Diastasis Recti: Surgery and Recovery Part 3

So, I have been slowly recovering for eleven months. I don't think everyone's surgeon is as thorough and intense as mine was. I also don't think others get the individual attention that I have gotten for the past year. My doctor goes above and beyond to check on recovery.
Exercise is a vital part of my life, and I lost a lot of strength. I started the road to recovery with light body weight exercise and yoga. It was amazing to me how weak I was and how inflexible I had become. The abdominal wall functions differently now, and is still not able to completely hold my weight. I can not, for instance, hang from my hands. It even took me a while to be able to leave the ground again. You don't realize how much you have to hold in the abdominals for basic movement until you lose that mobility. Balance was another issue. My back was in a rounded and stiff position for about 16 weeks before I felt like I was at least standing straight, and I still do not have much mobility hyperextending the spine past vertical. Yoga is my best friend in redeveloping this. Being able to be in plank position again was a big goal of mine. I can now hold plank for a couple of minutes, but still nothing like I used to be. It is like I inherited an all new body. My tummy is all pulled in tight and sewn together, but it lost its mobility and strength.
Today, I went back in for a follow up. You can see and feel all of the stitches that hold down the hernia repair mesh. One of them that is prominent has caused a lot of discomfort over this year, so my doctor offered to snip that one stitch out in a simple office visit. Well, it was not such an easy thing (is it ever?), and he could not get the stitch out. The local anesthesia caused the tissue around the stitch to swell too much. So, he covered that area with some of my tissue he pulled over, and then covered it with a synthetic tissue. I am again in a hunched position and hurting, but after what I have been through, this is a walk in the park. I hope this is the last process.
My doctor prescribed some tape-like medicine for the scars. It is called Cordon. I wear it over all of the scars every day, and in about 8 weeks, the scars have become flat and the redness is much reduced. He says the end result will be barely detectable scars. That's a wow, right? The scars run from hip to hip with a dip down the hip bone and straight across the lower pelvis, also a cut vertically in the lower pelvis, and a new navel.
So, in all, Diastasis friends, I would recommend this surgery to people who have a diastasis as advanced as mine was, and who have a hernia in it. Otherwise, I would recommend Julie's process (www.diastasisrehab.com), and help from a post natal trainer (like me!). It is a VERY extensive process to get the surgery, and should be elected as a last result or emergency.

Diastasis Recti: The Surgery and Recovery Part 1

For all of you who have Diastasis Recti and you have come to the conclusion that it will not close through your efforts, or if you have a hernia in the diastasis and you know you will have to have surgery or live with it forever, I am writing a few articles for you. Please note that I am very honest. Some people do not want to know how it really is and would rather go in to the surgery without prior knowledge. Please know that I am not going to tiptoe around the situation.
The surgery was in June 2010. It is now almost December 2010, and I will say that the recovery is still underway, though I can do most activities that I enjoy, though everything is a process and nothing is easy. Here is how the surgery itself went for me:
Two weeks prior to surgery, I signed my life away and paid a "package" price to my plastic surgeon and the hospital. This took all day. They did blood work and I signed lots of paperwork about risks. My particular plastic surgeon works with a general surgeon on this surgery. The general surgeon removes the hernia and applies the mesh over the area to reduce risk of future herniations. On the day of the surgery, I arrived at 5 AM, and sat in an admitting room where they marked me up and took more blood. They started the IV and I fell asleep as they wheeled me down the hall.
Approximately five hours later, I woke up in the recovery room unable to take a full breath. I was terrified and shocked at first. The nurse was telling me to take a deep breath and I could not. I felt like I was hyperventalating. I could not move. I was taped to a corset-like hard shell that was holding me together. I was in terrible pain, even with lots of pain meds. I do not know how long I was in recovery. It took me a long time to relearn how to get air in to my lungs without expanding my torso, and this is how I would breathe for quite a while.
I stayed in the hospital for two nights. The first day and night, I mostly slept to escape the pain and frustration of breathing and moving. The second day, I had to get up and move more. Everything was difficult. My husband had to help me do everything, including moving my legs. I was on morphine for most of that time, until the headaches became excruciating. They moved me to another pain medicine then. The leaky drains were awkward and gross.
My husband drove me home, carefully, after the second night, and my adventure of recovering at home would begin.