Tuesday, September 22, 2015

6-month follow-up with surgeon, other things, maybe

I was reading back through some older posts including one from June when I posited that my 12ish week check-up would probably be my last.  Nope, 6+ months out still hauling down to Chadds Ford every couple months!  Despite my whininess about the early morning drive, I appreciate that the surgeon still wants to check my ass out and make sure everything looks aight.  The amount I paid before surgery is the total amount for everything including all post-op visits so it's not like he's getting paid any more for additional appointments.  I also heard that many plastic surgeons are notorious for lackluster or non-existent post-op care, so I've been pleasantly surprised at how much that has not been the case with Dr. Saunders. (I forget if I ever posted it but in the event anyone in the Philly area, or anyone period, is reading this, my doctor is/was Dr. Chris Saunders in Chadds Ford, PA and Wilmington, DE, and he has been fantastic.)

The doctor said everything looks fine and he still recommends using some kind of pressure (i.e. Spanx, compression garments) to improve results.  I started sleeping in my binder again pretty much every night a month or so ago, and if I'm not getting any it doesn't bother me at all to have it on at night, so I'll probably keep doing that.  Crap, just remembered I forgot to ask him if it's normal/fatal that I've been experiencing some weird pressure-ish tingly sensations in my arms near the elbow when I do body weight exercises like planks and push-ups.  I'll bring that up at the November appointment if my elbows don't fall off before then.

ALSO.. while there I asked him about whether I should separately schedule a consultation to discuss the possibility, prices, etc. for a thigh lift and, delightfully, he went through it with me while I was there yesterday.  More delightfully... he said that since the extra skin on my thighs is pretty much all at the very top, he would recommend just doing a mini lift/tuck with an incision at the top (as opposed to one running down my inner thighs) and some lipo on the lower parts.  That seems a lot less invasive, and he said the recovery is much easier than with the tummy tuck, and I could probably just do a week off of work.  A week!  Even if I planned for a week and a half, that'd be much more doable, especially compared to the 15 work days I ended up taking off last time.  Also, the price was a lot better than expected.  Like, I had a mental range of what I thought it might be and what I would reasonably consider paying, and what my absolute worst case but still maybe price would be.  Anyway, it was over $1,000 less than the bottom of the range I was hoping for.  So, after going back and forth about this for some time now, I would have to say I'm strongly leaning towards doing this, probably next April sometime.  And then I'm DONE.  I SWEAR.  The only other thing I was ever interested in having done with skin removal was the thighs, but couldn't do that with arms and stomach.  So I don't think this is something where I'll come back next year and be like, so maaaybe I'll get a Brazilian Butt Lift.  I mean not that I wouldn't like a nice big perky ass, but I'm done with slicing and dicing my body after this last bit of extra skin is removed.  And that's that!  

My sister and I have been really into hiking lately and trying to find places to hike in PA and NJ, where life is a bit flatter than in other parts of the country.  We went hiking in Valley Forge on Saturday and it was beautiful and amazing and between that and 2 softball games that morning, I'm pretty sure I still can't feel my legs and arms.  What else?  I made the most Allison possible recipe last night which is to say it combined several of my favorite things in the world into one delicious, fall-ish, comforty dish:  Pumpkin Alfredo Tortellini Skillet.  So damn good.  I'm very obviously a pumpkin whore, and tortellini is my jam, so when I saw that recipe I knew it had to come to life.  Tomorrow night I'm making orange chicken (I have a few recipes for this, not sure which I'll use but all basically variations of the same thing.. you just don't bread/fry the chicken so it's still really tasty but light) with Cauliflower Fried "Rice".  Then I'm staying in the Jerz with the fam from Friday til Monday or whenever the Pope leaves town and I can actually make it back to Philly again.

I guess that's about it for this fascinating week of my life.  If we're lucky I'll be able to launch into some new surgery talk in a few months and keep this bitch going a bit longer!

Wednesday, September 16, 2015

Is a pumpkin cleanse a thing?

UGH I have let way too much time go by with 2 juice cleanse posts hanging out there as my last written word.  Don't worry, no more of that nonsense.  Unfortunately I do not have a whole lot else to wax poetic about because nothing really inspires me the way pureed kale does, apparently.

It's mid-September so despite it still being hot and stupidly summerish outside, I've hit the pumpkin shit up full force.  As with every year, my first pumpkin spice latte of the year (PSL, if you will.. I swear to god I don't say that unless I'm trying to be ironic) reminded me that I don't really like "PSLs" but I still predictably adore every other pumpkin infused item that comes my way.  It's become such a cliche to love that stuff, but I really actually do because it's delicious.  And I really actually love boots and leggings and tights and scarves and oversized sweaters and leaves and all the other basic ass fall stuff that I could fill up an Instagram account with.

I've been eating moderately healthy as usual, which is generally to say I eat pretty healthily 5ish days a week and questionably the other 2, which are sometimes but not always the weekend.  So weight-wise I continue to maintain roughly the same weight for... 3 years now?  With a fun dip earlier this year after surgery.  Those few weeks when I couldn't eat were so svelte.  Since it has officially been over 6 months now, here are some pics that really show no change from the last few months, but no news is good news, which doesn't entirely apply to this situation but you get the gist.  



At this point it probably doesn't make much sense to continually post half-nudes when surgery was so long ago but in case anyone was wondering if there have been any changes or my skin exploded into a fiery mess or anything else weird, the answer is not really.  I will try to take some more scar pics soon but I feel like there haven't been many changes on that front either.  I wish they would fade a bit faster but I also wish my student loans would pay themselves so wishing is a pretty pointless endeavor.

Anyway that's that for now.  I'm still cooking a lot, working out, showing up for work on a regular basis, etc. so not much new to report.  If I ever magically manage to shed another 15 pounds I'll document exactly how I did it in 40 lengthy and self-absorbed posts but otherwise it'll probably just be these sporadic ramblings for the foreseeable future.