Middle of the night update no one asked for or cares about.
Saw my surgeon for my one-week follow up today. She said everything looks perfect, I am healing perfectly so far and everything that is happening is normal. I told her I feel like I paid someone to butcher my body and I am really having a hard time dealing with it psychologically and she was very kind and understanding and told me that liposuction is "a really hard surgery with a very long and difficult recovery," and she assured me everything that's happening is as expected and she promised I will be very happy when the swelling settlesâin three to six months.
It's my fault, and I know it. I considered the gynecomastia surgery for several years before I decided to do it.
I was 'upsold' the liposuction by the surgeon's assistant. It was discounted because I have this bizarre health issue called mast cell activation syndrome that makes me physically allergic to exercise, and she said the doctor said since I would be put under anyway for the breast reduction, she could do this and balance out the proportions of my upper body for something that would make me a lot more confident. I bit.
I am kind of obsessive about medical shit because I've had so many major health complications and this is the only time in my life I made assumptions and did something on a whim.
I'm going to have to call this my poorly considered mid-life crisis.
Since gynecomastia surgery involves liposuction to remove fatty tissue from the breasts, I assumed the recovery would be the same everywhere. So wrong.
The abdominal surgery aftermath is so disturbing to me. It feels disgusting in a way I can't really describe. The only way I can describe it is that it feels like a five-pound Italian cheese has been sewn into my lower abdomen and is just trapped there as a solid block. This is the swelling that will take months to go down. It is painful, like a bruise, but the really awful part is how dense and heavy and solid it is, and in the shower the sensation is nauseating because it's partially numb and partially not.
Aesthetically, with my shirt on, my torso looks *so much better.* I'm also being challenged psychologically to look down and see a totally flat chest. It feels alien to me. But the swelling of my lower abdomen is so pronounced that it sticks out under my shirt like a baby bump. It is so fucking weird.
I have to wear a crotchless medical-grade version of a Spamx bodysuit for five more weeks, 24 hours a day. This obviously adds to the discomfort, especially when sleeping. And I have to sleep at at least a 30-degree angle, again, for six weeks.
Supposedly, I will continue to swell until the three-week mark and then it'll gradually decrease, noticeably by six weeks and then much more noticeably by three months, rounding off between six months and a year. I cannot believe I didn't research the fuck out of this. Liposuction is a very traumatic surgery physically, and results take a very long time to show.
I'm writing this mostly for personal therapy to process what I've chosen to do to my body, and so others who may have some levels of curiosity will have a reference because I weirdly have not found any other detailed testimonials of this experience online.