this evening.
today SHOULD have been a very good day. It SHOULD have been the launch of my Skin Removal fundraiser. but it wasnt.
last night i had a photo shoot to take HD pics of all my sag and flab so that i could have clear images on my fund raiser page. I was so damn nervous. it actually went really well though. I thought seeing my yuck in HD was going to make me feel like shit. when i saw the pictures, though, i was actually really happy with them. my wrinkles and sag may have been in HD, but so were my muscles. more so than my bad parts, my eye kept being drawn to my GOOD parts. I was with the photographer, his girlfriend, and her mom.... so i was a little nervous to be exposed in front of all of them, but it also helped that no ones jaw dropped with shock when i came out of the bathroom and no one was laughing or even cared.
i realized that part of why i feel so bad about my body is because i am hiding it. i show the good parts but the bad parts are like my dirty little secret. it was kind of liberating to literally put them on display. constantly feeling like i have to hide these parts of me is beginning to develop feelings of shame about them. as my shrink has told me in the past, shame is the most destructive emotion, so i really need to correct that. i dont want my flab and sag to be my dirty little secret anymore. i am actually REALLY looking forward to releasing the pictures.
I wish I had been able to today, but I dont want to start sharing the page until i have it finished. currently, i do not have a total to put on it.
this morning i had a consultation for the actual surgeon who will be working on me to look at my body. i basically got nothing but bad news. i had put a deposit on a promotion for a tummy tuck and breast lift with implant for $9800, over a year ago. at the time, i had only lost about 70lbs. i knew i wasnt near ready for surgery but i just wanted to know what to expect for when the time came. today when the doctor looked at me, he told me that we could still do that procedure, but i would not get the best results from it anymore. basically, if i do that procedure i am going to look unfinished. i didnt realize my back side was sagging because 1- i dont see it often, 2- i dont have an ass to notice it got lower. however, once he pulled the skin up, it was very clear that my back side is sagging. he explained to me i will most likely end up with bulges on my sides where my incision ends and the back side sagging begins. i had noticed i have a slight bulge there already, but i didnt know why. i thought i just lost fat in a weird pattern. but as soon as he pulled it up, it looked smooth again, so now i know why it was looking like that. when he saw my aunts tummy tuck a few months ago, he said whoever did it should have suggested the lower body lift for her as well. when he pulled her skin up it was much smoother and more finished looking. so i think its in my best interest to do the lower body lift so when i am my aunts age and dont have a ton of collagen left, I am not being told the same thing and having to do surgery all over again.
the next problem is the amount of loose skin in my upper abdomen. if they just cut at the bottom and pull it down, my upper abdomen is still going to have a little puckering. my doctor thinks my best bet is to not only have a horizontal incision around my belt line, but also a vertical one right up the middle of my stomach. this was heart breaking to me. when you see my pictures you will understand why fixing just the bottom of my stomach is not going to work. theres no point in tightening the bottom of my stomach if the top will still hang. i had accepted the idea of a tummy tuck scar. i was overwhelmed thinking about the fact that now i will have a scar around my entire body. but now, to be told that i am going to need to have a scar the length of my abdomen in order to get the best result, i am devastated. i am actually MAD at myself. had i just stopped losing weight 40lbs ago, i would only need a normal tummy tuck. but now i have lost too much fat for that to work, i am wrinkly in too many extra places that a "tummy tuck" wont fix. that is heart breaking. it feel like a punishment for losing the weight myself rather than just having the surgeon chop it off a year ago.
the first thing that comes to mind is all the extra pain from all the extra cutting and stitching. more space to rip open, more space to heal, just more to take care of. my second biggest issue is that it will look like i had gastric bypass surgery. i will have the giant scar weightloss surgery patients have down then middle of their stomachs. i HATE that scar. not just becuase it cant be hidden in a bathing suit, but because its already hell to convince people i didnt have WLS, how the hell will anyone ever believe me when i have a scar that "proves" it?! i dont know why i am so bent out of shape about scars though. my entire mid section from armpits to hips, front to back and everywhere in between is covered in stretch marks. so what does it matter if i have surgery scars? i dont know. i just dont want all these scars to have anyone thinking a doctor gave me my body. i know i earned my body, but i could see why someone wouldnt believe that if they see me looking like fucking frankenstien post op.
no new/bad news about my arms, really. exactly as expected.
i got some good news about my thighs. i will actually be able to have a T shaped scar that will not show in shorts, and the top of the T will be right in the space under my butt cheek, so that will not be super obvious. i thought id have a scar from my crotch to my knee but the doctor doesnt think thats necessary. he also doesnt think i will need surgery on my calves. im starting to get wrinkles on my inner calves but he thinks thatll correct itself.
