Surgery day +2

I am sitting at my old room at my dad's house, in a comfy recliner, with tv and internet. I cannot complain. I've got pain pills that do their job and people taking care of me. I am very lucky indeed! The past couple of days have been rough - my surgery had me under the knife for 8 hours! A lot more than I had anticipated. But hopefully the results will really be worth it. In addition to the abdominoplasty (tummy tuck) I was expecting, I also had a small umbilical hernia repair done and at the last minute consultation with my surgeon, he suggested excising some skin from my upper chest area. I.e. my "side boobs" are now gone! I have only a preliminary picture of how my abdomen looks from the first time the surgeon removed the binding to change dressings. I certainly cannot believe it's actually me.

I would love to write about the whole experience but there isn't that much to tell. Got to the hospital at 6am on Tuesday and left around 6pm on Wednesday. That whole time is just a blur and I'm amazed it went as smoothly as it did. I credit a lot of that to my friends and family keeping me in their thoughts and prayers. I felt very surrounded by love and that does make a difference.

Now I am just lounging around trying to stay comfortable. The binders are TIGHT and can be a little hard to breathe. I ordered 2 from a site called makemeheal.com and am hoping to try out the zippered one later today and see if it's as comfortable as the reviews of it claim while still giving the amount of compression I need.

The most annoying thing so far is probably these drains. Ick! I am doing better than I thought though. Dealing with my own fluids isn't as bad as I had imagined. And I'm not draining all that much which is supposedly a good thing.

Here is the picture, it's a very preliminary one and I'm sure I'll have more and better ones tomorrow.



It doesn't look like much but to anyone who's known me and my bulging belly this is quite a difference!