Tummy Tuck with Lipo - Tucson, AZ

The Procedure:

I had my procedure schedule for just about forever but when it came time for my two week pre-op I started freaking out. The night before I googled "bad tummy tuck results". Not a good idea. Thankfully the doctor’s office is used to nut jobs so they were able to calm me down. The day of the procedure I really knew that I was in good hands. The anesthesiologist made sure to ask me tons of questions so that he was able to make sure I didn't puke all over myself when I woke up. And I didn't. I've had work done before and puked for a week. This time around I woke up feeling pretty darn nifty. My doctor requires an overnight stay which I thought was very helpful and I also paid extra to have Exparel injected into my incision site. I think that it really did help because the incisions were never a problem. My biggest pain came from the lipo in my sides and back. I was-still am-bruised all over and I felt tight, swollen and yucky.

My time off:
I work full time and didn't plan accordingly so I only took a week off. Come Monday I had a coworker come pick me up and she literally had to help me get dressed. I lasted until about noon.... I tried again on Wednesday and was able to get through most of the day. I was extremely tired, as they told me I would be, for the next couple of weeks.

Scars:
There is no amount of prep for the scars. When I got my surgical tape taken off I nearly vomited. I could not believe those scars were on me. I've been using SkinMedica to try to reduce the scars and I guess it is helping a bit. I don't think that I'll know until another month or so if my morning and evening scar ritual has been worth it.

The aftermath:
At this point I am 6.5 weeks out. I was flat and feeling good but got puffy and swollen these last couple of days, I'm not sure why. If it is still swollen by the end of the week I will call the doctor. The scars are still gross. A friend told me I look like an alligator bit me. To be fair she had surgery around the same time and I told her she looked like Frankenstein.... For the first 4 weeks or so I was really bummed out, tired and screaming at the top of my lungs that the surgery wasn't worth it. Now I've changed my tune a little. Things are settling in a bit more and it looks ok. I have one spot on my left side that looks like it may need some revision lipo, my right side is super flat. My front looks decent, besides the recent swelling, and my belly button is completely healed.

I will add updates as I go along. Hopefully they will all start off like this: Wow, my belly looks amazing!

Everyone has really good unclothed pics and I'll get some of those up too but I wanted to show everyone what really led me to do a tummy tuck. I pretty much had my mind made up and surgeon chosen but I hadn't scheduled it or anything like that. Until I went on vacation. I went on the most amazing trip and couldn't share a lot of the pictures because I looked so bad. When I went through my pictures and saw that I was more worried about covering up my gut than being eaten by a tiger I knew that it was time to take action.

As promised here are pictures of my scars 7 weeks post op. I have been using SkinMedica scar recovery gel and for the last 3 days I have been using rejuveness on a couple of the spots. I have a spot up front that my doctor was initially slightly concerned with but it looks like it is closing up and coloring in. I was very worried about my scars because there doesn't seem to be anything that is specifically for Black skin but so far so good. It seems to be healing up. It is a hell of a routine. I clean it up, rub on the scar gel then tape it up using NextCare gentle surgical tape. Day and night.

I'm still a bit swollen. Did a great workout today so it is expected. Yesterday I went to get a lymphatic massage because google told me that it might help and it may have. I should have done more research because it turns out I did not actually get a lymphatic massage. I have no idea what I got but it was totally different than the youtube videos that I looked up afterwards. Lesson learned, do your research beforehand! I will be trying out the lymphatic self massage techniques that I looked up on youtube tonight.

I hope that the pictures help other people gauge where they are because I know that looking at some of the pictures on here has helped me not freak out thinking that I'm not healing.