recovery
Thailand: Day 23
It was dark all around me except for a little light starting to break through the shades. I rolled over and waved my hand over my phone so the clock would appear. 5:57 AM. It never fails that you wake up just a few minutes before the alarm is supposed to go off. I laid there until 6 and turned my alarm off.
I got up and spent a few minutes preparing myself for what would be the next 45 minutes of non-enjoyable, medical intervention, that has become a norm in my life. Once that was complete, I hopped in the shower and got myself ready for the day. My friend and I went downstairs and had an enjoyable breakfast before I headed to the lobby, to wait for the driver to take me to my follow up exam with the surgeon.
I tossed my donut pillow into the back seat of the driver’s car, grabbed the handle over the door, swung myself in, sat down and got comfortable for the ride. It was a bumpy ride, and I’m not sure that my new parts have forgiven me yet, but we made it to the doctors office and I went inside. As soon as I arrived, they handed me a small envelope that had a letter that I could use for the airlines to get some special treatment. We’ll have to see how well that works.
I was taken upstairs to the changing room, where I was told to remove all of my clothes, all of my jewelry, and to put on the surgical robe. I was then ushered into the exam room, where I was told to sit up on the table and lay back, placing my legs in the stirrups. I felt just a little exposed and, believe it or not, I can see all you women, who are reading this, snickering and smirking. The surgeon came in and proceeded to inspect his handiwork. He confirmed that everything was healing absolutely perfectly and even went about cleaning me up. It was over before I knew it and it was not painful at all. I was then escorted back to the changing room where I put all my clothes and jewelry back on and went downstairs to wait for the driver.
I came back to the hotel where I relaxed a little bit before my friend and I headed out to visit the Erawan Museum in Bangkok. The Erawan Museum is a 12 acre garden and museum that houses cultural, religious, and historical artifacts of the nation of Thailand, which was also known as Siam. It is famous for its 44 meter tall, 3 headed, copper elephant, that also doubles as a Buddhist temple.
The garden was absolutely beautiful with waterfalls, statues, lush green vegetation, and a cobblestone pathway all the way through the garden and around the main temple in the middle. It really reminded me of something my grandmother would have enjoyed, as her house was filled with all kinds of oriental artwork and statues. We proceeded into the bottom of the museum, which was a circular path that led from room to room. Each room was filled with various pots, jars, and models of different things that taught about the history and culture of Thailand. Once we had walked through that, we then proceeded to the inside of the temple. We were required to remove our shoes and cover our legs because our shorts did not go below our knees. This was done in order to respect the culture of the Thai people.
Inside the temple, there was a massive staircase that went up the center and then split at a statue of Buddha, each side going around to an upper level. Above that, you could take an elevator up to the next floor, where there were more altars, and a staircase leading up to the main portion of the temple, inside the elephant’s body and head. It seemed that everything inside the temple was adorned with jewels or carvings that told the history of the Thai people. It was a very beautiful sight to see.
When we were done, we grabbed a cab back to the hotel so that we could rest while I attended to my medical needs. After a bit of resting, we decided to go to the mall next door and eat at a little pizza shop in there. So off to the races we went, with more walking, and more enjoyment of the sites of Bangkok. The mall was not too terribly crowded for a Wednesday night, but there was some kind of promotional deal going on in the main center of the mall with a lot of cars and motorcycles. There was also a DJ who had the speakers so loud that the bass was shaking the walls in the stores nearby.
We enjoyed our pizza, some buffalo wings, and a couple of Thai iced teas. After we paid for the meal, we began to walk around the mall. I have been wanting to get something for my kids, but I was not sure what they would like that I could find. I’m not big on buying things here that I can get at home. I would like to have something unique that you can only get in Asia. Combining the uniqueness, with something that my kids would like and enjoy, has been a real challenge. We walked the mall for an hour and then headed back to the hotel.
Back in the hotel, it was time to wind down, watch TV, and once again attend to my medical needs. I laid in bed doing my thing, while my friend and I watched The X Files. I eventually took the time to rest, talk to some friends online, peruse Facebook, and let sleep slowly take me over. A perfect end to a perfect day.
