It’s no secret this has been a long journey. From the life-changing gastric bypass on November 5, 2018 to the skin removal adventure of early 2021.
When I started the blog, it was a way to put out there all they I experienced. I started with just a semi-anonymous Facebook page that the blog fed to and now I share it right to my page. I’ve gone outside my comfort zone more than I ever thought I would.
My surgeon retired from the Army and left the area. As it turns out, he thinks I had another seroma. This one much smaller than the last one. He sent me to one of the surgeons still at Darnall. By “normal procedure”, I should have been done with the post-surgical binder on 3 April. Because of this stupid baby seroma, I was told to keep wearing it. That means I’ve been pretty steadily in this binder since January 7.
What I realize is about a month after surgery, most of the swelling has dissipated and the area that need the binder is much smaller. This results in the binder rolling. So I tried some compression garments – same effect. The (substitute) surgeon this week said I need to keep wearing the binder – that I had ripped off mid-day for the last couple days in frustration – for “a couple more weeks”.
It finally occurred to me that the problem with the binder is a trigger that takes me back to my heavier days of trying to use spanx or something similar and it rolling. My stomach is as flat as it could be…but we didn’t fix my whole body. We just removed bothersome skin from my abdomen. There are still rolls and they are accentuated by the damn binder (and anything else) rolling.
I stay busy, always on the go and 100 irons in the fire. When I realized it was a trigger and was really starting to bother me…I took the binder off. I took the compression garments off. I’m going to let it roll for now. If it gets worse, I’ll have to own it and go back to the surgeon. For now, I’ll keep an eye on it. Sometimes, you know best for you.
Thanks for joining me on this journey!
Chris
I'm Going to LOSE it 