I’ve tried to tell my story before about my nose job, but it doesn’t get much sympathy. I mostly get accusations of how it’s all my fault and I deserve what I got. That’s why I don’t tell it very often. And for that reason I’m not writing this to tell you the details of my botched nose job. I’m writing this to talk about what it’s like to have a problem that very few people have and even worse very few people have any sympathy for.
There are a lot bad things happening in the world. People are mugged. People break legs. People get into accidents. For most of those things the saving grace of humanity is that we tend to comfort each other, but there is at least one thing that few people will sympathize with you for. If you get elective surgery and it goes horribly wrong no one says “I’m sorry you had a bad doctor” or “I wish society didn’t put so much pressure on you to look a certain way.” What people actually say is “You deserved that for wanting to look better” or “You deserved that because you had enough money to spend on something like that.”
Bad plastic surgery can be really bad. You can think you’re getting something done and end up with something else entirely. The doctor can be far too extreme. That’s what happened to me. I didn’t ask for a pointy carrot nose instead of my cute wide nose. He was just used to turning out carrot noses so that’s what he did. The problem is once you put a carrot nose on someone you can’t hit the undo button and start over. It’s not that simple. Now that person has a carrot nose and that is who they are every day. They can’t even have the first corrective surgery for a year. It can be a lot harder to breathe. It can affect your physical activities and even your ability to have sex. It can make it difficult to sleep. It can make every breath uncomfortable. Bad plastic surgery isn’t just an inconvenience it’s a major medical problem that cannot be easily fixed if at all. Some of the changes will be permanent even with successive corrective surgeries. You will never have your exact old nose back.
The doctors don’t tell you that they can’t do everything. I did a lot of research before I made my decision. I visited doctors all over Beverly Hills and the greater Los Angeles area. They all seemed to think they could sculpt your nose into anything they want. They do Photoshop composites and move around your nose as if their tools are the equivalent of Photoshop.
After the surgery when it came time for repairs I found out there are really only a few procedures and those procedures have the affect on your nose they will have regardless of what you hope for. Your nose ends up looking like your nose with whatever procedure they chose to apply. The doctor cannot predict the outcome because no one knows what your nose will look like with that procedure applied. Every prediction is just a guess. The outcome is the standard procedure combined with your physiology.
These procedures can also be more or less extreme. Some procedures are more successful and have a higher patient satisfaction than others. For instance removing a hump from your nose has a high level of satisfaction. Narrowing your nostrils has a low level of satisfaction. In my case my tip and bridge were narrowed. The tip was narrowed to such an extent that it collapsed completely to a point. The bridge was narrowed to an extent that I cannot enjoy physical activities as easily. The air does not flow properly and there is scar tissue inside that no doctors seems to be able to repair even after repeated corrective attempts. An internal incision seems like a good idea, but scar tissue in your nose prevents or reduces the sensation of breathing. The sensation of breathing gives you a general sense of satisfaction with life. I have that in one nostril and not the other.
These are not problems that go away. Even after 5 corrective procedures (the original procedure, 2 raspings of the extra cartilage added to the top during the first surgery, scar tissue revision, and an ear cartilage cap in my tip) and 13 years I still live with these problems and I can’t see how they will completely go away. I’ve been in 20 or more plastic surgeons offices over the years and I’ve heard everything and tried almost everything. It’s hard for me to see a future where my breathing is the same as it was. Even if it can be totally fixed that would necessitate even more surgeries. Each surgery is expensive and a massive drain in time and energy. There is no guarantee each surgery will work out. Every time is rolling the dice again.
When people say it’s all my fault what can I say? I did ask for the initial surgery. I did give in the social pressure to look a certain way. I didn’t know it was going to come out the way it did. I didn’t know I was going to lose the face that I know and love so completely. I really did not know. At the time I though the changes would be minor and I would come out with everything mostly the same. I didn’t know people were going to see a different person. I didn’t know I was going to lose my identity. I didn’t know my own mother would not recognize me. I didn’t know that how I looked was just fine. I didn’t know I would have a life full of medical problems to look forward to.
Starting over with a new face was really hard. People treat you differently with a different face. When your face doesn’t look right people can see it. You have to deal with new way people treat you. They don’t know you had a botched nose job. Mostly people just think you’re naturally sort of off-looking. It makes you want to scream at all of them that they’re looking at some construct of a plastic surgeon. They aren’t seeing you. This goes on every day. Every day you wake up you’re still wearing the new face. The old you is gone. Eventually you have to adapt to this face and how people see it. Even if people see you as less attractive or weaker you can still use that information to address what people think. You had to grow into the old you, you can grow into the new you. It can take years to adapt to a new face and some of the things you don’t get for free anymore can be really sad, but there is no option. You either learn to use your new face or hide. I did both.
