I had a check up appointment with the plastic surgeon on Friday. For those playing along at home, I could have gestated a baby in the time since I had my surgery (November 10, 2014). My surgical wounds are thisclose to being healed. I'm down to a few scabs and one raw area about the size of a 50 cent piece on my belly and an open/irritated spot on my left side where there was a surgical drain (it was pulled in December), but it's in a new fold of skin created by this surgery, and it gets irritated every time I wear a bra. I may literally have it until we do the next surgery. And now there might be two surgeries.
I'm running around with bandages off whenever I'm home, to encourage that last bit to scab over, but then I bandage it at night or if I'm wearing clothes. I am grateful for the current heatwave, when I was trying to dry stuff out six months ago I was freezing my ass off and our heating bills were insane.
Physical therapy continues to roll along. I'm making good progress on strength, balance, and overall core stuff. We still need to work on flexibility so I can get my shirts off without wrecking them.
I don't remember if I've mentioned this here, but I pretty much cannot wear pants anymore except sweats to the gym. There's some goofiness with my abs where if I contract my lower body (like finishing a crunch or lifting both legs in the air) my belly poofs out - Bob and I started calling it my "alien". When I'm standing up, some of that hangs a little lower than we thought it would, and is a little more centered than we thought it would be, and I basically look pregnant.
So if I wear pants I either have to yoink them up to my boobs for them to stay in place over the bulge, or they sag down below the bulge, making the alien look even more like a pregnancy. So I wear dresses or skirts I can wear up high all the time now.
My physical therapist was worried about working that area without a specific green light from my surgeon, so I've been doing modified crunches on a foam roll and a lot of work on a balance ball, but haven't really started with the full core engagement stuff I want to do to get back to pilates.
The surgeon said no restrictions, don't worry if it's ballooning up, as I get stronger it may resolve itself, or we may want to "address it surgically" in a few months.
So that's where I am. I still have a pretty significant amount of pain through my middle, but gabapentin (quiets down the busted nerve chatter) mostly keeps it under control.
Expect another surgery to address my flappy sides and maybe my alien at some date TBD, I'd expect early 2016, realistically. My side flaps would probably be an outpatient thing, the alien might be more than that. We'll see.
I'm running around with bandages off whenever I'm home, to encourage that last bit to scab over, but then I bandage it at night or if I'm wearing clothes. I am grateful for the current heatwave, when I was trying to dry stuff out six months ago I was freezing my ass off and our heating bills were insane.
Physical therapy continues to roll along. I'm making good progress on strength, balance, and overall core stuff. We still need to work on flexibility so I can get my shirts off without wrecking them.
I don't remember if I've mentioned this here, but I pretty much cannot wear pants anymore except sweats to the gym. There's some goofiness with my abs where if I contract my lower body (like finishing a crunch or lifting both legs in the air) my belly poofs out - Bob and I started calling it my "alien". When I'm standing up, some of that hangs a little lower than we thought it would, and is a little more centered than we thought it would be, and I basically look pregnant.
So if I wear pants I either have to yoink them up to my boobs for them to stay in place over the bulge, or they sag down below the bulge, making the alien look even more like a pregnancy. So I wear dresses or skirts I can wear up high all the time now.
My physical therapist was worried about working that area without a specific green light from my surgeon, so I've been doing modified crunches on a foam roll and a lot of work on a balance ball, but haven't really started with the full core engagement stuff I want to do to get back to pilates.
The surgeon said no restrictions, don't worry if it's ballooning up, as I get stronger it may resolve itself, or we may want to "address it surgically" in a few months.
So that's where I am. I still have a pretty significant amount of pain through my middle, but gabapentin (quiets down the busted nerve chatter) mostly keeps it under control.
Expect another surgery to address my flappy sides and maybe my alien at some date TBD, I'd expect early 2016, realistically. My side flaps would probably be an outpatient thing, the alien might be more than that. We'll see.
