Post-Op

Well....yesterday went well.   Surgery went a little longer than expected because I had a lot of scar tissue that he decided to remove.  He said that the scar tissue could have been what was causing my sharp pains in my chest.  When I got home yesterday I was basically a zombie.  I could hardly stay awake let alone type.  Any messages I did try to type took me forever and had lots of misspellings.  This morning though I am doing much better in regard to my alertness and although I am not taking any pain meds the pain is pretty tolerable.
The only thing that concerns me right now are how my breasts are looking.  I know that I only just had surgery yesterday, but when I saw them today I seriously almost freaked out and held back the tears.  They just look awful.  If I could post a pic I would.  James took a look however when he got home and said he feels like the things I am concerned about are all swelling related and will improve as the days and weeks go by.  I also sent my surgeon a text asking about it and he called me and wanted me to take pics to send him, which I did.  He also said that my concerns are all due to swelling and not to worry.  Just massage the areas and swelling will go down and I will see improvement.  I guess I just had this unrealistic expectation that I would see them and they would look perfect...I guess I shouldn't expect that after just getting sliced open and having tons of swelling.

I can not drive for 2 weeks....so that stinks.  I have to rely on everyone else to get me things and take me places which of course is frustrating but I have to follow directions.  My parents and James have been a great help.   The kids too.   James is cooking dinner right now as I type, and Isaiah has helped with laundry too.  Gonna be a very long year though of me not lifting anything.  ugh...

During my naps today I kept having dreams that I was at Kroger and even though I wasn't working there I kept feeling like I had to help them stock bags and stuff.  So I was lifting all this heavy stuff knowing I shouldn't and then feeling bad about risking ruining this surgery too....then in my dream I was worried James would find out and get mad at me.  Obviously I am secretly worried about my ability to stick to not lifting heavy things.  Being a Mom I just automatically want to do everything....it will be hard to not.  Anyway...so that is the latest update for now.  I will write another update in a week or so.

Tomorrow!!

Today I get to eat breakfast and lunch...and that's it.  After 11:30am it is only clear liquids...blah!   Gotta be at the hospital tomorrow morning at 6am which is way earlier than I would like but at least I will be coming home earlier too....thinking positive right?  lol

James will be working from home tomorrow to take care of me...Friday though he is back to work.  At least the kids have an early release day from school so they can help out once they get home.  I think I will be fine though....it will hurt...but it's nothing I am not used to.   I feel like I am a pro at having surgical procedures down now...lol....this is the 5th one in 2 1/2 years!!   YIKES!  

Hanging out at Frog Island

Counting Down

Only 22 more days until surgery.  I feel like at this point I am just trying to get as much done around the house as I can before I am unable to do anything for a very long time.  I plan on painting Evelyn’s dresser, a couple rooms, and then doing lots of touch up painting around the house as well.  With all the up and down movement my arm will be doing with a roller I know that is something that needs to be accomplished now instead of later.  This whole situation makes me wish I had a laundry shoot.  How nice would it be if I could just throw things down and have them land in a basket right in the laundry room?  That would be amazing.  They should really build those into more homes again.  

I have been experiencing pain still in my breasts but it all depends on what I did that day and how heavy of an item I lifted.  I notice it mostly when I work at the library after I lift heavier boxes of books and stuff.  I am so thankful that my Mom and James will be helping me out when it comes to volunteering at the library until I am back to normal.  I know most people would just say to stop doing the library all together for awhile but really I don’t want to lose the position I have there.  If I stop, someone else has to take over, and I don’t want that to happen.

I am doing really great still in regards to eating right and maintaining my weight.  I have been using the My Fitness Pal app to keep me where I need to be (no more than 45 grams of fat per day) and I am back to exercising again too.  Of course that will be short lived when I have surgery...it will just be walking for awhile after that…..or maybe bike riding.  I am having more smoothies and trying to actually cook more items instead of eating things that are easily microwaved.  James has been really helpful about helping to monitor me when he is home.  If he sees me going to grab a snack he will question if I should really be having it or not.  It keeps me in check which is SO helpful.  Everyone needs someone to hold them accountable.  

I think the hardest thing for me to deal with will be NOT doing all the regular everyday chores that I am used to.  Vacuuming, laundry, grocery shopping….even scrubbing hard to clean dishes.  All of these things require using some chest muscles and I won’t be allowed to do that.  Hopefully I won’t be restricted from driving for too long!  That would be really bad.  lol  

And the surgery day is...................

April 24th!!!   Just got the call and I am so happy that it will be sooner rather than later.  That is 8 weeks before we leave for our big road trip to CA so that should be good.    I will at least be able to help drive.  :)  YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It WAS my Fault....kinda.....what you don't know CAN hurt you. BLEH!

I had my appointment today and got some answers.  So….it turns out that I unintentionally did this to myself.  In 18 years of surgery my doctor has had 4 people, me included, have this happen to them. What is it?  Well basically because I am a gastric bypass patient who has a totally new stomach and my body now absorbs WAY less nutrients than it used to (which is why I take vitamins every day) my body also needs WAY more time to heal.  I am not getting all the stuff my body requires to make the healing process happen at a normal rate.  Which is normally not a big deal for most patients...however most patients were not working at Kroger lifting and pushing 32 packs of water, soda, ice, and who knows what else.  

