I Need A Nose Job, Stat!

SadintheCity is doing its first contest – be sure to see bottom of this article for details! 

Since my mother died, I have felt it my filial duty to honour her memory the best way I know how: by telling absolutely everyone that my brother won the gold medal in medical school. My mother used to throw that around like underwear at a Tom Jones concert. In the seven years since she’s been gone, however, my brother’s  accomplishments  have multiplied, the coolest among them being the plastic surgery clinic he opened up on Sunset Blvd. in Beverley Hills where he specializes in rhinoplasty.

It upsets me that my mother never got to see him settled in his beautiful clinic, the one that he designed and built himself. I hate that she never got to visit him, tell strangers in the elevator that he was her son and flush with pride hearing happy staff and patients gush about his talent as a surgeon and warmth as a person. I just know she would have loved it. Because she never got to do those things, it is my job now to pick up the slack. It’s my responsibility to embarass my painfully modest brother by trying to invent a new superlative in talking about his achievements, by telling people that my big brother could beat up their big brother…and then fix his nose (and by writing a blog post about him!?).

There is just one problem: I have a terrible nose. Being elbowed in the face while playing basketball at eighteen has left me with a sizeable bump in my bridge. That, and I’m Jewish, so my baseline sniffer wasn’t so great to start with. I have made peace with my nose in terms of my appearance but I am worried that it’s bad PR for my brother who wrote the book on rhinoplasty. I don’t mean this figuratively, he actually wrote a text book on nose jobs.  When people ask me what my brother in L.A. does, I feel them sizing up my nose and thinking, “really?” Saying your brother is a nasal surgeon with a nose like mine is like saying your dad’s a dentist through crooked teeth. Wait. My dad is a dentist. And my teeth are crooked. Damn it! Is my family disappointed that I decided to keep my maiden name?

I have been wearing a retainer at night for longer than I would care to admit, but I never really considered getting a nose job until I was diagnosed with a deviated septum in my early twenties, a condition in which the bone and cartilidge dividing my nasal cavity in half is off center. Kind of like my thoughts. This essentially means that I haven’t been able to take a deep breath for over ten years now. Worried that my perpetual sniffles might be interpreted as some sort of drug addiction, I agreed to see an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist. Unfortunately, before my brother had graduated.

Unbeknownst to me, “deviated septum” is apparently code word for “nose job.”

“So you want to fix your ‘deviated septum?’ said Dr. Shithead, winking at me. “We can go ahead and smoothe that out, shave a little off the tip.”

“Will that help me breathe better?” I asked.

“Right,” he said, nudging me, “it will help you ‘breathe better.'”

“No, seriously. I’m just interested in breathing.”

“Of course,” he said, miming breaking my nose, “we’ll just worry about your breathing.”

I would have rathered people think I could out-snort Courtney Love in a cocaine sniffing contest than let Dr. Shithead anywhere near my face. 

Visiting my brother in L.A. some years later, he informed me that my septum could be fixed structurally without actually making any radical changes to my appearance. Perfect. Taking a picture of me, he then used a software program to show me what I would look like post-surgery.

“I want to look like me,” I said, as he clicked on the keyboard, “just a me who can breathe.” I continued to sermonize about how at peace I was with my appearance, how I didn’t want any drastic changes. 

Ta da. My brother finally held up a digital, post-surgical image of me that was extremely disappointing. It looked just like me!

“So you see,” my brother said, “we can correct the displacement internally to reduce your nasal obstruction, thereby increasing airflow, with little external change.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever” I interuppted him, “now what if we removed a little bit off the tip? Shaved down the bump considerably? Made my nose a little smaller? Cuter? Less ethnic?”

My brother dutifully clicked away to reveal a much better version of me. Totally natural, but way better. My new digital button nose was so natural in fact, so subtley corrected and effortlessly good, that you would never even be able to tell that I got a nose job! It was all still too real. I wanted to look better!

“And what about my lips?” I asked, excitedly, “can you plump those up? Make them more substantial? More Angelina and less George Bush?”

My brother made a slight, understated enhancement to my lips.

“More!” I said, “More, more!”

“And what about these laugh lines starting to come up beside my mouth?” I asked, having never noticed them before. “And the circles under my eyes, can you brighten those up too?” I was gaining momentum now: “Is there any way you can just reconstruct my entire face so I look like Kate Hudson?”

My big brother stopped, rolled away from the computer and looked at me, smiling.

“You don’t need anything but a straightened septum,” he said, “so you can breathe better.”

Looking at him, looking at me, I felt like the best version of myself. And who am I to question a gold medalist!?

I do hope to eventually straighten out my nose. Right after my thoughts.

Contest details:

Along with running a medical practice, my brother has also developed and launched a new skin care line, called Metamorphosis by JolieMD.  I’m so excited to be able to give one of my subscribers a set of  Metamophosis’ 2-step skin regime of Softening Serum and Elightening Lotion (approximate retail value $96 US)!  This stuff is amazing. Like gold. And I’m not just the doctor’s sister – I’m a Metamorphosis user as well!

All current subscribers will receive one entry in the draw. For every new subscriber this week that mentions your name when they subscribe, you will receive 2 BONUS entries. So if you enjoy this blog, please encourage your likeminded friends and family to subscribe as well.

The draw will take place on Monday, November 21st.

Thanks, and good luck!