My FFS with Facial Team, Marbella, Spain, July 2014

[Julia-Madrid]

I thought it might be interesting to chart my FFS progress at Facial Team in Spain taking place later this week, since a few people have expressed an interest to see how their work looks.  I chose Facial Team for a number of reasons:  they are close to home; you read positive reports and very few negative comments; and they were restrained in terms of the interventions they proposed for me.  My initial wish-list was a little larger, and they recommended a reduced list.  Finally, Marbella is a playground for the rich, famous and beautiful, so given that I will fit all three categories by the time the swelling goes down, it's a perfect location for me 

I'm doing the following:

-   Brow bossing:  a little between my eyebrows
-   Chin reshaping:  may include contouring and sliding genioplasty
-   Trach shave
-   Lip lift

I have been reflecting on the reasons behind my/our desire to have FFS surgery, since in my case, quite a few of my female friends believe it to be totally unnecessary, except for the trach shave.  As you'll note from my avatar pic, with a bit of makeup and a good camera angle I come out reasonably well, and it's true that, as long as I keep my Adam's apple covered with a scarf, people see me as a girl, even on the metro with its hideously bright fluorescent lighting.

It also helps that I have a petite girl-sized body!

I think the key issue is one of personal confidence.  We all obviously want to pass as well as we can, simply to feel comfortable in our skins.  Without going overboard and wanting to fix everything, we ask "what will be good enough for me to feel good?"  In my case I would like to be able to pass with not much more than a touch of eye-liner and lipstick, if any.

The other is a question of investing in our potential future ability to sell ourselves:  while my current company supports me fully, and gives me a tiny amount of celebrity status as the "girl who used to be a boy", what would happen if I needed to find another position?  In such a case  I would want to give myself the best possibility  of making the most positive impression.  Looks are sadly very important, and the imperative to present a harmonious face/body/voice is an area where I am prepared to make a substantial investment in terms of $ and time.

Dear reader, do you think there are other compelling reasons why we do FFS?

I will update with before and after pics once I surface from the surgery this weekend.

EDIT:  Where are the photos?: I am quite careful with my public image, so I have taken the photos down now. If anyone is interested in seeing my results, send me a message.

Hugs
Julia

[GeorgieGirl]

Good luck and best wishes with your upcoming surgery Julia.

[calicarly]

Hi Julia!

I think you actually make a good point on the future success side of things and I don't think many people have mentioned that before but definitely, a work future in which you can't always be seen as others defined by a trans status but you can prove your career and professional abilities as any other individual is totally a fair point to make. I would also suggest that a big part of us wants to look in the mirror and see an unmistakeable feminine woman staring back with no reminders of having been poisoned by T in our teenage years.

Espero te encuentres muy bien y yo se que tendras una gran experiencia con Facial Team, Ellos y Dr Bart fueron realmente Los unicos que llamaron mi atencion con sue excelentes resultados !

Looking forward to your before and afters !

[Julia-Madrid]

Thanks Georgie and Carly

Well, this time tomorrow I should be in recovery, prior to being shuttled off to my room. 

Today my parents and I met with Drs Capitan and Simon.  They give the impression of being dynamic but careful, and took pains to discuss the four interventions and the relative complexities and risks of each, with a few cranial and jaw models sitting on the table.   So I must say that I feel even more confident in my decision to do this. 

What I have seen so far is the utmost professional manner from everyone at Facial Team.

Tomorrow I have an 08:30 start at the hospital, and I should be out during the late afternoon.  Apparently I will have a bunch of bandages and a cooling mask for the first 12-24 hours, and then I start to look "more-or-less"  human again.  Which side of more-or-less will depend on how I react and the subsequent swelling and bruising I may experience.  We shall see.

En fin, chicas, las cosas que hacemos para ser bellas....!!!

Hugs from Marbella...
Julia

[ClaudiaLove]

Hi ,

Good luck with your surgery tomorrow   
I wish you great results and quick and easy recovery  .
You must be so excited now    and , I guess , a little nervous
We are looking forward to your post-op topics with happy news and pictures 

[Lara1969]

Good luck and I wish you a fast recovery!
Enjoy your stay there in Marbella :-)

Lara

[Donna Elvira]

Hi Julia!

