So far so good

I am into day 2 of classes now. Besides the long drive in the morning (about 30 minutes with traffic) it's not too bad. Yesterday seemed to drag on and on but I was really tired. I got a coffee this morning and it seemed to have done the trick, I stayed away and alert all day! I have never been a "I need my coffee in the morning to function" kind of person, but I think I just became one lol.

I found a house that's about 3 miles from my school and I'm moving our stuff there at the end of the month. It's going to be really crazy getting everything packed up (since I don't have any boxes lol) and get everything there on my own... but I can do it. I'm getting the keys next Wednesday night, so I will load up my car and run some stuff out there then, then load my car up when I get back and take some more the next morning and drop it off after class. I figure if I start it like that and make a couple trips I can get mostly everything before the movers come on Saturday to get the big stuff. And then have Sunday to clean. The tough part will be to see how my body takes all this, since I'm no supposed to be lifting a lot still.

I have my first exam tomorrow (yes, already). I'm not too worried about it though, everything so far has been common sense things.

Well, wish me luck!!

still looking good :)

I went and laid out by the pool for an hour on Sunday :) It was nice being able to wear a bathing suit and not feel weird... the swelling is gone :) They are beginning to look like "real boobies" lol. No more wayy up high pornstar-ish girls for me!!!

I am keeping up with all of my stretches and massaging, but whenever I rub the tendon in my armpit it still hurts a lot. But it's only when I touch it so that't not too bad.

Sleeping is getting a lot better too. I used to be very aware of them when I lay on my side, but it's getting easier as the muscle relaxes and they soften up. Sleeping on my stomach is still a little difficult, but doable :)

I'm not allowed to wear a bra still, but I really don't have a need for it!!! I've been wearing tank tops underneath my tee shirts for modesty though

Shots.. and not the fun ones

So, not having health insurance really sucks. I went and got all of my immunizations today (tetanus, flu, vericella, TB, and Hep B). I went to the Health Department for all but one (the TB - because they didn't offer it there). In total I spent around $180. The Hep B isn't required, but I remember at orientation the lady said some places may require it further along the road.. and I know I'll 100% need it in the future. It's a 3 round series so I have the joy of going back to the Health Department and sitting there for hours and hours 2 more times (my life is soo awesome, right? lol)

I still have to get my physical done before Friday too. That is proving to be an issue simply because without insurance most places are saying they'll charge me some crazy amount, like $350. And the Health Department doesn't offer adult physicals for some reason.. I think the place I have to go back to on Thursday to get my TB read said they'd do it for $95.. but I am also getting an eye exam that day (I have no more contacts, and these glasses are driving my nuts).. so I can't spend $200 on top of the almost $200 I spent today.. I can't wait until I'm out of school so I don't have to worry about money as much.. I hate that I'm so nervous about how much things cost - especially when they're things for my health that I NEED.. it's not like I'm bummed I can't go on a shopping spree or something - I would love to not get these shots and such).

I need a money miracle, quick!

Day 8!

I had my first post-op appointment today. I stopped with the updates because everything was the same for a few days....

The nurse said that I'm looking great :) She showed me some more intense massages to do to help with cleavage and with dropping and fluffing :) I go back in two weeks for another appointment. I also got my bandages off of my incisions. They just look like little scratches in my armpit.. it's pretty amazing that 525cc's of implant fit through there!

I also finally got permission to not wear that ACE bandage strap over the top of my boobs anymore!!! THANK GOD!! I can't wear a bra of any kind yet so I am sticking with tank tops for now.. freeeeedommmmmm! hehehe

Day 4

Not much more happened at the end of Day 3.. I took Shamrock out to pee which really took a toll on me. I'm trying to wean off of the percocet so it was hard to do that activity at night without needing some. I'm only taking half tablets now.. and I've only taken 13 so far since Monday (they prescribed 50 so I figure that's not too bad). The thing is the discomfort level I'm at now I'm not sure that extra strength tylenol will take that edge off, so I may be stuck with half tabs for a bit.. S/N: I haven't taken ANY yet today :) .. but I've only taken Bam out and have been pretty still since then.. we'll see how the day goes. I'm sure I'll need to take one before I do stretches.

