Odd things post tummy tuck

So whenever I sit wrong in my car seat, my incision lines hurt a little because they go so far back.

Wearing belts is weird because I can’t feel if it’s too tight.

I’m a huge arm crosser but when you can’t FEEL your belly it doesn’t feel right to put pressure on it!

My swollen days now make me feel big when seriously, I am THIN and haven’t been this thin is a very, very, very long time.  It shows how easy is can be to forget!

I was actually more fashionable while fat because I had to find things that fit and didn’t make me look pregnant.  I wore 5 shirts all summer but they were nice.  Now I’m wearing tank tops (dh finds SEXY, big time!) because it’s summer and I look good!  But I feel more sloppy in my normal clothes again… ah, the irony.

I’ve started to lift my 2 year old and it doesn’t hurt, but the dr says 3 months which would be July 7thish.  I’m mostly NOT picking her up but it really is a PITA because I can’t trust her in public… so we mostly avoid parks quite yet.

I’m crazy busy lately so sorry I don’t blog more!  life moves fast.

ooooooooooh!  ONE HUGE news is I’m getting a consult tomorrow for Essure, the permanent birth control.  I’m on a high deductible private insurance plan, but I’m also low income but more important, between my heart, hernias, pelvis, nerve damage, I have a cardiologist, physical therapist and surgeon saying NO MORE KIDS.  So one of them has to fill out a form saying this is medically necessary, and I will get this procedure FREE (normally 5K.)  Basically whatever my insurance doesn’t pick up, the dr office takes as a write off.  It’s a cool thing the government mandated a few years ago for the underinsured or non-insured.  It’s NOT insurance but for special doctors and clinics, you can get free healthcare.

oooooooh and my hemotoma surgery bill just came.  An insane $3,300!  But because that was 100% medical, not vanity in any way, that insurance thing I just mentioned will just write off those bills and I won’t have to pay.  Thank GOD!  (Though honestly, I’d rather not have nonstop financial stress than get “free healthcare”.  We’re getting there……… career changes take time to build up good income!)

I also took some pics today but not sure when I”ll get them posted.  =)

Recovery and Activity Level After a Tummy Tuck

Kim commented on my blog and on my makemeheal message board I’ve been seeing a lot of similar questions lately.

The short answer is DO NOT DO A TUMMY TUCK IN THE SUMMER MONTHS!  Wait until the fall or winter. 

The long answer is there is no guarentee how your body is going to recover, or exactly what the surgeon may find when they open you up.  Some women have hernias and don’t even know it.  That is going to immediate add 2 weeks to the 6 week recovery time.  If you’re like me, you get some rare, freaky blood clot that requires a second surgery and a delay in your recovery.

I had extreme muscle repair so I AM NOT a typical patient, but let me tell you how I am doing at 6 weeks.

If I stand for too long or walk much, my back gets sore.  It’s the soreness you get from bending over too long gardening or cleaning.  I know my back is weak after years of no stomach muscles, and I know they’ll get stronger.

I can’t hold my kids and if they accidently elbow me IT HURTS A LOT.

If I walk “too much” (ie, minimally) I can get really sore and swollen.

I generally feel ishy in my stomach all the time.  It is not worthy of pain meds or anything, but I rarely have a moment where I don’t know I’ve had massive surgery.  A sneeze, a cough, a laugh and OUCH!  Or, I dropped liquid the other day and immediately went to pick it up.  OUCH!!!!!!

I think I can stand up straight now at 6 weeks!  But at 4 weeks and even last week at 5, I was probably straight standing to someone else, but I know I wasn’t quite standing straight.

 

I wore Spanx the other day for the first time.  It was so awesome not to have this binder on!  But after several hours, my incision line hurt and I had to take it off to just get relief.

Recovery from a tummy tuck

So I’m slightly less than two weeks post-tummy tuck.  On the one hand I’m doing SO MUCH BETTER!  On the other hand, I had internal bleeding on Wednesday, NOT a popped stitch like I thought, so I have to continue to “lay low”.  I forced my surgeon to define that and it’s 4-5 times a day “a walk around her clinic”…so a few minutes walking around and then back to the recliner.  SIGH!!!

I also still have the drain in which they believe is clogged from the clot.  Good news is the clot is in my “cavity”, NOT BLOOD VESSELS…and my body will naturally break down the clot.  Who knows when though!  I can feel the hardness near my drain so I keep hoping to see some big clots through this drain and then see the normal gunk that comes out.  When it’s normal fluid, it’s a bit yellowish when put in the toilet water.  Right now it’s BLOOD.

