Hi,
I thought I'd start a diary here to record my experience and maybe help those who are facing the same problem I was. Forewarning: I'm currently drugged up pretty well, so this may be a bit sloppy.. :-)
I'm 29 years old and up until a few days ago, I had a 'moderate' case of asymetrical gyne. My chest measurement was 38" and almost all of that was due to my left breast, which was pretty substantial. I've had gyne since puberty and was, like many of you guys, just completely sick of it. It interfered with my enjoyment of life - I wore baggy shirts and I was embarassed to go shirtless in public. I'd avoid swimming or other activities; I was always the guy hanging out at the pool with his shirt on "cause I burn easily." There was no particular trigger for me choosing to do the surgery; I'd just simply had enough. I asked my doc for a reccomendation then did a lot of internet searching and reading here. I chose
Dr. Jeffords in Smyrna, GA to do my surgery based on his vast experience (he's done > 600 of these procedures and has had it done on himself) and the great vibe I got from him during our consultation. So far I'm very very very glad I did.
I'll save you all the bitching and moaning about how life was before - I think we all are painfully familiar with that. I'll focus instead on the preop conversations I had with the doc, the day of my surgery, and my recovery.
In my conversations with
Dr. Jeffords about lipo and glandular excision, I learned that with the ultrasonic lipo he uses, he can actually remove both fat and gland via the without the need to make any nipple incisions to remove the gland, provided the gland isn't too large (in my case, it wasn't). He said the cannula device vibrates rapidly and heats up and "melts" out the fat and gland. He did a pretty thorough check of my breast to make sure there weren't any big "boulders" of glands which he would have to manually cut out.
After we were finished talking about my soon-to-be-gone breasts, he asked me about abdomin and love handle lipo. I hadn't ever considered it, and told him so - but then started looking thru the photos he shot. I guess I'm just a asymetrical guy: I had one pretty huge love handle on my left side (none on my right) and and one fairly big fat deposit on the right side of my belly. He said he could contour both of those nicely during the same surgery, so I decided to go with the combo package: chest, trunk, and flanks lipo. Total: ~$7K
The day of surgery, I showed up at the hospital early and played the waiting game. A nurse started an IV on my wrist and when the appointed hour came, the doc marked me up and introduced me to the rest of the surgical team. The anestheseologist gave me a shot of something into my IV which gave me a mild buzz, but I wanted to be completely out of it so she gave me another shot. Boom - that's the last thing I remember before waking up. I have no memory of being wheeled in or out of the OR, or of getting any laughing gas. Dig it!
When I woke up, about 3.5 hours later, I was COLD and pretty sore all over. The recovery nurses gave me some crackers and ginger ale to drink, then started plying me with pain meds. I got a pretty nice assortment - first 10mg of oxy (percocets), then a couple blasts of Demorol. That stuff did exactly what I was looking for: warm, painless, and off to sleep. I woke up a couple hours later to be taken home and got another demorol + fentergin (anti-nausea) blast. I was good to go. I didn't even mind (much) when they removed my catheter. I don't remember much of the hour-and-a-half car ride home.
The doc gave me a script for percocets and said it was very hard to predict the amount of pain I'd feel: some guys think it's the worst ever, and some don't even need any pain meds. Well, chaulk up another in the first category - I've been eating percocets for the last 40 hours or so and I think I'm starting to turn the corner on the pain. The percs and muscle relaxers do a very nice job, although they zonk me pretty well (which is just fine by me). I think they might be a little much for somebody who doesn't like that sort of feeling, but they were just what I needed to be comfortable.
The night of the surgery, I woke up about every 3 hours in pain and having to pee. I managed to get myself into the bathroom and do my business, although it was pretty sucky. The day after I slept, ate pudding, and took heavy doses of narcotics. The 2nd night I woke up twice because I had to pee, once at 3am and once at 5am. Getting to the bathroom was easier than on the first night.
So here I am on Sunday, the 2nd full day after my surgery. I'm bruised up pretty well, but my chest, abdomin, and lovehandle all look
fantastic. I swear, it's like looking down at another guy's body - I do not recognize my now flattened self at all. Too cool!!! I'm going to see the doc on Monday to have my drain removed and see if I am ready to go to the "stage 2" compression garment. And yeah, the garment sucks - itchy + tight. But it's a small price to pay for an optimum result, in my mind.
Now I'm going back to bed and Tivo. I'll post some before/after pictures here a bit later.
--
Sam
Topic: Sam's diary - starting 2 days postop (Read 5404 times)
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