I think you actually make a good point on the future success side of things and I don't think many people have mentioned that before but definitely, a work future in which you can't always be seen as others defined by a trans status but you can prove your career and professional abilities as any other individual is totally a fair point to make. I would also suggest that a big part of us wants to look in the mirror and see an unmistakeable feminine woman staring back with no reminders of having been poisoned by T in our teenage years.

Espero te encuentres muy bien y yo se que tendras una gran experiencia con Facial Team, Ellos y Dr Bart fueron realmente Los unicos que llamaron mi atencion con sue excelentes resultados !

Looking forward to your before and afters !

I for one am totally in phase with this thinking. Thanks to FFS (and HRT for skin tone...), I can already get away with 5 mins makeup in the morning ie. just eyes and lips.

GRS is just for me but I will almost certainly do VFS for the same reason as FFS ie. just not have to worry about any aspect of my passability any more. I think of this a lot as I'm going to have to "sell myself" again a few months from now, either as a consultant or again in a salaried position and I just don't want being "Trans" to be an issue.

Since I'm going to be below par for a while following GRS, I'm thinking I might as well get everything behind me once and for all so that I can start afresh early next year...by which time my Civil Identity Change should also have come through... ENFIN!

Temps que j'y suis (a thread for linguists  ), wishing you and your doting parents all the best for tomorrow Julia!
Hugs
Donna

[Julia-Madrid]

Hi everyone

Gosh, thank you all soooo much for your wishes, and to Kylie for the most lovely flowers!!

So, here I am about to be discharged, but let's recap.

On Wednesday I had the final interview with Drs Capitan and Simon.  They were really great at explaining the procedures to my parents and dispelling some of my doubts.  Donna, FYI they have a blue screen which they used to take a whole bunch of pictures.

Thursday was around 5 hours of surgery and 2 of recovery.  I woke up in their refrigerated face mask, which was covering a lot of tight bandages.  Maybe I will post some pics later, but let's say that I looked damn ugly, what with having to float my glasses on top.  Made me look like robocop under construction.  Recovery was uncomfortable but not terrible, although the combination of mask and fuzzy vision was more than a little disconcerting.

On Friday the mask came off around lunchtime, thank heavens, and it was a great relief.  I now need to wear a chin guard/strap for a week to help the tissues find their position.

And today, Saturday, as I wait for the doctors to do the final checks before I return to my hotel, I feel quite good overall.  So let's see:

Forehead: smooth now.  I have a somewhat sloping forehead which cannot be fixed, nor does it worry me, and the bossing is gone.  I have full sensation and the incision is cranial, so it's not visible.  Hurts a bit close to my ears  .

Lip lift: the doctors are quite pleased with it; since it's under bandages I can't really see it yet, but yup, there's more lip.

Genioplasty:  no idea, it's all under bandages, but they say the surgery was fine.  My bottom lip and face are quite numb, and I hope that this shall improve over the next few days.  I can't open my mouth too much, and it's not so easy to eat- I have to use a mirror to aim correctly

Trach shave: smooooth.  A little sensitive on swallowing, but so far so good.

Final comments on this hospital HC Marbella.  It's a private hospital, very modern with two new operating theatres.  It sits in nice landscaped grounds.  The staff are extremely kind and attentive but never know whether to speak to me in English or Spanish 

And a final note to my wonderful parents who sat here and worried, fretted and drank tea from time to time.  You've been wonderful!

[Cindy]

Hugs Julia

Glad it went well

[whatever]

Best wishes for a speedy recovery, thanks for the feedback on your surgical team. Reports like this really help when trying to decide on which surgeon(s) to choose for such a life-changing event.

[Monkeymel]

Sounds like it has gone well - so wish you a speedy recovery now! Then a lifetime of less makeup and many more sultry looks!

[f_Anna_tastic]

Glad it went well!

I'd love to see pictures.  I had a Consultation with Facial Team 2 weeks ago and was very interested.

