Six Weeks after Surgery
I haven’t had any complications. Healing has gone well. It just felt like it took SO LONG. I’d never even had stitches before in my life, so skipping all the way to full-time surgery was a pretty big deal. I’d given birth twice: I could do this, right?
The only thing of note is that I wish someone would have told me to bring eye-cover sleep things, because they leave lights on 24/7 at the hospital. The surgery wasn’t like birth pain. It wasn’t even bad pain (nothing over a 5 in 1-10). It was just constant aching. My husband took off the first 9 days to be with me, and that was amazing. It also made us realize there were a lot of things he didn’t know how to do, at least not the way I liked them being done. But it was a very restful time for our family.
The first 5 days I did nothing of note. By the 6th day I could do some work on my laptop from bed. Showering was very awkward, as I didn’t want to get any of the bandages wet and moldy. It included a lot of wet-whipes and my husband washing my hair in the sink. When I got the drainage tubes taken out 8 days after, I was clear to drive and walk and do most things except pick up more than 5 pounds.
Other than laundry, taking out the trash, and grocery shopping, most everything else I could do slowly. My stitches DID NOT like riding in the car for the first two weeks. Too many bumps in Indiana! IT reminded me of driving in Brazil while 9 months pregnant: you just avoid it when at all possible.
From week 2 to week 6 it was just the waiting game, as my stitches dissolved and the tape came off. Slightly itchy, but no problem. I had to wear the compression bras they gave me 24/7, which was fine-but they have weird bumps and have very full coverage, so there was like 2 sweaters I could wear that made them look normal, which I basically wore for 6 weeks.
And now, suddenly, I’m here. It’s been 6 weeks. I am figuring out what new bras I like. I am figuring out what new size I am (although they say it takes a full year to really adjust). Fingers crossed, I will get a little smaller, because I am only two sizes smaller…I was hoping for a bit more. It just seems like A LOT of work to simply return to the size I was before breastfeeding.
They removed two pounds. My back instantly noticed the difference, and has felt better. I feel like my chest is better proportioned for my body. I like the change. I went jogging this morning, and it felt really good. I took a bath (ahhh! I missed baths!), and will take the girls swimming this week. All of the doctors and nurses were so kind for everything, and I am really grateful. I felt very well taken care of.
I built it up as something bigger in my head. And sometimes it is: Imagine if you duck-taped a two-pound dumbbell to your chest and could never take it off. It makes a difference. It looks a lot different. But now that it is gone, you realize there was a whole lot of things taking it off DIDN’T change.
I read somewhere that the only way to change something you do is to think of yourself as the kind of person that does that. For example, I will never start going to the gym every day until I see myself as the kind of person who goes the gym every day. It has been hard for me to see myself as the kind of person that gets breast reduction surgery, so everything involved with the change of breast reduction surgery has felt…a bit off. Not in a bad way, just in a way that is outside my comfort zone.
And these are my random, unedited thoughts because I wanted to make sure to get them on paper.