I made my muscles work too hard too soon without knowing it and the muscles pushed the implants out of their pocket and that is why they are all jacked up.   Ugh….so even though I waited the correct 6 weeks before lifting anything it didn't matter….my body needs WAY more time to heal up...he said I really should just give it a full year before doing any lifting more than 5 pounds.  So back into surgery I go.  I will get a phone call from his assistant in a week to schedule that.   

As for the cost of everything my doctor is going to write it off as a very very cheap procedure...like less than $100.00…..but the hospital does not negotiate costs (they are not a regular hospital...they are a hospital that specializes in weight loss surgery) and I won’t have any luck with the anesthesiologist either.  Another big cost will be an added item he is going to place inside my breast during surgery to help guarantee my implants do not pop out again.  There is a product called Alloderm which is like a “second skin”, and it will go along my implant kinda like a shield, helping it stay there.  Sadly this item is quite pricey….ugh….I hate debt.  We just paid this all off and here we go again.  BUT, it has to get done...so it is what it is.  

I am glad however that I no longer work at Kroger….obviously if I did I would just have to quit anyway because they can’t have a cashier who can’t lift anything for a whole year.  This way I can just make sure that James and the kids help me with everything all the time...carrying laundry, vacuuming….everything.  Gonna be a rough year for them but if it helps me heal right that is all that matters.  I will continue taking my vitamins like I should and just hope that my body starts absorbing nutrients better and faster to help the healing process.  It’s a bummer that my body is just weaker in general and can’t do what it should as fast...but I am glad I know it now so I can do things the right way.  

For now I am just dealing with the pain I am getting and hoping that it doesn't get steadily worse before surgery comes.  I will of course let you all know the date I go back under the knife as soon as I know it because I am gonna want some prayer big time on it.   

Even Worse Now....ugh......

Still feeling slightly bummed right now about the undeniable fact that I will have to undergo yet ANOTHER surgical procedure. As I said before the left breast has a slight problem with the implant sitting too low and causing a "hump" type of look and feel...and the right one, which just got "fixed" a few months ago....is yet again having the same problem but worse this time.....possibly due to that bathroom thing I was doing....possibly not, who knows. The implant has come out of the pocket and is WAY toward the left side now, more so than a few days ago and it is uncomfortable/hurting at times. We just paid everything off as you know so of course this is disappointing. Is it my doctors fault? I don't know....I still want him to do this next one for me though but did compromise with James that if this were to happen again I would go to someone else next time. Obviously this is not what I signed up for. This will be the 4th surgery just for my chest. I am going to try to get an appt for this Saturday to be seen and looked at, and then hopefully after that make a surgery appt. Ugh....please say some prayers if you get a chance that this will be the VERY last procedure I will need.

Annoying Situations

I am feeling a bit disappointed right now with myself and my body.  My breasts are just not doing as well as they should.  At first glance you wouldn't notice anything wrong but then on closer inspection the issues would be quite obvious.  On the left, the implant is sitting too low, and because the scar is higher than the implant now it is causing a ridge almost...so there is kind of a hump.  Hard to explain.   But it is noticeable and of course doesn't look right.  On the right, the one that just got “fixed”,  is now not fixed.  The same problem is happening again.  Implant coming too far to the left instead of staying centered.  This of course is causing things to begin to look “off” as well.  

To make it even worse I was putting something together in the kids bathroom a few days ago and it was hard to do and I was using quite a bit of muscles and straining and I could feel that my chest muscles especially were being worked.  Ever since then I have been experiencing pain in my chest on the right breast.  UGH!!!  Why did I do that to myself???  I knew better yet did it anyway.  So typical of me too.  

James is of course equally annoyed as I am because this will all mean another surgery which we thought we were done with...and to top it all off we just got done paying off ALL of my surgery costs.  FREEDOM...or so we thought.  BOO!!  James is also annoyed that it is taking so many procedures to get things right and he feels like I should try another surgeon.  I don’t want to do that however because for one I trust my surgeon, two, I feel like a lot of this is my own fault because I was always lifting heavy things at work even though I shouldn’t have been...and also because he has already done all the other procedures...so he knows my body and knows what little tweaks will work with the other tweaks that have already been done.  

I promised James that I will give him one more chance to “fix” me...and if that last chance doesn't do it then I will go to someone new.  

So...at this point I am going to wait and see if this pain goes away in a few more days.  If it does...great...then I will just try to wait to have surgery as long as I can so that way our deductible can get more and more paid off and we will have to pay less and less for any surgeries….BUT...if the pain doesn't go away in a few days then I am going to make an appointment to talk about my options, and get them to write out an estimate for me in regards to the cost so that way I can at least know what we should expect.  

What a pain in the ass right?  ugh…I for sure feel disheartened but I am also going to do my best to think positive as well and believe that this will all get resolved soon.  Hopefully….by some miracle...the cost of the procedure will be way less than we would expect.  That would be nice.   P.S. In other news...it has officially been a year since my tummy tuck and breast lift/augmentation....I thought I would share some pics of how the scars are looking one year later. :)

Picture on Left: Tummy scar and new belly button
Picture on Right: Hip/Side scar
ALL healing up very well.