Unfortunately they've quoted me £17700 which will be unattainable for a few years (depressing but something I'm really aiming for)

[Donna Elvira]

Hi Julia,
Nice to see you back already! Regarding immediate post surgery looks, I think there is a real opportunity to open a specific thread on the subject ie. The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

When I first saw my own face after my surgery, I almost went into a state of shock,  it was frankly horrific. What's amazing is how quickly it recovers afterwards...or even that it recovers at all 

Anyway, wishing you a speedy recovery and many, many happy hours in front of your mirror and any other reflecting surfaces you come across..
Hugs
Donna

[Julia-Madrid]

Today I shall be posting some photos.  They are far from pretty specimens, but are honest, and may be useful to put my whole FFS project into context.

Another sister on the forum, Erica, had a major amount of FFS done recently, making my four little interventions appear utterly trivial by comparison, and we have been talking off line in detail about the mental effort that FFS requires.  In some sense it's passive, at least at the beginning:  you pay, turn up and they then remodel your face.  You wake up, and then you realize that nothing you could have done would have prepared you for how you feel and what you see before you.  The first thing is how totally physically draining the entire experience is.  I am fit, but could not get out of bed unaided the morning following the surgery.  You ask your body for a tiny bit of effort to get to the bathroom and it's not able to deliver.  Even now, 3 days after surgery even simple things require a physical exertion that leaves me a little drained.

Let's talk about the psychological aspects.  When I awoke some time during the small hours after the surgery, with a few drips in my right arm, and a whole bunch of refrigerated pipes tethering my head from the left, I had a moment of "Oh my God, what have I done?"  I'm an analytical type, and I realised that it was actually a remnant of the anesthetic affecting my mind, so I focused on it until it went away.  The truth is that I knew and know very clearly what I have done, and I have to be absolutely firmly fixed on the goal of patiently getting better.  Now I can clearly comment that FFS requires a massive amount of ongoing mental strength and sheer bloody-mindedness coupled with more than a small dose of obsession.  And no amount of discussion with other people can prepare you for how this feels.

As I look at the last selfie I took of my former boy face, at this exact moment in time it does take some force not to compare the adequately attractive face in that photo with how I look now.  Of course, part of that photo is illusion, a combination of a camera angle that suits me together with some reasonable makeup, and changing those things just a little would accentuate the features I needed to fix.  If I'd been on a more limited budget I might have done the trach shave and stopped there.  But you then look at your jaw and see how square it is.  And then you add your upper lip, and by the time you're done you've got a completely new face.  As I look at my face now, I can see that it's me, but which version of me exactly is it?  I am not quite sure, but I am sure that I will like it when it has recovered.

And there are the ongoing concerns such as the total lack of sensation from my bottom lip through to my chin.  Truly I cannot feel a thing, which makes shaving and doing my teeth a bit odd, to say the least.  The doctors calmly say that it takes time after doing so much work for sensation to return, but of course we all tend to extrapolate, so what if it doesn't?  Well, I knew the risks, signed the forms, and have to accept that nobody totally knows what will happen next. 

I wanted this post to be highly realistic, sober and down-to-earth, and I wanted to provide an accurate personal account of how it feels, so that other sisters here will perhaps have some insight for when it becomes their turn.   Lest you think that I am being negative about my FFS experience so far (day four is hardly far along), this is not the case.  I am satisfied, and at moments, thrilled.   But for those of you who are contemplating FFS, I do want you all to know how much effort this truly takes. 

[Julia-Madrid]

So here are the photos.  This is the last ever photo of my boy face.  It's ok, reasonably shows my age, and with my adams apple covered (the bane of my existence!), I pretty much pass most of the time.  But yes, a fair dose of makeup is needed to get all of this moving.  Don't get me wrong, I've always liked makeup, but it's a lot of work...

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This cracker of a photo was taken shortly after returning to my room after the surgery.  What you cannot see is that the mask is divided into an upper and lower half, and the condensation from being at 16ºC dripped on me the whole night.  It truly comes into the category of a dehumanising experience.

