21, Just Wanted to Be Free, Amazing Doctor, Weird Side Effects - Stockton, CA

MY STORY:
Let me just start by saying I have been waiting for this day since I was 5 years old. Even at my thinnest I had this stomach that hung down and i remember sitting in the bathtub as a little girl looking at my stomach wishing I could cut it off with a knife. Really it made me THAT depressed. My whole life I have felt trapped inside my body. Always self conscious. Never felt right. Always depressed when I looked in the mirror. It was horrible hating my body my whole life from such a young age. Nobody told me anything about it I could just tell it wasn't normal how much fat I had in one single part of my body and even with extreme exercise my stomach would dwindle but never leave. I went through a stage where I was in the gym EVERY DAY. Full routine of cardio, swim, weight lifting, personal trainer, strict caloric intake... I lost so much weight....but still had this hanging belly. Everything else would tone up and tighten except that damn belly. I felt suffocated like the true me was stuck underneath this belly. I'm big in other areas but none of them even appear to me to be more than woman curves. NOTHING else bugs me at all. It has always been a war between me and my gut. It's purely genetic as my mom has a stomach on her that looks like she never gave birth to me and might still be 9 months pregnant (sorry mom). I have been in athletics my whole life and I remember when I was very young I started gaining this belly and the sports got harder and harder until I stopped. Self consciousness stopped me from swim team, stopped me from ballet, stopped me from basketball and soccer. All because I was too embarrassed to have my gut be seen. So I resorted to big baggy clothes and sweaters and wouldn't eat in front of people for fear that they would judge me. Anyways to make a long bitter story short, I found dr. Kludt through a friend after researching liposuction and surgeons for YEARS. I finally got tired of not living my young years the way I wanted to and I was ready to take my life back. After all I'm so young in not going to be miserable forever. You only live once.

MY OPERATION:
The plastic surgery center of Stockton was phenomenal. Everyone there was so kind and sweet which was really the make or break for me because I was terrified. I have a horrible fear of being in hospitals and they really nipped it in the bud with their kindness. What really freaked me out is how hard it was for me to come back to consciousness when waking up from anesthesia. I felt like everyone was freaked out. The nurse kept telling me she needed me to breathe and the anesthesiologist came to check on me which I thought was odd. They told me they gave me enough anesthesia for two grown men which struck me as extremely alarming and yet I got no answer as to why.

MY RECOVERY:
Was absolutely miserable. And I felt very betrayed that I wasn't told it would be this hard. I have no idea how all these other women get up the next day. I could barely open my eyes. I was completely bed ridden for almost a week when most other people are up and at em within hours or days. Granted I did have a large amount of fat removed and I do have a small body. But I had extreme swelling and pain for 2 weeks. I was prescribed hydrocodone and they went down like nothing. My mom being a nurse of 40 years called my doctor and demanded he give me something stronger against my request (thanks mom *face palm). I was then prescribed oxycodone which was like taking meth for me so I literally pushed through the pain and just went cold turkey off of everything. I remember one night I was in so much pain I took a oxy and it made me almost lose my mind. Insomnia, hallucinations, psychotic thoughts. Yeah no pain but my mind was racing like I had just done street drugs and every time I fell asleep my body would violently jerk awake from a nightmare. It was horrible. I must warn whoever is reading this though that I have always had some weird type of body chemistry that rejects drugs. I can't even smoke weed because I get incredibly paranoid and have psychotic anxiety attacks (complete opposite of what marijuana is supposed to do). Interestingly enough 3 weeks in I decided to smoke some marijuana just to see if it would have any effect and sure enough it masked the pain beautifully. Not gone but dulled enough I could sleep again and sit up without help. I noticed that I didn't get high probably because the thc in the weed was responding to all the pain signals in my body rather than attack my brain like it would if I wasn't injured. It could also be because thc is stored in fat cells and I had quite a few less after the Lipo so it reduced the high. I don't know I'm not a doctor I just know marijuana really did work and I'm not a believer in medicinal weed until this experience. AnywAys another alarming aspect of my surgery was the dizziness. THEY DID NOT TELL ME ABOUT THIS. And this is what pissed me off most of all. I was so dizzy from the day of my surgery to almost 3 weeks that I could not drive myself anywhere or really even walk. The nausea while being driven was a lot to handle. But just the dizziness oh how miserable it was. Like no joke sometimes I would start spinning and have to sit and just lay my head down wherever I was. I thought perhaps it was the overly strong anesthesia trying to wear off but when I went in to my first check up the nurse could only tell me that "that's odd". No [RS bleep] that's odd. So in comes mom who has been a nurse since dinosaurs walked the earth and she says "you need iron and vitamins your anemic". No joke the next day I was finally back on my feet. 3 weeks of feeling like your spinning and the whole time I was just anemic? How can all these medical professionals miss that. I know I'm being harsh but it honestly was a traumatizing recovery. So much so that I will never go under the knife willingly again. I felt very uninformed, very Detached from my doctors office, my first post op check up was like 15 minutes and with a nurse that told me nothing except "the swelling will go down". Why wasnt my surgeon there? I guess I should have called him he did tell me I could if I had any questions but I just felt annoyed so I just stayed to myself about it. I also suppose he probably is a very busy man so I am not going to formally throw a tantrum because I am understanding. I just really feel like as a fellow working woman, you need to know that YOU MIGHT NOT BE BACK ON YOUR FEET as soon as they say because he told me a couple weeks and I'm almost one month and not back at work, you WILL NEED PEOPLE FOR MORE THAN A COUPLE DAYS TO HELP YOU because I am post op 1 month almost and I still need help sometimes to pick things up and lift things (can't lift for the life of me), and YOU NEED TO BE TAKING A MULTIVITAMIN because I could have saved myself valuable healing time by simply taking iron but I was never told anything about post op care except to wear my compression garments.

Okay so this is amazing to me considering that I posted my review in the wee hours of the morning and my surgeon called me today to talk to me about any worries I had. He really is an amazing surgeon who I now recommend to every and all people that come my way. I still can't believe he took the time to not only call me but read my review and reply the same day. he is always very kind and easy to talk to. ALSO I realized after talking to him that the amount of fat and fluid removed from my body was a very large amount compared to my body size which is probably why I have had such a hardcore recovery. It's safe to assume that with every persons amount of liposuction healing time will be within that specific range.