I got out of bed pretty quickly today :) it took me only about 2 minutes! And then Dave called :) which put me in a really good move, I'm sure he's the reason I have the extra pep in my step right now :) more to come...

***
I just went to the store.. go thing it's in front of my building bc I was able to drive slow/take turns slow. I picked up from rapid release extra strength tylenol. I haven't taken any kind of pain relief med today, and I'm hurting at around a 4.5 (which isn't too bad). I'm going to take the tylenol and if that helps me then I'm sticking to it. If not then I'm going to do half tabs of the percocet as minimal as possible. I'm having problems with the side effects of the percocet (not going into more detail) and it's just not worth it to me. I don't know how people get addicted to this stuff. It was pretty sweet when I was in tons of pain that I took one and all the pain went away. But to just take them for the hell of it, why would you want to deal with the side effects?

***
So, I survived the day without any pain pills. And for the first time since the surgery I'm not afraid to go to tonight (i kind of have been the past few days bc the mornings suck so bad. But if I was fine all day what could happen during the night? (probably just jinxed myself)

so many things to get done.. with not enough time!!

Soo I had my orientation for my LPN program on the 29th of March. They gave us a whole list of things to get done before we have to come in on the 15th of April.. including vaccination records, background check, drug screening, and fingerprinting. The problem with all of this is I don't know if there are records of certain vaccinations that I know I have and need to prove (MMR, history of chicken pox - or a positive titer, tetanus) .. I know I may have to update my tetanus. I also need a flu shot (which I never wanted to get), and tested for TB. The issue I'm having is that if my high school can't find my records (the guidance office is searching now) I'm going to have to get all of these done at once - and I'm still recovering from my surgery. Ugh.. talk about not having a fun time. Oh ya, did I mention my parents didn't get me back on their insurance yet, so if I need these all I'm going to have to go to a health department and still pay a lot. YUCK!

The background check, drug screening, and fingerprinting should be easy? right? FALSE. First of all for all of those things it's $154. Second of all, I have to drive about an hour north from me to get to where the place they make me go is, which doesn't make any sense. This place is even a long hike from the school itself, so why would they send their students alllll the way out there? Boo.

Day 3

I woke up this morning at 6:50 feeling really sore, but it beats the painful 4:45 painful wake-up yesterday! However, when I woke up I was sooooo ridiculously tight and sore. It only took me ~10 minutes to sliver out of bed this morning, but I think it's because I've improves my technique lol. I took 1 percocet as soon as I work and lied there for a few minutes to give it a chance to kick in. Thank God that Shamrock can realize he needs to walk slow and not pull on me when I take him out to go potty. ***I really suggest taking that percocet in the morning and then head outside and walk around for 15-20 minutes. It loosens you up and makes you feel sooo much better. At the beginning of my walk I was around an 8 for pain (it was baaad).. after the walk I'm around a 4. Seriously, walk it out!!

more to come as the day progresses... 

***late-afternoon update***
So, I took Shamrock on a 45 minute walk - not by choice. He knows to walk gentle with my which is awesome, but I think he also knows that I can't pull against him. So he took the opportunity to take the most leisurely, smell EVERYTHING walk he could, lol.. jerk.

Afterwords I went to Jamie's apartment (he's deployed and cable is on until the 15th - score! Also, he has an amazing recliner which I took full advantage of!) I tried to do some school things - but the half percocet I took after the walk knocked me out and I woke up around 3:30... whoops!


