Unveiling of the nose

WARNING: Gross pics below. View at your own risk. :)

Last Monday I had the stitches removed on both my neck and nose. Yay! Actually, on my nose they had put dissolvable stitches on the actual graft and then over that there was gauze soaked in medicine that was stitched on with the regular stitches, so it was the gauze that they unstitched, not the graft. So after a week of having that ginormous bandage on my face I am finally free, sort of. After last Monday I still have 7-10 days that I need to (VERY GENTLY) clean my nose twice a day and slather on vaseline then cover it with a normal sized brown bandage, so it's not as noticeable. My neck is good to go and I don't need to do anything extra to it, although when I turn my heck or move certain ways it feels like the skin where they stitched up on the donor site is pulling, so I keep freakin out that it will burst open or something. Thus, I am careful when moving my head. I still need to take it easy for these 7-10 days then after that I can start working out again and I don't have to be so careful with picking things up and moving around. As long as my nose keeps looking and feeling relatively good then I don't have to go back in until three months from now when they will do some stuff to even out the scar and make be look purty. So I am hoping to look normal by summer...cross your fingers. My parents left on Tuesday - they stayed longer to make sure that I was good to go after having the stitches removed. They were totally awesome throughout this whole thing and am forever grateful for all that they have done for me.

You don't know how excited I am to actually be able to take a shower and wash my hair and sort of wash my face (I can't let the shower water hit my skin graft directly as it may "traumatize" the graft). Not washing my face normally has reeked havoc on my complexion. But I'm just glad the hard part is over.

Without the stitches. They say it should even out and the bumpyness will go away...I hope they are right because I'm still a little annoyed that this is way bigger than I had expected. And as you can see my skin had started to get irritated from the bandages that I was using. Stupid sensitive skin. Plus removing the bandages twice a day to clean the area kept pulling out my hair. And add in that my hair is doing the fun post-baby falling out and I feel like I am going bald.

WARNING: Gross pic is just below. Stop now if you have a weak stomach.

This is my nose. This loveliness is right smack dab in the middle of my face. When I first saw it I was horrified and disgusted. But my family says it's not as bad as I make it out to be. But for me being the one having to live with this it is pretty gross. But the nurse said that it looks really good - not sure what she's looking at though. But it does look better today compared to when they first unveiled it on Monday. I am definitely going to be keeping a bandage on it to cover it up as long as I can. I can't even put make-up on it for a month or anything. It's funny, I have this view of myself from right when I got pregnant with the twins and that was the healthiest and most in shape I have ever been. I felt great, was thin, and felt that I was pretty. So when I look in the mirror now and see me with these 30+ extra pounds, a nasty nose that I cover with a bandage and not the best complexion due to how I've had to "wash" my face recently, I am sadly disappointed. But I know it will get better. I am slowly losing the baby weight and my scars will hopefully heal well, so it will just be a few more months until I can feel like me again. Until then I just need to suck it up. Thank goodness I am a married to a wonderful man who loves me no matter what I look like...or so he says :)