The day of surgery, I arrived on time and things started out smooth. Dr. A. was running a little behind, but I was trying to stay patient. Jeremy sat with me and kept me occupied. When Dr. A. came in, he seemed in a rush and quickly went through the surgery process and what would be done. When he got to the under-chin lipo procedure, he told me where he would put holes and made the comment "You know it's just liposuction - it's not a miracle cure". My heart dropped. I looked at my husband and then looked back at Dr. A. and said "Well I'm not sure if that was meant as a compliment or an insult." He seemed to ignore my comment and moved on. Shortly after I was wheeled off to surgery, doing my princess wave to all the nurses and techs that passed me on the way.
I woke up in post-op feeling pretty terrible. The nurses were a lot nicer to me this time and even brought me a diet soda and some jello, instead of choking crackers. I was very hard to wake and had trouble keeping my oxygen up. I started crying because it was so hard to stay awake and keep the damn machine behind my head from beeping uncontrollably every time my oxygen dropped below 95%. I was emotional, and my poor husband was my outlet. When Dr. A. came by, I was almost in tears when I asked him why my chest was so flat (I elected to have D size implants). He looked me over and said they were looking fine and that he knew he put "Cs or Ds in there". I gave up and started crying as he shook Jeremy's hand and left.
The next two days were the hardest I've had since my mastectomy. Everything was sore. I had no arm strength. Even getting in and out of the recliner was enough to make me bust out in tears. On top of it all, My boobs were flat and my neck and jaw were sore as hell. I lashed out at Jeremy repeatedly, which makes me surprised he stuck around for so long. I was supposed to have a 24 hour follow up, but Dr. A. was at a conference all day so he couldn't see me. He did call my cell around lunch time to check on my progress. I told him I was miserable, but was trying to stay positive. After all, there wasn't much I could ask him about without him looking at me in person.
Jeremy and I went home the day after my surgery, and it was a struggle just getting in the car. Every position hurt, but I somehow managed to sleep all the way home. I was too exhausted to unpack or do anything else, so I jut stayed in bed and tried to find a comfortable way to lay down or sleep sitting up.
A week later I had my follow up appt. I walked in the clinic fully banded up, sore, and still flat. Dr. A. looked me over and examined my stitches and incisions. Thank God I wasn't having any major complications and everything was healing correctly on the outside. I asked him why I felt so flat and why the implants were not as prominent. I felt like he brushed me off by saying that they are still heavily bandaged and they only appear smaller. Miss C. changed my bandages and coated me in a smelly iodine solution and then I was on my way home again.
So hear I am, a week post-op surgery, and I'm not feeling much better. I don't know what is screwing with my hormones so much, but I'm feeling depressed and am crying more often since the surgery. I mean, I know I'm in pain but that can't be it. Everyone is trying to make me feel better, but nothing seems to work - which makes me feel worse. I go back to work net week, so I know I need to get myself together. I've been trying to get back to normal. That's what this surgery was supposed to do! But why isn't it working?
