It has been a difficult 2 weeks but I am finally turning the corner and feeling better. I went in March 19th at 2 pm for my bilateral extended to forearm briachioplasty. Opened my eyes in recovery ay 6:45 and was home by 8 for 10 minutes when the ambulance was called. I was bleeding profusely from my left arm and had passed out in my recliner. Had to walk to the stretcher as they couldn't get it into the house. Got to ER around 1/2 hour later, Plastic surgeon from the Center (not the one that did the operation but had assisted with my breast reduction in June) came a looked at what was going on. Passed out again while he was there. He told me I had a hemotoma the size of a baseball and would need to go back into surgery ASAP. No operating room was available until 4:30 when he went in and did whatever had to be done and gave me a drain. Finally at 7:30 am Tuesday morning I was in a shared room. They tried to send me home Tuesday night started bleeding again. They did whatever had to be done. My blood count had dropped down to an 8 and my veins were blowing every time they tried to take more blood from my hands. I had an IV in each hand in case the right one blew. I was seen by the PS again Wednesday night and finally sent home on Thursday. From the hospital I was taken directly to the PS DR office on Thursday as when the hospital staff was loading me into the van I started bleeding again. The Dr and 5 nurses saw me immediately, did whatever they had to do and bandaged me back up and sent me home with all kinds of meds including iron as I was amenic. I had a horrible weekend with intense pain, not only in my arms but my back as well. I was itching like crazy because of the gauze and ace bandages used. When they discovered I had this reaction they came up with a different way of bandaging up my arms. This past Monday I had my 1 week followup and the drain was taken out. I was still way to swollen to fit into any sleeve compressions so I have just been bandaged.

I go back tomorrow for my 2 week followup, hopefully will get some stitches out and into the compression garments. I have attached some photos showing the left arm hematoma area drain area and the right arm. I am so bruised, black and blue and swollen I have no idea of what the outcome will be. I have a feeling this is going to be long difficult recovery. I just hope and pray I will be happy with the final results.

So sorry for this wreck of a procedure. I pray it improves going forward. Rest and do everything you can to heal.

That looks painful - I hope you're getting better every day!

On 4/4/2018 at 6:54 PM, axlr8n said:

That looks painful - I hope you're getting better every day!

It has been 2 1/2 weeks now and that left arm is still very painful but healing. The glue is still on it as well as the pad for the location of where the drain was placed. The right arm is not as painful and is looking better. Here are the current arm pic.

The Dr on Monday said he still wants to wait until next appt 4/12 before he tries to get me into the vest/sleeve compression garment. However he wants me to try to wear a compression sleeve for a bit in preparation for the garment. The nurse helped me get into it. He said he would be surprised if I wore it for longer than a 1/2 hour. They kept rolling down my upper arm and that hurt so I managed to keep them on for 1 1/2 hours. The vest sleeve garment I think will be easier to wear. What do you all think? Does it look like I am healing?

It looks a lot better - another few weeks and you'll be all healed up! There were times early on that I really regretted having plastics, but now that it's been 7 months I'm starting to think about round two :-).

On 4/6/2018 at 11:32 PM, axlr8n said:

It looks a lot better - another few weeks and you'll be all healed up! There were times early on that I really regretted having plastics, but now that it's been 7 months I'm starting to think about round two :-).

I know what you mean. I am suppose to have 2 more and am having second thoughts. Maybe by Nov I will be thinking otherwise. What second round are you having done and when?

I did the 360 body lift and vertical thigh lift the first round... no major complications, but there was a deep hole both front and back that I had to pack with gauze and took a long time to fill in and heal.

Next up is the moobs... but I don't want the long horizontal scars so I'm looking around to see if there is another option. I don't understand why they can't do a lift and raise with the main scar in my armpit, but my surgeon says that he can't do it that way. I haven't scheduled anything and probably won't if it means big scars - I'll just live with the extra skin.

Managed to get into the vest sleeve compression garment for only 7 hours yesterday. The Dr told me to try and get them on Saturday, if I couldn't stand them on to try again on Monday. I had some rubbing and tightness in the left arm pit and at the crease area in my arm. I guess I will try again on Monday with some pads in those areas.

In my case the excess skin has to be removed before the back Dr will do back surgery. So if I want to ever walk again without assistance I need all this skin removed.