Thailand: Day 14
Woke up this morning with the huge need to evacuate my liquid waste system. This is something that is going to take time to get used to. It is nothing like the way it used to be. Sitting and urinating for guys is not the same as sitting and urinating for women. I’m not even sure how to describe it without getting graphically detailed. Anyone interested in that can message me privately.
So my friend and I got dressed and headed downstairs for breakfast. Finally, I was able to get out of the room instead of having my food brought to me and being luke warm at best when I got it. We got downstairs and the smells were lovely as was the spread of food.
I went through all the areas and picked a bunch of food that looked good, or at least worth trying. I started with some Yakisoba, roasted potatoes, ham, bacon, chocolate danish, and a meat and vegetable omelet. I also grabbed some chocolate milk because…chocolate milk.
There’s something interesting to be said about the different culture and their food. In America, at breakfast time, there is a small subset of foods, but here there are so many cultures that they must present to, that the food array is quite wonderful. With Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Thai culture represented in this city, the collection of food is actually quite pleasing.
We headed back up to the room so that I could attend to my daily medical needs. I really hope at some point this gets easier and less painful. I’m sure it will, but it’s just going to take time. I can’t even imagine going up to the largest dilator. Hopefully stepping up to it over time will help. It’s very scary and intimidating. I’m going to need a nap after this.
I laid around for a little bit, but you can’t keep a good developer down, so I got up and decided to work on my personal portfolio project. Since my nurse has not cleared me to roam around the city, I have to improvise and entertain myself in my hotel room. I actually got an opportunity to fix my email. Turns out that when you use your own cell phone number as a backup it’s kind of hard to use that when you’re in another country and don’t have access to your cell phone text messages.
Of course that time came and went, and it was time for me to do that wonderful medical stuff that I have to do 3x a day. I have to say, sometimes I think that this is the worst 30 minutes of my life, but I think it’s because my wounds are still fresh and my incisions are still healing. Everything is tender, so it hurts a little bit each time I have to do it. Of course that 30 minutes came and went and it was time for me to get back on my computer and continue working.
Later my friend and I went downstairs and had dinner in the lounge diner while we listened to an Asian man play the piano. He seemed to enjoy playing old Elton John tunes. I had a club sandwich with French fries and we shared an order of fried spring rolls between us. At the end of the meal I realized how close we were to a scheduled appointment I had so we hurried back upstairs.
I jumped on my laptop and made 3 different phone calls, all job interviews with recruiters. They were very productive and hopefully will lead to something good down the road. I did my dilation routine for the evening and then my friend and I settled down and watched an episode of The X Files. A perfect end to a fabulous day.
Thailand: Transition within a Transition
Oh my gosh! That was the most interesting experience of my life. I do not know how to describe it anymore than giving you the imagery of a magician pulling colored scarves, tied together, out of his sleeve.
The nurses came in this morning and removed my packing. The packing is all the gauze that the surgeon put into the vaginal canal to keep it open for the first week while it heals properly. Once they remove the packing, they use a speculum to check the quality of the healing inside the vaginal canal and then they get a baseline reading of what your depth is.
Getting a baseline reading is an interesting thing. Turns out they use a plastic rod that they put inside of you that has inch markers on it. The rod is by no means a phallic shape other than that it is long and cylindrical and has a rounded end on one end, but it is about an inch or so wide so basically they just measured my vagina death with a dildo. I’m 7″. I suppose I can walk around telling people I’m 7″ now. I think I’ll keep that to myself.
After I ate breakfast, I got the opportunity to finally take a shower. I have to say that it was so nice to just stand in the hot water and relax. Of course I couldn’t do that all day, so I washed my hair and my body and got out. It felt so good and so relaxing and refreshing.
I then went back to doing a lot of laying down, surfing the internet, and watching TV, because that’s pretty much all you can do when you’re trying to recover. I cannot sit for very long because it puts too much pressure on my groin, even though I do have a donut that takes a lot of pressure off of it. Baby steps. Baby steps.
