Yeson voice feminization surgery

[iKate]

Yeah I take pills. 3 days before I stop them. I'm on reduced dose now.

I'm nervous and excited. I've never been to Asia and I've never been under the knife. This is also going to be life changing as visually I have absolutely no issues but when I talk it's completely different. This will hopefully fill in a missing puzzle piece.

[Cadence Jean]

The Pre-op PA at the surgical center used by Dr. Haben said I could keep taking estradiol right up to the morning of surgery. Interesting...

[anjaq]

transdermal or injectable estradiol is not causing higher risk of thrombosis, estradiol pills and androcur however are known to increase that risk, thats why surgeons usually generally recommend to stop "hormones" before the surgery....

[Cadence Jean]

Hm. I guess Haben or the PA think the increase to risk is negligible for this combination of procedures..

[anjaq]

Well, its just a 45-90 min procedure, so its not like FFS or GRS which takes several hours... nd you dont stay in hospital bed for more than a few hours or up to 2 days.

[Cadence Jean]

Right. I also found it interesting that they only disallow the taking of Ibuprofen(NSAID, thins blood) up to two days before the surgery, not ten as is commonly done with cosmetic procedures here. I'm sticking to the ten just to be on the safe side.

[iKate]

Well I'm here at JFK waiting for my flight to ICN. Mom's flight via Tokyo already departed. So excited!

[kittenpower]

Congratulations and best wishes 

[anjaq]

Good luck (y)

[Teslagirl]

Well I'm here at JFK waiting for my flight to ICN. Mom's flight via Tokyo already departed. So excited!

All my best wishes! Please note everything so I can ask you questions for when I go in a few weeks!

Sarah.

[Teslagirl]

Well I'm here at JFK waiting for my flight to ICN. Mom's flight via Tokyo already departed. So excited!

Are you there yet? It's 10 hours from where I am in Europe. How long was your flight?
How exciting!

[iKate]

I arrived a couple of hours ago. Got a prepaid SIM card for my phone so I have data everywhere but wifi seems ubiquitous. Work also turned on roaming on my work phone.

I dressed pretty gender ambiguous going through airport security but that was worse than just presenting female with a male passport. I got some advice in another thread that I should just "suck it up" and pretend to be a male for a day. Suffice to say that didn't really work. My passport got immigration and TSA staring hard at it and looked at me and the picture like 10 times before she just initialed my boarding pass. I did set off the scanner at JFK and they had to do a pat down. Then I said, "I'm transgender" and the female screener told the guy at the checkpoint,"yeah I kinda figured that's what it was" and she did the pat down. So next time I'm just going straight presenting female and disclosing trans status to security screeners up front.

The FAs did not gender me until I spoke and it was "sir" a couple of times. Eventually I just got fed up and said, "sorry but I'm a woman. Please call me ma'am and don't call me sir, thank you!" and she apologized. One of the other FAs did not gender me at all, saying "excuse me" and not sir or ma'am.

Otherwise it was pretty good. Food was good, I had bibimbap and beef with mashed potatoes (2 meals). The upper deck of the A380 is nice, but coach isn't so bad either. They give you Bose headphones for the flight of you fly prestige or first but I brought my own. Got currency from the ATM but had to pay ₩4000 in fees plus $1 to navy federal CU (they say visa charges them that fee) but I get the fee reimbursed from the CU I think. Even with the fee the rate was 2.8% above the XE mid market rate. I will be using mostly credit cards here since mine doesn't have forex fees but I needed ₩ to pay Phil house.

I haven't flown internationally in like 8 years, so this is all new for me. The service on KAL direct from JFK is excellent, better than any domestic US airline I've been on.

Anyway any questions ask away but I'm merely following the trail blazed by Jenny and others...