I TOOK MY FIRST "SHOWER" SINCE SUNDAY!! :) Well, I took a bath (making sure not to get my armpits wet) but it was nice to shave and run water over me. I have pretty good range of motion with my arms so I decided I could wash my hair in the kitchen sink (we have one of those faucets that you can pull the handle out and use it as a sprayer). Things were going fine, until I went to rinse out the shampoo. The sprayer slipped out of my hand and fell and started to spray me in the face, and then I noticed the ACE bandage over top of me was getting soaked - so I hopped out of the way.. with the sprayer sill going.. and getting my kitchen floor and everything on the refrigerator completely wet!! HAHAHA.. this is the kind of stuff that happens to me ALL of the time! After hair drying whatever was on the fridge I finished rinsing my hair and did the conditioner and everything was fine. It feels SOOOOO GOOOOOOD to have a clean body and clean hair :) I'm surprised I was able to do all of this 2 days after my surgery... almost all the blogs I've read about people's recovery the girls weren't able to attempt this until the 4th or 5th day.. and I'm pretty sure all of them had help. I think knowing I have to do this on my own is keeping me determined in my mind to push through any discomfort, and so far so good!

Day 2

I'm feeling a lot better at the end of day 2 :) I woke up feeling really stiff at 4:45 A.M. .. took 2 percocet to take the edge off and then got up to take Shamrock out for the first time by myself. I got a belt and put it through the hand loop and fastened it around my waist, that way he wouldn't be tugging my arms out. I had to keep talking to him to make sure he didn't take off, but it totally worked! But let me tell you, cold wind + new boobies = not fun at alllll lol

I went back into bed and fell in and out of consciousness for a few hours before getting out of bed @ ~10:00am. I spent a lot of the morning and afternoon doing my stretches and massaging.. and I also applied a gel ice pack for a few minutes. After all that stretching it was time for another 1 percocet at 12:15.

Kim came over at ~1:30pm and I showed her the girls lol. They're still really swollen and the implants are high up. But I was able to show her how/where things are going to drop to :)

Went to the Olive Garden at 3:00. While we were there one of the nurses called to check up on me. She asked if I was hurting a lot still. I told her that I was out to lunch and except for a little bit of sore/tightness in the morning and after stretching I was doing really well. She was so shocked that I was out at lunch. She had actually expected me not to answer because she thought I would be in bed wallowing in pain still, ha. I was told that I probably set a record, and that no other patient that she can recall was ever able to be out and about the next day - especially at a lunch :) She then explained to me how to massage myself properly and wished me good luck with recovery until my first post-op visit next Tuesday.

Kim dropped me off and all the moving around from the day started to take it's toll on me so I took 2 percocet @ 4:00pm because I planned on doing some more stretching and massaging - so I wanted to be prepared.

Spent the rest of the afternoon/night talking online with friends and skyping with my sister, Beth :)

I took one more percocet at 9:15pm because I had taken Sham out and the cold had made my muscles tense up pretty tight and start to feel really tender again.

S/N: My Victoria's Secret package came in today! I got two bathing suits, a top, and a dress.. I really want to try things on but I'm still so swollen and tender that there's no way I can attempt it :(

Pain level at the end of day 2: ~5.5 (mostly because everything still feels so tight)

Day 1

Day 1 wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be (at first). I came home and got situated. Michelle had to head home and hand the reigns of taking care of my drugged up butt to the friends we have who live in the same apartment complex as me. I was really tired so I went to go take a nap. I was lying in bed trying to open my pill bottle (I requested non-childproof, guess the pharmacy forgot about that one) and I passed out before I could get it open (this was around 5 P.M.). I woke up around 7 P.M. in an insane amount of pain. I managed to be able to reach over to grab my pain meds, but I couldn't get them open. When I laid down I didn't get myself propped up enough so getting out of bed on my own was out of the question too. I reached for my phone and called Kevin, he missed it so I left probably the most pathetic sounding voicemail of my life, haha. It went something like "Kevin can you come over? I can't open my pain pill bottle and it hurts really bad, and I can't get up" - in the whiniest most high pitched/almost crying way possible. After hanging up immediately called Gal to see if he could come over. His girlfriend was just about to arrive so he didn't have much time, but he still came over to help which I think was very sweet of him. He opened all my pill bottles and left them loose for me, helped push me up so i could get out of bed, AND took Sham out. My hero! lol. About 2 minute after he left Kevin and his girlfriend showed up at my door :) He took Sham out to try and get him to go #2 and he opened up Jamie's apartment for me (he's deployed but his cable is working until the 15th so he's letting me go over and chill while I'm recovering if I want to). Even though I don't have someone in the apartment with me (which would make things soooo much easier) - I'm really lucky to have such awesome people in my life that I know I can depend on.