The next morning, I woke up and waited for my nurse to come and visit and check all of my progress, as well as to show me how to do my dilation. I get a daily visit from the doctor’s nurse every day of the week except for Sunday. She comes and checks my progress, makes sure that I am doing well, and answers any questions I may have. Today the topic at hand was teaching me how to dilate, a procedure I will have to do 3 times a day, 40 minutes each time, for the next two years.
The vaginal canal is made of skin, and like any skin on your body, it wants to heal itself by fusing together. Dilation is simply a process that will allow the skin to stay apart while it heals and sets itself in stone. It’s kind of like leaving your earring in your freshly pierced ears until they heal so that they do not close up permanently.
The nurse arrived and set up everything that I would need to dilate, and then began to show me exactly what I would need to do. There’s really not a lot to it. Simply lube up the rod, insert it and then hold it in at full depth for 15 minutes. Easier said than done, at least in these early days. The further you push the rod in the more painful it becomes because it begins pushing against the back of the canal, as well as pushing around anything inside your body cavity that might be in the way. Once they were able to get the rod in the full 7 inches, it wasn’t that bad sitting there and relaxing for the 15 minutes.
When that was done, we cleaned everything up and put it away until the next day. The next day consisted of dilating twice in a day, for 20 minutes each time. It was still very painful and, I presume will be painful for weeks or months to come, until I get settled into a constant cycle of dilation. Eventually the cycle will consist of 3 times a day at 40 minutes each with 3 different stint sizes. Did I mention that as time goes on, I’ll be using additional stints that actually get wider? Eeeek!
Today was my first day to dialate 3 times in one day but that’s not the most interesting part. I actually had my catheter removed today. That was an experience that I will never forget and would like to never repeat either.
It started with the nurse removing all the tape holding the catheter in place. Then, she began to insert a small syringe into an exit port of the tube that allowed her to suck all the excess urine out of the tube. I could feel it sucking on my bladder which was very weird. The nurse then told me to take a deep breath and exhale it out very slowly while she removed the catheter. Can you say burn?
Before I knew it, she was done and all the burn was gone. After the nurses left, I proceeded to do my dilating and then I got in the shower and let the warm water run over my body while I stood there relaxing, long enough to let all the equipment work at its natural state. I didn’t realize I was peeing, but I opened my eyes and noticed the yellow pool at my feet so obviously I did.
After a good cleaning, I got out of the shower, got dressed, and got myself all ready to face the day, feeling completely new and completely whole. The last few days have been a transition from surgery recovery to living normal. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me in my new life living on the outside like I have been on the inside for so long.
Thailand: Hotel Recovery
We pulled up to the hotel, and hotel staff were actually waiting outside for me with a wheelchair. I got out of the car, threw my donut on to the wheelchair, and sat down and they wheeled me into the hotel and up to my room on the third floor. I was so thankful that I did not have to walk anymore. I got to my room and got my clothes off and crawled into bed.
The hotel portion of my recovery hasn’t been much different than the hospital portion except, I have less TV channels to access and I have a little more variety in the food that I choose to eat. Back at the hotel, my diet could change to soft and semi liquid foods, so while I could eat the full contents of a bowl of soup now, I was also able to eat more soft foods like scrambled eggs. Having access to things like soda makes this portion of the recovery much easier.
I spent a lot of time sleeping, and waking up long enough to eat and take medicine and maybe watch some TV, before falling back to sleep. My body has been very tired. Even when I do very little, I am exhausted like I have run a marathon.
This routine lasted for a couple of days and then the nurses came in and changed up the game. They removed all my bandaging and cleaned everything up and then simply taped the catheter back down. I was finally bandage free, even though I still had some tape and my catheter on me. This was a huge mental step because, from my perspective, I could finally visualize the results of everything I had gone through. Things were looking up.
I only have a few more days and then they will come and take the packing out. Once they do that, I can probably take a shower, as well as begin the arduous task of dilating. But for now, I will leave you knowing that all I’m doing is laying around, watching TV, eating and sleeping. It’s a pretty boring life.
Thailand: Hospital Recovery
I finally woke up and it felt like somebody had grabbed my crotch and ripped everything off. Of course we know that’s exactly what happened. I was just very thankful for a spinal epidural and a lot of drugs. I looked down, but I was unable to see anything because it looked like I was wearing the world’s largest Depends.
