Sharyn's Surgery Update

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

CarolG emailed me this morning and reminded me that I hadn’t

posted an update since my surgery, which was last Wednesday, a week ago

yesterday.

I’m doing awesome! I came through the surgery

just fine, although looked like I’d been beaten with a baseball

bat. Or like those old Roadrunner cartoons, when he runs face first into

the side of a cliff. I looked pretty bad for a couple of days.

I took a dose each of Arnica 200C for

bruising/trauma/anesthesia and Phosphorus 200C for bleeding both before and

after the surgery, then since have put Arnica gel on the facial bruising –

wherever there isn’t an incision (mostly under the eyes…and it

disappeared about 90% of the bruising overnight) – and have taken several

doses of Arnica 30C as I’ve thought about it, probably 5-6 all together

since last Saturday.

I went in for my first post-surgical visit to the surgeon on

Friday morning, and he removed both the turban around my head (meant to keep my

forehead on until the stitches took??<G>…I have stitches in a

horseshoe from one ear to the other, at the hairline) and the dressings from my

breasts. Oh, they sent me home from OR with a “torso girdle”

which covered the breast dressings and held everything in place. He told

me I could remove it after that visit and wear a non-underwire seamless bra of

my choice…but I need to wear a bra day and night for the first month.

And I could finally shower! I’ll never take being clean for granted

again! I took a good long shower on Saturday morning, shaved my underarms

and legs (the only bad thing about living in south Florida is I have to shave every day or I

feel like a scrunge), washed my hair – carefully! – and just

generally rejoiced in being clean again. Got to see my new boobs for the

first time and lovedlovedlovedlovedloved them!

On Sunday I was feeling (and looking) well enough to go to

our favorite football bar to watch the first quarter of the Giants/Bucs game…I

did wear a big floppy straw hat and glasses to hide all the stitches so as not

to gross out the rest of the bar patrons. Everyone was excited –

and surprised – to see me…but I wasn’t about to start my week

off without one of ’s famous Bloody s for breakfast!<G>

Tuesday I went back to the surgeon and got my eyelid

stitches out. Ouchie! But I thanked him profusely for the new boobs…and

he said if I loved them now, just wait a couple of months, because they will

only improve with time. Geez, how many people can say

that?<VBG> So I’m very excited about that.

I realized yesterday morning that my short pixie-ish hairdo

now is the exact same one I had in my senior picture when I graduated from high

school almost FORTY years ago! And I think I look better now than I did

then…

My forehead still feels weird…there’s a numb

spot at the outside of my right eyebrow…and the whole forehead feels like

it’s not quite attached. Considering they peeled it down like a

banana skin before lifting it up and stretching it back into place, then

cutting off the excess and stitching it up, I’m not surprised. It’s

already improved immensely since the surgery, so I’m confident total

feeling will come back in a short time. Not so with the top of my head…feels

like I have a baseball cap on under my hair. I was warned about that

ahead of time; the two main nerves which feed the top of the skull have been

cut and will not regenerate (so *he*

says! we'll just see about that!<G>), but the surrounding nerves will

expand their “coverage territory” and the dead zone should decrease

to the size of a half dollar within a couple of years. My aim is that it

won’t take that long!

So…I’m doing very well! Awesome, as I said

above…my horseshoe stitches come out next Tuesday, and probably my breast

stitches also. Some of the breast stitches are dissolvable (the ones in

the layers inside), but the outer ones have to be removed. He likes to

have control over when to remove them, so that they disappear at the exact

right time for the best healing of the scars.

I’m using a product called Celltrex with CoQ10 (http://www.nuskin.com/intercom/productDetail.do?prodId=01131809)

which I used to sell when I was a NuSkin distributor. We were allowed to

say back then that it reduced scarring…that isn’t in the product

literature anymore (gotta love the FDA!), but I’m pretty sure it still

works the way it did back then, probably better because it didn’t have

CoQ10 in it then. I’m putting it on my eyelid scars now, and will

start using it on the hairline ones and the breast ones as soon as the stitches

are out and the inflammation from their removal disappears. (It *hurts* to get stitches out!)

I’m sure that being over-the-top healthy to begin with

has had a lot to do with my quick bounce back. And I have to say…anyone

who is contemplating having an eyelid lift, it’s the best thing ever…well,

almost the best. The best is a breast lift!<BG>

The only downside to this is that this little sun bunny isn’t

allowed to sunbathe for awhile. He reiterated that when I was getting my

eyelid stitches out on Tuesday. (Guess he could tell from the fact that

my whole body is brown, with no tan lines, huh?) I’m contemplating

cheating on that (like I cheated with my contacts…put them back in the

morning before I got my eyelid stitches out…just couldn’t stand

wearing glasses anymore)…we’ll see…but the weather is so

beautiful it’s difficult to stay out of the sun!

Oh, and when I went in on Tuesday to have the eyelid

stitches removed, while I was in the waiting room there was a pod of dolphins

(the Flipper ones, not the mahi-mahi ones) feeding in the river right outside

the window! I love living here! Where else would you get surprise

dolphins?!?!?

Sharyn