[iKate]

Looks like medical tourism is booming here

[Teslagirl]

Hi Kate. It's great you're safely there. I really empathise with your security embarrassments; I'm lucky in that I transitioned a very long time ago so I have a passport in my female identity.
How did you get from the airport to Phil house and was it difficult to make yourself understood? How much was it? I've a fear of being taken for much more than the fare should be; just my usual healthy urban suspicion I suppose.
Oh and one more question; do they speak English at Phil House? I know the emails I get are in English.

Anyhow, you must be jet-lagged! Let us know how the meeting with Dr Kim goes.

(Well you did say ask you anything!)

Sarah.

[Teslagirl]

Looks like medical tourism is booming here

Is that the airport?

The fees you mentioned for getting money from ATMs seem very high. Did you think of taking Korean cash with you from the US?

Sarah.

[anjaq]

ATM fees are not that high in the city - the airport is probably more expensive. changing cash in your home country is often way more expensive than the ATM fee. I did that and basically paid 10-20% of the value for the money order at my bank. The ATM fee was like 1-5%.

Phil House personnel are very good in english, I think. I had no issues to make them understand - they dont even have much of the korean accent that is sometimes hard to understand.

I would definitely try to take the train or bus from the airport. its fast and cheap. But if you are tired after the flight, I think a Taxi is about 60 EU-80 EU, but maybe better ask before the trip. On the downside - almost no Taxi drivers seem to speak english, so haggling with them about prices is without sense. If you arrive on a weekday during regular hours, Jessie can organize a pickup to Gangnam - from there a taxi is just 10000-15000 Won to the phil house.

AFAIK you can also ask Phil house to send a trustworthy taxi, but I am not sure about that.

[iKate]

Is that the airport? The fees for getting money from ATMs seem very high. Did you think of taking Korean cash with you from the US?

Sarah.

Yes it is the airport. Getting money from home? It would have cost more that way. It's actually cheaper getting KRW from an ATM here than getting US$ from another bank ATM when stateside. Remember I compared to mid market rates which aren't the "buy" or "sell" rates. 3% over the mid market rate is pretty good. However I'm trying to use mostly my credit card(s) which give me a better rate.

[iKate]

ATM fees are not that high in the city - the airport is probably more expensive. changing cash in your home country is often way more expensive than the ATM fee. I did that and basically paid 10-20% of the value for the money order at my bank. The ATM fee was like 1-5%.

It depends on which ATM. Convenience store ATMs cost more but big bank ATMs like Citibank may cost less. Also it threw me off when I got here first that you had to press "foreign card" first before using a foreign ATM card. If the ATM doesn't have that it won't work. If you don't press that button it won't work either.

[iKate]

How did you get from the airport to Phil house and was it difficult to make yourself understood? How much was it? I've a fear of being taken for much more than the fare should be; just my usual healthy urban suspicion I suppose.

I'm a city girl in many respects so I know how to navigate public transport. The subway was pretty easy. I took airport railroad and transferred to the subway. Just go to the booth at ICN and ask for a map. Tell the window clerk you are going to Achasan station and to circle the start and end points for you and where to transfer. I transferred one stop before gimpo and then took the #5 line to Achasan. Phil house is a short walk from there.

If you are familiar with how public transportation works it's not too hard to figure out the Seoul subway. The lines are numbered and they intersect at various points. Very easy.

I got a T money card which you swipe on the way out as well as in. Subway fares are distance based.

Oh and one more question; do they speak English at Phil House? I know the emails I get are in English.

Everyone in Korea I've met seems to be able to speak English to some degree. The guy at Phil house did understand English but the accent tripped me up a bit. I had to speak a bit slowly as he did not understand everything.

Anyhow, you must be jet-lagged! Let us know how the meeting with Dr Kim goes.

(Well you did say ask you anything!)

Sarah.

Hahah yeah. I'm going to see him today at 13:30.
We see how it goes.

[Teslagirl]

Hahah yeah. I'm going to see him today at 13:30.
We see how it goes.

Why are you even up? You're 8 hours ahead of me so it must be around 5am for you?

Sarah