Six weeks finally!

Yay I've finally hit the six week mark!  That means that I have gotten past the main phase of healing, the rest of the healing is the slow part, it can take 6m to a year after surgery to stop swelling and see the final result.  

After a few days of not wearing my scar strips the hypersensitivity is gone.  I am only wearing the strips at night now and I haven't had any issues, which is great because I don't know what I would have done if the hypersensitivity had continued.

I had an appointment with my surgeon the end of last week (just after 5 weeks post-op) which went really well.  He said everything looked good and was healing well.  He took some more pictures and said he would take more at my 6m appointment and that by then the swelling above my scar should be gone and my tummy would be completely flat. Woo-hoo!  He also told me I don't need my binder unless I want it anymore...thank goodness because it was driving me nuts!  And I'm allowed to start exercising.  He said I can do whatever I want but to start out slow and listen to my body.

So, Friday I went jogging.  It felt so good to get out and move!  The jog went well, we went a total of about 2miles and I jogged maybe a total of one, trying not to push myself too hard.  Since the jog went so well, Saturday I decided to try one of my easiest videos, and do the "modified" version, so no impact.  Although the video itself went well I could tell by the end of the day that I'd done too much, I swelled so much it actually hurt!  After having Sunday off I went jogging again Monday and again it went really well and I felt fine, so Tuesday I tried a different easy video without impact.  On Tuesday again I swelled big time... Ouch.  So today I decided to see if it was the videos making me swell or doing exercise two days in a row... So I went jogging this morning.  Guess what?  I am so swollen right now. Owwwwwww....  I guess this means that at least temporarily I will jog every-other day and that's it until my body gets used to it again and I can do more.  

Other than the swelling I feel great, hungry, but great.  I am having such a hard time with food.  I don't want to be one of those people who gets a tummy tuck then gains 15lb!!  So far I've been lucky and I only weigh 2lb more than I did the day of surgery, and I'm not sure how much of that is swelling.  But I really need to stop eating so much, I'm constantly starving and I'm craving sugar and caffeine... I think my issue may be that I'm running tired.  With three young kids I'm not exactly getting tons of rest during the day, naps and such.  Maybe sleeping more will help me eat less. I've started each day with the plan to eat healthy and count my calories, and I'm not even talking counting low calories!  I've given myself 200 extra calories above what I normally eat and I just can't stick to it... I think most days I'm eating upwards of 3000 calories!!!  Eep!!  I will, I MUST take control!  I will not gain weight!!

So on to picture updates!  This is from this morning, six weeks-

Sorry they're awkward, I had to do my own photos since my husband had to be at work early.

For comparison this is four weeks post-op vs today-

Wanna see what I mean by swelling??  This is last night vs this morning, HUGE difference!

Four weeks and hypersensitivity.

The past weeks has gone really well.  I've been feeling good and have been able to be more active.  I've cleaned the house and made dinner myself and have even done some exercising.  

Now, the exercising is still really light but I feel better doing it.  I've been trying to "walk" 30 minutes a day on my elliptical, plus I've been using my 5lb weight to do a few moves for my shoulders, biceps and triceps, and doing squats and lunges.  I definitely feel a bit more flabby not being able to do my usual workout but this is a step in the right direction.

I've realized I'm still moving more slowly than I'm used to and get tired much faster.  Before surgery my morning would be get kids dressed and fed, pick up the kitchen, do my daily housecleaning, workout (45min-1hour), and shower... Usually I'd be done with all of this around 10 or 11.  With my new slowness I have a hard time finishing all of this by 12 and half the time I don't get the walk in until the afternoon (if at all)!  At least I'm trying and moving!  I feel pretty good to be doing things for myself.

Sleeping has been getting better, I really enjoy sleeping in my own bed.  Especially with the binder on I've found that moving in my sleep can be difficult, I wake up just to roll to my side and adjust.  That, and getting out of bed reminds me of when I was really big and pregnant because of how I move, lol.  

So last night since I was four weeks post-op I decided to sleep without the binder on.  At first it felt strange and even cold, but after I relaxed a bit I was much more comfortable than I have been.  I am looking forward to wearing my binder less as time goes on, except for one thing, SWELLING.  I have been taking the binder off for 2-3 hours in the evenings after the kids are in bed and I'm mostly sitting reading or watching tv and my waist will gain 1-2 inches in that time! I definitely feel that my swelling is less than it was.  Before this week I bulged out a bit above my scar and even in the mornings my waist was about 31inches (before surgery it was 29) and would grow as the day went on even with the help of the binder so by the end of the day I could be up to 35 inches in the waist!! But the past few days I've been at 29-30 inches in the morning and no more than 32 in the evenings... So definite improvement!

