Nearly 7 weeks Post-Op

I'm feeling pretty great. I feel like I can tackle the world with enthusiasm and verve. I do my morning walk (I'm up to about 7 K now); I do about 30 minutes on the Wii Fit (mostly balance games and gentle yoga) and then, about 5:00 p.m., I'm ready to sleep like the dead. I hit the wall and it's all I can do to stay vertical. This exhaustion may still be some of the residual effects from the general anaesthetic. And with my freaky metabolism, I shouldn't be surprised, but really? I'm falling asleep sometimes before 8:00 p.m. My 9 year-old daughter stays up later than me.

I have had weird-ass things going on for me since I was 11 and started having migraines. At about 13 I started having dizzy spells. I have always been clumsy and accident prone and most recently I gave up using Splenda in my one cup of coffee in the morning because I was having fibromyalgia/MS-like symptoms. My entire body was aching from head to toe - I was almost certain that I must be having a prolonged flu (5 weeks of it), but the naturopath suggested that I cut out artificial sweeteners and within about 3 days I was fine again. I mentioned before my sensitivity to caffeine. So for me to still be reacting to the anaesthetic - isn't completely crazy. Oh, I am completely crazy, most definitely, but my reaction may just be normal for me. My GP rolls his eyes in front of me and basically treats me like a well-spoken hypochondriac. My husband, on the other hand, knows not to let me out of the house between about 3:00 p.m. and dinner time because my blood sugar is low, and I might end up standing in Zellers, stunned, staring at the colourful wrapping paper in the stationery section.

Yesterday I tried some girlie pushups with a side plank. It wasn't a total failure, but I could certainly feel my stomach during it. I made sure that I relied almost completely upon my arms and had an inner monologue that went something like, "Is that a twinge? No, it's okay. Just breathe. Focus on your arms. Meh. Ew. That might have been a twinge." Any exercise that I do on one foot automatically engages my core muscles so attempting 10 leg lift thingies can get me a little tired. I can now sort of feel the muscle tension in my core when I try to tighten. I used to have INCREDIBLE muscle (underneath the nice squooshy layer of fat) I could have pulled a Houdini with my core confidence. (I hope I would have been ready for the punch and not have died from it.) So now to have it barely there makes me desperately want to spend time doing some major planks to get it nice and tight, but it still hasn't been 2 months yet and frankly, by bedtime, NOT doing planks, my tummy is still swollen and skin a little loose. It's like the more swollen I get, the looser my skin above the incision gets. This also happens to coincide with my residual stretch marks, so I get a miniature version of the floppy elephant's ear thing. I'm not really complaining because the size of the elephant's ear (when it happens - it's not all the time) is now around 5 or 6 inches squared as opposed to the 60 inches squared that it used to be. So that's pretty good progress. Today though, I'm going to try to take it easy. Yesterday I was in and out of the car a lot, and I didn't sit and relax that much. I'll try to ice my stomach and take it easy and see how that helps my tummy.

Oh, and the binder? It's so much more comfortable than the control-top panties. I've been alternating. I wear the binder for my morning walk generally, and then switch into the control-tops, but by day's end, I'm sore, especially around the legs and hips. Who'd have ever thought that my medical grade velcro binder would become my crutch?

Cheers!
Heather