The nurses came in and brought me some breakfast and medicine. My breakfast consisted of a cup of warm soy milk and a cup of hot chocolate. After breakfast, one of the nurses came back in and gave me a sponge bath, which was interesting to say the least, because I’d never had one in my entire life. I have to admit that it felt good to actually feel a little bit clean.
After they were gone, I turned on the TV and had a satellite dish worth of channels to peruse, including quite a few American channels, even though they were Asia bound. Eventually I fell asleep, until lunch time. Once again I was awakened by the nurses so that I could take my medicine and enjoy another liquid based meal. After that, I laid in bed, surfing the internet, and watching TV until I eventually fell asleep.
My friend came to visit me for a little bit, the first day of recovery, which was nice, because I could interact with another person who could understand me. Of course she had to leave because the visitation window was very small and I eventually fell back to sleep, that’s what powerful pain medication does to you. I was awakened later so that I could take more medicine and drink more liquid meals. After a while, I remember the nurse coming in and turning the TV off, but I was in such a groggy state that I did not really care, and welcomed the darkness and the silence so that I could just lay there and drift off into dreamland. I had survived my first day of recovery.
So the cycle continued pretty much the same for 3 more days but that last day was a doozy. On the evening of the third day of recovery in the hospital, the doctor came in, after he had completed 7 hours of surgery on somebody else, and wanted to remove all my bandages so that he could take a look at all my incisions and make sure that everything was healing properly. The nurses turned all the lights on and began working feverishly removing tape and bandages from my pelvic area.
It was nice to not have all that bandaging and packing on the top of me, and be able to have a little more flexibility in movement, but it also brought into light a very surreal moment where I got to see myself for the first time (at least what I could from my perspective). Of course I could also see the catheter tube as well as two fluid tubes going directly into my mons pubis. That was actually kind of gross and unnerving.
The doctor did his inspection and the nurses thought it would be a good idea to check the sensitivity of my clitoris. I nearly came off the bed when they touched it. They were very pleased that sensitivity had remained and that everything should heal nicely and work properly. They cleaned me up and put less bandaging on me, enough to protect the catheter and fluid tubes, and said that everything (except the catheter) would get removed and cleaned up tomorrow before they sent me back to the hotel. They left me to be, and I fell asleep.
Morning came and I was awakened to another sponge bath. I did not feel like eating much so they gave me a warm hot chocolate and some potato crackers. After I was cleaned up, the nurses came in and began removing all the bandaging and cleaning up my pelvic area, to prepare to remove the fluid tubes, and get me ready to leave and go back to the hotel. They cut the fluid tubes and then began to disinfect the area around them and slowly removed the tubes. It hurt like hell. They got both of them out, and bandaged them up, and then put tape over all the bandaging to keep everything in place. At that point I was completely disconnected from anything and could get up out of the bed.
They helped me get dressed and gathered all my things up for me. I was then escorted outside the surgery center and I walked over to the front seat of the driver’s car. I got in and sat down on my little donut. The ride back to the hotel at 6:30 in the morning was bumpy, painful, and seemed to be the longest 10 minutes of my life. However, I arrived safely at the hotel, ready to continue the rest of my recovery there.
Thailand: Surgery Day
Since I’ve been recovering, i haven’t been in a position or had the feeling to write. I’m sure you can forgive me. I will bring my readers up to speed with a 4 part piece inside of the larger series that highlights my surgery and immediate recovery. Enjoy.
Well today’s the day. I woke up and of course could not have anything for breakfast today, not even liquids, so I went downstairs with my friend and watched her eat while we sat and chatted.
After breakfast we came upstairs and I finished off some writing that I wanted to do, as well as paid some bills that were going to be due over the next week. I then took a shower to get myself completely shaved and clean, knowing I wasn’t going to be able to shower and shave for at least a week, and then packed a small bag for the hospital.
