Over the past couple months, my posts have been heavily focused on child sexual abuse and while I think it's certainly been good for me, I want this blog to be about more than just my past and how I choose to deal with it day in and day out. I also want to be able to share the positive and fun things that are going on in my life rather than just the struggles. Therefore, I want to talk about something today that I have coming up in a few weeks that I have been looking forward to for many, many years which is an upper arm lift (also known medically as a brachioplasty).
For as long as I can remember, my upper arms have always been the body part that I've been most self-conscious about. When I weighed in at my heaviest of 233 pounds, I remember hating the thought of even looking at my arms in the mirror because they were ridiculously huge and I was so embarrassed by them that I refused to wear any garment that didn't cover my upper arms and that's something that has continued to this day. In fact, the pictures above are some of the only ones that I have been able to find that actually show my upper arms. I simply felt that if I left my arms exposed, people would have stared, laughed and made fun of me and that is something that I certainly didn't feel like going through.
As you can probably imagine, shopping for clothes was always difficult for me as well. It always seemed to feel like a chore rather than a fun experience. If a shirt fit well overall, it would sometimes be too tight around my arms so I couldn't buy it and then if something did fit but didn't cover my upper arms, I wouldn't even entertain the thought of buying it because I knew I would never wear it in public. Therefore, instead of dealing with the frustrations of shopping, I finally just made the decision to mainly wear t-shirts, long sleeved shirts, sweaters and sweatshirts, which is something I typically stick to today.
In a few weeks though, that's all going to change because that's when my upper arm lift is scheduled and I honestly cannot wait. Before I had my tummy tuck done back in December, I knew I was eventually going to have an upper arm lift done as well if at all possible because it's something that I have wanted for a very long time. When I was incredibly overweight, I never thought there would ever be a day where I'd have skinny and athletic looking arms but here we are and I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am just to wear a tank top to the gym. Don't get me wrong - after losing 83 pounds, my arms were of course smaller than when I was overweight but they didn't exactly change like I was hoping. In fact, I was left with a decent amount of loose skin but the upper arm lift is designed to remove that.
Dr. Chris Robinson (the surgeon that performed my tummy tuck) will be performing my upper arm lift as well and I can't imagine letting anyone else operate on me. He is basically a magician and truly cares about his patients so it's a win-win all the way around. Unlike my tummy tuck though where I was petrified just thinking about what was going to happen and how I would be able to handle the pain, I know what to expect this time around and as a result of that, I haven't really been that nervous yet - just excited.
My pre-op appointment is scheduled for this upcoming week, which is where I'll fill out a ton of paperwork, get my prescriptions, take the "before" pictures, discuss the procedure with Dr. Robinson and ask any last minute questions that I have. My surgery will then be a couple weeks following that.
When I had my tummy tuck done last winter, I made one post following the surgery after I was mainly healed. This time around however, I want to document the entire process as I go through it so if anyone has any questions, feel free to let me know and I'll try my best to answer them.