THE surgery

Well, I did it.  After years of talking about it, researching it, dreaming about it, thinking about it and most importantly praying about it, I finally went through with it.  Abdominoplasty.  Also known as a tummy tuck!

I've never had surgery before.  I've never been 'under" anesthesia.  Outside of having babies, I've never been in the hospital. 

I'm the girl that doesn't go to the doctor, doesn't take anything heavier than motrin (and that's how J can tell I'm really in pain and not just being a drama queen!) and hates to be sick.  I'm the girl that when I go to fill out paper work at the doctors office, I fly right through it because I have no medical issues to discuss.  And let's not forget that I am the same girl that went through not 1, but 2 ECVs because I was so petrified of the idea of a C-section.  And let me tell you, THAT was painful.  Very, very painful.

So when I told J that I really wanted to do this, he knew I was serious.  So we prayed about it and things just kinda fell in place.

J happened to have a huge chunk of time off (totally unexpected) and the surgeon that I wanted (whom was booked through to September) happen to get a cancellation, so yeah it all happened kinda fast.

And that was probably a good thing.

The week leading up to the surgery I kept super busy getting things organized for the time that I would OOC (out of commission) so that I wouldn't have much time to over think things.  There was a lot to get organized with school starting, finding people to sub my classes and just the general running of the Mad house with the 4 monkeys that live here.

When I woke up Wednesday morning - surgery day - I was pretty nervous.  J and I didn't say much on the ride to the hospital or while we were there.  I had done all my pre-admission stuff the day before and signed, like, 5,000 papers - 4,999 of which had the word death in bold letters.  As they were prepping me for surgery I made him pray with me a couple of times.I was so nervous that I was crying when my surgeon came in to talk to me.  Yep, I was a total mess.

UNTIL, my anesthesia kicked in.  That was about 8:45am.  I didn't wake up until 4:45pm.  Apparently I am a lightweight.

I woke up sore, but not terribly in pain.  I had an overnight stay at the surgery center and I am so glad I did.  I was the only one there, had my own nurse and best part yet - had a pain pump that I could control.  Seriously, if I got treated that well after childbirth, perhaps I would have had more children!

Yeah, so now I'm home and all things considering, I feel really good.  I have drains that J empties out for me and he said they look great and when I go in on Tuesday for my first post-op visit, my Dr. will probably take them out.  When I walk, it is a little hunched over, but each day even that has gotten better.  I really am surprised at how great I feel 3 days after surgery.  Yay!  Thank you Jesus!!

Everyone here is doing really great too.  J is holding down the fort, the kids are happy and playing, and our great friends are bringing us meals!

I have peeked at my stomach and think it looks WAY better that I imagined it would!  So far, so good!!