I just had surgery with Dr.Haben

[HouseHippo]

Last Wednesday I had "Open Feminization Laryngoplasty Crico-Thyroid Approximation CTA" surgery through Dr.Haben, and I was hoping to share my experience and results with everyone.

First of all i had a really good trip, I flew out with my best friend, It was the first time either of us had been on a plane by ourselves, and I wore a face mask the whole time because my friend was sick. People were staring at me like I had some horrible disease, so that was interesting! On Tuesday the day of my consultation I met with Dr.Haben and we talked about the operation, then he shoved a camera down my throat after spraying nasty medicine in my mouth. He had me speak while holding my tongue with the camera in my mouth, which was very hard haha. He said "I was a good candidate for the surgery", and explained very clearly what I should expect as my result. I thought he was a nice guy and felt confident in his abilities.

After my consultation i met a very nice lady in the lobby, lets call her V. She was having an endoscopic glottoplasty done the next day, we shared a cab ride back to the hotel where we were staying. My friend, V and I ended up going to a restaurant called Kobe, which was a Japanese Steakhouse. It was my second time eating sushi so V helped me pick something i would like haha. After eating we went back to the hotel and talked about transition and life. It was really neat to have met V, Shes the only woman I know that is further in transition than me. So I was able to learn and just hear about her life, it was cool .

On the day of surgery I was picked up at the hotel early in the morning and went to the Unity hospital. My friend and I sat in the waiting room for around an hour before being called back to the surgery area. Once I got called back I was put on an IV and given a warm blanket thing. After a little waiting the anesthesiologist came back to ask me questions, he was very nice and friendly. pretty soon Dr.Haben came over and asked if i had any questions, I asked in the future do i need to tell anesthesiologist to be careful because of my surgery, and he said "no"(I saw someone ask that question in a thread on here so there ya go).

I don't remember anything after that before i woke up. Once I woke up my throat hurt really bad, it was late afternoon which was weird because i went into surgery around 9. My friend was there to comfort me and helped me with everything. I was able to drink fine, but I had an issue where i was swallowing air and it made me very sick, I couldn't burp and it ended up making me throw up on myself... it was really lame. After that I was hurting really bad, it made me cry and I never cry from pain. It was the most pain I had ever been in. It sucked lol... After sitting in the hospital for a long time i was given some pain meds by the anesthesiologist and that helped soooo much. I was able to go back to the hotel and my friend got me ice cream. V ended up coming over after her surgery to visit, we chatted for a bit with text to speech on our phones, it was pretty funny. She was doing very well and said it was her easiest surgery!

On Thursday the post op consultation day, my pain level was a lot better than right after surgery. I visited Dr.Habens office again. He told me that he had to clean up a lot of scar tissue from my previous trachea shave. So maybe that's why it hurt so much? He put his camera in my throat again, and was pleased with the results and said "it will heal fine if you follow the post op instructions". Once my friend and I left, we went to Panera bread, I had potato soup and a strawberry smoothie, they felt good on my throat. On Friday we flew back to my home state and that went just fine, i was a little sore but it was fine.

Since this turned into a wall of text i'll be short with the rest. Recovery has been fairly easy, manageable pain that only really hurts when I yawn or look up. Yawning hurts a bunch haha, and for some reason i'm yawning all the time!!! The hardest thing has been not talking, I thought that was going to be easy, but it ended up being really frustrating to not be able to respond to people that were talking to me. I had dreams about talking and was scared in my dreams that i messed up my voice.

Today I was allowed to start talking so I recorded a little voice clip to share. I'm so happy to be able to talk again, i think i talked a little too much today. I also had my stitches taken out , and my PCP said everything looks good and that Dr.Haben hid the incision very well.

I'll update every week with new voice clips to share my results. Feel free to ask questions if you have any.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1HrusqPEuM8 -- "default" voice pre op.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0BOHLOc2y3q -- my voice pre op.
http://i.imgur.com/rDvCjwQ.jpg -- before and after picture
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1Yf0RJjgsHh -- 8 days post op.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1jP18LiHW6q -- 2 weeks post op
I noticed other peoples vocaroo files disappearing, so here's a mirror of all files in case they do that...
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/js9jtumq725it8b/AAABgeHOkLqXe8Jb_l2RpLLla?dl=0

[kwala]

Last Wednesday I had "Open Feminization Laryngoplasty Crico-Thyroid Approximation CTA" surgery through Dr.Haben, and I was hoping to share my experience and results with everyone.

