Post #45
The dreaded “swelly belly” is another problem. All my pre-surgery clothes fit me now, except they're tighter in the abdomen than they were before. Swelly belly is just what it sounds like. And it gets worse as the day wears on, and worse yet if you don't listen to your body and you do more than you should.
The reason for this is that the intestines, bladder and other internal organs were traumatized during surgery. There was lots of pushing, pulling and manipulating. Also, everything has to move around to fill up the space where the uterus was. Because of all this moving around, there's lots of bruising and, therefore, swelling. It can take anywhere from six months to a year for everything to heal internally. No amount of exercise or dieting will make it go away either. In fact, exercise can make it worse.
One of the ways this was explained is an analogy to a sprained ankle. When your ankle is bruised and swollen, the last thing you should do is walk on it to make it better. Same for “swelly belly.”
Right now, though, it's pretty bad. “Overdoing it” can be something as simple as sitting for too long without having my feet up as much as I should. For the last few hours, I could have posted about my ever-expanding tummy. It's grown about 6 inches in the last 8 hours. But at least it doesn't hurt. Yet.
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