Tuesday, July 28, 2009

3 weeks post op and what I never knew......

I guess I wish I didn't feel so good in the morning, because then I would not be running around all day to leave me feeling like crap all night! It is so hard to stay put. How I ever was on bed rest for 5 months is literally beyond me, but at the time, I did what I had to do....OH...and I only had 1 child!
So....being 3 weeks post op today...for the most part I am doing extremely well. I am healing like I am supposed to and the swelling is all par for the course. Some things happened though, that I never knew was going to and it brought back to the time I delivered my 1st child. I read "What to Expect When You Are Expecting"...about 10 times cover to cover. However, never did it talk about some gruesome occurrences that can happen to your own body during delivery(girls...I am sure you know what I am talking about), never did it talk about the contortion positions the nurses expect you to get into to get the baby out and never did it talk about "tearing". That said, perhaps I was better off NOT knowing all of those things ahead of time or else Zachary would probably still be inside me to this day!
Now...back to THIS surgery. Never in my life had I been under anesthesia for 8 hours. I had no clue how tired I was going to be...3 weeks later. I used to be able to stay up until 11pm, if not later. Since my surgery, I will be lucky if I make it past 8:30pm - which puts a bit of a wrench into my computer time! So tired. Literally fatigued - like the only way my eyelids would stay up is with toothpicks.
I never thought that there would be highs THEN lows to what I went thru. Don't get me wrong, I am so blessed and feel grateful that I was able to have this procedure done...but your mind does funny things. The 1st few days, I was on a high - I guess perhaps maybe because I was high on Percocet! I was not swollen, my tummy was flat and it seemed like the surgery was a success.
Then....you start moving....then you start swelling and then you start second guessing yourself if everything you just went thru really "worked". Of course its stupid, because with most surgery's come swelling and that goes away, but you don't want it to happen. Ever! I somewhat secluded myself...didn't want to talk on the phone, was not up for visitors and was thinking I was going thru some type of post traumatic surgery disorder. It's starting to lift and from my understanding, its all normal feelings....just didn't know about this before I went in!
Just when I thought I was alone for even wanting a tummy tuck, this past weekend I had 4 parties to go to and if I had a $1 for every time I heard "I want to do that too", I would be rich right now! In a strange way, it made me feel better that my initial feelings of plastic surgery being vain were not so off and that probably 9 out 10 woman would do the same thing tomorrow if they could. Is it a Southern California thing? Who knows. Its just nice to know that I am not alone.
All in all, I am healing just as I should be. The doc is keeping a close on eye on me and checking up on me weekly. I have another 3 weeks to wear the compression garment and another 5 1/2 months before the full effect of what I did will be known. If what I see now is any preview of whats to come...I'll take it!
Thank you to everyone for your love and support, friendship and food! It has made the past 3 weeks so much easier in every sense possible.