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“Feeling much more like myself every day”

Just over three weeks on from her muscle repair and abdominoplasty surgery at The Avoca Clinic we rejoin Roberta for an update on her recovery.

Video Transcript

Hi everyone and welcome to my eighth blog for The Avoca Clinic. So I’m three weeks and two days post op now. Feeling much more like myself everyday. It’s been a very long two weeks on the couch, but I was finally able to sleep in my old bed about four nights ago now.

I still have my leg pillow for my feet just to take the pressure off my tummy and I’m still sleeping on my back because when I lie on my sides the sides of my scar are quite tender.

“I feel like I’m getting back to parenting”

So I started driving from about four days ago. The Clinic said I could start driving one week post op but to really wait until I felt comfortable so for me that was just a couple of days ago and I’m not driving long distances – probably maybe about 15 km is the most I’ve done and it feels fine but I don’t wanna push myself harder. It’s nice though to be able to do the school runs again in the morning and I feel like I’m getting back to parenting and house life.

At home, I’m not doing a huge amount still, I’m sort of hovering around doing little household chores, so maybe hanging up laundry, putting some dishes away but I’m definitely not hoovering or doing any heavy lifting. So I just need to make sure even though I’m feeling like I might be able to take on more I need to remember that my insides are still heeling, Its not just the scar on my abdomen – there is muscle repair so I do need to take it easy. In terms of my energy levels I’m feeling quite tired particularly in the late afternoon and evening but i was told to expect this so its not really a huge surprise. As I said even though the main scar is healing I need to remember there are layers inside, so I do need to remember to take it easy. So I probably need to lay off any massive exercise until another three weeks until I’m six weeks post op.

So at the moment I’m just trying to take things as easy as I can – put my feet up when i can. I’d manage a small walk around the shop, pick up a couple of groceries but I’m not pushing things beyond that. I also notice that if I’m walking around a lot during the day that I’ll have swelling during the evening which is to be expected and it will subside but it’s a bit uncomfortable so I’m wearing my binder all the time to help with that. So for scar treatment I’m using a kind of vitamin E bio oil blend to help with the scar tissue healing and I’m also using 345 cream to moisturize the scar so it’s softening really well which is great.

Yesterday I went up to the Avoca Clinic for my three weeks follow up with my surgeon and he’s really happy with how everything has healed and just recommended I keep wearing my binder and keep wearing the compression stockings for another week. He also said that the main scar, even though it doesn’t look very red now it could start to look red in the coming weeks and months so I need to expect that and it was really useful to know as i feel like i may have freaked out a bit if I had suddenly seen it going red.

“Looking forward to planning a proper shopping trip”

So overall he was really happy with how everything is healing and I’m to come back again in three months time so yeah I’m doing really well. Looking forward to planning a proper shopping trip to get some nice fitted dresses and bikinis for our summer holidays but I’m putting it off until I have more energy for the moment online shopping will have to do! Thank you so much for watching and ill tune in with you again in a coupe of weeks time!