Breakdown. Go ahead, give it to me.

So I was posting on a BB that I belong to but hadn't visited in a looooong time (ObesityHelp.com) and giving my friends there a run-down of where I've been/what I've been up to since the last time I'd done the same there, and it occurred to me perhaps I should c/p my post here. Cuz after all, as I've mentioned before, I stopped blogging completely for a while (and stopped reading other blogs and visiting my fav BB's, etc.) but of course, just because I don't document my actions and whereabouts, doesn't mean I cease to exist ("if a Beth falls down in Cyberspace, will zero gravity keep her from crashing her machine or will her blog just continue to roll?")

Ready?

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• April - June: Did a show – Lyric Theatre's Yeomen of the Guard (1st pic to right - on stage)
  



• July - August 2: Did another show – Lyric Theatre's Floradora (2nd pic on right - purchasing gown for show)
  



• August: hung out with Julia, Bunny Lugosi and the underachiever cat posse (Bunny Lugosi 3rd pic down)
  



• September 9: Put Julia into public middle school



• September 9: Left husband and moved into my own apartment



• September 9 - November 20: Cried.



• September 9 - Present: Trying to figure out what I want out of life.



• October - November: Dated a guy I knew (from the scooter scene) for 7 weeks of those 3 months only to get dumped when he realized I was, in fact, human and not the grinning automaton he'd apparently hoped for. I patted myself on the back for being tactful enough not to show too much relief when he left.









• November 7: Attended wedding of Todd Downing and Raechelle Marsh Downing in West Seattle with Lucy Leadskin.
  
  















• November 20: Started talking to husband again.



• November 20: Reconciled with husband (within 4 days, unofficially moved back home)



• December 28: Officially moved back home. Simultaneously began hand-wringing over clutter and excess of furniture.



• January 3 - 24: Sang backup chorus (from the orchestra pit) and painted japanese dragons for a show – Stanford Savoyards The Mikado (pic of my painted dragons below)
  
  
  



• January 15: Began couples counseling with husband.



• February 8: Had tummy-tuck with fat-transfer into face (to restore apples back into cheeks and fill in nasolabial folds and "jowl-y bits" on undersides of mouth)



• February 18: celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. Well, at least is WAS our anniversary. We didn't really celebrate as I'm recuperating from surgery, AND that day I was having horrible back spasms to boot. Gah! So instead we're going to Maui in April and calling it our Anniversary trip. First time in Hawaii. (I'm dating myself here but...) anyone remember the old Mac sound called "wild eep?" Well...Wild Eep!
  



• Currently: have Olympic Fevah! Am also waiting for the audition call for Lyric Theatre's Spring show, which is also The Mikado. Should I get in, that will take up most of my evenings from late April through the end of June. Also contemplating sale of my beloved Juicy, my 2009 Vespa 250i.e. in order to purchase one of the new (rumored) fuel-injected smaller framed 2010 models that are supposed to arrive in the states in the next few months. I've got my eye on a Giallo Lime LX150i.e. There's one out there with my name on it. I can feel it in my bones. Yarp.
  

More post-surgical pics forthcoming, now that I don't have weird rubber tubes coming out of me and practically all of my bruising is gone. HUGE difference. Once I stop having to put peroxide and bacitracin on stuff and can finally quit dealing with it all, I think I'll actually be happy with the results. I haven't been able to say that until today. Oh what a difference a new compression garment and a shower makes!

xoxo

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Oh yeah!
Update on Julia's school: She's loving it, and has made 2 really great friends that she hangs with constantly, either at their house or here afterschool (now that I'm finally an adult home in the afternoon. She's also now finally passing everything, and with *almost* decent grades. That may come off sounding a little negative but it's really not meant to me; it's actually a huge improvement from the beginning when she was failing almost everything, largely because she never turned anything in).

Free at last, free at last...

