Post OP Day 4 – The Big Reveal

June 20, 2016

As expected, I did have 1 morning episode due to nerves – which only made my hemorrhoids feel that much better (for those of you that didn’t know, that was sarcasm). Honestly, the throbbing hemorrhoid pain is worse than the pain from my surgery.

Once I cleaned up from my morning episode, my Mom and I decided to leave early for my first follow up appointment. We were expecting to encounter another red-tail-light-party on Interstate 4.

As we pull into the parking space at my doctor’s office 30 minutes early, I was praying that there wouldn’t be any other waiting patients in the main lobby area. I didn’t want anyone seeing me. I looked absolutely terrible. I haven’t showered since last Wednesday, my hair was a mess, I was wearing my husband’s cut-up button-up shirt and a pair of his basketball shorts, and I was still walking hunched back like a grandma.

Luckily the receptionists saw how un-presentable I was and brought me into a private waiting room away from the other patients. As much as I appreciated their gesture, I’m sure they didn’t want me scaring the potential patients coming in for consolations. One look at me and his future patients may have just changed their minds – haha.

Within a few minutes I was taken back into an exam room and my doctor and nurse came in and starting taking off my garments and dressings. It was the moment of truth. I was about to see my new self. Here it is folks !!!
boobies

I must say that I love the way my new boobies look. But I – as well as my surgeon – was concerned about my stomach. Although it is difficult to see in the image above, I have a bulge in my muscles right below my breasts. Dr. Soto said it could be a results of 1 of 2 things.

  1. TubesIt could be swelling. Dr. Soto said that my stomach compression was not as tight as it should have been. In fact, he seemed extremely disappointed as he undid my compression garment saying “you didn’t follow our instructions”. This really brought my spirits down. I could swear I was doing everything correctly. But, if the issue is swelling, then it should be an easy fix.
  2. It could be that I ripped up upper abdominal stitches. This would be the worst case scenario. If this is what happened, it could have occurred when I was couching the fluid out of my lungs or it could have happened by the overuse of my core muscles when trying to balance myself on the toilet.

Unfortunately, my surgeon really won’t know what the issue is until a few days after proper compression.

belly creseThe other issue I’m having with my stomach is below my belly button. It seems that I now have a vertical skin crease. I know I’m being too picky, but it looks like I’ve got an extra vagina lip on my lower abdomen. Dr. Soto said it should resolve itself as my swelling decreases over the weeks of healing.

I’m sure I’m being extremely picky and sensitive about my new body – and I know I need to give my body time to heal before I make any final judgement, but I do wish my stomach looked better. I think I had such high expectations. My Mom keeps reminding me that it will look better over time. It takes 6 – 12 months to see your true final results. And in this instant gratification world, I see myself already being impatient only 4 days into recovery.

I definitely still have a long way to go; and I pray for quick healing and patience as I go through these next few weeks.

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Fast Forward 5 hours later …

June 16, 2016 – June 17, 2016

As I awoke from surgery my immediate focus was on my impending nausea. As I laid there half conscious, I remember politely demanding to have my anti-nausea medication and some ice-cold ginger ale. As the night-time nurse went to gather my requested items, I quickly realized that I didn’t have any nausea! Zero! Zilch! Nada! AMAZING I thought. The anesthesiologist was right! He made the absolute perfect anti-nausea cocktail that continued to run through my IV. Now I could rest comfortably.

As I took my first deep breath, I quickly realized that the nausea was the least of my worries; there was another troubling issue. My lungs had filled with fluid. As I pushed-out my first deep breath, I could hear the fluids bubbling around in my lungs. The evening nurse told me that I needed to cough-up the fluid immediately. This did not sound like a good idea – but I did it anyway – and my God did it hurt. It felt like my abdominal muscles were going to protrude out of my stomach like a cork pops out of a Champagne bottle. While I tried to gently hack-up the fluid in my lungs, the nurse held a significant amount of pressure on my newly-sown-together-tummy-muscles so that the sutures don’t rip as they contracted with my coughing.  The added pressure on my stomach did feel a little comforting and supportive though.

Once I got the fluid out of my lungs, the nurse then wanted me to get out of bed and walk.

Seriously? I just killed myself by hacking-up a bunch of fluid from my lungs, and now you want me to stand-up and walk? I don’t know about this.

grandmaAlthough I had some serious concerns about walking, I followed the nurse’s orders; and surprisingly standing up from the recovery bed wasn’t as painful as I thought it would be. With-that-said, I was unable to stand-up straight without feeling like I was going to rip my muscles apart. In order for me to walk comfortably, I had to lean forward at a 30 to 40 degree angle and balance myself on the nurse’s arms. Honestly, my back muscles hurt more than my stomach muscles during our walk.

After our slow walk up-and-down the doctor’s office hallway, I asked the nurse how often we were going to be doing this. “Every two hours my dear” was her response. I guess they don’t want you resting after surgery huh?

Our next nightly adventure was trying to pee. “Okay – to sit down on the toilet, you’ll want to startle the toilet with your feet and use your leg muscles to sit down onto the toilet WITHOUT using your core muscles.” WHAT? I thought to myself. How is that possible? It took a lot of energy and balance for me to sit down on that toilet – and it definitely hurt my core. I could feel the center of my muscles contracting and I kept thinking: Please don’t ruin your abdominal stitches Kelly.

Once I finally sat down onto the toilet, I realized I couldn’t pee! My body wouldn’t let me! I think my body was still in shock from all the trauma it had endured during surgery. When the nurse realized I couldn’t pee, she turned the sink faucet onto a trickle. It was a nice try, but it still didn’t work. It honestly just made me frustrated. So before I got too flustered, the nurse told me that we’ll try peeing again after our next walk.

