deb_rn

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I am now just over 8 weeks post-op panniculectomy (removal of extra roll of abdominal skin) and ventral ( incision) hernia repair. It was rough folks! After my by-pass (roux-ny) I was upbeat and positive. I lost weight rapidly and every day would see progress on the scale. Not so  for the panniculectomy. I left the hospital feeling pretty good ( after four days) and thought, man, this is great! Despite have an inverted T incision I really wasn't having much pain, my abdomen was tight, swollen and basically numb. The vertical incision hurt but that was the hernia repair and I expected that, it was very tolerable. What really hurt was arriving home and looking in my full-length mirror for the first time. OH MY GOD!! It was awful- my belly was so swollen I was now shaped like a bloated egg, a puny little head and puny little chicken legs and this enormous bloated white belly. My new belly button was like a little egg right in the center of the mass of horror. I was devastated. Every 12 hours my husband would do a dressing change and re-apply my abdominal binder and I would hop up and look at my belly. Day after day I saw the same sickening, fat, bloated beast and thought " what have I done to myself?" I started to kick myself for ever being fat, for allowing myself to have that extra skin, for having the hernia, for being a piece of crap! I sunk into a nearly catatonic depression. How do we deal with depression? Well, I don' t know about you but with me it is to eat, and eat the wrong food! My husband was so concerned that he tried to get me to call my therapist. I had been seeing her for about 8 months to get some idea of why I was returning to bad eating habits. I refused to see anyone. I had to go out and buy 2x stretchy pants and shirt just so I could go to my return appointment two weeks post-op. That was utterly devastating. I had been wearing size 8 pants and size 10-12 tops and to go buy size 2 x! OH MY..that was a size I thought I would never see again. I seriously considered suicide and if not for the love of my child and my special little guy (he's only 7) I think I might have given up the battle right then and there. But I persisted, listened to my surgeon who assured me that the swelling would go down, that the egg belly button would fold inward and that I would be very happy with the surgery results (he was right!). I went to my therapist about four weeks into my recovery and was still depressed and she explained that depression is often a common side-effect of large chest and abdominal surgeries. So, I persevered..I started walking around our property with the dogs, did some gardening, wore my abdominal compression binder 24/7, ate right and did alot of soul searching. By the time I was able to return to work the edema had regressed enough to get into an extra large top and size 6-8 pants. My mood improved dramatically as the edema went away, the belly button became an "innie" and the results became more evident. My only problem now is all the 6-8 pants I bought two weeks ago don't fit as I am now in a size 4 pant ( with a little elastic in the back). Also, I took several skirts and shirts to the tailor to shorten ( now that I don't have that big roll of fat my skirts and shirts are all too long) just 10 days ago and by the time I got them back from her the skirts are too big and fall right off!! They were tight around the waist when I took them in to the tailor! Anyway, I am going to stop buying clothes for now, live with what I have, use pins to hold things up and wait for all the swelling to go away before I finally purchase some decent clothes. I guess that is a side -effect I can live with!