waking up after SRS.

[Tessa James]

How good to hear from you Suzi!  Congratulations on a major milestone and victory for you.  We know you will be busy but thank you for sharing your journey with us.

[Ducks]

Post op I was instantly awake and coherent, I asked the surgeon if everything went OK and chatted with my friend who was waiting to make sure I survived surgery.  Before surgery I wrote NO on both my legs, and YES in the middle.  I never heard if it got a laugh, no mention of it in the surgical notes

The last thing I said before going under (about 97 on the count backward from 100) was"Do a good" and I remember nothing else until after. I meant to say job, but was not able to finish.

[LifeInLimbo]

I was thinking something along the lines of "Mission Accomplished?" or "I think it's dead Jim".

[Agent_J]

I asked "is it done?" I really needed that confirmation because my transition had been filled with so many delays and roadblocks (and largely ridiculous ones put there by gatekeepers) that I was truly terrified that there would be some last-minute issue that lead to cancellation.

[crystals]

i as a completely childish and witty full of humor person i bet when i get my srs and wake up i would go either like the "you said its just a check up! where did my nuts go?"
or

"f@## im outa here! wait i cant move

or go like
wiggle wiggle wiggle

just imagine waking up feeling that for the first time and go full gollom "myyyy preciouuuuuuusssss"

to top it off
hide a big plastic jumbo bug and throw it at staff when they come and check up on you X D

or even better shove it in when in a follow up check after a couple of months you will scare the living frap out of your gynecologist

[Wynternight]

The nausea is from the anesthesia and there are excellent anti-nausea IV drugs that can be pushed. You should have a serious talk with your anesthesiologist prior to going under. It's not unusual to throw up after being extubated. Also the IV pain meds can cause nausea. Anyway, like all things, it will pass. A small price to pay, isn't it.

One last thing, there will always be people in our lives, and on this forum that don't have a sense of humor. The most important thing for all of us is to keep laughing. Transition(ing) requires laughter. So don't apologize to anyone, here, or in life for having a sense of humor. Well...maybe to our cars for all the damage done on HRT.

Keep laughing!

IV push Promethazine will make you fly and not give a toss about anything, especially when combined with a pain med. 

[Wynternight]

Your mental state makes a world of difference. When I awoke from having bariatric surgery I did so in a very positive state of mind which is the same state I went under with. I knew what I was undergoing would be lifechanging for me and so I was scared but also excited. I think my positive mental attitude really impacted my perception of the pain which wasn't all that bad. By day two I had cut the Roxicet to half the dose taken once, maybe twice a day. By day three I was off it entirely save for the few times I overdid walking. I had zero reactions to the anesthesia and actually found the first day of recovery to be quite fun. I did ask for IV pain meds and something for nausea once but that was it. Go in with positive and happy thoughts and I think you'll find the whole experience to be not as bad as you set it up to be. Anticipation is pretty much always worse, in my experience.

Another "reply" from my UK medic friend:-

"I think the important thing for everyone to realize is that patients are all very much more individual in their response to things than most people realize.

Some will have very high pain thresholds and simply will not perceive as uncomfortable, something which for another would be unbearable. Add to that the fact that recent studies have shown that women and men tend to have rather different responses to pain and it all gets very complicated. Women tend to feel pain more as an emotion, a state of mind if you like, whereas men tend to zero in on physical sensation. For this reason there has been recent work on using different types of pain relief for men and women. Typically females respond better to pain relief that contains a sedative element.

To further complicate this there is the whole thing about there being no way to get inside someone else's head and verify that their experience is the same as yours. So what it all boils down to is that your experience will be yours and yours alone, and for that reason its fairly pointless, even if understandable, to ask about this sort of thing. The same thing broadly applies to pain in dilation, electrolysis, laser, and indeed any other treatment you may conceive of.

If I may propose the general idea, prepare for the worst, and then you will probably be pleasantly surprised when its not as bad as you anticipated. By contrast if you go in expecting to be all roses and fairy farts you will probably be horrified at how bad it actually is. This is why when injecting a new patient I won't tell them "this won't hurt," instead I will say "I won't lie, this IS going to hurt a little bit, but be brave." - then nine times out of ten it's simply not as bad as they fear and they feel ok.

I have seen people who have indeed had a very bad reaction on waking, including vomit and all sorts, in fact one girl I was with when she woke nearly died. However these are actually surprisingly rare occurrences given that this is major surgery, and I also know of people who had no vomiting, no discomfort and even refused morphine going through the whole process with nothing stronger than Acetaminophen (Tylenol to you).

