Day 27 post-op - feeling good! (thigh lift, leg lift, and minor LBL revision)

So much can change in three days! On Thursday I had a follow-up with my surgeon and got to experience debridement of my would separations. Not fun. But since then, I've been doing ever so much better.

My last dose of oxy was Thursday evening and I've been doing fine with Tylenol since then. (I have still been taking 2.5mg valium before bed in order to keep my legs from cramping up.) This is a huge win in my book.

My groin openings are looking great - much shallower than they had been prior to the Thursday appointment. The ones close to my right knee still look pretty gross to me, but they're closing up sloooowly.

Yesterday was a really good day. Lance and I went out to see a movie at a theater slightly farther away from home than normal, which meant I needed to use the bathroom while out. First time for toileting outside of my home and it went well enough. Thankfully the toilet paper holder had a flat top so I could put my package of wipes, tube of silver gel, and ABD pad on top of it. Public bathrooms really need more flat surfaces!

I walked around a bit too, both from the parking garage to the theater and then about a block to go to the cheese store from the theater and then back to the parking garage. It was super nice to just move. I'm very, very slow, but that's okay.

And then my period started which is just logistically irritating. I'm glad it held off until after my follow-up though.

It's nice to feel like things are finally on the right track and that my diligence is paying off!

Sounds great! Hoping for a continued gentle healing.

Jo

Thank you! (And I promise I'll reply to your email. Just slow over the weekend...)

so which movie did you guys go see?

Lady Bird!

Good to hear that things are progressing well for you Gwen. It seems like this has been a difficult recovery. Were you surprised by that?

I knew that this would be the hardest of the procedures and the most likely to come with complications. But.. you never think they'll happen to YOU? (Well, maybe more pessimistic people do, but I'm a fairly optimistic person!)

I don't know if you've seen Kill Bill, but there's this scene where The Bride begins her fight with O-Ren Ishii after slaughtering like a billion people and O-Ren Ishii says, "You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" And The Bride replies with, "Yeah, for a second, I kinda did."

I feel like that was how I went into this surgery? But if I was going to have complications, I knew this would be the surgery where I'd have them.

Don't get me wrong, my LBL recovery was WAY harder than I thought it would be, but I think that was due to ignorance on my part. I expected it to be easy because all my surgeries have always been easy and this is JUST SKIN. How could a surgery that is superficial (in the "close to the surface" sense of the word) possibly be harder than all the deep surgeries I've had?! LOL, boy was I wrong there. So that surgery recovery was unexpectedly hard.

With this surgery, I feel that I knew what I was getting into. I knew that it would be the hardest. I knew it had the greatest chance of complications. I guess I just didn't expect I'd be one of the "lucky" ones who HAD complications. And, as I've said, they only seem "minor" when they're not happening to you. And, seriously, these are MINOR complications in the scheme of things. I never had to go to ER. I haven't had to have additional surgery. I haven't needed extra medications.

I think that the cakewalk that was surgery #2 might have also screwed with my brain a bit. I think I mentioned, when I was 14 days post-op, that I was feeling super bummed because I was thinking I was 21 days post-op and that I wasn't very recovered at all for someone three weeks out of surgery. And then I looked at my timer and saw that it was only 14 days and that was a huge relief. Like "okay, it's only been two weeks. This is okay for recovery."

Surgery is just a weird thing, you know? We can be as prepared as humanly possible, but all bets are off once we get our of the operating room. Like that paraphrased line, "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy." Surgery is really an "expect the unexpected" sort of experience and that is something I truly suck at :P

I understand! I'm sure once all is healed you'll be thrilled with the results and it will have been worth it!

I am getting a little nervous about my very minor PS next week (browlift and upper/lower blepharoplasty). I sort of remember being surprised at the pain of my facelift, which was mostly a sustained headache as I recall. It superceded any pain from my TT, Which I had been prepared for being very painful (it really wasn't). Maybe it is all in the expectations?

What's your date? I'm sure it'll be great. :)

I'm feeling a lot better now. Every day I can do more things for myself and that just makes such a HUGE difference during recovery.

12/14 - I'm a little worried about the discomfort and also about how long I'll be unsightly (since it is so close to Christmas). I have my dermablend though!