Afraid to Be Excited, This Belly is Just Too Big!! - Huntington, WV

I am 36 years old, 197 lbs, and I am scheduled to have an extended tummy tuck with muscle repair, and heavy lipo in the hip, back and flanks on July 5th 2013. I have SEVEN children and a weight loss of 47 pounds that has left my belly demolished. I am very worried that my surgeon will not be able to rid me of this disgusting belly, even though he is confident that he can. It is so out of proportion with the rest of my body, and when I buy clothes to fit it, they hang off my butt and my legs. I can't wear panties because they just roll down under it. My children love to play with it, they act like there is about to be a death in the family. They have even named it.....FOOPA. The littlest guy hides underneath it like an umbrella. I have searched the internet looking for women similar to my situation and I can hardly find any. All the tummy tucks that I find are on women who already have a belly that I would love to have before they even go to surgery. Its frustrating because I do not know what to expect. My surgeon is estimating a removal of about 20 pounds of skin and fat. I just want this belly gone, and I do not want to wake up disappointed. Now that I am one week from surgery, the nerves have kicked in. I'm worried about being under for over 7 hours afraid I won't wake up, not sure if I will still have an overhang afterwards, will I go into surgical shock.....I don't know if its normal to worry like this, and be so excited at the same time. I would love to find other women who have struggled with a belly this size and are pleased with the outcome of their results. I have a tremendous amount of support from my family and friends, and I am a very luck lady to have such wonderful people in my life cheering me on and caring for me.

Well, I did it! And it is the best thing I have ever done for myself! The surgery went very well. My body has been completely transformed. When I woke up and felt down, I just started to cry tears of joy when I realized that belly was gone. The pain is excruciating. There are not words that can verbally prepare someone for what this feels like, but its a very different kind of pain that is unlike any other. The swelling from the lipo on my outer thighs is by far the worst pain. The second pain is from the muscle repair. The actual cut I do not feel at all. The first night, I had some kind of reaction to the pain meds in my IV. I think It was dilaudid. which caused my to rash up a little and itch like crazy. The area of lipo that he took from my hips had a huge amount of swelling, but if you have someone to massage that area, it moves all of the fluid around and makes it feel tremendously better. I haven't worn the compression that much, it makes the swelling on my thighs worse. My belly button looks fantastic. It really could not have went much better. The swelling by far is the worst enemy through the whole thing. The second night was the worst, the pain from the lipo area was unreal. I couldn't sit, I hated to stand, and the swelling was just making it itch so bad. I was very irritated and grouchy from exhaustion. After I took the compression off and laid in the bed, it felt so much better. The bruising is pretty bad today, but not as bad as I thought. Overall, it was definitely worth the pain and suffering Im going through. The incision was much larger than I thought it would be, it went nearly all the way around. My plastic surgeon was able to get it all, and I am very happy with my results, cant wait to see it after all the swelling is gone.

When this swelling is gone, my body will be beyond what I ever dreamed it would be. Today by far has been the best day and a day where I have saw the most dramatic improvement. I only feel a little soreness when I go to get up and start initially moving around. Yesterday the swelling was tremendous in my belly, so I put on my compression and it literally squeezed it out, completely filling up the drain every hour or so. The swelling and itching in my outer thighs has improved a lot but still drives me crazy at night. The sensation of my skin in this area is like going to then dentist and the numbing starts to wear off on the lips. Today is my first doctors appointment. I am 5 days post op. I feel great, I am standing almost completely straight, the pain meds make me itch but I love them, and hopefully he will be removing some of the stitches out of my belly button. My drain will stay until at least two weeks post op which is fine with me because it really helps alleviate the pressure that builds up. My stitched area felt very tight yesterday, and I keep having these weird itches, but when I go to scratch there is nothing there. Sort of feels like something is crawling on me. I am down 17 pounds on the scale including all of this swelling. I wore a size 16 W jeans before surgery, and yesterday they fell completely off. I was able to easily slip into my daughters size 14 juniors jeans yesterday. I am so happy, this is by far the best thing I have ever done for myself!