29th B-day Present to my Self :)

I posted a close up picture of my scars, two of them are healing fairly good but one of them did re-open like a week ago... perhaps I was being too rough. I just cleaned it up and put a bandaid on it. Overall, I would say bruising is is almost all cleared except for my lower abdomen and one of my sides.

Pain/Swelling: I still get “shocks” randomly in the day causing discomfort but that’s just sensitivity coming back (yes I still feel numbness is some areas). Swelling is still a big factor right now...sitting down for several hours in the same position or laying down on my stomach causes it to swell up. Wearing tight clothes or jeans does not feel good after a few hours, it causes my stomach to get very hot and swollen.

Today, I chose to wear one of my garments to help with swelling. I do plenty of self-massages and my husband helps every other night, but not sure if it makes much of a difference. I still have hard rock areas on my abdomen, but it’s slowly starting to soften up. My best advice is to be patient and wait till the third month to see better results, don’t eat junk food and keep a light consistent workout routine. For me, running is painful as my stomach feels the impact up and down, so I speed walk and work on other areas of my body for weighs. I’ll update again in a month to see any changes.

I am a few days from my 3-week mark and I have been on roller coasters at Universal Studios. The first day I chose not to wear a garment and it was terrible! All the movement caused a bit discomfort and a lot of swelling. The second time I wore a spandex that provides some compression to my abdomen area and it was a lot better. If you plan to be in a situation where your going to be do a lot of movement or being shackled around on a ride, I recommend to wear something rather than nothing. I’m back to cycling for exercise yay!! Regardless whether you exercise or not, we wake up sore... so I thought this shirt was very appropriate haha!

2-Week Post on Vacation
Like I mentioned before, my doctor does not have me wearing the garment during the day, however sitting for over 8 hours in a car did cause my body a lot of stress. By the end of the day, I was extremely swollen (forgot to take pictures). However, once I went to sleep with my garment, my stomach went back to feeling tight the next day (pictures above are the very next morning of our arrival).
The idea of wearing the garment while sitting down for so many hours as it digs into your stomach made me realize that I did not want to experience all that discomfort. Perhaps a spandex suit or tank would be a good in-between. I will try it on my way back to see if there is any difference on swelling.
This is my second week and my bruising is pretty much gone. My abs are still hard and lumpy and I hate the random spikes I feel during the day. It feels like a minor shock, but that’s just your sensitivity coming back so no worries.
At the end of the week, I’ll post different pictures with different bathing suits including two pieces, but for now I am sticking to one pieces. I read somewhere that they don’t recommend to expose your skin to the sun post surgery due to color pigments that could develop. They recommend to use plenty of sunscreen and avoid sun tanning for a year.
To be honest, I have only been able to power walk on the treadmill, biking causes me too much discomfort and major swelling. It’s been hard to get back to more strenuous exercise. I’ll see how roller coasters go for me tomorrow ha! My diet has been all over the place with being on vacation, but I need to do better. I didn’t pay so much money and go through all the craziness to regress. Anyway, I’ll update again later :)