BBL: Long Healing Process

Oh man, where to begin. I've wanted a BBL for a long time and finally decided to do it as a gift for my 30th birthday. When I got there I met with the doctor, who was great. We talked about what I wanted out of the surgery. I told him I was more concerned with shape than cc's. Next, I ran around town and had my labs done. I was approved for surgery. The day of I had some issues trying to pay due to my bank so it took me quite some time to reach them and tell them that yes I did want to spend the money. I was prepped for surgery then put under. I woke up in the recovery room and managed to flip myself over on to my stomach. ( Even in a drugged haze I didn't want to ruin my new bum haha) I fell back asleep and woke up the next morning.
1st-day post op:
The doctor came in and talked to me. He told me he added 1000 cc's into each butt check. This was a bit surprising but I was kind of excited about it as well. I went back to the hotel walked around for a bit then went back to my room. I wasn't in any pain and only took a tramadol half way through the night.
First-week post op:
Veronica came over and drained me, it didn't feel the best but it wasn't bad. The next day I woke up and everything was swollen. I mean everything my face, feet and lady bits were even swollen. I was not expecting that but read it was with in the realm of normal. The doctor gave me some foam to wear and a diuretic which helped a ton. I kept up with getting drained every day. My boyfriend was in an accident so I flew home sooner than I wanted. I had to sit on my butt for 2 hrs then for another hour. It sucked, I was extremely uncomfortable and it did not help with the swelling. I also got a fun yeast infection due to the strong antibiotics I had taken so I had to deal with that once I got home as well.
One month post op:
I was bummed my butt was shrinking and I didn't seem to have any shelf. I was still covered in bruises was still draining and had two seromas I had to have drained multiple times.
5 weeks post op:
The swelling continued to go down but now I could feel hard lumps in my butt. I made the mistake of looking up on real self to see what it could be. I came across some women who had fat necrosis and now had holes and scars due to the drainage from their wounds. I was basically freaking out for a few days.
I finally started sleeping on my back and stomach which was awesome to get to do. However, the area in which I had lipo on my stomach was becoming lumpy, discolored and I had what looked like bands of tight tissues that hurt when I stretched or twisted. This really freaked me out and I finally contacted the doctor. He said this could be a side-effect but that it should go away on its own.
6 weeks and on:
Fast forward two more weeks and It was looking worse. I wanted to cry/ did cry. I had always had a nice stomach and now It looked terrible. Another week passed and suddenly it got a lot better, it hurt less to stretch and a lot of the discoloration and lumps were gone. As for my bum enough of the swelling went down you can now see my shelf and all the fat in my hips seems to have stayed. My butt is not nearly as large as I thought it was going to be with the 1000 ccs. I think it looks great and natural so over all im happy with it. It's exciting to hear people ask if I have been doing a million squats at the gym.
The best advice I can give is to be patient and trust the healing process. Sometimes it takes the body a long time to heal and if you're like me it will throw a curve ball at you every step of the way. Dr. Arnes was great and I don't blame him for any of the weird/ slow healing I experienced. I still have some swelling but every day I look better and better and I look forward to my final results.