Bottom line is - you want the procedure, you've been dreaming of it, so find a strategy in your mind that enables you to actually enjoy the process. Approached in the right frame of mind, even dilation should be at least marginally enjoyable. For example how long have you longed to be able to insert something there? Well now you can, indeed now you have medical dispensation to do so at least three times a day without being accused of being immorally obsessed with playing with your new bits! So how good should that feel?

Most teenage girls would love to have had six months of their life when they had license to masturbate without feeling guilty! Or you can simply think about all the wasted time and feel annoyed that you have to do this. Approach it with one attitude and the time will fly by and you will feel positive about it. Approach it with the other and all you do is reinforce the idea that as a trans-woman you are somehow hard done by - which attitude I reject.

Now you may imagine that speaking, as I do, from the perspective of the medic I am demonstrating that I know nothing about about what you are going through. Be careful with that thought. I understand more than you realize, but I am also very convinced that Positive mental attitude will get you better results than indulging in self pity."

[SWNID]

I read it somewhere else:
anesthesiologist: count down from 100 please.
patient: 100, 99, 98, 97, 96......
hours later, in the recovery room
The patient woke up, yelling "95!"

Every time I woke up from surgery I found a nurse at my bedside. Apparently it is impossible for a nurse to wait by your bedside until you wake up. So does the nurse actually wake you up when they thinks you are ready? I can only remember waking up, but no idea if I was waken up by anyone.

[Wynternight]

I remember waking up very briefly in a stepdown bed, long enough for someone to tell me all was well and then I woke up again in a reclining chair. I don't recall if I woke up on my own either time or if they did something to wake me. This was last March when I had the gastric sleeve and hiatal hernia repair.

I read it somewhere else:
anesthesiologist: count down from 100 please.
patient: 100, 99, 98, 97, 96......
hours later, in the recovery room
The patient woke up, yelling "95!"

Every time I woke up from surgery I found a nurse at my bedside. Apparently it is impossible for a nurse to wait by your bedside until you wake up. So does the nurse actually wake you up when they thinks you are ready? I can only remember waking up, but no idea if I was waken up by anyone.

[SWNID]

I remember waking up very briefly in a stepdown bed, long enough for someone to tell me all was well and then I woke up again in a reclining chair. I don't recall if I woke up on my own either time or if they did something to wake me. This was last March when I had the gastric sleeve and hiatal hernia repair.

Yeah that's what I has been curious about: whether I woke up by myself or waken up by the someone. I will make sure to ask next time lol.
The first time I had surgery, I woke up and completely alert; but after my second surgery, I was so sleepy. The nurses were making small talks with me and I tried so hard to be polite and responsive but couldn't help falling asleep lol.

[Monkeymel]

Woke up to being asked to take deep breath... Intubator removed.. Dr holding right hand saying it's over and me holding and saying thankyou - then dozing in bed with machine which goes ping

[Wynternight]

Woke up to being asked to take deep breath... Intubator removed.. Dr holding right hand saying it's over and me holding and saying thankyou - then dozing in bed with machine which goes ping

Was the machine which goes ping in the Fetus Frightening Room?

[Jessica Merriman]

I will be happy just to wake up period!!  Actually I think it will be THE happiest day of my life. December 2015 is never going to get here, ugh. I am hoping for a cancellation, but I would probably feel too bad for whoever had to cancel theirs. 

[Vicky]

Jessica -- considering that you have told me where you are going for your surgery, a "cancellation" may in fact have been someone whose date was also advanced.  I learned later through an internet friend who I had gotten the spot from, and the surgery two months before had been great for the girl.  Another reason they may bump you up is that the surgery suite had been booked for something else entirely and the doctor reserving it did not have a patient to use it for (they had gotten better without the surgery).  Don't feel guilty if you can get it bumped up.

[calico]

Hey Jessica if you have your surgery during my recovery time I could go with you if you wanted;) just let me know through a pm or text me im sure you have my number still 

[pebbles]

I was planning on. "I won right?"

One year later to the day I actually had My SRS, I didn't say anything witty.

"H... How?"
*Nurse explains things, Where I was how long I was out, Everything went fine... I think for a moment*
"Thank you Cora" (I read her name badge.)

[Julieb1]

I checked to make sure it was gone I saw the dressing and was happy in my drug induced state lol

julie x

[hvmatt]

I woke up to severe shivering and then the feeling of total bliss as the anaesthetic technician put a warm air blower blanket over me. Fell asleep and woke up back in my room.The nurse almost insisted I eat,which I did, and she was there ready for me to vomit(which I did)

[veritatemfurto]

I have a couple months to go but I think I'll have something quirky from SG-1 like Col. Jack going "that's right Dorothy, it was all a dream..."

[Riley Skye]

Hey doc wheres my vagina, I don't know where you put it!