Once I returned back to my reclining chair, it was time for me to take my pain medication and muscle relaxer. Since my medications must be taken with food – to avoid nausea – my nurse brought me some of the gold fish crackers I had brought with me in my over-night bag. And my God I couldn’t even eat them! My mouth was as dry as a desert! The cracker turned into a bunch of sandy-clumpy-dirt as I tried to chew it with my dry mouth. I couldn’t even  swallow that dang gold fish cracker my mouth was so dry. When the nurse realized that my snacks weren’t going to work, she went to get something for me to eat from my doctor’s secret food stash. What she brought me was the absolute PERFECT snack! She brought me some mashed potatoes! This is exactly what I needed. Apparently a lot of the patients bring the wrong after-surgery-snack, so my doctor likes to keep a stash of mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese on hand for his overnight patients.

Eating the mashed potatoes was like eating a warm piece of heaven as it slipped down my throat. It was the perfect starchy, soft, warm, filling food that I needed right after surgery. Once I finished my mashed potatoes, I was able to take my pain medicine and muscle relaxer.

The rest of my over-night stay was a blur. The nurse and I continued our nightly routine of resting for 1-2 hours, walking like a hunched-back-grandma, trying to pee, eating more heavenly mashed potatoes, and taking my pain and muscle relaxer medications.

At 6:30 the next morning, my Mom returned to take me home. Before she could take me home, my Mom was given the quick-and-dirty rundown of my home care instructions. One of the most important components in my recovery is how to wrap my tummy binder. The binder needs to be tight, tight, tight! Comfortability and breathing are secondary. Seriously, this binder needs to be super tight.

 binderbinder # 2binder # 3

The other important component to my home care instructions requires a daily belly-button dressing change in which you need to stuff a new piece of gauze into my newly formed belly button hole. At least I get a few minutes out of the crazy life sucking binder.
drain tubeLastly, you need to strip and empty the drainage tubes 2x a day. And my God does the right drain hurt more than the left! To drain the tubes, you need to squeeze all the gunk from the tube and push it into the drainage bulb. It doesn’t sound painful in theory, but for some reason squeezing the air out of the tubes & into the bulb is excruciating painful. It tightens up your muscles and burns like a son-of-a-bitch. I can’t wait to get these suckers out of me.

 

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Why I am blogging about my mommy makeover

June 3, 2016

To be perfectly honest, I had no idea how to begin my search for my surgeon. I knew exactly what I wanted, but I had no clue who to talk to. Other than a simple boob job, no one I knew at the time has ever had any major cosmetic procedures done before. So to begin my hunt for a surgeon, I posted on one the most artificial social media sites I know of – Fakebook. 

fakebook

Back in February, I had written a post on our community Facebook page asking if anyone would recommend me a surgeon for my mommy makeover; and I was profoundly disappointed at the lack of public responses I received.  With the exception of 1 awesome and brave mama, everyone who responded did so through private messaging; no one wanted to publicly admit that they’ve had work done.

arrowThis is one of the many reasons why I chose to start this blog. When does faking-it ever serve anyone? To go around flaunting your new stunning body as if you worked to achieve those results just makes the rest of us feel more self-conscious then we already do. Now, that’s not to say you didn’t work hard with proper exercise, a healthy diet, etc.; but for those of us who do all these things – and more – and still achieved zero results, is disheartening and frustrating to say the least. I’ve tried everything I can think of to whip my body back into shape. I’ve done 4 straight months of eating right and exercising. My exercise routine consists of Insanity, P90X, and running 3 miles in the evening. Unfortunately, there isn’t any exercise in the world that can fix the issues that my two pregnancies have caused. I am so unhappy with my aftermath of my two pregnancies – at times I wont even let my husband touch me because I turn myself off. I NEED this surgery. I NEED to feel sexy again.

So as promised, I have attached for you my BEFORE pictures.

 

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My Big Decision …

June 2, 2016

I seriously can’t believe I’m going through with this. I’ve always been one to judge people who undergo plastic surgery. I used to say things like: “be happy with what God gave you” and “be proud of the battle scars you have”;  but after my beautiful twins Ashley & Aubrey and my last little bundle of joy Amy, I must admit that I am not happy with the aftermath of my two pregnancies and breastfeeding. I have permanently separated abdominal muscles which makes me look like I’m 3 months pregnant (diastasis recti), an umbilical hernia, and excess/stretched out skin on both my tummy and my breasts.

Me 1

I know what many of you are probably thinking: “What are you talking about … you look great!” Well, I can assure you that what you see on the outside is deceiving; even my grandmother had a socking reaction when she saw the aftermath of what 18 months of pregnancy and breastfeeding did to me. I believe her exact words were, “Oh my-gosh … I am so sorry Kelly”. And if grandma says it’s bad, then you know it’s bad.

So in exactly 2 weeks from today, I will be getting a full tummy tuck, liposuction of the flanks, a breast lift, and breast implants! I am beyond excited – but I’m even more scared. I’m scared of the long recovery and the effect it will have on my husband and children; I’m scared of the financial commitment this surgery requires; and I’m scared that my decision to do this is a selfish one.

For those of you who know me best, you know I don’t like to ask for help. I am very independent; sometimes a little too independent – and knowing that I need to rely on others to care for me and my children while I’m recovering is not something I’m looking forward to. But I can no longer live with what looks like a wrinkley-old-stretched-out-saggy women’s body – I NEED this change.

So wish me luck and let the countdown begin !!! I can’t wait to share my results with you!

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