Greatwyrm’s Lair

Well I have now set me goal for the next sixteen weeks.  To bring myself down to 5% BF.  I have lost so much weight and fat now I will see where my fortitude and determination will take me!  Always interested in any thoughts or comments.  This will certainly be one of the physical pinnacles of my life…

I’m excited beyond words, I am nearly 100% now and feeling better than ever.  The shoulder is good, the body lift went well and now I am back hardcore in a way I have not been for a months. 

I have been back to the gym the past two weeks and it was like visiting an old friend and remembering everything you knew that was great about them and discovering the brand new things they have to offer now.

My muscles have responded nicely, good muscle memory I guess.  In just two weeks I have added fullness back to all major muscle groups.  Final stage is to get down to less than 8% BF.  I want to accomplish this before I do anything else.  If nothing else to prove to myself that it can be done.  I know it can.  I will now tap into the unlimited potential that each and everyone of us has.

Well my waist is still a little swollen so I didn’t focus on pants, but I just bought six new shirts…What blew my mind is that I am now a Medium!  I think the last time I could fit into a medium was when I was eight?  LOL.

I could almost fit into a small but it was a little tight, but didn’t look terrible.  Pants size is still 36, but I think I will land on 34’s.  Probably the most excitement I have ever had buying some clothes.

So leaving off from day five really through current has been a series of some days are better than others.  I would say that the most annoying things have been fatigue, being able to stand up straight and drainage tubes.

Simple things like getting ready for work take time, about four times longer than before.  You move slower, washing can be tender and painful.  Occassional light headedness when you are out of the special compression suit. (which I did not mention before)  You have to wear bascially a shoulder to ankle suit that is basically tight spandex.  This keeps the swelling of your body down and helps with scar formation.  It also helps make you feel a little better I’ve discovered in this phase of recovery.

At this point I am at nearly four weeks.  If you have any type of physically demanding job, you can expect at least 6 weeks before you can go back to that and even then that might be pushing it a little, based on whatI had done at any rate.

My current status is that I only have one drain remaining, pulled one last night.  That one wasn’t as bad as the others had been, hoping to actually be able to sleep on my side tonight.

I actually am traveling in a week and truly hope that the last drain is out by then.  Still have to be careful about sitting for long periods.  Oh well.  Going to start back some light walking this week and see how that feels, I expect to be back in the gym in 2-3 weeks.  My plan is some fully body workouts to get the system tuned back in and then build up over a month or so. Then I should be back hardcore.  Time will tell.

So the day prior to the surgery, we arrived in Reno and basically met with the Doctor and signed all of the waivers and after patient care stuff (you must have someone that can take care of you for 24 hours, personally I recommend someone that can be there to assist you for two weeks but more on that later).  They took a variety of "before" pictures.
I had to also had to go to the hospital of the procedure and have a standard lab test, series of health questions, vital statistics etc.  Since I lost all the fat naturally through good nutrition and exercise, naturally my labs were all good.
Spent the night in Reno, nothing to eat or drink after midnight.  Special note and take heed, after having gone through this I highly recommend the two days prior (or based on your body) you eat very light, high fiber easily passable foods.  I might even recommend some natural fiber additions and or stool softeners and laxative time so that the day before your bowels are modestly empty, don’t starve yourself, but don’t have that last meal type of thing and stuff yourself.   The reasoning is you do not want to have to have a bowel movement the first 2-3 days after surgery and if you do, you want it to be an easy one where you don’t have to strain.  Narcotics and pain medications dry you out and if you did not prepare well ahead of time, let’s just say it was an experience I could have done without the day after leaving the hospital.
So the day of the surgery was fairly typical, if you have ever had major surgery.  They admit you, you get to wear a wonderfully modest hospital gown, that is designed with the average sized person in mind, but hell what did I care, I have worked hard to improve my body, so I wasn’t particularly embarrassed.  My surgeon then proceeded to draw all over me.  The nurse hooked me up to an IV and went over a few dozen questions Connect the dots and then really it was the waiting game until my anethstesiologist arrived, went through the same questions in triplicate and then she explained what she was going to do and spent time explaining the length of the surgery (which others had done) and that really the length (which turned out to be 7.5 hours) was due to a lot of body movement, and re-prep work, plus a butt-load of sewing and suturing.  After that she slipped the mikey into the IV and I don’t even remember them wheeling me more than half a dozen feet . 
After the first hour of Active recovery (ICU) you could theoretically go to your hotel from there, however I elected to have a 23 hour observation, basically I paid for a day (24 hours) so they provided all of the wonderful intravenous drugs as well as keeping me monitored and comfortable, and checking on me, very often.  All told the surgery was scheduled for six hours and took 7.5, things don’t always run to plan!  The next day I got up and walked three times, had a modest breakfast and lunch and left the hospital about 4 PM after then switched me over to oral pain medication to make sure that was sufficient, which it was.  Also needed to make sure I could pee after the catheter was removed.
Basically I slept the rest of that day minus the few times I had to get up to pee.  So the procedure consisted of the removal of an entire band or belt of flesh all the way around my abdomen, creation of a new belly button hole, removal of all the excess man boob flesh and repositioning of the areola and nipples.  This is about as much as they would ever do in one surgery BTW, if you needed more done like arms and legs, be prepared for at least another surgery once you recover from the initial.  I left the hospital with six drainage tubes (two from the chest and four from locations around my midsection as well as a bag of liquid medicine that was also tubbed into four spots around my midsection to control pain in a local way (very effective BTW).  So bunches of tubes and stuff that you have to keep sorted and out of the way, probably the biggest hassle overall.  Basically the next four days consisted of sleeping, getting up to walk every hour, eating, peeing, pooping, taking meds, repeat. 
I kept the diet simple cottage cheese, active culture yogurt to combat the prophylactic antibiotic I was on, berries, some brown rice and whole grain breads.  I stayed away from heavy meats.  Plenty of water or course a little juice and some protein drinks (body needs protein to repair itself (sound familiar?) 
Meds - Percocet, Valium, broad spectrum anti-biotic, stool softener (added this one on recommendation).
Monday which was day five I had my follow-up appt.  They pulled two of the drains the ones from my chest (that hurt like an SOB about a foot long inside of you, basically you take a deep breath and they pull it out!)  But it was good to get them out.  A drain can only be pulled if you are excreting less than 25 CC of fluid in 24 hour period.  Beyond that it is too much fluid for your lymphatic system to handle and you would swell and possibly need to have it needle aspirated ( big needle to drain the fluid)
The car ride home was about as comfortable as a five hour car ride can be considering.  I stopped every hour to walk.  The purpose of this was and still is to prevent pooling of blood and blood clots.  Any surgery can lead to clots which can lead to all sorts of nasty stuff like hematomas and embolisms even up to death.  Plus moving is good to get things flowing and body down the path of healing.
In all 11 lbs of loose skin were removed and I am still recovering.  I will chronicle days 5-15 soon.  I’ll include maintenance and self-care, going back to work and the little things you probably would never have thought about, at least I didn’t.
Also if you personally want to know what this cost, send me a note I’ll be happy to share.  I don’t think an insurance company on the planet would cover this, though reality is that my new and improved BB lifestyle probably saved them ten times what this procedure cost.
One other thing of note that I found especially gratifying, I must have received the comment a dozen times asking me if I needed liquid meds because of gastric bypass or lap-band, every time one of these folks (who deal with this probably every single day) found out that it was all natural through perseverance and effort, was truly amazed and down to a one all said “We almost never see that”.
Anyway back to work and back to recoveryJ.
 