Learning to live with a new less attractive face overnight is not the worst part of bad plastic surgery at all. The worst part of bad plastic surgery is this. The worst part of bad plastic surgery is having to write all of this down right now. No one knows about this or that you’re going through this. This kind of experience is so far in left field from what most people know it’s alien. The worst part is trying to explain this to a random person that wonders why you’re feeling down. The worst part is trying to explain why you’re not in a good mood when everything else seems fine. The worst part is trying to explain why you don’t have confidence when nothing appears to be wrong. The worst part is how far away all of this is from everyone you interact with. I’ve had 2 or more faces and I’m just in my 30s. I’ve been attractive and deformed and mediocre and I’ve worn a face that isn’t really mine. I’ve presented a face to the world of a person that does’t exist. My actual face is dead and gone. That face will never get credit for anything I do. Instead this new face, the one the plastic surgeon invented, the one I didn’t even know I was getting will take credit for everything I do and accomplish. The worst part about plastic surgery it’s mostly a secret.
I’m writing this account hoping that maybe a few people will read it and it will stick in the back of their minds. Maybe it will become one of the possibilities why someone is having a bad day. Maybe it’s a long shot, but maybe it hurts every time they breathe. Maybe the person you see isn’t who they really are and they’re sad that no one will ever get to see them again. Right now I know most people have no idea this could even be a possibility. Getting a botched nose job isn’t like breaking your leg in a skiing accident. You can’t sum it up in one sentence. There isn’t a general understanding of what happens and what the problems are of someone who is going through this. I hope maybe by writing this down it will be out there floating around and maybe I’ll get lucky and someone will match me up with my correct origin story and maybe someone will know why I’m staring off into space.
There is a lot of pressure on men and women to look good, whatever good is. Yes, we do make decisions but we’re also pressured to achieve. I’m not a rich person. More and more people are able to afford plastic surgery. More and more people will make this decision. For a lot of them it won’t turn out well. 12 years after my surgery I’ve felt like I’ve experienced this almost entirely alone. I wish there was some kind of group for me. I wish I could go to the local Plastic Surgery Anonymous and sit in a circle and talk about this with other people who are going through the same thing, but we don’t have that. Getting a botched plastic surgery isn’t the worst medical problem you can have, but it is one of the most shameful. The shame and isolation is the most painful part.
A few years ago I got a huge tattoo on my forearm. It seemed really out of place because I don’t have any other visible tattoos. Everyone would always ask me about the tattoo. It didn’t even seem like I was the type of person to get a tattoo like that. What people didn’t know was that the tattoo was the expression of what they couldn’t see on my face. There was something wrong, but they couldn’t see the actual problem. The tattoo let me talk about my problem as if it were the tattoo. It was a proxy for my botched nose job. It let me talk to people about my tattoo and removing it and regretting it. If they condemned me for my tattoo then it was almost like condemning me for my nose job so it was almost like they understood part of it. For few people I would tell them the whole truth, which would result in either a 4 hour conversation or just shocked silence as a walked away. The majority of people have no context for it. It’s like announcing your spaceship is in the parking lot. It’s not something you can talk about in casual conversation — unfortunately.
I’ve had corrective surgeries. I’m starting to look almost like I did. I still have scar tissue problems in my nose and breathe-right strips are my friend, but I’m mostly comfortable in my skin. I’ve lost some confidence and when I think about what I could have been it makes me sad, but I’ve adapted. It’s not just what I’ve lost in my face, but also the years I’ve spent thinking and dealing with it. My life was never supposed to be about plastic surgery. It wasn’t even until about a year before the surgery that plastic surgery crossed my mind. I didn’t grow up thinking about it. I thought of it the way most people think of it as mostly a bad idea. But for some reason I thought I was smart enough to get away with it. I thought if I did enough research and preparation I would be ok and if it didn’t go ok I could fix it like I fix everything. None of that was true.
I’ve been removing my tattoo as well since I don’t need it as much. Things are not really back to normal, because I still look like a combination of old and new me and I’m 12 years older either way. Actually, there really isn’t a normal anymore. I’m this guy who has had this very strange experience that very few people have. It affects almost every part of my life and I can barely talk about it because it requires so much effort with each new person.
If there is anyone out there who has gone through something like this I’d like to hear from you. I’d love to feel not as alone and if anyone out there is going through something like this you can reach out to me too. It can seem like the end of world when you see yourself in the mirror and there doesn’t seem like any obvious way to fix it. It’s going to be hard and there isn’t really any fast answer, but you can deal with it. I still am. Maybe some day we can put our chairs in a circle and talk about it. I could use that.
Made a youtube video… https://youtu.be/rBWnopd93EY
Update 12/29/2020: In an attempt to find more people who have gone through what I have I posted in reddit /r/plasticsurgery and /r/botchedsurgeries and was banned from both. Along with realself deleting negative reviews there doesn’t seem to be a lot of places where both sides of plastic surgery are allowed so I also made a new subreddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/PlasticSurgeryStories/ I wish there were more places people could share and I’m grateful to medium for allowing this content.
