When I was 10, I literally had a run in with a wall (I was running away from imaginary daleks), and badly broke my nose. My Mum didn't take me to hospital as she said they couldn't do anything for a broken nose, it would just heal itself. I've been left with a nose that has a big bump on the bridge. It sort of bothers me, I'd really prefer it not to be there, but it hasn't really held me back (I've had boyfriends, been told I'm pretty, got married), but it bugs me as it's very obvious and I know it shouldn't be there.
I recently started kundalini yoga which involves a lot of breath work, and breathing through one side of your nostril and then another. I realised doing that that I couldn't actually breathe very well through each nostril on its own. I saw an ENT specialist who sent me for a breath analysis test, and an MRI scan. Basically, my nose is so fucked up that I can't breathe enough to get adequate oxygen when i breathe, and the MRI scan showed a big deviation of the septum on both sides, and he's advised that I have an operation to have the deviations corrected. He also suggested that I could combine this with rhinoplasty to get the bump removed.
The AIBU is that my whole life I've been told I shouldn't get a nose job. My Mum always said I was fine as I was, I shouldn't mess with myself for vanity. And my husband says he loves me and my nose as it is, that it's cute, and that he's worried that I'll end up with a freakish Michael Jackson style thin nose if I have surgery. So I've always thought OK, I'll never do it.
But now I'm thinking that if my breath is really comprised, and I do medically have big deviations in my nose that are affecting my breathing, then I should just go for it? And have the bump removed as it's not how my nose should really look? As if I hadn't had the accident then I wouldn't have the bump, and I'll just be restoring things to how my nose should have been, although it's been 30 years since it was like that?
I'm kind of really worried that my friends will think I'm really vain for having a nose job, that it will go horribly wrong (in part to punish me for my vanity!), but on the other hand I think it's a correction to a medical trauma, and if my arm for example had been broken I wouldn't think twice about getting it corrected.
Please give me the courage to just go for it! Or warn me off it if it really is a bad idea! [Sorry for the essay!!!!]