The time came to leave, 12:55 pm local time, so we went downstairs and waited for the driver to arrive. He came and my friend and I got in the car and headed to the surgery center. We arrived at the surgery center in about 10 to 15 minutes and I was sure there would be some kind of wait because I have never gone to a hospital and not waited.
Unfortunately, there was absolutely no wait. They were waiting for me with the door open, ready to walk in and begin my adventure. My friend and I were in the door for less than a minute before they grabbed me and took me up to my recovery room. They did not allow my friend to stay very long and ushered her out the door and into a cab so she could go back to the hotel.
I was escorted to a small dressing room first, where they gave me a very nice plush robe to put on and I put my clothes into my bag. I was then shown to my recovery room where I was promptly told to get into the bed and they began taking vitals. After that I was told to rest and wait until the anesthesiologist arrived. The nurse turned on the TV to HBO where an episode of Parkland was on showing a bunch of doctors surrounding a guy, in the O.R., trying to resuscitate him. He did not make it. Let me tell you that was such a reassuring image at that moment (rolls eyes expectedly).
After a few minutes, the doctor came in and told me it would be at least another 1.5 to 2 hours before the anesthesiologist showed up. Yeesh. Why was I here so early? I switched channels to Food Network and began to relax…and drool. Maybe not the best channel but hey, I like to cook.
About 45 minutes later the nurses came in and said it was time to go into surgery. Imagine my surprise. They had me get out of the bed and walk down the hall to the O.R. where I was told to climb up onto the operating table. The anesthesiologist introduced himself and said he was going to start preparing me for surgery and to just relax and be calm. He inserted the I.V. into my arm and taped it down and told me that I would begin to feel warm and fuzzy. He was right, it felt like instant drunkenness. I don’t remember anything after that.
I was lightly slapped awake around 10 or 11 pm. I can’t be sure because I couldn’t see too well but the hands were somewhere in that quadrant of the clock. I was told that the surgery had gone well and that I was recovering nicely and that I would need to sleep through the night and they would take me to my permanent room in the morning. I went back to sleep.
I was awaken the next morning around 5:30 am when the nurses were taking vitals and messing around with the massagers that were wrapped around my legs. I noticed that my nurse had been laying on a pallet on the floor next to my bed. I asked her if she slept there all night and she said yes. Talk about service. I was then told that it was time to go to my permanent room.
I was sure they were just going to unlock the bed and roll me into my permanent room, but that was not the case. Instead, they helped me get up and out of the bed, very slowly, and proceeded to help me walk out the door and down the hall to the top of the stairs. When I got to the top of the stairs, there were 3 nurses assisting me, step by step, all the way down a flight of stairs. My legs felt like jelly. When I got to the bottom, they plopped me into a rolling desk chair and rolled me into my permanent room. I immediately climbed into my bed and proceeded to sleep while they did their work.
Happy Independence Day
Happy 4th of July.
A holiday we celebrate in America as a result of our defiance to oppression that says you are not free to be who you are, but to be who we tell you to be. Our country was built on the epitome of being free to be, no matter what that may be. This is my 2nd Independence day as my true self, out to the world. Like the last one, this one has a significance that is, in my opinion, greater than the last.
Last 4th of July, I was newly out to the world as a transgender person, a transsexual person. I had some push back from some people but for the most part, 95% of the people in my life did not push back and a smaller majority even congratulated me and called me brave and bold to be so authentic in a world where we are shamed if we are different to any degree, much more when it falls in the camp of a binary like a man or woman.
This 4th of July is different because I have gained a new independence. I am now free from the dysphoria that my body has laid upon me for almost 40 years. When I started hormone replacement therapy in April of 2014, I became free from the mental dysphoria I lived in. No longer did my brain live in a cloud of depression and anxiety caused merely from using the wrong gas in the engine of my body. My brain began to function with the right hormones, and with it came a new way to live life, alive, wide awake, capable of being, feeling, and sensing like what I believe 99.5% of the world does.
In the 2nd half of 2014, I began to chip away at my social dysphoria. My ability to get the world to see me like I see myself, to be me authentically in their presence was another layer of the dysphoria onion I was living in. I was now beginning to live my life full time as the new me, not pretending to be someone else or something else that didn’t quite fit me right. This culminated with my final social step of changing my name and gender markers on all my legal documents and social networks. I was officially Ashley Nikole at that point.