First of all i had a really good trip, I flew out with my best friend, It was the first time either of us had been on a plane by ourselves, and I wore a face mask the whole time because my friend was sick. People were staring at me like I had some horrible disease, so that was interesting! On Tuesday the day of my consultation I met with Dr.Haben and we talked about the operation, then he shoved a camera down my throat after spraying nasty medicine in my mouth. He had me speak while holding my tongue with the camera in my mouth, which was very hard haha. He said "I was a good candidate for the surgery", and explained very clearly what I should expect as my result. I thought he was a nice guy and felt confident in his abilities.

After my consultation i met a very nice lady in the lobby, lets call her V. She was having an endoscopic glottoplasty done the next day, we shared a cab ride back to the hotel where we were staying. My friend, V and I ended up going to a restaurant called Kobe, which was a Japanese Steakhouse. It was my second time eating sushi so V helped me pick something i would like haha. After eating we went back to the hotel and talked about transition and life. It was really neat to have met V, Shes the only woman I know that is further in transition than me. So I was able to learn and just hear about her life, it was cool .

On the day of surgery I was picked up at the hotel early in the morning and went to the Unity hospital. My friend and I sat in the waiting room for around an hour before being called back to the surgery area. Once I got called back I was put on an IV and given a warm blanket thing. After a little waiting the anesthesiologist came back to ask me questions, he was very nice and friendly. pretty soon Dr.Haben came over and asked if i had any questions, I asked in the future do i need to tell anesthesiologist to be careful because of my surgery, and he said "no"(I saw someone ask that question in a thread on here so there ya go).

I don't remember anything after that before i woke up. Once I woke up my throat hurt really bad, it was late afternoon which was weird because i went into surgery around 9. My friend was there to comfort me and helped me with everything. I was able to drink fine, but I had an issue where i was swallowing air and it made me very sick, I couldn't burp and it ended up making me throw up on myself... it was really lame. After that I was hurting really bad, it made me cry and I never cry from pain. It was the most pain I had ever been in. It sucked lol... After sitting in the hospital for a long time i was given some pain meds by the anesthesiologist and that helped soooo much. I was able to go back to the hotel and my friend got me ice cream. V ended up coming over after her surgery to visit, we chatted for a bit with text to speech on our phones, it was pretty funny. She was doing very well and said it was her easiest surgery!

On Thursday the post op consultation day, my pain level was a lot better than right after surgery. I visited Dr.Habens office again. He told me that he had to clean up a lot of scar tissue from my previous trachea shave. So maybe that's why it hurt so much? He put his camera in my throat again, and was pleased with the results and said "it will heal fine if you follow the post op instructions". Once my friend and I left, we went to Panera bread, I had potato soup and a strawberry smoothie, they felt good on my throat. On Friday we flew back to my home state and that went just fine, i was a little sore but it was fine.

Since this turned into a wall of text i'll be short with the rest. Recovery has been fairly easy, manageable pain that only really hurts when I yawn or look up. Yawning hurts a bunch haha, and for some reason i'm yawning all the time!!! The hardest thing has been not talking, I thought that was going to be easy, but it ended up being really frustrating to not be able to respond to people that were talking to me. I had dreams about talking and was scared in my dreams that i messed up my voice.

Today I was allowed to start talking so I recorded a little voice clip to share. I'm so happy to be able to talk again, i think i talked a little too much today. I also had my stitches taken out , and my PCP said everything looks good and that Dr.Haben hid the incision very well.

I'll update every week with new voice clips to share my results. Feel free to ask questions if you have any.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1HrusqPEuM8 -- "default" voice pre op.
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0BOHLOc2y3q -- my voice pre op.
http://i.imgur.com/rDvCjwQ.jpg -- before and after picture
http://vocaroo.com/i/s1Yf0RJjgsHh -- 8 days post op.

I noticed other peoples vocaroo files disappearing, so here's a mirror of all files in case they do that...
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/js9jtumq725it8b/AAABgeHOkLqXe8Jb_l2RpLLla?dl=0

Wow, thanks for sharing your experience!  The pitch increase isn't so noticeable yet but that will come in time.  Even though you are still a little weak, I can already hear a huge improvement in timbre and that's without you even trying so I think your final outcome will be great!

