Junk in the Trunk and Too Much Around the Middle! - Baltimore, MD

This week, I somehow got the flu, even though I've been extremely careful with washing my hands and using hand sanitizers and limiting myself being in large groups. *sigh* I still got sick. :-/ I am very concerned that I might have affected my tummy tuck- all the deep coughing I've been doing has made my stomach and sides ache like crazy! I've been downing cough medicine and taking cough drops to help, but this really sucks! :-/

Well, it'll be one month tomorrow. I've really taken down quite a bit of the swelling through diet and drinking water. I'm desperately working towards getting this anti-scar prescription my doctor set up for me. Hopefully, my insurance will come through for me this week. I was mid-insurance switch, which messed me up with starting my prescription right away. It appears to be expensive, so I'll try it out and report back.

The incisions have nearly healed by now. Once I got the clearance to not have to use that salve and gauze, that changed things considerably. I had a couple of gaping wounds on the side I had to deal with, but once I started to really focus on getting that healed up, I was able to finally stop the constant bleeding. It was such a relief to not be bleeding all the time!

I'm still slowly coming down with the swelling. It's so weird to have this numbness in my stomach. I'm not used to my new belly button, which is still clearly healing. *sigh* I hope it is able to heal up so I can see what the final result will look like!

I know I've lost weight- first, I've been eating a lot less. I also don't snack on junk food anymore. I don't eat late night unless I'm really hungry, and when I do, it's fruits and veggies. I drink a lot more water- no more coke or anything like that. I do struggle with getting more protein, so I'd appreciate any advice on getting more clean, lean protein! Mostly, I just really dislike cooking. I do cook more, though, because it's healthier, so that is probably helping a lot. Three weeks after surgery, I got on the scale. I've lost 17 pounds! I am not by any means skinny- I have a long way to go, but at least the body contouring I had from the tummy tuck helps to enhance my weight loss! I'm taking it one day at a time!

I do plan to start exercising again. I wanted to start last week, but I ran into some weird pain/numbness. I'm hoping this week will be better and I can get back to exercising. Spin class on Monday night! :) I tried to do some pilates, but my stomach totally killed me, and it just knocked me out for a week and put me back to using my cane for like three days. Uuuuughhh!

I am about to get back into some pilates tonight and see if I can get some basic pilates under my belt. I teach pilates, and it's no good to teach a class if I can't demo some of the exercises!

Milestones so far:
-17 pounds lost between January 13th and February 7th
-considerable swelling gone from around my midsection
-laid on my side for the first time since surgery for about an hour today
-incision nearly all healed from surgery
-able to stand upright since last week
-no pain getting out of bed

My goal is to continue eating well and taking the weight down slowly. I had an appointment with my doctor for Saturday, but we had a bad snowstorm, and he canceled. But- he is going to give me my before pictures, and I'll post them here so you can see the improvement. It is so great to see those before photos and see I'm only one month in and there's a DRAMATIC difference- no rolls of back fat or side fat or stomach fat!

Even though the swelling has come down, I'm so not used to this numb feeling in my tummy and having it swell out like this all the time. I tried the compression garments they gave me to start wearing for second stage. They are comfortable, in the sense that it doesn't make me itch, but it doesn't get rid of that very uncomfortable feeling I described. So now, I wear the second stage compression garment, but I put my first stage binder on over it. It feels much more manageable than going without the garment. I don't bind it as tightly as I did in first stage, but nonetheless, it's still pretty tight. It helps prevent the back pain I sometimes feel from not being able to use my abs as much as I used to when I'm sitting upright or walking.

I've got this feeling in my tummy sometimes that's also uncomfortable- like there's snakes wriggling around in my tummy. It also sometimes feels hot as well. I mostly just wait and take deep breaths, and sometimes, I cross my arms over my tummy until it calms down.

Weird feelings! But I have my doctor's appointment on Saturday, so I'm hoping to get good news!