You are spot on. I just need to learn to love myself, and accept myself for how i look...good and bad. Im never going to be a model, or have the "perfect body". Even models nitpick themselves. I blame society for body shaming people.

On a good note...this morning i was feeling pretty good, decided to take a shower, and i was like "hmm, maybe ill try my jeans on, and see how swollen I still am"....so i grabbed a size 8 jeans (i normally wear a 6, but sometimes fluctuate to an 8)...and guess what??!! THEY FIT!!!!!! YES!!!!! Tears of joy! yes, my thighs are a bit swollen still, however, i was able to pull jeans on with no problem or having to force them up. WOot WOot!!!! Small accomplishments. :)

Again, thank you for the reminder to love myself, even if im not perfect, im a perfect me :)

funny you should ask.....mentally, i was feeling a bit better, altho i still havent gone to the store for bigger pants for work...but i woke up this morning, and as i was walking, my hand hit my hip and i was like "hmm, my hand NEVER used to hit my hip before when i walked"...so i feel my thigh/hip area, and my hips are even bigger now. boyfriend asks me " are u sure u didnt ask for the kardashian shelf ass and hips surgery when i wasnt in the room with u and the dr?" hahah. idiot. its like every day, something is even more swollen than the day before. I feel like the girl in the willy wonka movie who turned into a giant blueberry...minus the blue color. i started checking online on what i can do to lose the swelling quicked. thought of water pills perhaps, but found too many negative things about that, so i then found a drink that can supposedly help with reducing swelling after surgery. So i had boyfriend go out and buy a juicer. The drink concoction is 1 cantaloupe, 2 cucumbers, and 2 celery stalks. Havent tried it yet, but will sometime today. Just hope it works. Ive been thinking maybe the swelling is cuz i was being too active (doing housework, taking care of the animals, etc)...so ive been limiting my movements to bare minimum, and just laying down with feet somewhat prepped up and jus****ching tv all day long. (which, by the way is super boring).

Last night was rough. Kept waking up to really bad tight feeling on my right lower front side, near or at incision area. Felt like the skin was pullling. So i had to sleep on my back (which ive been forced to do for the last 2 weeks or so) with my knees bent. Im normally a side sleeper.

Im just hoping, in the end, this is all worth it. Right, now, Im questioning my decision to get this done in the first place. As with the gastric bypass surgery, i knew it was alearning curve, and after a month i was glad i had that surgery done, so, in a few more weeks, im hoping to be able to say the same thing.

Where my belly button is, there is like 2 little "puffs" of skin, hard to explain what it looks like, but its not flat like the rest of my stomach. Its obviously from the way PS made the belly button, and im just wondering if its going to stay like that, or if its just swollen. Hoping for the latter.

Lucky gal! I have a Blue Shield of CA plan that excludes plastic surgery. Bummer.

No, the incision was literally no big thing compared to the muscle repair. My butt hurt and my stomach hurt, but there wasn't any problem with sitting/laying that I feel would have been better going through it twice.

I took 2 weeks off and then worked from home for 2 weeks. I was mentally fine to work at 2 weeks, but I wouldn't have been able to sit at my desk for long periods at that point.

Hello all,

Well I don't post here often but I figured to tell my story and and hopefully help others. First off, I been overweight all my life and at my highest I weighed 364 pounds. In my 20s after the birth of both of my children, I focused on clean eating and working out (3 hours a day) and I ended up losing 150 pounds on 2 different occasions...but it was killing me working out so much and being strict with my food choices. But one cool perk of all that hard sweat and tears is that I was rewarded with bcbsm paying for my panni removal in full back in 2010. Anyhow, fast foward to the recent years...so I gained all the weight back then some smh. Well now that I'm older I wanted to get the weight off for good this time so I opted to have the sleeve procedure done in 2013. Well it worked for me a bit but not as much as I would of liked. I ended up getting down to 285. I was kinda disappointed so I and my doc decided to convert my sleeve to the bypass. The revision did wonders...not only did I get down to 195 but my heartburn totally went away (some sleeve patients have horrible heartburn but the revision usually eliminate heart burn). Well on to the real good news....so my insurance company (bcbsm/blue cross blue shield of michigan) sent a letter stating that I met the criteria for the following procedures- 15830 (Excision, excessive skin and subcutaneous tissue (includes lipectomy); abdomen, infraumbilical panniculectomy), 15847 (Excision, excessive skin and subcutaneous tissue (includes lipectomy), abdomen (eg, abdominoplasty) (includes umbilical transposition and fascial plication), and 15832-50 (bilateral Excision, excessive skin and subcutaneous tissue (includes lipectomy) of the thigh. Just as we speak, my insurance specialist just called to tell me they would call me this evening to schedule my surgery date/time. I'm totally ecstatic! So as of date, I've had 2 weight loss surgeries, a previous panni/tummy tuck, a breast reduction, and now I'm about to have a new panni/tummy tuck and a thigh lift all courtesy of good ole blue cross blue shield (not a penny out of my pocket). So to all out there that may feel uncertain about getting some or any of these procedures done with insurance paying for it, I'm here to say don't give up and it is very possible depending on the insurance company but I can say that bcbsm covers alot. I'll pop back in to give you guys updates. Stay positive and determined!

SURGERY UPDATE: Well I got my date y'all ?. May 4th is my big day. I'll keep everyone posted.