Surgery yesterday - body lift, thigh lift, arm lift, flankplasty, breast lift

Thank you for your very nice message! I wish you luck on your journey. My photos are posted in that interview with dr. Capella for everyone to see. Here on OH I have all of my photos loaded and they show everything including my sexualized body parts. Therefore I do not accept friend requests from anyone that I cannot verify is a legitimate female member of this community. While I am sure that is not the answer you want to hear, I hope that you will understand my strict position. Thank you again for your kind words of encouragement. I wish you success in getting everything that you want from your surgeries.

I saw your post about your shortness of breathe.  I hope you're feeling better now since you were able to post.  Sending you well wishes:)

I am feeling better, thanks!! I will get 2 drains removed in a few hours and that should make me feel better. Plus my doctors will check me out - I have a dry hacking cough and my drains may be partially clogged as it seems my incision is leaking. Nothing to be alarmed about. I am feeling pretty good. I just wished my arse did not hurt so much. It is numb from lying on it. And I wish that I could stand erect!

Hi,

I found you because of Dr. Capella.  I live in Michigan, but after much research on plastic surgeons I decided that he is the best for major weight loss patients.  We have discussed both an upper and a lower body lift.  I was originally going to do the lower body lift first, because that is where my biggest issues are.  Unfortunately, I want to stay in New Jersey for a couple of weeks when I have the lower body lift and I won't be able to do that until next spring.  So I'm hoping we can come up with a date to do the upper body lift in December.  Dr. Capella has been wonderful to me as well.  I have spoken to him at length twice.  He is very knowledgeable, kind, and patient.  I was reading about your experience with Terry.  I would have been so mad to get a notice that I owed .30.  So far I haven't had any deals with her except e-mail and it has been fine.

I am excited, but very nervous and anxious about the surgery.  He says the upper body lift is nothing.  That I might need medication for a day.  I hope to have surgery on Friday and come back to Michigan on Monday afternoon.  Dr. Capella said that should be fine.  Since the upper body lift doesn't require any drains and the stitches dissolve he  just  need to check me to make sure everything is okay.

I was wondering about the rooms you stay in at the nursing facility.  Was hoping they were private rooms and very glad to hear that they are.

You really had some major surgery in all that you did in this one sitting.  I admire that.  I need to start easy and build up to the hard stuff.  I hope you are feeling much better very soon.  I know within a few weeks you will really begin to see the new you and be so happy you did all of this at once.

Take care,

Chris

That is nice that Dr. Capella told you about me. He and Scott just pulled my first set of drains this evening. My incisions all look really good.

The upper body lift is much easier than the lower body lift or the thigh lift. What I am feeling is some burning from time to time under my arm pits and on the flanks, and a loss of range of motion, as well as the pressure of swelling. I would not call what I am feeling pain. As for the breasts I feel absolutely nothing. 

Your LBL will be painful because of the muscle plication. I had a tummy tuck first and it hurt like heck. This time around he converted me to an LBL but there wasn't all that undermining and muscle plication. So I am not having that pain. I hate that I still cannot stand erect and my tailbone is sore from sitting/lying on it for so long. I have some leakage from my incision mostly because my drains were clogged so it leaked quite a bit. Certain positions are tender to get into and out of, and some I simply cannot do yet (such as cross my legs). It takes time for me to get in and out of cars and it is somewhat uncomfortable to do so. That is about the extent of my discomfort. I do feel kind of crummy the last few days, kind of like I am coming down with something. 

As far as the care center, there are two people per room. I asked for a private room and the window by the bed. I may just have gotten lucky that no one else was in the bed or Terry may have arranged that. I am not sure. The care center is quite nice but you will be next to rooms with nursing home patients. Those poor souls can sometimes be noisy crying out in the night. I would sleep with my headphones on because this man would yell at night. Then they moved him when I was checking out. I never thought to ask Dr. Capella to have him moved. Are you planning to stay there for the weekend of your upper body lift? The dietician will prepare your meals to order. You will not get the institutional food that they serve the residents. They also brought two cases of bottled water to my room so that I did not have to drink tap water. And just about all the people who work there are super nice. Also, either Dr. C or Scott will come to check you every morning so it is comforting to have that extra care, as well as the 24/7 care of the nurses and aids. If you are traveling alone it might be worth the extra bucks to stay there. But the UBL is pretty easy so you could go to a hotel -- realize that you will have some limitations with using your arms, though. 

As far as me doing this major surgery in one sitting, it took a lot of consideration for me to do it this way. Ultimately cost was the determining factor. I had just enough money to cover the surgeries if they were staged this way. Adding another stage would have significantly increased the cost and I simply did not have it. I think it is probably much nicer to have fewer surgeries and less recoveries versus getting a bunch of little surgeries and having all of that down time. Plus, you get a better aesthetic outcome when you combine procedures. Doing your upper and lower body seperately will be fine. You can do those together though. He does them all the time.

As for me, I wanted to get the hard stuff out of the way. Actually, I wanted to get my biggest areas of concern out of the way in case I ran out of money, chickened out, etc. Life is unpredictable.

Be well! MBL

Hi again,

I don't think I was clear, Dr. Capella did not tell me about you.  I think that would be a violation for a doctor.  I was doing a search on his name and found your multiple part series on him and then your Obesity Help blog.  I surely don't want him in any trouble because of a misunderstanding.