I'll save you the whole MLKJ speech but you get the idea. Why am I yodling such things at this time? CUZ MAH DRAINS WERE TAKEN OUT YESTERDAY, MUTHAFUCKAHS!!! Oh yes. I are, indeed, free at last from looooooong rubber tubes full of goo coming out of the front of my FUPA (which, thanks to some strategic lipo from my surgeon, I can happily remove the F from that word, finally...YAY! Lady Gaga's got nuthin' on me...I got my tuck-game goin' ON!).

And this also means I no longer have to wear the weird velcro squeezy-thing they sent me home from the surgicenter in. It started right below the boobs but ended right at the hips, so whenever I sat down, it began a slow crawl up my back...and up ONTO my incision. OMG the pain. Yank it down again. Start over. Lather, rinse, repeat, ad nauseaum for 2 FULL weeks. If I tried make the garment tighter, it hurt the incisions. If I made it looser, it wouldn't do its job, which was to keep the swelling in my abdomen down. So basically, it was a velcro Sausage-Maker™ made by Satan Industries, Inc., and beyond the tubes, the absolute bane of my existence. And while said tubes were in, I had no choice but to keep wearing that exact garment because the tubes required one that allowed them to be dealt with easily. Nothing else I could find would really work. Surgically assfucked. A lot of the vicodin I've taken in the last few weeks was to escape not only the pain, but this realization.

But NO MORE! I got the last drain yanked yesterday (the appt. I drove 45 miles to and from myself, TYVM), came home, thought about it for a few hours and then found myself at Kohl's at 8:30pm trying on full-length bike-short unitard support-wear that held me in all over but still let me move and didn't make me feel like I was being cut in half. Finally bought 2 of these and will probably buy a couple more in black online since they didn't have them in the store. Very comfy and I can wear whatever bra I want with it (or none) and the only thing it wouldn't work with is shorts or a mini-skirt. Like I'm wearing those in February. By the time I'm breaking out the spring/summer gear, I won't be needing this compression shit anymore. I'll be....BIKINI WOMAN! (Like dat chick....Biff! Pow!!) ----->





OH! And I forgot the best part:

After 2 weeks of sponge-baths and washing my hair in the kitchen sink...
I CAN FINALLY TAKE A SHOWER TODAY!!!!!!!


(faint)

Down for the count

Have been having horrendous back spasms for the last 3 days that have taken me from feeling pretty darn good at my post-op appt. (for someone – at that point – 10 days out from surgery) to a wincing, hunched over wreck...weeping and half-praying for death (not really, just for the pain to end). Like an icepick in my back, wiggling around next to my spine. Pleasant.

The drugs my surgeon suggested sort of take care of it, but I can only take them every 12 hours, and they only take care of the pain for about half that time. So I'm still miserable for several hours of the day. Grrr.

BUT when they're working, they work great. Totally on the mend. That's the good news. So, if anyone reads this, please throw some good karma in this direction that the back spasms either 1.) go the hell away, or 2.) I find a better med cocktail to smack 'em down more effectively. Coolies? M'kay. Much appreciated ;)

Mwah! xoxo

Time for some whine.

Just a quickie:

Ready for the pain to go away now. :( Who was the muthafucking idiot who decided to wean me off of narcotics? Oh wait...that would be me. Crap.

3 ibuprofen at a time isn't cutting it, to make up for "a vicodin followed by 2 ibu a couple hours later," which has been my old standby all week. And which was just *barely* cutting it as it was. So I guess maybe I'll try 4 ibuprofen. That's 800 mg, for those of you playing the home game. If that doesn't choke this pain horse, I guess I'm goin' back on the junk. Just call me Janis. Or Jim. Or Jimi. Not quite a member of the 27 Club but, hey...it's not heroin either. Just remember Nigel's words:

"You can't really dust for vomit."

More nasty post-surgery pix

I feel pretty.














































Mad stylin,' yo.

Update (with yucky post-surgical pix)

Praise sweet cheeses! All the feeling in my lip came back the next day. My surgeon said it was from the NG tube they'd put in and that the numbness was temporary. Sho'nuff.

So I lied. I'm posting icky "during" pics. Mwuahahaha.