Today, I awoke from a surgery that lasted approximately 6 hours, to find that the last hold out on my body dysphoria had been changed and now begins my independence to live 100% authentically, as a physical woman with everyone in my life. My friends, my family, my future relationships, would now see me as I see me. Today is indeed a great day to be free.
So for now, for today, I will rest. I will physically rest and recover. I will mentally rest while I sit and contemplate the vastness this great freedom has bestowed upon me, while I thank my Lord for the promise He made, and thusly delivered on, to give me everything I would need to transform me like the potter reshapes the clay to form a new vessel. I will also rest from my social life, simply slipping back into the shadows and out of the spotlight, until I’m ready to once again emerge and wrestle the task of showing others the love that was poured onto me by my Savior and Maker.
God bless and Happy Independence Day.
Time to Face the Music, Part 3
In my final installment of my 3 part series of the journey that is my facial feminization surgery, I document my 8 day recovery from leaving the hospital to actually having my stitches and staples removed. If you want to catch up, you can do so by reading part 1 and part 2.
After my discharge, and my father brought me back to the hotel room, I was sort of in and out of it a lot. I had a friend come to help take care of me as well and I remember hearing her voice when she arrived in the room but I couldn’t honestly tell you what was going on.
Dr. Spiegel had prescribed oxycodone as my pain killer. I had never had it before but I had taken others with no problems so I figured everything would be fine. Boy was I wrong. Oxycodone is a devil drug on my body. One of the biggest problems I had with my entire recovery was that I am a nose breather. I breathe through my nose and can not stand when I have clogged sinuses or drainage that keeps me from breathing through my nose properly. Having had a rhinoplasty, the inside of my nose was completely stuffed with all kinds of natural mucus and blood (he did not pack my nose to allow a more natural healing process). All this scabbing and dried junk pretty much made it impossible to breathe. To add insult to injury, I was not allowed to blow my nose for 2 weeks so that the inside could heal properly. So I took some oxycodone to help me sleep and relieve some of the pain. That’s where the fun begins.
I called it a devil drug because by the end of the first 3 days, I could tell it was the oxycodone that was making me light-headed and loopy. Worse than that, I would have these messed up dreams while I was sleeping that were more like some sort of acid trip formed from scenes of Fantasia, my life, and some twisted reality. I would wake up drenched in a cold sweat and it would take me 3-4 minutes to snap back into reality. I wouldn’t know who I was, where I was, or what was going on. Sometimes it felt as if I was still dreaming. By the end of the first 3 days of recovery, I swore off that drug and it took me another 36 hours to stop feeling the effect of it. Not something I really ever want to touch again.
So the first morning in my hotel, I woke up early. This was partly due to the fact that my drugs were wearing off, I couldn’t sleep very well sitting up, and my friend who came to help take care of me was sleeping diagonally across the bed. Sheesh. Bed hog. Eventually she woke up and I figured it was time to remove all the bandages and clean my head wounds. I went into the bathroom and we removed the wraps from my head. It was really nasty. It looked like a scene out of a horror movie. It was kinda cool looking but kinda surreal at the same time. I think the worst part was seeing all the blood matted hair. I had worked so hard growing out my hair and was so afraid that I was going to have to cut some of it off just to get the blood out. However a good wash everyday across the first 8 days and everything was fine with minimal loss.
I cleaned my scars with hydrogen peroxide and rinsed with my medicated mouthwash for the stitches in my mouth, then started getting a little woozy. I decided it would be best for me to sit down in the chair that was near the bathroom door. I didn’t want to clean anymore, I just wanted to slow down and rest. My friend said she would finish by putting the neosporin on my scars and rewrap my head. She then proceeded to ask me if I was okay. I didn’t really understand the question, but I said I was fine. She told me that I passed out momentarily and just fell into her stomach while she was standing over me. I don’t remember it at all. I don’t even remember blacking out. It was like that moment in time was just sliced right out of my life and the remaining parts seamlessly merged back together. She helped me wrap my head and got me back in bed where I felt much better. Most of the day, I spent watching tv, sleeping, and hanging out with my friend and my dad.
