is definitely subtle, I really like how my side profile looks so far. Loving my new chin too, I wouldn't have minded if it was a tiny bit bigger though. When my nose and lips reduce in swelling my chin will definitely look more prominent.

I'm really happy with my alars at this point and my tip looks pretty good. It's kinda hard to judge at the moment since I'm still really swollen (12 days post-op).

Upon returning my Mom said it was really subtle and people (family) probably wouldn't even notice. My Grandma was at home when I returned from the airport and she had no idea about the surgery. The only comment she made was that my face looked slimmer.

Waiting another two weeks for more definite results is gonna be tough but I'm excited