If you’re like me, you’re now transitioning out of the post-collegiate lifestyle and into true adulthood. By now your college loans are decreasing, your paycheck and professional status are increasing, and your life is generally in the magic hour between settling down and taking on more responsibility.
For me, I had just settled down and was looking for that next step in responsibility. And having just moved into an apartment I loved, working at a great, stable job (even in this economy), and with no relationship of note in the picture, with much excitement and trepidation I embarked on what some think is the ultimate yuppie indulgence: cosmetic surgery. What follows is a recount of my journey to and recovery from having a tummy tuck and liposuction.
The Beginning: Too Much Too Fast
Throughout my childhood I steadily gained weight through the terrible twosome of a horrible diet and grave inactivity. By the time I was 18, I was 6’3’’ and weighed at least 250 pounds. I say ‘at least’ because by the time I started to lose weight I had gone up a pant size from my last weighing (from a size 42 to a 44) and those pants were getting tight. With college four months away, I knew I couldn’t live like this any longer. So I pulled every ounce of willpower I had never used and overnight started walking, then running, around 5 miles a day and eating only 1,000 calories a day—the same exact food every day. Four months later I was wearing 36 inch pants and was over 75 pounds thinner. I had lost a third of my body weight in 4 months. A great success in terms of numbers, but too fast for my body to adapt to the great change. I was now much thinner and my legs, arms and chest were lean and muscular, but my entire stomach area was made up of a panniculus: a large hanging flap of loose skin, tissue, and fat.
Over the years I stayed active and for the most part healthy, and had even lost 15ish more pounds, but no matter what I did my stomach stayed the same. I hated that no clothes ever fit right, that I had issues with every partner I was with, and that I couldn’t do things I enjoyed like go swimming or even sunbathe because of this one issue. I hated that I had worked so hard to lose weight, but because I basically worked too hard to lose it, I would never have the stomach I wanted no matter what I did. Aside, of course, from having surgery.
Pre-Surgery: Listen to Your Gut
Jump to May 2008. I was at a place in terms of my finances, my job, and my overall stability to finally seriously consider having surgery. I had researched the procedure over the years and basically knew the risks and rewards from having abdominoplasty, aka a “tummy tuck”. I knew about the scar it would leave around half my body, the 3-4 weeks of being bedridden, the months of swelling, the numbness to my abdomen that would last for at least a year and maybe the rest of my life. But, more importantly, I knew that I would have the stomach I always had worked so hard to get but never could. What I didn’t know about was how to find the right person to do the job. I didn’t know of any surgeons in my town, so I thought, what the hell, just start asking around: coworkers, friends, friends of friends, people in bars when I had had one too many. I had no qualms about doing this because I thought, ‘well, if I’m vain enough to have plastic surgery why keep it to myself? It’s kind of hard to be vain AND modest.’ It is understandable, though, if you don’t want the whole world to know. You can ask your GP if they can recommend anybody, or do what I ended up having to do: find someone online. If you know what you’re looking for, finding a surgeon online is just like finding a date or an apartment online. And what to look for is this: first and foremost make sure they are certified by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Going to a plastic surgeon that isn’t certified by the ASPS is like buying a fur coat in an alley. The quality won’t be high.
Once I had a list of possibilities, before I started calling offices, I made a promise to myself: always listen to my gut. If something—anything—didn’t feel right, I’d just walk away. There are too many options out there to stick with a situation that doesn’t sit right. To this day I am so glad I stuck to that promise, especially when it came to my choice of surgeon. From my idle research over the years I knew enough about my procedure, its price range, and what to expect from a consultation to know when something was hinky. Because of this it took me two months to find my plastic surgeon. What made me choose my surgeon was that she felt like a good fit with me. Our personalities jived, her results pictures were amazing, and she answered my questions before I asked them. Just know that you are going to have to have a lot of faith and trust in this person to make right what you can’t, so with every doctor you visit in the search process never hold back, never mince words, and always listen to yourself above them.
Once I chose my doctor and we figured out my surgery date, I had a couple of months to prepare. On my to-do list: let my employer know that I was going to have surgery (a note: no company is allowed to ask what kind—if they do, you don’t have to tell them), quit smoking (a whole other article), and freak out a lot. Just know that no matter what procedure you have done or how confident you are in your decision, you will freak out at least once. It’s a big life change, and with any big life change—like, say, marriage—a freak out or two is totally fine, and don’t let anyone tell you differently.
Surgery: Lots of Naked Time
The big day FINALLY arrived. I had talked with and paid my doctor, the surgical center, and the anesthesiologist in the week prior, properly rearranged my bedroom and apartment for recovery, arranged to have a caretaker (my dad), filled all my pain medications, and bought all the post-surgery necessities (movies, gauze, Neosporin, cold pads, soup, Jello, baggy clothes…the list goes on and on). The day of the surgery went better than I was expecting, but there were a few surprises, the main one being a LOT of people saw me naked. Granted they were all hospital staff, but unless you’re a stripper you won’t be prepared for it, but at least you know now. Because that was one thing I didn’t read about online or think to ask my doctor about, it was a shock to be sure. Oh, and for all you gentlemen out there, hospitals are very cold. That doesn’t help things in the least, if you catch my drift.
Recovery: An Exercise in Patience
I’m not going to sugarcoat it, recovery takes a long time. I have incredibly lazy tendencies, but I was at home, immobile in bed for so long I thought I was going to scream. Even after I wasn’t in pain anymore and my head was clear of all the medications I could still barely move around. After I could move around a little bit more and could go back to work I was so happy, but that quickly faded after sitting in a desk chair for an hour and becoming so stiff and swollen that I felt like all progress had faded away. It’s now 6 weeks since my surgery, and I measure my recovery in three to four day increments. If I try anything less than that I get depressed. And my recovery is considered faster than normal. See, the thing is I wanted and planned for this change for so long that I just ignored the reality of the recovery. In reality it takes a long time, it is a lot of work, and the results are not perfection. Sounds like everything else in life, doesn’t it? At least everything that matters.
If you decide to take this journey as well, chances are for the most part the specifics of your story will differ from mine, but what won’t differ will be our foundations. I provide my foundation to help you build yours, a luxury I didn’t have, which made my process that much harder. For the sake of (failed) brevity I left out a lot of details, but I will be more than happy to give you all the nitty gritties, as well as before and after pictures if you desire (just email the Webmaster for my contact details). Though I have a long way to go at this point, I can honestly say I will never regret having the surgery, and will always be incredibly proud of myself for doing it. It sometimes hits me that my focus on years and years of physical and emotional issues are now gone, and in their place is the ability to enjoy life on a different level. It’s such a sense of relief.
