home from brachioplasty / mastopexy / augmentation

Happy Mother's Day, ladies! I have never appreciated my own mom more than I have this week after my surgery Tuesday... she has been incredible!

I had arm lift / breast lift / implants with Dr. Hartog in Winter Park, FL. This is my first procedure after losing 200 pounds, and of course there will be more to do as I can afford it!

Surgery itself lasted around 4 hours, no complications, nothing to report. I don't remember a thing! Dr. Hartog has an ambulatory surgery center attached to his office, so once surgery was over I went into their recovery area. I remember being nauseated and getting IV fluids and pain medicines... surgery started at 8, I know I was in recovery at 12:45, and I left the center at 3:30.

At home, I was surprised by how limited my arm movements were... I couldn't raise a cup to my face to take a drink, couldn't serve my own medicines... my arms were totally incapacitated! I had been told I wouldn't be able to raise them above my head, but I didn't know I wouldn't be able to BEND them either. I now know that was the compression garments and swelling keeping everything so tight, and I have a lot more motion now 5 days later. So that first day was filled with my husband giving me sips of water, my meds, taking little walks around the house, etc. OH! And I was told to check my nipples once an hour to make sure they had blood flow... seeing them stitched all the way around was bit frightening! My mom almost passed out when she saw them!

The next day I went back for a follow up and to get my bandages changed. It was the first time my compression garments came off and that was pretty painful. The next day my mom helped me take a shower (I fainted, she caught me!) and it has been progressing like that ever since. I actually put on makeup yesterday (woohoo!) and went out to dinner with some family. I feel much, much better every day.

The implants were the strangest part... I could feel how sore I was from that the first two days and then the pain just disappeared. Like working your pecs really hard at the gym or something. My implants are fillable to a range of 325-390cc's, they currently have 125 cc's in them, and there are tubes hanging out so that they're be filled permanently on Tuesday of this week after my lift incisions have had a week to start healing. Also on Tuesday, all of my surgical tapes will be removed and I'll have my first lymphatic massage.

As for results, I can already tell my breasts look excellent. The surgical nurse said they removed a lot of skin during the lift. I'm really happy with the shape, and I'm sure they'll look even better after the fill. My arms aren't tiny, but they're definitely not saggy! In my mind I always wondered if I'd either get a perfect brachioplasty so I'd be able to get muscle definition in my arms, or if they'd be left too large and be somewhat saggy still. From what I can tell right now, Dr. Hartog took JUST the right amount of skin... they don't look pinched or teeny tiny, and they're definitely not too big. I know there's still swelling, but I think this is going to be a very good result. I still have loose skin in the armpit area, but he said that we'd handle that later under local anesthesia depending how it looks after the swell from arms / breasts have gone down.

So things are looking up. On with the healing!

Wow, I don't know whether to thank you or not for your post!  I am 13 months out and down 140 pounds, so just starting to think about PS.  This is my first visit to the Plastics forum, and I knew it would be scary.  Your details just confirmed that.  But maybe I'll get more courage as I read more.  You are very brave!!  And it sounds like you have an excellent surgeon, if you are already happy with what you areseeing.  Good for you!  Congratulations, and yes, thank you for an introduction to my next phase of this oh so miraculous journey!