Abominable-plasty

10 days after my abdominoplasty, how has it gone, I hear you ask (I have a vivid imagination) so I will tell you.

Don't read on if you're squeamish.

Well, I arrived for it doing on Thursday 15th at 11.30am and was scheduled to go to theatre at around 3, but because I told them I was latex intolerant (which I had been told I was, but apparently I'm not, anyway.....) they moved me to the end of the queue, so it was around 5.30pm when I went down to theatre. Now, I don't have problems with stuff like this so putting me to sleep was fairly uneventful.

My next conscious thoughts were back in my room around 8 in the evening with a raging thirst and that awful twilight zone where your body is fighting the anaesthetic but failing miserably but by 2.00am I was wide awake and full of water and coffee and chicken salad.

The next day wasn't too bad either - considering - and I did manage to make it to the bathroom instead of having to use a bed pan (there MUST be a better way) to get rid of the gallons of water and coffee I was drinking, but I did have 3 fainting spells which I really don't like. Jonathan came to visit around lunchtime, but I was a bit dopey, and Paul came to visit around dinner time when I was more with it, so he stayed for dinner and we had wine. Why? Because we could! Probably the only time I will ever get to stay in a private hospital so might as well make the most of it.

I got quite tearful about the enormity of the whole thing, and what I had put my body - and bank balance - through, for the sake of vanity.

On the Saturday they kicked me out, so home I went. Obviously I was uncomfortable, but I thought that given the size of the cut - I didn't have just a smiley face 'bikini' cut I had a massive upside down T-shaped one - and how soon after major surgery it was, I didn't feel too awful.

Ha ha.

That was obviously to lull me into a false sense of security. When I had been in hosptial, I had had 2 drains so that this fluid that my body was producing to fill the hole that had been left could drain off. When I left, they removed them. They said my body would reabsorb this fluid. Well I started to swell, which made everything very tender, and swell and swell. And then yesterday morning my stomach burst.

At first it was just sort of oozing out a bit, but I was trying to put a dressing on it and couldn't do it fast enough. In the end I gave up and just stood for an hour and a half in the bathroom and let the blood just pour out onto the floor - it finally dawned on me to stand in the bath, but most of it went all over the floor. This was all at around 7 in the morning. To be fair, after all this blood-like liquid had made the bathroom look like the sight of a rather brutal massacre, the pressure in my stomach had subsided so I was more comfortable. But then it all started to build up again.

So, later in the afternoon, I went back to the hospital and saw a nurse who said it was all perfectly normal. So I asked if my stomach would burst again, and she said 'probably, didn't anyone tell you before?' Err, as it happens, no. So I asked her what would happen if it decded to burst when I was out in public and she just shrugged and said it was a bit inconvenient.

So that's something to look forward to when I start Uni properly next week.

(this is hilarious, its just burst again - must be a morning thing, best go stand in the bathroom)

72 hours

since I had my belly cut off. It is a bit tender, but not unbearable. What surprised me most was just how big the cuts are. One comes right up to my cleavage (?) and the other right round to both sides. I was also quite surprised at how far in the drains went.

The worst bit for me was fainting 3 times on the day after the operation. I can't handle that feeling of all the blood draining from your face and losing control. It really freaks me out.

The emotional effect has taken me by surprise, don't feel up to talking about that now.

So now I'm back home, Jonathan is doing a really good job of looking after me. He even washed my hair this morning cos I'm not allowed a shower yet. Managed to soak my feet in the process but I shouldn't complain - too much.

Still not decided whether I will have my belly button pierced after all is healed even though Jan bought me a belly banana for my birthday last week.

I'm exhausted now. Think I need another lay down.

Fag free

For fourteen days now.

I can't decide whether to be chuffed or insulted at how amazed my family and friends are that I have managed this. But I have, and hope to keep it up forever.

I think I've put a few pounds on, but that is probably more to do with the vast amounts of wine I have been drinking in the garden than the lack of nicotine in my blood.

Although there are two things that I am absolutely convinced are side-effects of my stopping smoking.

1) I am waking up ridiculously early (for me). I have never been an early bird, always the night owl, and now I'm wide awake anywhere between 6.30-7.30 without the alarm going off or anything. Really weird.

2) My nails are all breaking. I'm not particularly vain about my nails, but they tend to be pretty tough and grow quite quickly so they are usually long, and natural, which pisses off quite a few of my female friends. Now they are all breaking. Appearance-wise it doesn't really bother me but as I have lost length from my fingers that has been there for years and years I am struggling to do some fiddly things like buttons, and it's quite uncomfortable.

Something that I think has absolutely no bearing on my stopping smoking is another pet has died. Melanie the goldfish. This is the very expensive goldfish that cost my daughter pounds and pounds to win at the fair, that took me weeks of extra special care nursing back to health cos of its fin rot. It curled up like a question mark and died. And what is it with fish these days. When I was a kid and my pet fish died they floated, ours sink like stones. But then my mother was never a pet fan so maybe it was something she was doing..........

Blubber off in 3 days.

There's some good news, and

some bad news.

Bad news first. Gareth has died. He acquired a lump on his back, and then I think he had a stroke, anyway, he managed to wedge himself half in and half out of the remains of a shredded 'Value' egg box. This managed to look completely silly by the time he'd gone cold and stiff. I can only hope that my demise may be a little more dignified. And if I do peg it half way in a box, please let it be a quality brand.

So, that's it for us. No more small caged rodents. And I mean that.

The good news.

I've stopped amoking. Ha! No, I have. I read that Allen Carr book and stopped. I think my family and friends are a bit stunned. Well I had to do it for when I have my flabby bits removed and would like to think I shall have the courage to stick it out forever.

Mind you, I've been more or less pissed since I stopped, so probably have replaced the 20-30 fags a day with 20-30 glasses of wine.

Can anybody decipher a University timetable? Jonathan and I can't understand it at all, and neither can Paul and he's already got a degree.