Dr. Spiegel told me before the surgery that my swelling would peak around 2-3 days after surgery and would subside by 4-5 days. He wasn’t lying, that’s for sure. By Saturday evening and into Sunday morning, if I wanted to look at someone while I was talking with them, I had to literally use my fingers to hold my eyes open because they were practically swollen shut. I would put ice cold, water soaked gauze and ziploc bags of ice on them to help ease the swelling and pain and sometimes I would put the ice on my cheeks due to swelling at my jaw line. I really couldn’t put ice on my nose just due to needing to keep pressure off of it. Eating was also very difficult because I couldn’t move my mouth very much or open it that wide and of course I had stitches inside my mouth that needed to heal before any food really got in there. I ate a lot of yogurt, applesauce and even some chicken broth soup.
Sunday afternoon, my friend left to fly back home and on Monday afternoon, my dad left to fly back home. Monday night I was alone but, I was pretty much taking care of myself very well by then. I was cleaning my own wounds and a lot of the initial swelling had gone down. I was up and walking around and even going downstairs for yogurt, juice and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Of course all that liquid and soft foods was getting old by day 6 so feeling fairly confident, I ordered a pepperoni pizza from a local place and had it delivered. It was probably one of the best tasting pizzas I had ever had (at least it felt that way) and was totally worth the wait…until I woke up the next morning.
Day 7, I woke up at 5 am and went into the bathroom. That was when I noticed a large spot of blood on my head wrap down around my lips. I knew I wasn’t cut on the outside anywhere so the only logical answer was my incisions inside my mouth. Instantly I knew that pizza had possibly done damage. I took off my wrap and rinsed off all the blood and washed my mouth. Of course freaking out, I paged the on call doctor and he called back and told me that some bleeding is completely normal and I needed to rinse my mouth completely and then wait and see how long it took for the blood to come back. If it comes back right away, then call back immediately, otherwise, anything longer than 5-10 minutes is fine and completely normal. Well it came back within an hour so that told me that it took an hour for it to pool up enough for me to feel it and everything was going to be okay, but I discovered rather quickly that anything I ate or drank would easily get stored in the space below my jaw under my tongue and required me to massage my neck and jaw to push out any food and liquid that got stuck so I didn’t get an infection. Gross? Yes. Annoying? Absolutely. Eventually it went away after about a week or two.
On day 8, I was finally going to get my stitches and staples removed. I got up, got dressed, went downstairs and ate breakfast, and headed out to my car to drive to Dr. Spiegel’s office. I arrived for my appointment and was escorted to one of the patient rooms. I sat down in the chair and in a few minutes, he came in and removed the wraps from my head. He inspected everything and said it appeared to be healing wonderfully and then proceeded to remove the stitches from my nose. He said those were the most painful to remove but I wasn’t so sure knowing there were metal staples in my temples. He was right though, those nose ones did hurt for sure. He then removed the stitches from my scalp line and left the staples for last which, ironically, were the least painful to remove. After that, he cleaned the areas so that his patient coordinator could come in and take some post-surgery pictures of my face. After that, they tossed on some peroxide and neosporin and wrapped my head up in new bandages. That was it. The only thing left was just taking my time to heal and continuing my cleaning process for a few more days.
The next morning I got up early, showered, did my hair and my makeup, got all my luggage and stuff and headed to the airport to get on a plane and come home. Overall it was an easy and fabulous experience that I NEVER want to repeat. LOL! Dr. Spiegel made me feel so comfortable and really took the time to educate me as well as look after me through the entire surgery and recovery process. His office even sent me a nice vase of flowers that were waiting in my hotel room when I returned.
Below is a timeline of pictures I put together to show the stark contrast that surgery had on my face versus just hormones alone. We don’t realize it, but our brain does a lot of facial data processing when we look at someone, to help us determine their sex, and now I see how much of a difference a good facial feminization surgeon can be. I have a good foundation now, in which my hormones can settle my face structure on. Here’s to the future.
Shedding Shadows 