I spent the night doing my arm raising stretches and taking deep breaths. Popped in a microwave dinner (I was in no mood to cook) and watched some hulu (Desperate Housewives is getting craaazy). Kevin came back over around 10 to walk Sham again and said he could be by tomorrow (Tuesday) night when he gets out of work to walk him around again for me if I needed him to. Can we all say "Kevin's a totally awesome person!!"

I chatted with some people on fb chat, and talked to Heidi on skype which was cool. Other than that I just chilled and went to sleep:)

Pain level on a 1-10 @ bedtime was around a 6 after I took my pills

The Procedure

If I could change one thing about my surgery it would have been to make it at an earlier time. I was scheduled to arrive at 1 P.M. and to start the surgery at 2 P.M. The problem with this was I was not allowed to eat/drink anything past midnight the night before. Usually by 1 P.M. I'm on my third glass of water for the day, so my tummy was getting a little rumbley. 

Michelle came to pick me up and I got to the center on time, but had to wait a while before they took me into the room. Taking the required pregnancy test was difficult seeing as how I didn't have any fluids in my body, I'm surprised there was enough to use for the test lol. The first nurse who came up to my bed asked another nurse if she had seen her water bottle, and the other nurse said "no", then the first nurse asked if she could go get fluids. The second nurse responded, "for you? or for her?" HAHA I'm glad the second nurse took over from there because she was really funny and reminded me of me (saying silly things). We had a nice long talk about being an RN (she had worked in a lot of different areas before med surg and gave me some really awesome advice). It took her a while to find my baby-like veins in my arm, but after switching to the smallest gauge they had we were in business!

I sat there waiting until about 2:20 P.M. (by that point my doctor and the anesthesiologist had come in to check on me). Everyone there was so ridiculously nice it was hard to stay nervous (or maybe it was the anti-anxiety meds that they fed into my IV :P). They then gave me something to help me relax and I started to shoot out rainbows and butterflies from my mouth. Everyone that walked by me or came up to me received as many compliments as I could spit out. My attending nurse even made a joke telling me that other nurses started coming in to check on me just to see what I would have to say to them to brighten their day LOL. A doped up Leah is obviously a really happy and kind Leah.


When the two nurses who were going to be attending to me during surgery today they made me feel really good too. The first one told me that I have amazing lips and that a lot of people (including her and the other attending) pay a lot of money for lips like mine :) I was a little scared because at that point they took off my glasses and I can't see anything AT ALL when they're off. Everyone in the O.R. was really nice and reallllyyy funny. I don't remember being knocked out at all, which I think is amazing!


Everything about being in the recovery room is still a blur to me. I kept waking up and passing out over and over again. I remember a nurse telling me that the were going to call Michelle to let her know I was done and that she can get  me, and then I remember slurring out "can you call my mom too? She's probably worrying about me" ha (I'm such a baby). Slurring out that phone number was pretty tough too lol. I passed back out right after that. When I came to I heard the nurse talking t the foot of my bed, I started to stare at her and the other person. It took a while for it to register that this other person was Michelle, and when I did I believe I said something like "heyyyy Michellleeeeee!!!" In the most smiley/doped up/not really aware of anything around me kind of way. They put what looks like a really wide ace bandage over the area just below my collar bone where the implants are right now (before they drop). 


I'm really happy that I chose the doctor and facility that I did. Dr. Burden @ Destin Plastic Surgery Center (had to plug the name somewhere, heh) were really nice and I think he did a wonderful job (from what I can tell, there's a lot of swelling going on)

Stats:
Before: full A - small B


After:
Mentor silicone implants - under the muscle
axillary incision
right breast implant: 525CC
left breast implant: 500CC