Modified Abdominoplasty with Hernia Repair - Texas

Lost my bikini body in 1988 when I gave birth to an 11# bouncing baby boy and have been trying since then to get it back. My son was delivered by an emergency C-Section after 16 hours of hard labor without pain meds. I have since had numerous abdominal surgeries (cholecystectomy, myectomy, hysterectomy and a unilateral oopherectomy) and have nicknamed my stomach "Frankenbelly" due to the numerous scars, stretch marks and deformities.

Since my son is over 20 years old I cannot call it "baby fat" anymore and have spent the past year dieting and exercising away 70 lbs. Technically I am the same size I was pre-pregnancy, but I look nothing like that young naive girl that I once was! I am hoping that the hot little mama that used to wear the skimpiest of clothing is under all this loose skin just waiting get excavated and brought back to life!

I also have a 6.0 incisional hernia resulting from the unilateral oopherectomy which has become larger with the weight loss and has recently started causing a lot of pain, mostly when I sneeze, cough or laugh hard, but have also started to experience a lot of nausea and vomitting after eating full meals and have found myself snacking or eating much smaller meals to avoid this feeling.

Since the surgery is medically necessary it has taken a lot of the anxiety out of the picture for me.

10/10/11 - not quite 2 weeks post-op and feeling great. The drains were removed last week @ 6 days post op and this greatly increased my ability to move around comfortably. The past week I have been getting around better with more frequency and am able to get up and out of bed without assistance. There is still swelling in the lower abdomen and pubic area which should decrease in the next few weeks. I have been able to wear most clothes very comfortably with the exception of tight jeans. While I am able to get them on and get them buttoned, the lower rise jeans rub my incision too much to make wearing them desirable.

The only discomfort that I have experienced has been the pulling of the internal mesh girdle. It causes slight discomfort in the groin and along my right hip, I know once I lose more weight this will cease and has let up greatly the past week.

I have not had serious pain since 2 days post op and noticed that once I became more ambulatory the pain subsided immensely. Still growing accustomed to seeing my stomach sans belly button! The hernia was over 3" in length and in close proximity to my belly button. The decision was made to not cut through the mesh to pull the belly button through until after the repair has had time to thoroughly heal. Hopefully I will have a belly button before next bikini season! In the interim it is nice not having that massive bump sticking up out of my abdomen and I still have to perform a double take when I walk past mirrors, I don't recognize myself!

I will have my husband help me take a 2 week post op photo to update my file.

Two weeks and 1 day post op and feeling great. Went back to work yesterday and while I am not back to traveling for work yet, I am working extensive hours with no issue. I did make the mistake of trying to sleep on my side the night before last and gave up due to the pain from the stitches holding the internal mesh girdle in place. Even when I rolled onto my back the pain was still so bad that I wound up taking a pain pill to get comfortable enough to go to sleep...I won't try that again for another week or two!

Will post some updated pictures by this weekend.

Three weeks and one day post-op, I think I overdid myself earlier this week. I went out of town for work, traveled about 4 hours by car and within hours I started experiencing excrutiating pain. I was planning on staying overnight but the pain was so bad that I drove back home just so I could take enough pain medicine to make it go away! I was in so much pain that I was sick to my stomach and my husband had to lift me up to get into bed. The pain has gotten somewhat better although I am feeling a bit more of it tonight than I did last night...I guess it is my body telling me that I need to slow down and give it more time to recover.

I am 3.5 weeks post op and I guess I am officially in the swell hell phase. My lower abdomen and pubis are so swollen and uncomfortable. The swelling is straining the internal stitches of my internal mesh girdle and movement is excruciating...it feels like my muscles are being shredded! I did discover Arnica gel and it has been a godsend! How I ever lived without I will never know, I am just so happy that I have found out about it and have stashed tubes of it around my house. I also started using Mederma scar gel tonight. I am still using Bio Oil since I love using it all over, I just wanted something more on my incision to help smooth it out, etc. I had tried using the silicone strips but they wouldn't stay in place with my Spanx so I gave up on those for now. I go back to Dr Horndeski tomorrow for a follow-up...other than issues with swelling, I feel great and still think it was worth everything I have gone through!