I can tell you if you have young children GET HELP!  I am still not alone with my kids much as I”m still “recliner” bound.  There is no way I could do this without my husband, mom AND dad depending on who has got what going on.  The good news is I’ve been fine for nearly a week to do BASIC care for myself.  By BASIC I mean getting up to pee by myself.  I can toast a quick bagel for myself.  Don’t scoop ice cream or make food yet.  But basically if my husband (who works at night as a therapist) is gone, the “Babysitter” can leave at 7 when the kids go down instead of staying til he’s home.  That is really helpful because he’s around til he has to leave at like 5pmish, so the “care” is only a couple hours.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the “pain” question everyone wants to know about tummy tucks.  If you’re on proper pain meds, you won’t have pain.  Just some discomfort.  But pain is all relative.  I gave birth to two large babies without drugs at all and was OFF Pain meds on day 3 of this tummy tuck.  But the “surgical pain” has a wrong feeling to it compared to what I consider the natural body giving birth.  So I’m not happy with the surgical pain but it’s more discomfort.  I have avoided all sneezes so far, and have barely coughed.  I”ve managed to “work out” any fluid through clearing my throat enough.  Laughing HURTS and lately my kids have been seriously cracking me up! 😛  Even a few TV shows have me laughing and that’s not good! hah

Yesterday I was super duper crabby and EVERYTHING went wrong.  The only happy moment was putting on an old “casual” long sleeve shirt I used to wear and it fits beautifully again!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYYAY!  Unfortunately until I get this evil drain out (which means I can get off the antibiodic AND can start driving again!) life still frustrates me. 

I know in the end I’m going to be very happy.  But for now I’m still quite crabby, extremely helpless and 100% dependent on others.

Calm

Two more full days!! 

Tomorrow is enjoying my family, thinking through all the random stuff I need to bring to my parents house (recovery for the first few days.)

My kids will go to my parents Monday night and spend the night so hubby and I can get up, out and to surgery at 6:30am Tuesday.  They’ll have FUN at grandparents house and I will have that last night free!  My husband will be at a meeting and I will likely go to a movie.

Starting the stool softeners tomorrow… two days before surgery, per recommendation from plastic surgeon!

Conversations

I talked to two family friends today about the surgery.  It was good to talk (and not just blog!)  My mom also thinks it’s now best for me to go to her house (she’s just 2 miles away) so she can be at her house while watching me those first 2-3 days.  Um, yeah.  That’s what I wanted this entire time! 🙂  So I will become one with the recliner in her room, will have cable TV right there, and if I can figure out their firewall, I can get my wireless internet working over there for my precious laptop.

It’s less than a month away and I have TWO birthdays for the kids coming up, tons of work that I don’t have time to do, and some Big Work Ideas that will have to wait!!!

Life Pre and Post April 7th

I was at my sons preschool today.  Parent Teacher conferences are… April 8th and 9th, day 2 and 3 after my surgery!  Lovely.  I’m going to schedule for a week or two later.  It’s not just that I’ll be unable to be there, but my husband will either be dealing with ME or our kids, I’ll have a doctor appointment then, etc.  It’s just not the headspace to talk about preschool and child development!

I also have no idea or memory of who I’ve told and who I haven’t, so there is this wonderfully ackward set of statements I make, uncertain if I’m repeating myself, boring someone, or it’s all BRAND new (then see my judgement post about how defensive I feel for what I perceive is a generally superficial surgery…. )

I’ve opened up a floodgate of potential work in my consulting business which is great, but not so much when I’m walking down the tunnel of doom.  I can’t keep up with things now, then add a massive surgery and recovery time???  I’ll be an idiot for a good few weeks and have no idea where I was with clients.  Oh well.  It’s all worth it in the end, right…

Logistics of small children and weight limits post-surgery

Every morning I have what we call “early shift.”  With one kid we used to switch every other day having “early shift” which was whenever our son woke up.  But with two, things get more complicated and our daughter was getting up way earlier than our son was at that age.  So now I’m always the first to get up but then at 8:30, I get to go back to bed til 10am, or like this morning, hang out watching TV and sitting on my computer.  It works very well for us.

But every morning I think about lifting my girl out of her crib… I will have an 8 week weight restriction.  I think about lifting her into her high chair.  I think about lifting her into the car seat.  Or her constant need to be picked up.  The only experience I had somewhat similar was at the end of my pregnancy when my belly was so big (see before photos) that I couldn’t hold my son.  Then my heart damage meant I could NOT LIFT THE KIDDOS AT ALL.  My poor son spent probably 2-3 months between the pregnancy and heart not being picked up by his mommy.  I will never forget the first time I picked him up and walked across the living room with him.  It was amazing….such simple things we take for granted. 

I did sit anywhere and hold my son, but I’m reading how moms 2-3 weeks out are still pretty sore and can’t cuddle their kids because of the hands and elbows that jab.  That happens a lot today so I guess I’ll have to figure out how to cuddle without serious pain!

The biggest issue is going to be the crib.  My husband will be around for the 8 weeks post-surgery (we have a unique employment situation) but nights he’ll be gone a lot.  He is also a slow person to wake up… so right now either he gets our girl out of the crib then flops back into bed, or we borrow a toddler bed from a friend (we have an offer already), or we rig up a way for her to climb in and out by moving chairs around.  She’s a super monkey so that might actually work.  I just feel vulnerable both with having to wait for my husband to get out of bed (sometimes she’s up as early as 5:30am..painful) or when he’s gone, relying on my parents to be around and in town and able to come over.

It’s just a weird thing to be, after a week, mobile but still restricted.  We shall see.  I am just NOT READY to move our girl to a toddler bed.  For anyone who isn’t yet a mother, or whose child is young, I highly suggest waiting as long as humanly possible to move out of the crib.  There is a whole new set of problems with a big boy / big girl bed that I’m not ready to deal with post-surgery.