It’s been four weeks since my LBL and I thought I’d post an update. I haven’t done so before now because I really didn't know what or how to say what I’m feeling. I’m not all together sure this was worth the pain and expense. Recovery is slow with LBL so perhaps my opinion will change in a few months.
One always has expectations going into a surgery like this, realistic and unrealistic, some easily articulated, some held in one’e heart.
This really hurt — far more than DS (actually DS didn't hurt that badly). I am SO glad I didn't get breast lift at the same time as using my arms to get up and down was essential. Physically it has not been as exhausting as DS, probably because with DS one is rapidly loosing weight as well as recovering from surgery.
My ass is a horror show. I don’t know if I have the words to describe it as I guarantee you have seen nothing like it in your life. As I stood late on the night of surgery, it felt like someone was grabbing my butt cheeks and painfully ripping them apart. My anus felt stretched into a grimace and even my perineum and lower labia felt pulled apart. When I got home the next day I saw that my anus was exposed and discolored areas that had been inside my buttocks were now flayed back and a bizarre long shield-shaped hard dark area (sacrum) was just north of my cheeks with the skin gathered into pleats. The surgeon says this spreading can rarely happen on the very thin when the area swells post surgery, but that it should settle as the swelling comes down. And indeed, the lowest part of my buttocks is close to being together now however the mid to top part is still spread and looks like a fist-sized circular dark HOLE between my buttocks going in to a hard bone, my coccyx? Underwear and thin pants sink in to this hole as I walk so it is quite apparent to anyone behind me. I’m beginning to suspect this will not improve. The augmentation with my own flesh is absurd. The only (modest) enlargement is just below the incision which is right at top of cheeks — it’s TOO HIGH, not where the normal swelling of most women, especially a mature woman. After that there is nothing, no ass at all, even less than what I had before. The difference now is that it is super painful to sit on even a cushion and I am in agony on a hard surface. The floppy skin must have given some tiny amount of cushion and now without it there is nothing but skin and bone. My current pain is really only in the strips of the augmentation. I have a follow up appointment next week and we will have to discuss how to repair this.
The hanging, swaying butt cheeks are thankfully gone, as well as just a few inches of the upper back thigh. The upper back thighs, upper outer and upper front thighs are smoother. However when I lift my leg to rest my foot on a chair, the thigh skin still hangs and swings.
The inner thighs are as draped and wrinkly as ever, and the 9” from knee north has a seersucker look from small popcorn-like veins. (I don;t know how to describe this or what caused it. I think it was small portions of veins increasing unseen in size during obesity and the now-fluffy skin can no longer keep it snugged in.) There is a large blob of flesh on the inside of each knee. All of this moves when I walk. There was never any suggestion that this would in any way be fixed during this surgery. Cognitively I did not expect it. Emotionally I had a bit of hope that it would be magically fixed, especially when I woke from surgery to see everything tight and smooth — but that was just from post-op swelling. I can still never wear a skirt or shorts and certainly not a swim suit.
Now for the abdomen. I thought this was a no brainer. There was no fat, just loose wrinkly skin. The muscles were separated in the lower abdomen, but this is all part and parcel of abdominoplasty. I was told and expected a perfect “I could expose my belly” result. Instead the skin from breastbone to waist is still baggy and wrinkled. He seemed surprised when I showed him while still in the hospital and said that it had been taut in the OR. The skin flops over my waistband when I sit. Inexplicably the incision from the back and the incision from the belly come to within 7” of each other on the left and then drop two inches down my thigh WHICH WOULD SHOW IN A SWIM SUIT before rising up and joining. Was this an “oopsie” when he flipped me over?? He has offered no explanation. Yes, the draping skin is gone. (I am still very swollen.)I made it through two pregnancies without a stretch mark… until the ninth month of my second when my son created a thick one going due north 2” from my navel. I consulted plastic surgeons in the 90s postpartum when I was thin and before I had ever been morbidly obese and was told that with a tummy tuck, this stretch mark would be gone. I was surprised as I didn;t think my tummy had that much loose skin. The surgeons I consulted this time with the gobs of loose skin said the stretch mark would absolutely be gone. I was so confident of this that I didn't bring it up with the surgeon I used. Well that stretch mark is still there, about an inch under the new navel he created. (The navel is tiny and cute. Not an ugly porthole like too many surgeons give their patients.) I’m not upset that the stretch mark is still there — even if I could wear a bikini I would never wear one that low — but it is evidence that he did not stretch the midriff sufficiently and why it is so baggy. BTW, it’s not like I could go get the tummy tuck fixed because to restretch the skin, that new navel would become a stitched up slit scar right below another new navel that would need to be created. I’m stuck with what I’ve got.
Because the lower and inner thighs are still very bad, the best I expected before surgery (beach-wise) was to be able to wear hip hugger pants with a midriff top with 3/4 sleeves (arms are wrinkly). Well now that the abdominal area is so baggy, I can forget that now, too.
My waist is 1-1/2” larger than it was the day before surgery. I don;t think this is because of swelling but how the skin was pulled down. My hips were 36” (if I lifted my panni and measured under it) and are now 37” which I hope is due to the abdominal swelling. (The swelling is such that I can’t see my pubis without bending all the way over.)
And so what have I achieved besides a depleted bank account? Yes, there is not belly skin in theatre curtain drapes on my front. That’s a plus as I don;t have to fear having it get caught in my zipper. Yes, I don;t have mud flaps on my ass that sometimes hung down in the toilet and on occasion I’d pee on them. The draping on the back of my thighs which sort of showed through thin pants (but did not show through tight yoga pants or jeans) is gone.
Other than that, my body is still that of a formerly morbidly obese, now old woman. And perhaps that’s part of my disappointment. My memory of my thin body was from 10 years ago or longer. Somewhere in my heart I think I hoped my post-LBL body would look more like I remembered it. No such luck.
But before we dismiss my tale of woe as being a pathetic inability to accept the reality of an old body, let’s not forget that I HAVE A FIST-SIZED HOLE IN MY ASS.
Kidding! I'm glad it went so well for you. Go get some rest and stay hydrated.