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This was taken on the first day soon after the mask was removed.  You'll see that I have a lovely little chin support which grabs at you with its 6 velcro straps like those dreadful "facehugger" things from Alien.  It's not nasty, but what you cannot see is the ear-to-ear cranial incision which is gently and painfully being pulled by the straps at the top of my head.

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And finally, today's selfie, woo hoo!  You can see the stitching under my nose from the lip lift, as well as the patch covering the trach shave incision.  I must say that the things that really hurt are the cranial incision, as well as swallowing now that I'm off the hospital painkillers.  But ever since this afternoon I actually almost feel human again, and can do things like turn magazine pages .  The swelling in my jaw is not so visually evident in this photo, but there's a LOT of it - not surprising when you think of the amout of stuff they did through a relatively small incision below my front teeth.  Ah, yes, and talking about those, it does feel like I've been kinda kicked in them 

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[calicarly]

Thanks for sharing these Julia, this is probably the moment in which excitement is rising the most for you, just waiting to heal so that the results start revealing themselves properly! I'm kind of wondering what's going through your mind big hug and quick recovery!! Xoxo

[Julia-Madrid]

Thanks Carly...!!   At the moment it's more of a case of patient anticipation.  I mean, some things are immediately obvious - my brow bossing is gone and there's already this quiet sense of total satisfaction. 

Friday will be a big day, since that's when the stiches will be removed, so that too will mark a milestone.

I'm pretty sure, however, that I will need almost all of August for my face to return to an acceptable state, so thank heavens for the European summer and no customer visits!!!  At least this time I can use makeup - when I had my nose done last year the yellow bruising gradually dropped from my eyes down to my jawline, prompting a few odd glances on the metro.

By the way, Marbella has a very agreeable microclimate.  There is almost no humidity, and the nights are fresh.  I'm not looking forward to returning to Madrid with its blowtorch heat...

[Julia-Madrid]

A brief update...  yesterday was a checkup with the surgeon Dr Capitan, and he was grinning like a Cheshire cat at the results.  I've been exceptionally lucky with healing process! Let's see:

-  Trach:  a bit yellow and some bruising is noticeable in what I will call the "Cleopatra's Necklace" zone.  Swallowing in pretty easy now.

- Jaw:  the swelling and jowels have come down a huge amount.  A little bit of feeling is returning.  The Dr commented that it was quite challenging to do all the chin work as I have quite a small mouth, so there was quite some stretching of tissue.  I have to wear this chin support garment as much as I can for most of August, but since I shall be working from home, it's ok-ish.

- Lip lift:  yay, it's starting to look like a real lip again.  The stitches partially mask the bits of "facial hair" that my Gillette cannot get to hehehe!

- Forehead:  really looking and feeling good.  Puffy eyes are down and the cranial incision is healing nicely.  Hurts a bit when I think about it.  This was the part that freaked me out most!

The standard and quality of post-op care has been exemplary - I am very impressed.

I'll post some pics later today...

xxx
J

[calicarly]

Pics pics pics!! and super glad to hear you're healing quickly p, you must be delighted

[Julia-Madrid]

Hi Carly

Yeah, I am very pleased with the results so far.   What is interesting in how the bruising is only now coming to the surface.  In positive terms, the gentle pain around my eyes has gone, and I can now open my mouth wide enough to pop in a large cherry.  My chewing power is also returning, although I still have to eat carefully as I don't have much feeling in my lower lip.  But you adapt quickly and I don't miss my mouth as much as I did on the first few days      What is also interesting is that the orientation of my eyes has very slightly changed.  I am not used to it yet.   As for the head scar, this no longer hurts much, but does pull from time to time.  It has taken the better part of 5 days' gentle champooing to get most of the blood (urgh!) out of my hair.  Tomorrow all the external stitches come out, although I believe the ones in my mouth shall gradually dissolve.  I can hence expect a verrrry slow return to full mouth movement 

So here are some pics

This is Wednesday's 6 days after surgery.

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Today, Thursday, almost a week after surgery:  the bruising around my right eye is coming down, but you can see a lot of brusing and swelling still on my jaw and neck. 

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Thursday, in profile.  A lot of bruising and the stitching from the trach shave.  But the lip lift is quite notable - at least 5mm of difference, yay!

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