Wow. Long time no write... Here's my update.

Mar 23, 2011

Wow! It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this – TOO LONG! So much has happened – so many wonderful things. And all of them are due to my weight loss. 

I had my laparoscopic gastric bypass on Tuesday, 7/8/08. The morning of surgery I weighed 234 lbs. I wore a pair of size 20 shorts (which I still have!). I was inpatient at Memorial Medical Center for 3 days with no complications. I left the hospital and began a short recovery period. I quickly learned to carry around baby food spoons with me.  I remember how excited I was to finally graduate from clear liquids (the first week) to creamy liquids (week 2), and then finally to soft foods. I was SO excited to finally go out to eat – AT KFC!!  It took me over an hour to eat that tiny little serving of mashed potatoes and I thought they were the best food I’d ever had. Then I got to go out to Taco Bell and get their beans and cheese.

Anyway, dumping syndrome is real, people. But I have learned what I personally need to avoid – spaghetti noodles, pickles, ribs... Actually, most fatty meats will make me feel like I’m dying. So I don’t eat them. I occasionally miss these foods, but not enough to be in that much pain again! And really, those few items aren’t much of a sacrifice. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no problem with sweets. Sigh. So I have to remain vigilant.   

I remember buying my first pair of non “W” pants. You know – clothes from the misses and not the women’s section. I bought a pair of size 16 jeans at JC Penny in September of 2008, right about 3 months after my surgery. From there I never looked back. By Christmas, I had purchased my very first pair of size 10 pants. By the end of January, those size 10s were too big. I finally ended up comfortable in size 8s. My weight loss leveled out at 140 pounds, which was 100 lbs down from my pre-surgery weight.  

After being at a stable weight for 6 months, I talked to my surgeon and decided to look into plastics. I knew I needed a belt lipectomy (AKA a lower body lift or a circumferential abdominoplasty) with an outer thigh lift,  an inner thigh lift, a brachioplasty, and a mastopexy with augmentation. The girls weren’t at their best after losing so much weight so quickly. I researched and researched (which everyone should do!!). I met with four different plastic surgeons and finally decided on the one I was most comfortable with. All four of the surgeons came in about the same for cost, BTW, which totaled about $30,000 for all of the surgeries combined. I finally ended up selecting a surgeon who came very highly recommended- Vaishali B. Doolabh, M.D. She is a beautiful woman, both in and out, and has the most excellent way of talking to a patient. I felt immediately at home in her practice. Check out her website at

http://www.changeisbeautiful.com/. I feel so lucky to have found her.   

Dr. Doolabh refused to do the surgeries in fewer than 3 segments as she said it was too much stress on my body (and hers! Remember, she’s the one doing the surgery and there are a lot of hours involved.). I respected that and even though that does add a bit to the cost (surgery center, anesthesiologist, etc), it’s not enough to quibble about. What’s about $1,000 when you’re spending about $30,000? Really. So I went with it. I knew I would need serious recovery time, so we decided to have an aggressive schedule with two weeks between each surgery so that I wouldn’t need to miss more than 6-7 weeks of work. We scheduled the surgeries like this:   1.       Belt lipectomy with outer thigh lift – 2/17/10 2.       Inner thigh lift – 3/4/10 3.       Mastopexy w/augmentation and brachioplasty – 3/4/10.   Well... let me tell you. Things don’t always work out the way we plan them. The first two surgeries went off just fine. On 3/16, I went in for a last review and to finalize the implants I had selected. (More on that later). Unfortunately, my right knee all the way up to my groin was so red and swollen and HUGE that she immediately cancelled surgery # 3(WAH!! That was the one I wanted the most!) and sent a culture off to the lab. It came back as a staph infection. Well, those must clear and then must be cleared for 6 weeks before you can have another invasive surgery. I CRIED!!!    So I had to return to work without having had my 3^rd surgery. It took a while for the infection to clear up... but eventually it did and we rescheduled surgery # 3 for 5/26/10. Knowing I wanted my breasts to be at least a D cup, I selected high profile silicon 550 cc implants. The surgeon worked with me quite a bit to help me make my decision. Surgery went off without a hitch. I finally got to say goodbye to my batwings.  

After all was said and done, I am now a 34 DD. I wear a size 2/4. And I’ve never been happier.   Oh. And no more Diabetes or High Blood Pressure!!!

0 Comments