Face/Off

I know you're all waiting for me to resume (the avoiding of) giving my opinions on fall television, but there's a more pressing matter at hand. Recently, I had my face taken apart. Also, I am indeed serious.

See, my nose had two problems. The first is that it never worked correctly. I've been breathing through both it and my mouth all my life, never getting quite enough air. I've also always had the worst sense of smell of anyone I know, but I always just assumed that was the tradeoff for my superhuman eyesight. Oh, and I never cared for food. My tongue works just fine (ladies), but since smell is so strongly linked to taste, I couldn't really tell the difference between cheap stuff and good stuff. As I've said before on several occasions, if I could charge myself like a battery, I'd skip food entirely.

I went to an ear, nose, and throat doctor with my concerns, and he took the long scope and checked me out. He then asked if I had injured it as a child or something, because MAN, it was bad in there. What should've looked like a straight line looked like a treble clef. Stuff was bent and coiled and there was even a cyst blocking one of my nostrils. He explained that what he'd have to do is basically take stuff out, straighten it, and put it back in. Hey, I'll be asleep; do what you must.

The second problem is a bit more obvious: the thing was huge. I mean, it wasn't what doctors refer to as a "clown nose" (and I do mean that - it's a term that I heard more than once), but it stuck out quite a bit. Dad called it "regal," because he's not very good at this. It's bothered me ever since I was in middle school, so I've been kicking around the idea of doing something about it for maybe ten years. Everyone knows I'm not the biggest fan of plastic surgery, but I'm very comfortable with the fact that I'm not doing this to hide my age or chase an impossible standard of beauty or look like the people on the tee-vee. It was very prominent, noticeable, and totally not what I wanted. After brushing my teeth, when I spit the water out, it'd hit the tip of my nose straight on. Think about that. And I had to drink canned soda sideways.

The ENT doctor referred me to a plastic surgeon for those needs, which is great, because they knew each other and did tag-team surgeries together. I made an appointment to see him, which was very different from your traditional doctor's visits. It was a 4:30 appointment, and when I showed up, I was sent to the exam room immediately. About two minutes later, seriously, he was in there. There's no waiting when you're doing something elective; you get SERVICE. Rhinoplasties usually just make the nose look smaller, but he explained that we'd actually make mine smaller, because, damn.

So, the big day arrived on November 1, and I was at Howard County General at 7:50am. My aunt Sarah is a nurse there, so she hooked me up with a good anesthesiologist. One of the great things about Kelehans is that we've got people everywhere, nurses in particular. So, I go under, they open me up, and hey, it's even worse than they thought in there. I was under the knife for five hours. I've played Trauma Center, and it's taught me that surgeries usually last about three minutes, so this was SERIOUS. I don't know if you've ever been under general anesthesia, but the cool thing about it is you totally lose that time. I was up on the operating table, they started the IV, and I immediately wake up 6 hours later and see Aunt Sarah.

Recovery took a few days, and wasn't fantastic. First, I threw up all over the living room floor. I warned mom by saying, "Vomit vomit vomit vomit!," but she couldn't get a receptacle to me in time for the first wave. Ironically, it looked like all I threw up was the anti-nausea stuff, so I guess that worked. My nose was full of packing and tubes, which wasn't very comfortable, and it was pretty hard to breathe. It didn't help that my left nostril was entirely scabbed shut, and my right was on its way. But the worst part was that I couldn't lie down, because if I did, I'd bleed into my head and die Elephant-Man-style. Since I had to breathe entirely through my mouth and I couldn't lie down, I was in a cycle of two hours awake followed by one hour asleep for the first couple days. By the time I felt well enough to actually watch a movie, I had to split them into as much as three parts. And guess what? Apocalypto still isn't great even with painkillers.

The surgery was on a Thursday, so that following Monday I got the stuff out of my nose. Very painful procedure (the numbing agent can only be applied AFTER everything is pulled out), but once it was out, things were way better. I was back at work (at the secondary office job) the very next day. Within a couple days, my splint was off, I was breathing, and I could actually smell and taste things for the first time. Why don't you guys eat apple pie all the time? It's awesome. I still looked like I got in a fight, and performed poorly in said fight, but that's been getting better every day, until now when I'm almost completely healed.

At the next followup appointment, the ENT doctor was very impressed by how fast I'm healing. He says that the never smoking or drinking does wonders for the body. I should add that it makes painkillers much more effective. Also, there's no god. See, studies have been done that people who are prayed for, and know about it, heal SLOWER than those who are prayed for and don't know about it and control groups. When you accept responsibility for your body, well, things just work out better.

Okay, so how's she look? Good, I say. It's shorter. Done and done. It's not a huge, dramatic change. It's not something you'd even notice from the front if I didn't mention it. And that's the whole point. You used to notice. Now you don't. It goes with the rest of me quite nicely. When someone first meets me, their impression is no longer, "Mike's got a big nose, and he's a douchebag," but it also won't be, "Mike's got a great nose, but he's a douchebag." Now, it's just, "That Mike's a real douchebag," and that's exactly what I want.

Well, not exactly, but you see my point.