i was hoping by some miracle the doctor would say i could do all of my surgery at once, done in one shot and only deal with that BS once. that was the last part of bad news. its not safe to be under anesthesia for more than 8 hours so i will have to break it up into two separate surgeries. the first one would probably be the lower body and leg lift. id need to take 3 weeks off of work, 6 weeks off of the gym. 8 weeks after my first surgery (or later, but thats the soonest) i will go back in and have the breast lift with implant and arm lift.ill then have to take another 3 weeks off of work, and another 6 off of the gym.
at first, that news made me cry. if i do the first surgery in July that means second surgery wouldnt be till sept. that mean its going to be another YEAR before i am post op. i am so fucking sick of this. another YEAR looking like this?!!! what the fuck. the more and more i thought about it, i decided that wasnt the worst news ever. i guess taking 3 weeks off 2 months apart is better than a solid 6 weeks. i also am happy that the two worst parts (belly and thighs) will be taken care of first. i am unhappy with my arms but i have hated my arms every day of my life so i accepted showing them a long time ago. i hate how my boob look in clothes (what boobs?!) but the good news is, ive totally done something i never eve did as a teenager (i had a C cup by age 12) and that is, stuff my bra. i am not even embarassed by it. i straight up put sock and extra padding from bathing suit in there to go to work some days. i dont care. i refuse to look like an anorexic little girl and i refuse to have everyone see them wrinkle every time i lean over. when theyre stuffed they do not wrinkle. as far when i dont have clothes, i kind of like my little boobies as long as i am standing up right. theyre cute. theyre tiny, but cute. laying down or leaning forward is a whole other story. but i am thinking, if my thighs and stomach were fixed, i think i could live with having little boobs and fucked up arms an extra two months. i want to fix those parts because i know they could be better, but those are not the two parts i cry over every day. as much as i miss my DDs, i have never cried over losing my boobs. however, i cry looking at my thighs and my stomach all the time.
i know some people feel like i should not be embarrassed by my skin and i should wear it like a badge of honor because it shows how far ive come. i feel like, it doesnt show how far ive come as much as it shows how far i let myself go. you dont have problems like this if you dont completely neglect your body and let it destroy itself for years. so i feel embarrassed by it because its a constant reminder of how big i let myself become. its kind of the same with the amount of weight ive lost, i am proud to have lost 50% of my weight, but i am ashamed that i had 142lbs of fat on my body. literally, 142lbs of my body were pure fat. that is extremely embarrassing. you know what else is embarrassing? when complete strangers come up to me and say " wow! how much weight have you lost?!" or " you lost a ton of weight, huh?" you would think id be flattered. but think about it. how do they know ive lost weight?! because they can see my skin. i dont want to look like ive lost a ton of weight, i want to look like i spend 6 days a week in the gym!!!!
i know i have said this before, but the way i eat and the way i work out is so much more than is necessary to be healthy. so sometimes i feel like, if i am never going to look like a normal fit person anyway, why even keep it up? i dont mean gain it back, but why bust my ass 6 days? why calorie count every single day? either i will never look like a super fit person, or i will look like a super fit frankenstien with stitches and scars all over the damn place.
one cool thing is that even with ALL of that skin removal, the surgeon only anticipates removing about 7lbs. that makes me happy. at my first consult, judging by where i was then, they anticipated 15-20lbs. i love how plastic surgeons try to make people feel better by saying "oh you have 20lb of skin to remove!!" skin is very thin. 20lbs of skin is like all the skin on your entire body (or at least half). the 20lbs they are removing is extra skin and all the fat that is attached to it. i have more loose skin now than i did at my first consult, but ive cut the weight of what theyll remove in half. the price of my procedure is about 30% more now that i have less fat. how is it they are removing half the weight of skin and charging me more?! because theres more SKIN to be removed so there will be more nipping and tucking, but theres less fat attached to it. the good news is the less fat, the better the cuts will heal and then smaller my scars will be.
there is so so so so so so soooooo much more i am going through, feeling and thinking, but my brain is so tired i dont think now is the time to try to sort it all out. i have the morning off tomorrow, i dont know if maybe rather than cramming in some beach body messaging and working anyways, maybe i should actually take a little ME time on the beach or something. i have nuerofeedback tomorrow, thank GOD. i am not feeling like myself. i feel depressed. i feel overwhelmed. i feel like my body isnt in my control. i mean, i know i get to decide what to do with it, but i dont like that the plans ive made in my head arent going to get me the results im looking for. i am going through some bullshit in my personal relationships that is making all of this even more of a burden to deal with. honestly, i just want a vacation from the world!