Recovering Part 2

Hands Down, the best part about recovering is laying on my bed, watching movies with the kids.

It's been just a few days past 3 weeks since my surgery and things are going pretty well. Sometimes I can stand up straight but I can't stretch at all. Most days though I cannot stand up straight, I'm still just a little bit hunched over. It's not required that I wear the heavy binders anymore but I feel really weird without them and it's almost hard to breath. The muscles feel very strong/weak at the same time. During the day I wear some Spanx under my clothes and at night - depending on the swelling - I either wear the binders or I don't.

Some odd things about recovering from a tummy tuck:

I can't eat as much as I used to be able to. I didn't eat a ton at once to begin with but now that my entire abdomen is smaller, my stomach is smushed into a smaller space too so there's less room for food. Not that I want to eat a lot - heaven's no - but I wasn't expecting this. I feel full after about 5 bites of food. I can't even finish a quesadilla from Taco Bell.

Another thing I wasn't expecting was all the swelling. I read a lot about it before the surgery and in the first two weeks afterwards but I still swell like crazy. I can't be on my feet for too long before I feel my abdomen start to get tighter and tighter. It's very frustrating. I was hoping to be able to start walking this week but I think I'll just take it easy a little while longer, until the swelling is more under control. Forget about running or working out, that seems like a distant dream right now.

Nerve pain. I wasn't expecting so much nerve pain in the 3rd week. I had intense pain the night of the surgery and the following day and limited pain depending on my movement afterwards but I have had some fairly intense nerve pain in the incision sight for my left drain. I didn't have any pain there while the drain was in, but as soon as it was pulled and the skin began to heal it was incredibly painful. Like I was being stabbed with a flaming knife that had been dipped in acid. That went on for over a week and then suddenly went away. Lucky for me, the nerve that was freaking out calmed down after about 10 days of intense pain. I seriously woke up one day and it was completely gone.

Clothing. My clothes don't fit. I knew this would happen, but not as dramatically as it has. Most of my shirts are pretty enormous and ill-fitting. I only have 2 pairs of shorts that don't look overly huge. I thought that they would fit better than they do but they just look big and without any shape. Poor me, I've had to do some shopping... I nicely slid myself into some Jr's size 7 cropped pants and some women's size 4 shorts and all size S t-shirts (and that's WITH all the swelling going on too).

My mom goes home tomorrow and then I'll be back to my real life. I'm a little scared, I'll have to let go of the housework for a while in order to get the rest I still need but I know in the long run it will all seem like a short period of time and I doubt that I will ever regret doing it:) More updates to come and eventually a picture of my Matrix-like abdomen without a belly button.