Abdominoplasty: Five Weeks Post-Op

how I felt on Tuesday already

Work is s l o w l y killing me. So much stress. I already considered switching from coffee to G & T’s on Monday morning and the theme sort of developed from there. By Thursday I was crying in a zoom meeting. Not pretty. I’m hoping that the weekend of de-stressing will help me go into next week with a better head space. Fingers crossed.

Week Five

I can’t complain really, but I feel like my recovery posts are so boring! Things are going well. Nothing to really mention. I believe it’s just another week of slow progression. I feel good and there are no complications.

Walking

I wanted to up my walking to hit around 8,000 steps per day on average and I managed that. Job done!

  • Monday – got out at lunch for a 3.7KM walk. Pretty much stuck to my and the suurounding neighbourhood for this one.
  • Tuesday – Ron and I went into the park at lunch and I walked 4KM in total.
  • Wednesday – We did a round around the perimeter of the park at lunch, total 4.10KM walking.
  • Thursday – again in the park at lunch but more in the hilly areas and not the parkrun route, total 4.15KM
  • Friday – I didn’t record a walk, but I did go to an appointment in the morning and then did a few errands so it was about 45 min in total.
  • Saturday – notparkrun day! Had two new people join our little group; a few of the crew were away so still had a nice, small manageable group. I walked my 5KM notparkrun
  • Sunday – no walk recorded

Total steps for the week: 62,346 or an average of 8,906 per day. Total walking recorded: 21KM

Biking

I wanted to ride my spin bike twice this week but that did not happen. I made the specific choice to get outside and walk most days as the crazy was fairly severe. At one point I did get ON the bike just to see if I could do handlebars or if I still had to bike sitting straight up. Success! for me that was enough, knowing I could now bend at the waist to bike properly.

With that knowledge in mind, on Sunday I decided to take Kolette (my bike) out, get some fresh air and go for a real bike ride. 27KM with no issues at all. More biking, please!

Recovery Therapies

This week I had one appointment for manual lymph drainage massage. There is some relief to the swelling but it seems to be kind of temporary. I’m assured this is normal. To be honest, I’m not as swollen as I was a couple weeks ago so I see this, too, as progression. I’ll keep doing this about 1 x every 7 -10 days and at 3 months I can start to have scar therapy.

I went to cryotherapy 4 times this week! I actually subscribed to a monthly membership and am going to go every day for at least a month. Whether you “believe” in cryotherapy or not, it’s not something you can just do once or twice and experience some massive result. I do find it very invigorating at least! And this morning when I went one of my former bodypump instructors was there and we went in the cabin together. 3 1/2 minutes goes by quick when you are chatting! (normally 3 min but she was going for 3 1/2 so I said I would just go for it)

I’m still doing vitamin E on my scar and massaging it and this week the MLD therapist told me I could even just put vaseline on there several times a day to soften it up. Heck of a lot cheaper than scar cream or silicone strips!

I also bought a waist trainer – a proper corset that I will use for a couple of months, especially with working out. I only have to wear my compression garments for 6 weeks, since this week I’m “allowed” to skip it at night, but I’m still wearing light garments (just feels better). After 6 weeks I’m free to lose the garments if I want, but with the swelling it just feels better to be a bit packed in. I’ve read a lot about wearing a garment for sports and running, so I hope this will help me ease back into things. I did wear it for the biking today and I think it made it much easier to handle being bent over for almost 2 hours.

Little Accomplishments

Sometimes during recovery it’s really the little things. This week I not only was able to bike, but I also drove myself to my MLD appointment. Bad news about progress is that I was also able to vacuum and pull some weeds in the front garden. I guess this means I have to cook soon too… haha!

Next Week

Will keep the steps around the same next week, no need to already go more than 8000 or 9000. Since I’m not really supposed to work out officially for 6 weeks I won’t do more than a bike ride like today at the maximum. I am probably going to *try* to see how a few of the body pump exercises feel (w/out weights) and make a better attempt at the exercises I talked about last week.

I have to go to the office next Wednesday – not really looking forward to that but there’s a big meeting for everyone at the “new” company so I kind of need to go!

That’s a wrap!

That’s pretty much it – hope everyone had a good week. I did manage a few more blogs this week, maybe even more in the new week??

Comments

  1. Darlene says:

    So happy to read that your recovery is going as planned.

    Walks outside are great. Hooray for biking and driving. Little things lead to big things.

    1. run.laugh.eat pie says:

      thank you so much for your ongoing support Darlene. Little things do lead to big things, that’s for sure!

  2. Liz Dexter says:

    Well done with the progression of your recovery, that’s lovely to read. And getting out on the bike: super!

    1. run.laugh.eat pie says:

      thanks so much Liz! and thank you for the support through this!

  3. Marcia says:

    I’m so glad to hear your recovery is moving along nicely! Hooray for the ability to do a bike ride. I’m wondering if your scar would be similar to a C-section one.

    1. run.laugh.eat pie says:

      Thank you so much Marcia! I think the scar for a c-section is not as long. Some tummy tuck scars really go hip to hip which can cause issues like “dog ears” later. I’m really glad my surgeon did not go all the way hip to hip. thank you for the support, I appreciate it!

  4. Coco says:

    Ugh on the work stress, I’m so sorry. Yay on the bike ride though – that’s fantastic!

    1. run.laugh.eat pie says:

      Yes the work stress continued unfortunately. But the walks and the biking helps!!

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