I arrived at the facility around 7 a.m. on Nov. 8th. I was greeted by the OR nurse. She showed me to a waiting room and gave me a robe to change in to. She was very nice and also bought me a blanket so I would be warm. She explained that they would come in and wipe me down with a wash for surgery and then Dr. Basner would come in and mark me up. Sure enough, a few minutes later, Dr. Basner came in. He is such a nice guy and makes you feel very much at ease. He was marking me up with 3 different colored markers, once he was done, he told me that everything between the red lines was going to go! If you look at the pictures, you will see that is a lot! lol

I don't remember much once I was in the OR. They had me stand and washed me down again, then I got on the table and I don't remember anything. I was in surgery for 6 hours. When I woke up, my husband, sister in law and sister were there along with Maureen, Dr. Basner's assistant. Maureen was going to spend the night with me and take care of me. When I have surgery, I am not the type to sleep a lot, I doze but I am very much awake once I come out of the anesthetic. Everyone was telling me how good I looked. Dr. Basner came in and was surprised that I was awake, the first thing I asked him is if he saved the belly button... hehehe He did.

So, I stayed the night there with Maureen and hubby came to get me bright and early the next morning. I have to admit, I was scared to death to get out of the bed and into the car! I was in some major pain, so much more then when I had WLS. Dr. Basner told me that when they tighten the stomach muscles that it was going to hurt but it would be worth it. Ummmm for the first 3 weeks, I was not so sure it was worth it! I am sure once I heal up more, I will be so glad I had it done but it has been a hard recovery for me. I am not a baby when it comes to pain either but I did not expect the pain I had with this. I borrowed my step fathers walker to use for the first few weeks, what a wonderful thing that little piece of metal was! If you decide to get one, make sure it has some wheels on it and moves easily across the carpet, you won't want to be picking it up to move but to slide it. The first 3 weeks involved a lot of Demerol.

It is now 4 weeks and I can almost stand up straight! I do find that if I do too much during the day that I am miserable by night time. If I am walking around a lot during the day, such as Christmas shopping... then I pay for it that night. It also makes me swell up more at the end of the day. I am not saying that you should not walk, you should! I know my body and I know when I have over done it:)

Ok, onto the photos! Click here to view updates