A Long Time Coming... - Boston/Worcester, MA

It has been a month since the surgery and it seems as if I had a little bit of a setback. My back has been killing me, likely from the change in my posture falling the surgery. I was worried that it might be a sign of something more serious, as the pain was in my upperback/side and made it painful to breath at times. The Doctor said he thought it was skeletal-muscular and at worst may be a slipped disk. I have felt some improvement after applying heat to the area but it's frustrating that right when the doctor says I'm able to start weightlifting and fully resuming my pre-surgery lifestyle I find myself walking around like an old man again.

He also made me realize that a mass under my arm that I assumed was my rib cage was actually probably a hematoma. He suggested I massaged the area but said that I didn't have to return until February. It seems that he wants to see if the mass might resolve on its own. I'm of course sensitive to anything that might affect the final results but I'm not sure how noticeable the hematoma is given that I didn't even realize it was there. Still upon being made aware of it, it feels quite large. There is a smaller area of swelling/puffiness under the other arm that I mentioned before. This too may be the result of a hematoma. Given the amount of skin that was removed from those areas it's not surprising that I might have such an issue in those areas. I've got my fingers crossed though that heat and massage will help resolve them and that by the summer time they will be gone.

It's been five days since my last post and 19 days since the surgery. I was right that I was suffering from some swelling. I started wearing the binder that I had worn before switching to the spanx again and within 2-3 days the swelling had subsided dramatically. My weight also dropped 6lbs. I don't know if the binder helped get rid of the fluid accumulation but I am thrilled to see a flatter stomach.

After looking at the photos immediately after the surgery and those I took yesterday I realized the change in the size of my stomach is quite pronounced. As much as I cringe at the thought of going back to the doctor and getting poked again, I'm really starting to expect that I might be accumulating fluid. I'm wondering if it might be dued to my switching from the binder I was given while at the hospital to spanx, which my doctor recommended but which probably doesn't have the same amount of compression. I will be going to the gym today but it looks like I might have more than a little extra fat hanging around.