Day 6 after round 2 of surgery: (lowering the hairline, brow reduction (which includes “opening” eyes by reducing the orbital bones). Day 17 since the first round of surgery.
Doctor came by today and removed the nose split — yippee! I’m getting to the point where I’ll no longer scare small children, plus it’s easier to breathe.
Hard to tell exactly what shape my nose will end up — there will be noticeable swelling for at least another week or two, and the nose won’t photograph well for three months. But it seems like it might be a bit thinner with a bit more definition. We’ll see. The tip is a little saggy, but I’m sure that’s due to swelling and will go away.
They definitely did remove the “dorsal hump” (a sex differentiator in my ethnic group), as well as reduce the overall size and the angle of the tip (also anatomical sex differentiators).
Thankfully, I didn’t have a strong brow ridge to begin with, but that’s gone, and my forehead definitely now has the slightly different slope to it that females have. Males typically have a flat spot slightly above the brows, whereas females have a smooth curve.
The distance between the top of the upper lip and bottom of the nose is visibly smaller — although it’s a bit hard to say if there will be changes when the swelling goes down.
All these are the subtle cues we unconsciously use to decide if someone is male or female.