A week and a half out and I am getting pretty excited. Lower body lift and gynocemastia.

Have to stop taking almost all of my suplements.  While all are good for lifting and general health, many thin the the blood and is not an effect that I can have pre-surgery, increases the risk or heavy bleeding, blood clots, etc.  Many vitamins are off limits in large doses and even things like garlic and onion are of the menu.  So food is a little bland right now, but that’s ok. 

Some suplements will be a part of the recovery process as well.  Vitamin C, and Arnica Montana. 

At any rate, I have to look forward to pre-op next week on Tuesday and then Surgery on Wednesday, recovery of 10 days before I can do light duty and then another 4-8 weeks recovery before I can exercise again.

Well for the first time ever…in my entire life, I was able to do a pull up…two of them.  May not seem like much to those folks that were skinny and could always do one.  But this is a big deal for me…especially on a mental level.  This was one of my major long term goals when I started down this path over two years ago.

I saw the doctor last week and scheduled my procedures.  Looks to be pretty intense, about a six hour procedure.

1. Part one will be to remove my excess skin on my chest (man boobs!) 

2. Part two will be the big one that is the full lower body lift, basically they cut a large belt sized piece from y abdoment all the way around, pull the two pieces together and sew it closed.  This is the one that is going to have the longest recovery and procedure.

Overall I will be in the hospital one night, then a local hotel for 2-3 days depending on recovery.  Then about an additional 10 days of recovery, I will see the doctor again, they will remove the sutures and drains.  Then its 4-6 more weeks of recovery before I can hit the gym hardcore again.  You can start walking at two weeks but nothing serious for basically two months.

I will create another entry as the date gets closer and I know more.  To me the pain of recovery while slighly intimidating…is just a nit in the overall work that I have done to this point…it’s just another pain barrier to overcome.

So I will now post regulary as I go through this process.  I find it quite fascinating that more or less as I understand it, my body will be cut, all the way around pulled up and down, and sewn back up in the middle…more or less.  I like to think of it as the ultimate wardrobe change. 

First estimate of cost is in the neighborhood of 11-15K.  Pretty steep, like adding a car payment.  It’s totally worth it to me though.  What better investment than in to my personal physical and mental well being?

At any rate so far I have had initial conversations with the doctor and her care coordinator to go over very basic things.  I have sent them some photos of myself front, side and rear.  I am a great candidate.  I will be speaking with the care coordinator today to arrange for a more formal consultation and specifics on me.  This will help me dial in on the exact procedure I will be going through and the cost, so I know what to finance.

Additionally I have been advised to get down to or very near the weight I want to be at pre surgery, obviously the more I lose, the more skin they will pull away.  No point in doing that because if you lose more weight or inches, you skin will only loosen again. 

As a result I am about to embark on the most intense training I have ever attempted.  1000 calories burned daily through cardio and 500 calorie defecit from nutrition.  I know I will probably lose a little muscle mass along the way, but my goal is to get smaller so they can tighten everything…then grow some serious muscles.  I will keep my approach solid, with a little more emphasis on protein and BCAA supliments to keep as much lean mass as possible.

Thats all for now.

I am not really measuring progress based on weight so much as look, and inches.  Just these last three weeks in the gym have allowed me to make gains almost back to six months ago.  The body is amazing and mine has responded back to lifting nicely with gains in all the right spots.

I am currently looking into plastic surgery for a tummy, butt and thigh lift…losing 145 ish lbs has left me with quite a bit of loose skin.  I will never be able to compete in any way without removing it.  I will probably do my best to chronicle it as I go through it so that other like me can take a look if they fall into the same situation.

Oh well, I am moving back into more of a traditional split away from total body workouts as my shoulder is responding fairly well, still a little tender and sore after tough workout, but always feels better the next day.