Tummy Talk or Tuck...

Anyone who knows me knows I hate my stomach. After gaining and losing large amounts of weight and having a C-Section delivery for my last pregnancy I am left with a flab. I call it my best friend, because everywhere I go, it goes. I'm not an athlete but I'm pretty fit. I work out regularly and don't go overboard eating (but I do LOVE food and could never be devoted to a low cal/restrictive diet) and yet, it's always there, glaring at me when I look in the mirror.

Truthfully, I've never done a hundred situps a day for more than a week at a time but I don't know if it would change it. It's definitely skin not fat. I fantasize in my mirror about how I would look without my flab, but I wonder, would I, could I ever get a tummy tuck???

The idea of it is appealing but the actual surgery and recovery scare me. The primary reason is my chronic pain. It comes from somewhere in my abdominal wall... I think. The doctors have never pinpointed the pain and I've learned to live with it and stop paying medical professionals to tell me there's not reason for my excruciating pain, but it's there, this nagging intrusion into my normal life. Sometimes it flares up and sometimes I can go a week maybe with no pain. Always, though, I fear when the pain will come again and I avoid certain movements to protect myself from feeling it. I worry if I had a tummy tuck what would happen to the pain? Would it disappear? If I had a guarantee for that, I'd do a tummy tuck as soon as I could save the money for it! I don't have that promise though or a good explanation for the pain, so I worry that the procedure could make it worse. I like the life I have now. I don't want to risk a surgery that is largely for my own vanity that could make the pain worse. And it's not like I'd go around flashing my belly if it looked better anyway. That's not me, I believe in modesty so it would totally be a just for me kind of thing. And yet, I can't get the idea of a flat stomach out of my mind. I would LOVE it. I just don't know.