Past the one month mark, KILLIN IT

So, the new drain came out at my appointment on Friday morning.  I had mixed feelings about that because of course I wanted that nasty sack of death out of my body, but it was also what helped me go from feeling like shit to being a functional human being again.  So, I was feeling pretty paranoid on Friday about how my body would adjust, and then Friday night the paranoia got worse when I noticed my body noticeably more swollen than it was that morning.  When I first heard of the concept of swelling after surgery I pictured something like bloating, like that blah stuffed feeling after a big meal, but it’s totally its own beast that I can’t really describe. The stomach feels hard and the skin feels pulled tight and it’s just an odd feeling. I should also add, my concerns weren’t aesthetic- I know that swelling is temporary and doesn’t reflect how I’ll look later.  Swelling is also totally normal but given how my body reacted to it the last time, I was mildly panicking that it was the beginning of the end.  Again.

Then I woke up on Saturday and it was exactly the day I needed to have and which totally validated my decision to have surgery.  Two weeks ago I was like, FUCK SURGERY.  Saturday I was like, should I get my tits done?!  I felt amazing and energetic, the swelling had gone down, and I was thrilled with how things looked when I took off my binder to shower. Here are some updated pics from Saturday morning. Aside from being very pleased with the shape, I can't believe how nice the left side of my incision looks (the right side is where he re-opened it to put the drain back in, so that will take a bit longer to heal). The random marks/discoloration are from the tape holding the gauze on which is a total bitch to get off, but I think all of the bruising is totally gone.

(Please don't judge the fugly underwear.  I had my mom get me some of the biggest ugliest underoos she could find, like legit grocery store 3-pack of Hanes briefs, to wear when I had the drains in.  OK fine, judge me anyway, I do too.)

I was already happy with how things looked but then had to press my luck further by weighing myself and was really excited to see that I was down almost 10 pounds from the morning of surgery. Some of that is probably from the skin removed and some of that is probably the result of not being able to overeat (and not going out to eat/drink for a month) so it may go back up a little bit now that I can actually eat and binge drink again, which I completely expect. I know I should avoid the scale for another couple of weeks since that money will fluctuate, but it still felt good to see. THEN, I decided to try on my normal jeans over my binder to see how that would go. I had tried on a pair of work pants a size bigger than my normal about 10-11 days after surgery and between the binder and the swelling, they were snug. Last week I was able to get back into normal work clothes, and then on Saturday my normal jeans were a little loose even with the binder on, so that felt amazing.

Anyway, I definitely went out and enjoyed myself way more than I have in a long time this weekend (i.e. drank all day and blacked out around 10 pm) so I’m pretty exhausted from that, but otherwise feeling very good and very excited about things.  Let’s hope it stays that way!