Surprisingly emotional

[SunnyD]

I have an incisional hernia where some fatty tissue is poking through. My surgeon says it’s right in the area where they insert the camera for laparoscopic procedures. I’ve had 3 surgeries in the last 10 years, so it’s not a shock.

While I was there he asked if I’d been thinking about skin removal. He cheered on my overall fitness, particularly the core muscle development. And I think he was surprised when I said I’d thought a lot about it, but no, I’m not interested.

On the car ride home I was trying to figure out why the idea of skin removal bothered me. Part of it is definitely fear. I’ve always gained the weight back, so until I can prove to myself I won’t stretch out the skin again with weight gain, what is the point? But I honestly don’t hate my sagging. I just tuck it in and go on with my day.

The other part had more to do with some uncomfortable moments I’ve had in a local support group, where folks who hated their bodies got the surgery thinking they’d love themselves better thin, but everything sagged, so each month when I see them in Zoom it’s plastic surgery plan after plastic surgery plan, “And then I’ll be done because I’ll finally have the right body.” Sentences like that make red alarm bells go off in my head.

I know there are a wealth of reasons why people chose WLS. And I want people to love themselves and feel comfortable in their bodies.

The surgeon wasn’t asking out of malice. It’s a common thing to have done when you do surgery regularly for people who lose over 100 lbs quickly. But I guess I feel like I put my body through so much trauma changing so much over the past 13 months, that I just want to let her be herself for a while.

It probably didn’t help that I was already annoyed about needing to get the hernia fixed during Covid 19...

 

[dianeseattle]

Sunny D it is so good to see you! I was just thinking about sending you a private message asking what you were doing and telling you we miss you here around the group.

That's an extremely good set of criteria you used to make your decision about skin removal surgery. I had thought about it and I actually was going to have a panniculectomy and it would have 100% covered by my insurances and the hospital charity care.

But the cosmetic surgeons who evaluated me told me exactly how painful the procedure would be and for how long. It would have required an incision from the top of one pelvic bone to the top of the other and months of difficult recovery in a house with stairs. So I chickened out.

The only real surgery I wanted was on my upper arms, which have always been bigger than average. My mother's maiden name is Armstrong so it was a running joke that she had these big upper arms and I inherited them from her.

But what stopped me was I could not deal with the long scars that would have resulted from it. So I decided just to enjoy my body as it turned out and not try to do more. So far it has worked!

Here's a photo of my mom at the age of 21 (1943) with my oldest sister. You can see her arms are bigger then they should be, but they actually got a lot bigger as she got older and gained a little weight. She was never fat until she was in her 60s or 70s but she always thought she was and she talked about her arms all the time. Made me extremely neurotic to look so much like her. She's really gorgeous yes?

 

[SunnyD]

Hi Diane!
Thank you for thinking of me. I got called back into work for a while (finally) late summer and have been trying to spend more time off screen before winter hits.

I am a terrible person to ask about arm size, because I think your mom’s arms look awesome, particularly for a strong lady hauling around an infant (and likely all the stuff that comes with said darling) with confidence.