Imperfect Shiny and New
In order for this to make sense, you have to read this post first.
Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
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Done?
Okay.
So, that plan didn’t quite work out. I shouldn’t have expected it to.
Let me back up a moment.
I’ve been in terrible pain for so long that I cannot remember when I wasn’t. I’ve had daily migraines since Amelia was born, something that I’d had off and on before that. I take a drug called Topamax (I lovingly call it “The Max,” when I’m feeling especially jaunty) to treat them, but it leaves me feeling a bit blurry.
The muscles spasms I have in my back, neck and shoulders are relatively new, and they trigger the migraines that The Max once blurrily held at bay. Through a mixture of muscle relaxants, pain medication, and daily chiropractic appointments, I’ve managed to keep them decently under control.
The pain has made me excruciatingly depressed. It makes me feel broken that “something is always wrong” with me. My friends tease me about it. I hate it because deep inside, I fear that they’re right. I’m irrevocably broken.
Because nothing can go according to plan, it’s no surprise that the surgeon took one look at my breasts and said that while they were, in fact, large, the insurance company would deny my reduction. It wouldn’t be enough tissue removed to meet their arbitrary criteria. I could, of course, fight it, appeal it, and in the end, perhaps get it covered. But, he also warned, I’d also probably want a lift and restructuring of the breast as well, not just a removal of tissue.
I saw dollar signs add up and I knew he was right.
I’d also gone in to talk about an abdominoplasty, which, in non-medical terms is a full tummy tuck. I’d heard you Pranksters talk about having both done at once and figured that I might as well, since I was going in for a reduction that I was certain insurance would pay for, see about having that done at the same time. Or really, just see what that was about.
We all have Those Things that we hate about ourselves. Maybe you hate your hair or your nose or your feet. I hate my gut. Always have. I was blessed with a pot belly and I’ve always planned to have it removed…eventually. No matter how skinny I become, I can’t lose it from there. Drives me bonkers.
The surgeon palpated my abdomen and discovered that the three babies that gestated in my short torso had done a number on my abdominal muscles. I’d suffered diastasis recti, or the separation of the abdominal muscles, which was weakening the core muscles of my body.
It made sense.
The surgeon wasn’t pushy about the surgery at all. He didn’t promise a miracle cure or that somehow my symptoms would miraculously improve overnight. But between what he said, my nursing/anatomical knowledge, and my symptoms, I felt that it made sense. Yes, it will be partially fulfilling my lifelong dream of having a tummy tuck, but also, and it’s a shot at me trying to get better.
I’m having surgery next week on Wednesday. I’ll be having the full abdominoplasty, not simply the outpatient cosmetic one, which means I’ll be in the hospital overnight.
Frankly, Pranksters, I didn’t want to post about this.
I’m nervous about the procedure and I know that there will be enough people reading this who don’t agree with what I’m doing. Whenever you open up about some health-related thing on The Internet, there’s some faction of people who are all, “YOU SHOULDN’T DO THAT, YOU SELFISH HEATHEN,” and really, I don’t need to hear it. This is my decision and my body.
To those of you who feel it’s important to come and attack me for my choices: I don’t have to ask permission. If you do not like what I am doing, that is absolutely fine. I don’t ask that you like it. I ask that you respect it as my choice.
But as my Pranksters, I know that you deserve the truth.
The Internet Mole People that will invariably come and shit all over me can suck it.
And to the person who said that I am proof that bad things happen to bad people? You can eat a bowl of hot dicks, baby.