Lower Body Lift with Brachioplasty

I’m doing well. Thanks for asking. I’m still hooked up to the wound vac for the big wound and still have a few smaller ones that I pack with gauze once a day but I’m definitely improving. My doctor here at home estimates the main wound won’t be healed for several more months. My body is still shrinking although my weight is the same...not sure how that works but I can see it in clothes that didn’t fit a few weeks ago and now do. I’m getting a 90 minute massage/lymph drainage treatment with cupping twice a week and that has helped tremendously with the numbness. I seem to feel a marked improvement after I see her and when I missed a week I really felt it. A stitch poked out of my arm a few weeks ago but then it disappeared so I guess is got sucked back underground. So bizarre. I feel like a walking science experiment. I still need to lose a good fifty pounds but even so I’m really happy with how much smaller I am. I’m so wide though, especially in the waist, so I look much thinner from the side than straight on. That’ll improve as I lose fat. I’ve said it before but I want to reiterate how much I love my butt. I’m very much a work in progress still, but if I can find the courage to continue with future surgeries I think it’ll all eventually come together. I’ll post a couple of pics of myself in clothes, taken last week. S

This morning I woke up feeling so much better. Just less overall discomfort. I was pretty emotional last night and this morning for some unknown reason. I don’t know if it was hormones or this recovery. I was anxious, uncomfortable, crying a bit. That’s not unusual for me but it really came out of nowhere. A friend brought up an interesting point. She said there is probably a lot of release of emotion with the removal of all the fat and skin. Like when transplant patients end up with all these completely new personality traits that the deceased donors had. All that fat on my body came from stress and unhappiness so maybe it’s being released. Very hippy dippy but I love that stuff!
Getting out of my chair was less painful and I have markedly more energy. Getting out of the chair, first standing up, always hurts. Even with the magical recliner. It’s that first thirty seconds of gravity tugging hard but then once I walk around I feel great.
A couple of sidenotes: Really try to have your digestive system empty before surgery. This is something that’s easy to forget and will make your life hell if you don’t act ahead of time. You do not want to have to go to the bathroom that first week, and you wouldn’t anyway because everything comes to a stop for some days with the anesthesia. My surgery was Tuesday and my last meal was Friday night. I had nothing but water, black coffee, and one bowl of broth in those days. I also drank Smooth Move tea to clear myself out. I took Colace the night before surgery and was given something like it by Dr Fisher the first morning after. I continued to take Colace and Arnica on my own several times per day, and am still doing so. I live in fear of getting impacted because it happened after my car accident and it is such pain you just can’t believe it. I ate fiber gummies beginning Day 2 and drank as much water as I could. I ended up pooing Day 7 with no pain in my incisions, or anywhere else.

I took arnica for about five weeks pre-op and immediately after the surgery. I know the jury is still out on whether or not it helps, but since it doesn’t hurt I decided to take it. Also, I’ve used it in cream form for years and feel it definitely works on bruises. My arms haven’t really hurt at all. There’s just tightness and discomfort and swellings. The incisions are really closing up beautifully.