Lots of pain. Lots of itching, crawling sensations under the skin where I can't do anything about it. Nerves re-stitching themselves, I know. I've done this before. I know what to expect. Still hate it. But this is BY FAR the worst pain I've ever been in before. Most of it from my stomach muscles having been surgically tightened, not from the hip-to-hip incision one would think the pain would be coming from.



The good news is that I was able to talk my surgeon OUT of using surgical tapes on me, so at least this time I'm not battling my adhesive allergy as well as regular healing issues and pain. Adhesive leaves me with horrendous itching and welts that are almost worse than the actual incisions and require aftercare themselves. She said the tape wasn't necessary to hold the incision together so luckily the sutures I have in place are enough, but the tapes were supposed to be a bit more protection so they don't have to use as much dressing. So instead I'm completely mounded in gauze. Oh well. I'd rather be wrapped like a mummy than scratching my skin off from the adhesive. It's already bad enough that I have to have 2 pieces of the tape on each hip to hold all that gauze on. :(


The compression garment is several shades of awful. Very tight, of course, but the worst part is that it only fits from sternum to hip, so it cuts right into the points at which my bruising is at its worst (where the lipo was done). If the garment was still constrictive but extended past those points, it wouldn't be nearly as painful since at least it wouldn't DIG in. I honestly think it's making the bruising worse. I totally look like something out of Fight Club. Wish I had Meatloaf's moobs to cry on.






Oh! And speaking of making ones own soap, I have a stunning black eye from the fat transfer into my face. Actually, not so much black as technicolor – a new color is added each day, in fact. Gorgeousness and gorgeousity made flesh. Mind you, all this was in the name of vanity. Yarp.


I never said I was a *smart* woman.

Nip this, tuck that

Home again, home again, jiggity jig!

Tummy tuck today with the same surgeon/place I had my breast lift 1.5 years ago. Well technically not. Same surgeon, Dr. Usha Rajagopal, but my surgeon's surgicenter is under construction so she's performing her surgeries at a different surgicenter several LARGE city blocks away. Chris and I weren't nearly as impressed with this place as we were with Dr. Usha's in-house facility and amazing staff but, all told, it was still a perfectly fine experience. Dr. Usha's patients are just extremely spoiled by her surgical staff and accomodations, in my opinion. I know I am. :)

Very very sore (tightened muscle girdle) and icky drains but shot full of Demerol and propped in bed. I love love love my surgeon. She removed 2lbs of skin and lipo'd out over 1lb of fat, some of which she purified and reinjected into my face to restore some lost "youth' (stolen from weight loss). I have marks all over me (including my face) I can't seem to get off though, not with soap, mineral oil, makeup remover, nuthin.' Grr. (Where's the Goo-Gone? Maybe WD-40?). But the puffage I can see through the ink looks loverly. Only issue is that one side of my upper lip is numb (and NO, I didn't have my lips done...just my upper cheek "apples", the laugh lines next to my nose/mouth, and the depressions right next to some pooches I'd be hard-pressed not to call the beginning of marionette-jowls. I suspect she might have hit a nerve with the needle when she was puffing the laugh lines. Oh well...maybe it'll start to tingle soon.

Ooooh, and did I mention...I have a brand-new belly button? Somewhere underneath this gauze, supposedly. Hrm. Well, I guess it's the same belly button I've always had but it got pulled through a new hole and got re-centered (it had gone off-sides when Julia was IN MAH BELLEH veering off to towards my right side). Anyway, maybe it won't look like Crater Lake now.

BUT the best part: finally, after two days of antibacterial surgical wash on my body/face and no grooming products allowed, deodorant and moisturizer is *such* bliss! :)

OK. Blogging on Demerol is a bit of a challenge so I'm gonna go before I have to untangle my fingers and/or hit my head on the desk passing out. Me, my puffy face and surgically-reduced tummy signing off for now.

Champagne wishes and Vicodin dreams, mah peeps! xoxo



p.s. Drains...are the hardcore NASTAY.

p.p.s. None of these pics or links to pics are of me or anything attached to me. I'll do us ALL a favor and wait for the good lookin' "after" shots, m'kay? ;)