The Nose Knows
I’m going to tell you a story with absolutely no agenda. I can’t tell you what to think because I’m not sure what the story means even though it happened to me.
I grew up with the nose I have right now except it hung down a little bit more at the very end in a distinctly Italian way, and it had a small bump at the top in a very Roman way. As soon as I turned 12 my mother started bugging me to get it fixed. I didn’t want to. I felt as if it would be a very vain thing to do. I definitely wasn’t in love with my nose — it looked better on my father’s face — but I liked being a phony even less. I continued to say no to getting it fixed. I did, however, tell my mother that if I were ever in an accident and my nose got broken NOT to let them put it back to the way it had always been.
The summer after high school graduation my good friend Claudia and I went into a store in our little city. Another friend of mine — let’s call her Amy — was working in the store. She looked amazing. I told her she looked great and asked her if she had a new haircut. She said no and seemed really irritated with me. When Claudia and walked out of the store she told me I was an idiot, that Amy had gotten her nose fixed. I hadn’t known. I asked why Amy hadn’t just told me about her nose when I asked her about her hair. Claudia rolled her eyes at me. Amy’s nose had been a miniature version of mine including the bump but without the droop. She had always been an attractive girl. Years later I realized she probably thought I was trying to get her to admit that she got her nose fixed but I honestly had had no idea.
I started having more and more difficulty breathing through my nose so I went to a doctor. The doctor said that my septum was deviated and that there was a lot going on inside my nose. He said he could operate and make it easier for me to breathe. He suggested I get my nose fixed at the same time. I agreed. Then he pulled out a book filled with different types of noses. They had identifying numbers. I laughed and said I wanted my same nose but without the bump and the droop. He agreed but there was a problem. He was a nonparticipating doctor. This meant I had to pay him upfront for the operation and then make a claim to the insurance company to get my money back. He said the insurance company usually paid almost the full amount when the operation was done for medical reasons — being able to breathe better.
The surgery cost thousands of dollars. Dollars I didn’t have. I was in my early twenties at the time. My mom wasn’t willing to give me the money. She controlled the cash in our family. My uncle, Dad’s brother’s wife said she would front me the money. I thanked her and scheduled the procedure once I made sure she was willing to wait however long it took for the insurance company to repay us.
My mother didn’t come to the hospital the evening before. But a nurse sat down and explained the entire procedure to me. She told me how they would sand down the bump during surgery. She detailed how they would go up through the nostrils to do everything they needed to do. She told me to expect a shot of Demerol in my butt just before they wheeled me down to surgery in the morning. I would be awake for the operation but free of pain. It was comforting to know what to expect. Not only was she a surgical nurse, she also had had the same type of operation so I knew I could trust what she said. My mother didn’t show up the morning of the operation either.
The next morning, bright and early, they gave me the shot in my butt and moved me onto a gurney. I started to worry about feeling pain during the operation but I worried less when I noticed that the hospital room doors seemed to be floating. Someone put in an IV drip of Valium when my gurney arrived outside the OR door. They then coated the inside of my nostrils with a giant Q-tip type of swab. They said it was a substance similar to cocaine. I don’t know what it was. The final thing they did was to shoot a local anesthetic into my nose. I was so drugged up by this point that I didn’t even feel the prick of the needle. Did I mention that I am an easy high?
They wheeled me into the OR and put me on the table. I was wide awake and quite high. They began to do the operation. The doctors had to tell me repeatedly to close my eyes. They were worried about dropping something into them as they operated. I was high enough that I kept forgetting to comply. I started laughing when I heard them sanding the bump on my nose. It sounded as if they were filing my nails with a giant emery board. They said they’d had people cry before but that no one had ever laughed.
They must’ve wheeled me into the recovery room because I woke up there. I wasn’t supposed to have lost consciousness, but as I said, I’m an easy high. I was freezing. Anyone who has ever had surgery knows they only let you wear a little hospital gown with nothing on underneath. They had also put a lot of icepacks on my face to control the post procedure swelling. There were two nurses in the room but they had their hands full with Mr. Jones. He was over on the other side of the room freaking out as he came out of general anesthesia. I kept trying to call the nurses but because I was so high my voice only came out in a whisper. Mr. Jones calmed down a bit. One of the nurses noticed I was awake and they brought back to my room.
Not only did my nose swell an enormous amount, my face turned all kinds of colors. My mother finally showed up later that afternoon. She took one look at my splinted, swollen nose, and my multicolored face and said, “I hope you got your money’s worth.” She was irritated that my aunt was the one who paid for the operation. When I go back to my apartment after I was released, I took a shower and washed my hair. As I reached across my face to work the shampoo into my hair I slammed right into my nose because the droopy portion on the bottom had been lifted up. It stuck out a little more than it had before. I saw stars as I fell against the shower wall. Fortunately I didn’t do any lasting damage. It took a few months for a large portion of the swelling to go down and about a year for the final bits to disappear. During a follow-up appointment the doctor said that he wanted to go back and make the bulb of my nose a little more even. I said no thanks.
I received the reimbursement check from the insurance company about a month later. I deposited it and paid back my uncle‘s wife. t\The insurance company reimbursed me for almost the entire bill just as the doctor had predicted. My new nose ended up costing me $50. It took about15 years for me to start seeing myself in my mind the new way I looked in the mirror. I kept seeing myself with my old nose. When my son was little and we drove past the hospital where I had had the operation, I told him that my old nose was floating in formaldehyde in a jar in the hospital. Ironically my son’s nose looks more like my “fixed” nose than my old nose. Life is weird. Back to my uncle’s wife. She was very gracious about lending me the money to pay for the procedure. Previously she had admired a beautiful standing mirror that my mother had bought for me. I gifted it to her. My mother seemed deeply hurt or angered by this. I was never sure which it was. Who knows?
