I just have to share my excitement over a letter that came from my insurance company (or rather, my mom's insurance company) this weekend, informing me that my proposed rhino/septoplasty has been approved! What, you might wonder, is a rhino/septoplasty? Well, in short, it is a nose job, but it is so much more than that... I have hated my nose since fourth grade, and not without good reason...
Let's start at the very beginning (*cue music for "Do, Re, Mi"* a very good place to start...)
I was born with a hereditary bone growth disorder (not as bad as it sounds) that, in short, causes the upper jaw to grow quickly, while preventing the lower jaw from growing at all. This can result in a number of side affects, most often including: a dis-aligned bite, a receeding chin, and painful problems with TMJ... (note: TMJ is a side affect and not everyone that struggles with TMJ has it as a result of this particular disorder.) The extent of these side affects can vary greatly, for example, one of my mom's sisters and her daughter both have this same disorder, but neither of them required surgery. My mom, however, underwent corrective surgery when I was going into Kindergarten.
When she started her treatment, I was 4 years old. It was the mid-eighties, so childhood orthodontia was still very experimental, but it was already know that this condition was hereditary, so my mother's orthodontist ran some x-rays on me to see if I shared her condition... I did, and he thought that if they started preventative orthodontia right away, they might be able to force my jaw bones to grow correctly, and prevent surgery.
This resulted in some very awkward elementary years. Before I even started Kindergarten, I'd been wearing retainers and head gear for a year, and had already had several teeth pulled. This not only made me look quite scary (having no teeth other than my molars and upper canines, I slightly resembled a vampire), but also made it very difficult for me to speak audibly... still it is pretty cool knowing my orthodontic journey is documented in a number of medical journals.
Fast forward to junior high, when I am about to get my braces off... and the orthodontist discovers that all of my previous orthodontic torture was in vain... I still had a severe open crossbite (only the two back molars on my right side touched, and the rest of bite was progressively more open to where the back two molars on my left side were an inch and a half apart when my mouth was completely closed... it didn't look as scary as it sounds, but did make chewing difficult and cause some painful tension in the joints of my jaw), and surgery was inevitable... So, when I was 15, the braces were put back on, and right after my freshman year of high school ended, I underwent several hours of reconstructive surgery...
First, my top jaw was broken, and bone was taken out to re-align the jaw. Then, my bottom jaw was broken, and my receeding chin was brought forward 1/4 of an inch. The bones in both jaws were secured with a number of plates and screws (for which I need to carry a certified letter from my oral surgeon when travelling on an airplane), and my mouth was wired shut for eight weeks. Though quite painful, the final result has been quite satisfactory... even though it took six months for the swelling to finally go down completely, and another year after that to finally get used to seeing a new reflection in the mirror...
When I was going through all the pre-surgical appointments with my oral surgeon, he mentioned that another side affect of the disorder was that I had a deviated septum, making my nose appear crooked, and creating a shallow sinus cavity on my right side... This explained so much, because when I was in fourth grade, my new glasses would not sit straight on my face, and when we went in to have them adjusted, the technician so gently pointed out that, "the glasses aren't crooked, your nose is crooked!" Since then, my crooked nose (which many people say they cannot even see) has been the first thing I notice when I look in the mirror, and I have vowed since the age of ten that when I graduated from grad school, I'd reward myself with a nose job!
When my oral surgeon pointed out that it was caused by my deviated septum, I was thrilled to finally have an explaination, but he was unable to correct it at the time of my jaw surgery, since my mouth would be wired shut, and all of my tubes would have to be put in through my nasal passages. Besides, the deviated septum was secondary to my need to chew my food, so he said if it ever started to cause me trouble, I could have it corrected at a later date.
I used to pray for a broken nose so that insurance would cover it, then last season, in my job with the Brewers, I took a baseball to the face. My nose definitely looked broken, but a doctor visit with x-rays showed it was merely "displaced cartilage" and the doctor simply (loudly and painfully) "snapped" my nose back into place... however (fortunately) there was some lasting damage...
Since that incident, I have started to develope breathing difficulties on the right side, and some recent test that required more tubes down my nasal passages proved quite painful due to the deviated state of my septum, so after our stations were sold, and I lost my job, I finally had time to look into getting it fixed. As it turns out, my right sinus cavity is slowly calapsing do to unusually soft cartilage as a result of the "baseball incident" and insurance is willing to cover the rhino/septoplasty!
It will be more invasive than your typical "hollywood" nose job, as my nose will actually be opened, broken, and skored in several places before a cartilage graft, and an inevitably torturous week of healing while my nose is stitched, splinted, and packed tightly with gauze, but I know what I am getting myself into (at least I'll be able to talk this time) and can hardly wait to get this things scheduled. I will definitely be sure to include any updates, and maybe a few scary photos of my bruised and swollen self... in the mean time, here is a shot from two weeks after my jaw surgery nearly a decade ago... please don't pay too much attention to the heinous pixie cut... we all make mistakes ;)
