Healing after this surgery has taken much longer and been much more uncomfortable than after the first one. As you can see from the pictures, within the first few days I developed some fairly epic bruising (so much for Arnica!), which spread with a green hue down my shins into a black and blue pool at my ankles making it all feel a bit tender and look very messy. Long skirts and dresses have been purchased, just in case spring does arrive at some point this year.
The adits on my right leg stopped leaking on Day 4, while the left one kept going strong till Day 7 meaning I had to buy in some extra bandages. The swelling didn't start going down till Day 9, and is still today at 11 days post-op, very uncomfortable and painful to manage with. I really hope it goes down a lot more, and fast, as my skin feels very hard in places and it's very very tight. I
struggle to walk in normal strides, lift and bend my knees, move my legs apart, bend forwards
etc without feeling like it's tearing off from my muscles. Going from sitting
or lying to standing is very stiff and sore. The incision sites are
very noticeable to the touch, like little hard lumps, and I'm still more
comfortable in the compression garment, since it feels like it holds my skin
onto my bones a bit more!
Before the surgeries I thought about whether my skin would feel 'loose' afterwards, or if it would contract nicely. I hoped for the latter as I'm still young and I've never been a yo-yo dieter which might have led to the skin being less elastic. The other worry would be that the channels beneath my skin would make it look as if I had more cellulite, and that in gaining a less bulgy profile overall I'd lose on smoothness of the skin.
I spoke to Dr. Gupta about some of this as he was working on me, and he explained that the reason why he goes deep with the cannulas is specifically to pull fat from as close to the muscle as possible, leaving a smoothing layer of fat just under the surface of the skin. From what I can see so far I'm not quite getting away with it. Looking in the mirror and at pictures, plus the feeling when I run my hands over them, my thighs are going to be and look lumpier. My hope is that it's still early days, and that over time things will become a bit smoother, but I have to make peace with the fact that that they might not. I just hope it's still swelling, and not scar tissue forming under my skin.
In other disheartening news, my chest have gone from measuring 85cm pre-op, to 90cm immediately post-op, 88cm at their Day 9, and now at Day 20: 85cm again. They do still look a little bit bigger than before, being a bit fuller and rounder if not projecting outwards as much, but the increase in size is definitely less than I had hoped. Not quite sure how else to feel about that, other than crossing fingers I might have a last chance top 'top up' at a later stage.
So here is the picture update so far, it's Day 18 for outer thighs and while mostly faded you can still see shadows of the bruises, while all the adits are still very red.
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| Bruising on inner thighs and knees, Day 4. |
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| Inner thighs Day 9 |
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| Detail of knees Day 9 |
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| Ankles Day 9 |
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| Day 18 outer thighs, Day 9 inner thighs and knees |
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| Day 18 outer thighs, Day 9 inner thighs and knees |