I mentioned hypersensitivity in my blog title here, and it was awful!!  As I've mentioned before I've been having some pretty bad itching along my scar (specifically along the front right side), but Tuesday morning about 30 minutes or so after I put on my new set of silicone scar strips that area started BURNING like I was being attacked by fire ants!!  Any time I moved or something touched that area it brought tears to my eyes, it hurt that bad.  Tylenol did absolutely nothing for it and by the time the kids were in bed I broke down and took a Percocet, which only helped in the sense that I was too loopy and nauseated to care that I hurt, it didn't get rid of the pain.  When it wasn't gone Wednesday morning I called my doctor.  His response... Take off the silicone scar strips!  I had no signs of infection or anything else other than pain, so he feels that I need to wear the strips less.  I have been wearing them nearly 24/7 because the box says to wear them at least 12 hours a day, so more must be better, right?  Apparently WRONG!  He said some people can be a bit sensitive to the scar strips and wearing them for too long causes itching, irritation, and hypersensitivity.  So he has me going two days without any scar strips on and then I can only wear them at night.  Although I feel a bit disappointed because I can see how much the strips have helped my scar already and I want that to continue, but the strips have been off 24 hours s far and already the pain is almost completely gone, my scar is just a little irritated.  

Wanna see some pictures??  I feel so much more confident in my body, I can't wait for clothes shopping!!

This is a close up of my scar, the lower red spot is where my drain came out-

The bumpiness along the top is really just the texture differences with my stretch marks.  There was no way the doctor could completely remove all of my stretch marks, they were all the way up to my ribs... Now they're just above my belly button!  And I honestly don't care about getting rid of my stretch marks, they're reminders of my pregnancies and deliveries.

And here's my four week tummy shot!

Sooo much better!

Wow, three weeks post-op!!

It's hard to believe its been three weeks already...although I do have moments when I could swear its been at least four weeks!  

A lot has changed in the past week.  First, I honestly think all of the coughing I did last week helped with my soreness in my abdominal muscles.  After a while the coughs didn't hurt so much and now even though I'm only coughing occasionally my tummy is only a little sore, mostly right in the middle just below my ribs.  As I have been working on my posture I can definitely feel that the doctor repaired my diastasis recti (split in my abdominal muscles) because I have a hard ridge going straight down the middle of my stomach I did not have before!  That's another thing... I'm finally standing completely upright! Woot-woot!!  And without tons of effort too.  I do find that as the day goes on I tend to slouch a bit, but that's me getting tired and lazy, as long as I focus on my posture I'm straight as can be.  With this lovely posture comes another great thing... My tummy actually is starting to look small!  I'm starting to really see where my end point is going to be and I'm absolutely floored by how amazing it is.  My waist feels tiny to me, which is funny because of swelling my "natural waist" measurement is still bigger than before surgery (although around the belly button even with swelling I'm smaller), I can't wait for that "final" look!

I've been having strange skin sensitivity this past week.  It's never really in the same place for long which makes me think that it's at least in part nerve re-growth.  I had about three days where every movement I made irritated my right areola incredibly...that was horrible!  Otherwise the irritation has moved to different areas around my tummy incision.

I'm also really loving the silicone scar strips.  It says right on the box that results will be seen "as soon as four weeks".... Well it's only been a week and I'm seeing some awesome results!  Before my scar was pretty bumpy and now it's almost completely smooth.  It's also starting to fade from a deep red to a lighter red.  Sorry, I don't have any up close pictures... I'll try to take some soon.  I've also completely stopped all medication other than my arnica Montana (for swelling).  I've never likes taking medicine anyway.

Most days I seem to have a lot of energy in the morning and as the day goes on I start to get really tired much quicker.  But my doctor said to walk and also to start working back into my old routine.  So, this week I've been doing my regular daily housecleaning... Nothing heavy, but Friday is my usual vacuuming day, I'm not completely sure I'll be able to do that!  It has felt nice to be up more and getting the house back to the way I like it.  I also had my husband unfold my elliptical machine.  I haven't used the machine in almost two years, the electricity on it only sporadically works so I can't usually change the resistance.  But I currently don't want the resistance I just want to go for a walk without going outside (seriously at 6am it's over 90 degrees out, I'm not going out there!!), so no extra resistance is fine.  So I went for a nice leisurely thirty minute walk yesterday, it felt really good to move. Now today on the other hand I have been exhausted, I suppose the energy and push I've had the past few days has caught up with me, I can barely keep my eyes open today, I didn't go for a walk, I pretty much sat on my butt all day.

Finally some updated pictures!!  Here I am-

So much better, right?  And just for comparison here is a side by side of am vs pm (sorry I took the pm myself so it's a bit closer) so you can see the swelling.

I'm looking forward to the rest of my recovery, I really can't wait until I'm able to start going back to a more intense exercise routine!