2 Weeks PO - Mommy Makeover- Full TT with Significant Diastisis Repair and Implant Exchange

Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone! It's been a great weekend with one more event to come today. Just wanted to share an experience with true swell hell with you all. I'm sure you all know this, but just in case someone out there like me decides to ignore the warnings we've heard about salt+lots of activity=swelling I'll share the events of my weekend thus far. Up until PO day 14 I ate really clean. Greek yogurt with agave, protein shakes, grilled fish, salads with tiny amounts of dressing, small amount of complex carbs like plain brown rice, a bit of fruit, etc. I was really avoiding salt because I seem to have a bad case of swelling already (in my opinion anyway!) and lots of carbs just didn't sound good. So my b-day roles and around and I jump right back in to a normal "it's my b-day party weekend" diet head first. Pasta salad, mediterranean potato salad, brined BBQ chicken, chocolate b-day cake, glass of wine, the next morning banana pancakes, etc. Then I go get a mani-pedi and do some clothes shopping for a couple hours. After a day and half of eating like that and that much activity I was pretty flat from my sternum to my bb, but from bb to my incision there was about a 3 inch "shelf" of the most awful swelling that just jutted straight out from right below my bb. I could feel it with my legs, like a great big water balloon tied around my waist each time I would step. Yuck, right!!!! Came home and put on the ace bandage-like surgical wrap I wore home from the hospital in and slept in it overnight. No other complications from it at this point, but it was amazing to see how quickly and how dramatically a change in my diet impacted my healing body. Back to my clean eating today that's for sure! If anyone has any other suggestions for how to reduce the swelling I'd love to hear them. Going to my PS on Tuesday and will have to come clean and see what she says!

Two weeks and a day PO. I feel like mostly back to normal. Still supper swollen bellow my bb which sucks, but still early. I have been doing most of my normal activities absent working out. For the first time yesterday I went for a real "I-want-some-exercise" walk outside. I took my two year old in her Bob jogging stroller and went with a friend. We went on mainly flat surfaces and I asked her to go pretty slow. It felt great but I sure noticed a difference that cannot be related to deconditioning. Was only able to do 20 minutes in which time I guess we went about a mile and then we took our two kids to the park for about 40 minutes. Then went grocery shopping. After that I felt SO tired. My body didn't have any energy left and I really needed to nap. Took a two hour nap and then got dressed and went to a family party for my b-day, which is today! So all in all yesterday was a success! Other things I am doing: making all meals for family, doing normal house stuff like laundry, empting dishwasher, etc. Have even VERY carefully helped my two year old out of car, on to my lap etc (which felt totally fine), driving like normal, standing basically straight most of the time, can sleep nearly flat on my back, enjoying an occasional glass of win. Things I can't do yet: sleep on my side, wear my pre-op button up shorts/pants (still too swollen below my bb), shaving legs is hard with the bending and twisting but I can do it. Down to 600mg IBP once a day. I will see PS next Tues and ask about swelling. Happy healing to everyone!

Day 13. Here are some new pics. See what I mean about the swelling? Sucks, but I guess when you look where I started from it's pretty good. I never thought in a million years I would think about wearing a bikini again after what I was left with after my babies. Hopefully the swelling in my belly will keeping going down as the days go by.