My husband will be with me for the upper body lift, so I don't plan to stay at the nursing facility.  I was just trying to decide when I do the lower body lift if I want to stay in the nursing facility or the hospital.  I'm leaning towards the hospital, which costs about $800 extra.  I just got an e-mail from Terry and the date that I was hoping to have the upper body lift is already fully booked.  So I gave her another date to check.  I am off work from before Christmas until after New Years, so it would have been an ideal time to have the surgery.  Doesn't look like that will work though.  So I going to try the Friday before the Thanksgiving week.  I would take off the three days before Thanksgiving and that would give me a bit of time to recuperate. 

It would be nice cost wise to get as much done in one shot as possible.  Just not sure about the pain.  I figure getting the less painful surgery first will give me a good taste of plastic surgery.  I didn't have any energy after the bariatric surgery, but I wasn't in a lot of pain.  I know the doctor told me that the plastic surgery was more painful than the bariatric surgery, so I'm sort of prepared for that.  I was debating back and forth about having the stomach muscles tightened.  A friend of mine has a tt and she had the muscles tightened.  She says I should have it done.  Reading stuff on the internet says if you have had a baby, which I have, then you should have it done.  Dr. Capella almost seemed to try to talk me out of it.  Said it doesn't give enough of an improvement for the amount of extra pain you get from it.  I guess I'll see how the upper lift goes before I make a final decision. 

I had drains when I got my gallbladder remove years ago and I think I hated that the worst of the whole operation.  So I'm glad that I won't have drains for the upper body lift.

This is kind of a personal question, but can you wipe yourself when you go to the bathroom?  I can't imagine asking someone else to do that for me.

I sure know what you mean about chickening out and life being unpredictable.  I had a lot of anxiety about the bariatric surgery and lots of crying jags and second thoughts.  I ended up doing it and it has probably extended my life.  I know the plastic surgery won't extend my life, but it will sure improve the way I live it.

Take care and get well real soon,

Chris

Oh, no, I would not be mad at Dr. Capella for referring you to me. I have written about him numerous times on soc med sites like OH. So it is very public knowledge that he is my surgeon. I am always happy to refer people to him because he is such a brilliant surgeon and compassionate doctor. He went above and beyond with my care. There are too many bad and mediocre surgeons out there and I hate to see patients put through hell. That is why I did the interview article with Dr. Capella. 

If it were me, I would stay at the care facility versus the hospital for the UBL. It really is a simple procedure and HUMC is expensive.

Yes, the plastic surgery with muscle plication hurts more than baraitric surgery. If you do not get he muscle plication then it will be far less painful. I lost about 10 inches from my waist with the tummy tuck muscle plication so I was really lax. How big is your waist in inches? If he thinks it will not give you much improvement then you may be better off without it. 

One thing that I have found with Dr. Capella is that he is always right when it comes to surgery. During my first surgery I questioned him many times and got advice from other surgeons that contradicted Dr. C's advice. It turned out that Dr. C was right every single time. So this time around I a happy to put my complete trust in him and follow everything he says. It is such a relief!

yes, ican. Wipe myself, shower myself, dress myself, feed myself, wash my own hair, etc. it was never a problem for me to wipe myself. In fact in my first post on this stream I wrote about having to wipe myself while lying in bed the night of surgery. I was menstruating and could not reach what was in my buttock cleft. The aid would not clean me. I was able to get everything else, and when I finally was able to sit on the toilet I had no problems reaching everything. Ican even pick up some. Items that fall on the floor.

Plastic surgery helps you to overcome any modesty you may have. You will get used to being the only naked person in the room, and weird things like having nurses give you enemas or insert your tampon for you. I kid you not.

I'm much bigger on the bottom than the top.  My waist is about 31 inches right now.  So I'm certain I wouldn't get the results that you did in the stomach area.  Maybe I will see a 3 inch difference or something.  I've always been bottom heavy, although I have a good size chest too.  I think they call it hour glass or pear shaped or something.  I really want a defined waist.  Some of the pictures I've seen on various sites look like boys after their tt.  They have the same shape from their hips to their chests.  I don't want to look like a boy.  Just a smaller and much smoother version of what I look like now.  I was also told by one doctor that the tightening of the muscles would help with my lower back issues.  Been having plenty of those this year, so even if it helped to improve them slightly it might be worth the temporary pain.

Looks like I may end up with my first surgery on December 19.  I'm already getting butterflies thinking about it.  I know that it is going to be minimal in comparison to what you just went through, and we are very similar in age, so if you can do that, I can do this.

Sounds like you are doing great for such a short amount of time.

Chris

Congrats on getting your date! Your waist is small! The TT will reveal whatever shape you have for the most part. So if you have an hour glass figure now you should have a smaller version of it after surgery. My friend just had her surgery yesterday and she is very curvy. 

My waist was huge... my shape is naturally larger on top than on the bottom and I used to have a small waist proportionately no matter what I weighed. Then as I got older my waist got thicker. Dr. C said it could be due to hormonal changes. I hope to be very curvy again once this is all said and done. I am going for my implant fitting next week.

I'd love to see your pix!

Don't want to post for all to see, but if there is a method to send you a pic, I can do that.  Just talked to Terry and gave her my deposit.  So I'm set to arrive at Newark on December 18 and come home on my 51st birthday, December 23.  Feeling a bit nervous already.  I might need a glass of wine tonight.

I'm not sure about the implants either.  I currently wear a 34 DD bra and so I've been going back and forth on the implant.  When I look at the pictures I like the roundness of the breasts that have the implants, but I don't need my breasts to be bigger.  Guess I'll wait and she how I like them once the lift is done.  Then the implants can be added later if I decide to.