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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Surgery Day!!

June 16, 2016

I woke up this morning feeling very nervous and anxious. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I always get very loose stools the morning of an exciting event; the morning of my wedding, the first day of school, hours before a job interview, etc. – and this morning proved to be no different. All I kept thinking was, I hope the surgeons can’t smell my fear. So to avoid smelling rank, I made sure to wash my behind with the required antibacterial soap after every one of my morning episodes. Unfortunately, I think I left myself a little raw and irritated with all the nervous scrubbing I did.

GirlsBut by 7:30 A.M. my morning episodes had finally came to a halt and my mom and babysitter had arrived. Upon their arrival, it was time to pack up the car and say goodbye to my early morning risers – Ashley & Aubrey. I told them that mommy’s doctor was going to fix her tummy and boobies and that Debbie  (their nanny) and Gigi & Babalou (my husband’s Mom & her husband) were going to come play with them for a few days while I recovered at my Grammy & Papa’s house (my parents). Needless to say, Ashley & Aubrey were super excited; not because mommy was finally getting her tummy & boobies fixed, but because their nanny and grandparents were coming to visit for a few days. Mommy always seems to be second fiddle.

Well, thank goodness my Mom and I decided to leave an hour and a half early because the morning traffic was intense. What should have been a 30 minute car ride turned into a 75 minute-red-tail-light-party on Interstate 4. But we did make it on time – and with time to spare.

As I entered my doctor’s empty office, everyone greeted me the same way: “So are you ready Miss Kelly? It’s your big day!” With all the attention, nerves and jitters, I swear it felt like it was my wedding day again.

Pre-OpWithin minutes, the surgical nurse brought me into the room and told me to undress into a gown and take a pregnancy test. As expected, my pregnancy test was negative.  Next, the anesthesiologist came into the room to have me sign a bunch of I-wont-sue-you-legal-papers. While signing the papers, I told the anesthesiologist about my severe nausea and low blood pressure issues that anesthesia usually causes for me, and he quickly eased my fears. He said he was going to create the perfect anti-nausea cocktail for me, and that my low blood pressure shouldn’t be an issue. Once I had all my questions answered, my surgeon came into the room to draw on me. I wanted to take a picture of the Picasso he had drawn on my torso, but my doctor didn’t allow it. I’m sure there is some logical/legal reason as to why I couldn’t take a picture of his drawings, but it was a little disappointing. Once the drawings were done it was time to say goodbye to my Mom and step into the operating room. But not before we took a final before picture (left). It was the moment of truth. It was now or never.

As I lay down on the operating table, the surgical nurses started strapping down my arms and legs and sticking heart-rate and oxygen monitors on my chest and back. The anesthesiologist was standing at the head of the operating table behind my head, and out of the corner of my eye I could see he was about to inject something into my IV. I immediately said: “Wait, wait! I’m not ready yet!” But it was too late. This was the last thing I remember.

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How I picked my cosmetic surgeon

June 14, 2016

I thought finding a surgeon was going to be overly difficult and time consuming. There are so many worthy cosmetic surgeons in Florida – especially in Miami – I had no idea how to being my search. I was lost sorting through all my options: where to do my surgery, who will do my surgery, what are the surgeons ratings, how do their before/after pictures look, etc.  And although I was disappointed at the lack of public responses to my February Facebook post, I did receive a slew of private messages from many women in my community – most of which used the same 3 doctors. At first I thought, well maybe there are just a few doctors here in Orlando and all the good ones are in Miami or LA; but then I researched these 3 doctors on RealSelf and I knew I had to meet them.

So the very next day, I started scheduling my consolations.  The three doctors I visited were Dr. Thomas FialaDr. Armando Soto, and Dr. Jon Paul Trevisani. And the doctor I chose was …..

Drum Roll Please

Dr. Armando Soto

Soto

For those of you looking for your doctor, here is why I picked Dr. Armando Soto:

Reason # 1)   How he performs his breast augmentations.

Rather than having me stand in front of a body mirror and stuff different implant sizes into a sports bra (like I experienced at my consultation with Dr. Thomas Fiala’s) Dr. Soto wants me to bring in images of breast that I like/do not like, and HE will make the final decision on surgery day as to what implant size and shape will accomplish the look I want.

So during surgery Dr. Soto will sit me up vertically on the operating table and “pop in and out” different implant sizes to see which one will give me the most natural look; and based on his reviews and his before/after pictures, it is obvious he knows how to pick the proper implant size and shape.

Personally, I liked this option better. It takes the stress and fear away that I’ll pick the wrong implant size or shape – cause let’s face it, stuffing implants into a sports bra is not a very accurate way to visualize your future results.

As for Dr. Jon Paul Trevisani, I was not impressed.  He wanted to perform my breast lift and implant surgeries 6 months apart; and his reasoning for separating the surgeries was NOT medically related. Who has time to go through 2 surgeries? That to me just seemed silly and I immediately crossed him off my list of perspectives.

 

Reason # 2) His experience at performing tummy tucks:

In Dr. Soto’s 16  year career, he has only had to make a vertical tummy tuck scar twice (a vertical tummy tuck scar is sometimes necessary when the doctor needs to cut off the belly button due to not having enough skin to pull down during the tummy tuck  procedure). He did say that I have enough excess skin to pull down and I should not need a vertical scar; but in the event that I need a vertical scar, I will at least know that it was a last resort. Also his tummy tuck scars are placed very low – hidden by even the tiniest panties and bathing suit bottoms.

 

Reason # 3)   My surgery will be performed in Dr. Soto’s accredited in office surgical suite & his nurses will be monitoring me over night.

Believe it or not, surgeries performed in an in-office surgical suite have less post-operative infections compared to surgeries performed at a hospital or out-patient surgical center. Think about it for a moment: A hospital or out-patient surgical center has patients constantly going in-and-out of their facilities, whereas an operating room within a private practice only has patients in there 2 – 3 days out of the week (my surgeon only performs surgeries on Thursdays & Fridays). So it should make sense that less people = less chance of infection.

Also, if you do happen to have your surgery performed at a hospital or an out-patient surgical center, the doctor will usually send you home that very same day! Hard to believe right? Doctors will keep you in the hospital for 3 days following a C-section, but they’ll send you home immediately after a much more invasive mommy makeover procedure. Doesn’t make sense to me.

So there you have it folks!  Dr. Armando Soto it is !!!

I can’t wait to share with you my amazing results!!!

2 more days !!!

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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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