Regarding the Tummy Tuck (the Panniculectomy).

Scheduling problems interfered with my schedule to have the panniculectomy, the plastic surgery to remove the excess skin around my abdomen, in March.  There was a confusion between me, my surgeon, his office, and the day surgery center about which Tuesday I was on the schedule.  At the same time, there were developments at work that made it advantageous for me not to take the days off I had planned to take off to recover.

So, my surgeon and I resolved to reschedule in May, and I have not contacted him to do so since.  I want to wait.  I'm not sure why, really.

The skin needs to go.  The procedure has been approved by my insurance carrier as a therapeutic procedure.  There's no fudging that fact.  The justification for doing this isn't cosmetic.

Clothes minimize visual attention to this irregularity in my body contours.  My body contours are still changing.  The part of the skin that needs to be removed becomes clearer with each passing month.  That is, this excess skin is looking more and more like it is *not me* as time passes.  Everyone with an informed opinion (i.e., those who see me naked) has expressed a notion that it seems like the surgery would turn out better if I let my body contours continue to evolve a bit longer.

The skin under my panniculus (beer gut) gets a simple, common skin condition that results from an excess of moisture and a dearth of open air to the skin surface.  My dermatologist tells me that I have nothing that a couple of weeks on a nude beach in the tropics wouldn't completely cure.  He says he sees exactly the same condition on the undersides of breasts in many otherwise healthy women.  I can't eliminate it with topical agents, but I can keep it under control.  In one sense, clothes cause this.

I don't want to live with this forever, but getting rid of it isn't as urgent as it could be.   Also, I do not like general anesthesia.  I am happy to postpone any encounter with it.  So, that's where I am at the moment, but like my body contours, I expect this will continue to evolve and change.