Unlike the 5 other surgeries I’ve had, I never leaked when I got up to walk or go to the bathroom on surgery day or day 1 post op. As I said in the surgery post, I leaked in bed (and not a tiny amount), but it just didn’t come out otherwise. Not even while sitting on the toilet which really seemed to make the leaking bad with all the other surgeries.
Also, unlike all the other 1 day post op days, my husband managed to get my check up appointment at the clinic at 11:30 in the morning instead of butt freakin early. This meant I got 2 hours extra to sleep, leisurely shower and get dressed, have an unrushed breakfast and get over to the clinic on time (for once).
As you probably noticed through all of my surgery posts, one of the post op procedures is to take the compression off and shower. Because of this, a huge concern my surgeon had (especially with as pasty and pale I was when leaving the clinic yesterday) is I could pass out when the compression comes off. This is why we always reserve a disabled room at the CitizenM. The shower bench and the shower/toilet rails are really a godsend.
Everything went pretty well in the shower. I decided not to pull off the bandages since the nurse at the clinic would just pull them off so the surgeon can see them. Why irritate my skin? However, I did notice that the lower right plaster had a lot of blood behind it so I pulled it off and immediately tumescent fluid started squirting out. I think I managed to massage and push a good liter of the stuff out before the nausea hit me full force. Both my husband and I were prepared for this since something similar happened with either my calves or thigh, so the shower bench was down and waiting.
Unfortunately, the nausea wasn’t fading quickly so I had to go lay down in bed. This is where having water proof bed covers really kind of comes in handy. Hubby started drying me off and by the time he was done the nausea had passed.
I did have my hubby shoot a before picture on surgery day, and a photo wearing the exact same clothes in the exact same way for day 1 post op. You can already see that there’s quite a change.
After I got my compression on, (don’t worry, wasn’t going without… couldn’t go without or I’d be in extreme pain!) we went down to have breakfast. I got to take my time while hubby wolfed his food down so he could go get the car, get it loaded and get checked out. It was actually pretty nice not being in a rush for once. 
Then it was off to the clinic for my post op appointment. Getting in and out of the car is pretty painful and it takes a good full minute or two in order to unfold myself and be able to stand up straight enough to walk. Once I got walking, my pace wasn’t horrible. Especially considering I had flip flops on and I can’t walk very fast in them in the first place. The vibration from walking didn’t really seem to hurt either this time around unless I got really ambitious with the speed.
Usually we’re just getting in to the clinic, or running slightly late, and end up having to wait, but this time we were pretty lucky and they took me 15 minutes early. To make it even better, I didn’t leak all over the waiting room and horrify the people that were there for dermatology related things! Winner!
The day 1 post op appointment went pretty much as expected, the nurse helped me get out of my compression and had me lay down so the doctor could take a look at the wounds and the skin. He was pretty happy with the bottom 2, but not so pleased with the top 2 as they’re in a skin fold. Apparently this makes it a bit higher risk for infection and is slightly concerning. He had the nurse get some pads soaked with Betadine to put on the wounds before putting the plaster on and gave my husband some to take home with us as well.
We were instructed to massage the stomach at least 2 to 3 times a day starting that day (my surgeon showed my husband how he wanted it done and I kind of wanted to rip his face off) to try to keep the protein from forming in the skin folds.
After I had my clothes back on, we then had to discuss how to move forward since he didn’t take out all the fat that needs to come out. He wasn’t really happy with this, but he had indicated in the initial consultation waaay back in fall 2015 that this could happen. There’s still a lot of fat on my sides that wrap around to my back, the fat directly under my arm that has started aggressively growing in the past 5 months (he would have gotten it if it was there when he did my arms) and so on. He seems pretty confident that the fat he didn’t get directly on the front will come off with the tummy tuck, so he wasn’t really worried about that.
Of course, as to the abdominalplasty, that’s a matter of when and where. All of us want to wait until the latter half of the year for it, and my surgeon really wants to keep me in the country. So there’s a surgeon at the Utrecht hospital that could be an option. If we can’t find anyone in the Netherlands he trusts, he said he’d feel comfortable sending me off to New York. Since I’m actually planning to go to Orlando for Thanksgiving this year, this actually could be a viable option.
Then we had some time to BS. I asked him a question about the arms that a lot of ladies have been bugging me about, you can find the answer to that HERE. He told me about the experience of his first patient that decided to stay at the zorghotel (hospital hotel).
Apparently, the nurses aren’t used to tumescent liposuction patients and thought that the patient was bleeding to death. The patient had to educate the nurses on what’s going on and now my surgeon is setting up a little information class on tumescent liposuction for the zorghotel staff. Both my husband and I had to laugh at that because we completely understand how horrifying it can be to the uneducated.
Then he mentioned that he’s thinking about hiring an anesthesiologist in order to administer muscle relaxers to help bring down the pain level a bit. It’ll probably end up being something like the german’s twilight anesthesia. It’s more than the local my surgeon currently does, but you’re still awake, can move around on the table for the surgeon and respond to the nurses and surgeon. I’ve no idea if this will be in place for my next liposuction or not.
Overall, he stressed how important it was to keep the puncture wounds clean and to keep massaging the area so protein doesn’t form in the skin. None of us want an emergency tummy tuck, especially since I need to be in Phoenix, AZ at the end of March!! He said there’s a 10% chance so it’s not overwhelming high.
Then, leaving I caught this out of the corner of my eye. Why anyone wants a shiny gold Mercedes is beyond me (probably a drug dealer’s car) but there you go. 
Had my first MLD (manual lymph drain massage) later in the afternoon. Usually the MLD on day 1 post op HURTS. Usually I threaten to rip my therapist’s face off if she hurts me. Today, she had an intern watching the drama unfold. The intern was informed that I was a bit violent and that I have slapped my therapist before (but she’s also slapped me for scratching mosquito bites over and over). Luckily the back and forth between my therapist, husband and I helped keep my mind off the pain.
Unfortunately, my ribs just under my breast are BRUISED. The bone is bruised and it HURTS. So I almost got to the point of slapping her when she kept going over it, but I managed to control myself somewhat. While it was the longest 30 minutes of my life, it was well worth it and everyone has the face they started with.
For the rest, I just sat on the couch and BS’d with a friend that stayed over to keep an eye on a new cat. There was a bit of dozing going on in between stuff being watched on TV so it was pretty low key. I went to bed around 9pm and that was all she wrote.
I can sleep on my side, but it’s a big production to get there, and for some reason I’m snoring so badly no matter how I lay, I wake myself up. I’m really hoping that goes away.
PetraAnn
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