The New & Improved Me! Seattle, WA

This is the start of my story - I hope!

I'm a 39 year old mother of a ten year old daughter. I've been wanting to do this for a long time! My weight fluctuations, and pregnancy, and led to a very saggy stomach. My breasts have always been large, and gravity has not been kind.

I'm scheduled for an extended abdominoplasty, reduction mammoplasty, and lipo of the flanks, on Nov. 11th, 2013.

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Critical Stats:
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Age: 39
Height: 5’ 3” (when you round up) :D
Weight: 175lb/79kg
Surgeries: Extended abdominoplasty, reduction mammoplasty, flanks liposuction
Surgery date: Nov 11th, 2013
Surgery cost: $15,080 plus labs, mammogram, and meds
Surgeon: Dr. Scott Sattler, Mountlake Terrace, WA

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Back Story:
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I used to have amazing boobs. Like, Helen of Troy style boobs. We’re talking boobs that men (and several women) would have started wars over. They were glorious full C-cups with cute little nipples. They were perky. They were happy. I loved them.

Then they became D-cups. Then DD-cups. Now…DDD-cups. Saggy, sad, floppy DDD-cups.

Stupid [RS bleep].

My stomach has been my enemy for so long I no longer recall the brief time I liked it. I’ve been in a Moriarty-style battle of wits with her for so many years that I’ve decided the only solution is to cut her floppy, stretch-marked self from my life—literally.

Last year I split up with my husband—the father of my 10-year-old daughter. Over the years he had let me know in no uncertain terms that my weight, and general lack of “tight body” was an issue for him. As soon as we split, a funny thing happened. I lost weight. I found some self-esteem. I was able to save money. This has all culminated in my being able to schedule this surgery, and finally, FINALLY do something to improve ME.

I’m excited. I’m nervous. I’m scared. I’m excited. But I already said that :D

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Finding a surgeon:
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I saw three plastic surgeons in my journey for this change. The first was very nice, and seemed knowledgeable, but I wasn’t ready. That was over a year ago and I didn’t have the money. I was nervous about the procedure, and I had no support. She made vague but alluring promises about “flat stomach and cute [RS bleep]”. She also highly recommended doing the surgeries in two separate procedures. I took her at her word, but now that I know a little more, I’m not sure why she would have said that. I didn’t go back to her mostly because I don’t like vague promises and wanted a second/third opinion.

Once I had the money together I saw my second and third surgeons. The second was a highly-rated surgeon who gave me a passel of bad news. No chance of saving nipple sensation with a breast reduction; no liposuction with the tummy tuck; general mediocre result at a fairly high cost ($12K for the tummy tuck alone without lipo).

The third, Dr. Sattler, I met two days ago. I liked him; I liked his staff. The nurse has had a tummy tuck. The patient coordinator has had both a tummy tuck and breast augmentation together. I felt like they understood. Dr. Sattler’s approach to the nipple sensation question was much more logical to me—he will do everything possible to preserve it, and watch for necrosis, then deal with that if it happens.

My sister is a doctor. I ran the responses past her, and she agreed I should go with Dr. Sattler. She gave me some doctorish questions to ask him, and we liked his answers. Oh, and HOW did I ask him? Well…he gave me his cell phone number and email address. He answers emails same day. That, in my humble opinion, is a huge plus.

I booked my surgery date yesterday.

So, here I sit, 54 days pre-op. I’m still 30lb/13kg heavier than I’d like to be. I think I can drop close to 20lb/9kg by my surgery date, and am going to work like a sumbitch to make that happen.

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Support:
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I can’t even begin to say how much having supportive people helps with all this. I need to acknowledge that, because acknowledging the positive helps me get over the nerves :)

My boyfriend, first and foremost, is amazing about it. He has made it clear that he loves and is attracted to me regardless of the “issues” I have with my body. However, he understands the hit my self-esteem has taken, and believes I should make the investment so that I will see MYSELF as the best I can be. He has offered time, money, and emotional support—including restricting his travel schedule so he can be here for me physically. This is a big deal, because he travels a LOT.

My best friend is struggling with the same issues, and completely understands the desire I have to make this change.

My sister is very supportive—concerned, but supportive. Because she is not only a doctor, but an E.R. doctor, she has a “risk assessment” view of all medical procedures. She has told me not only to go for it, but to do it all at once! This is something that made me very, very nervous at first.

So, that's the real start of my story. Let's see where this goes!!

So...it's been awhile since I've posted anything, mostly because there was nothing really to post until this week.

I had my pre-surgery appointment a few days ago, and that went well. They gave me a very intimidating description of what it will be like, ran me through the entire surgery and recovery process (ouch!) and basically said my "caregiver" needs to have a strong back and a very strong stomach.

Check, on both counts, lucky for me!

They took blood to run labs, which came back fine except I'm a bit anemic (thanks to seven years of vegetarianism). I have since eaten lots of spinach, actually ate beef (ew!) twice and am taking iron.

The weight loss went not nearly as well as I'd hoped, for lots of reasons -- the primary being that I was just lazy. I spent the last few weeks moving out of my house and moving in with my boyfriend, which is a huge shift for me and my daughter. We want everything settled before my surgery, so things are a bit crazy with moving really heavy furniture (his goes, mine stays, because mine is cuter!) I have a bajillion boxes left to unpack, which is not going to be fun, but I'm determined it will be all fixed by Monday.

Monday.

My SURGERY day.

Am I freaking out? Hellz yeah! I'm scared to bits. Seriously. This is going to be a long, hard, painful, exhausting road, and at this point I'm just trying to remind myself that it will be worth it. Right now I'm just terrified and can't remember why I signed up for it.

Speaking of signing up for it...I paid the bill in full during my pre-op. Oh my lordy crap. I have never in my life smacked my debit card down on the table for that much money. Not even when I bought a house, did I bring that much money to the table.

Yikes.

So, Monday is the day. One week from now I will be almost done having the surgery, still out like a light.

Or I'll be dead. But I'm trying not to think about that :D

Over & out for now!