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Butterflyhugs:: How did healing go? What kind of sensation do you have a year later?
You look phenomenal, by the way. 
Thanks
I was afraid at first because the healing was quite so slow to start. I don't remember a lot of specifics from that first week because I was in a percocet-induced haze most of the time, but some things do stand out:
When I first woke up that evening in the hospital, my eyes were completely swollen shut. I could open one of them up to the point where I could see some light through my lashes, but that was it. Imagine coming awake into high levels of pain but not even being able to look around to see WTF is what. My nose was in a cast and filled with dried blood, and I had very little control over my lips. I wound up having to stay 2 nights in the hospital on an IV because I couldn't move my mouth to eat/drink. In fact, the swelling didn't even to begin going down significantly until about 5 days post-op. When I had looked in the mirror one time back at the hotel, I remember thinking to myself that I looked like a fat Hawaiian who didn't know how to put on makeup. My face was many shades of purple, blue, red, orange, etc. The outer halves of the whites of my eyes were completely red (not bloodshot--but just a totally bright red color). The right eye stayed like that for about 3 weeks.
The doctor said that normally patients take about 3 months to fully heal (meaning there's no more noticeable swelling), but in the long run mine went a lot quicker than that. He attributed it to my being very young at the time of surgery. The one month mark was really the turning point. After that, things just kind of settled into place and all the sudden random people on the street were stopping and telling me I was pretty.
I found one photo I took of myself during the healing process. It's me at 3.5 weeks. Notice how I still look like a Gremlin or Smeagol or something similar:
Then this is me at 1.5 months (roughly 3 weeks after ugly impish creature):
So you see there was a big change in that short amount of time. I had considered myself fully healed at that point, but looking back over pictures taken throughout this past year, I can notice subtle changes occurring all the way up to about May, which would be about 9 months post-op.
As far as sensation goes, one thing I didn't like was that for a very long time my nose didn't actually feel like it was attached my face. It wasn't numb, because if I touched it I could feel my finger on the skin, but I couldn't wiggle it or flare my nostrils or anything like that. That lasted until around December (4 months post-op). Oh, and the top of my head was completely numb until around the same time. People could knock on my head, and of course I'd feel the vibrations in my neck and such, so I knew what was going on, but I couldn't actually feel them touching me. What I couldn't understand was how I could still get itches on my head, but I couldn't feel myself scratching them--so they wouldn't go away! Lol! Imagine having an itch on your harm, and watching yourself scratch it, but being unable to feel the scratching and so it doing absolutely nothing. It was quite odd and very annoying.
All in all I was very pleased with the care and courtesy (and results) of Dr. Spiegel and all his staff. They even sent me flowers at my hotel! I'd recommend them to anyone.