[thegreenrabbit]

Congratulations on your surgery..:-)  Regarding intubation in future surgeries. It may or may not be a problem, but I would definitely make the anaesthesiast aware of your vocal surgery. It's not a big deal in a planned surgery, but in an emergency operation I'd get them to use the smallest intubation tubes they have. I'd got the chance to experience this first hand, and it's not risk free.

[HouseHippo]

Wow, thanks for sharing your experience!  The pitch increase isn't so noticeable yet but that will come in time.  Even though you are still a little weak, I can already hear a huge improvement in timbre and that's without you even trying so I think your final outcome will be great!

My pitch was higher earlier in the day, but I over used my voice because I was excited to talk again. So I decided just not to talk for another week. :\

Congratulations on your surgery..:-)  Regarding intubation in future surgeries. It may or may not be a problem, but I would definitely make the anaesthesiast aware of your vocal surgery. It's not a big deal in a planned surgery, but in an emergency operation I'd get them to use the smallest intubation tubes they have. I'd got the chance to experience this first hand, and it's not risk free.

I will definitely keep that in mind, I guess it doesn't hurt to inform the anesthesiologist .

Thanks for both of your replies.

[Starfire]

Congrats on your surgery and thank you so much for sharing your experience.  I have been seriously considering Dr. Haben, his results seem very good and it would be so much easier to travel within the country.

[HouseHippo]

Congrats on your surgery and thank you so much for sharing your experience.  I have been seriously considering Dr. Haben, his results seem very good and it would be so much easier to travel within the country.

Thanks I am really happy I was able to have this surgery done, and you're welcome I really wanted to contribute to there being more information out there so its not as much of a shot in the dark when deciding to do this surgery. I really liked Dr.Haben and him being in country was a huge bonus. Hopefully I end up loving my voice , we will see.

[Cadence Jean]

Congrats again! And thank you so much for sharing! I hope your results are stellar. I'll be watching this space over the next couple weeks to see how your voice shapes up. I bet it'll be great and super easy to get to the sound you like!

[Wynternight]

I'm going to follow this thread with great interest since Dr. Haben has gone to the top of my list!

[Dena]

I have several things to consider before making a decision but so far I am very impressed with Dr Haben and he is on the top of my list. Don't expect an original voice from me because after around 35 years of not using it, I don't think I can find it again. This poses an interesting question. Am I going to have to learn how to pitch my voice down again to take advantage of the additional lower feminine range the surgery might provide me with? My current inflection is a bit limited because even at my highest range I still sound male though I am above the normal male range. To use more inflection in my voice would drive me into the upper range of a normal male voice. That might be a gay voice which is something I don't want. The answer may have to wait until I have the surgery as even with surgery, I am not sure how much the doctor can help me. I am pretty sure I will have to continue working in the upper register but I don't have a problem with that if I can have people stop calling me sir on the telephone. It's always a pain when the paper work reads Dena xxxxx and the call me Mr xxxxx

[Cadence Jean]

I'm tired of being sir'ed on the phone myself, esp at conference calls at work. Then I have to send an email afterward politely explaining that I am a woman. You'd think my name would tip them off as to my sex, but nope - some people are well meaning, but oblivious. I've pretty much learned to live with that in my social life. Lol

[Dena]

Worst one was we would vend at gun clubs where a large number of military men would hang out. Now think about a person 5'14", light brown permed afro haircut and boobs in a gun club mens T-shirt and jeans or shorts talking to a shorter former military man who may address everybody as sir. I know the customer is always right but just once I would have liked to drop my pants. On the other hand, while I did receive a few looks, all were polite so I would let it pass. It's even possible they came to buy something just so they could get a close up look at us. Can't argue with the mighty buck.

Life is to short to worry about stuff like that.

[anjaq]

Dena, that must be hard to still be called "sir" on the phone that often after 35 years! For me it was just 17 years and it happened only occasionally but that was already enough to let me have surgery. I had a glottoplasty only, no CTA. What this did for me was to improve my inflections as it improved my ability to use a wider range of pitches with more ease. So I can still use a rather low pitch if I want to, but it is more comfortable to use a higher pitch and it is easier to use the upper pitch ranges for speaking. What still bugs me is the voice break. So if you have a problem with inflections, I think the endoscopic glottoplasty is a good thing. I am not so sure about the CTA part though - the part done by incision in the neck. From what I heard so far, it limits your ability to use your pitch range and it kind of forces the pitch up. In theory, it should put you more or less into a head voice because the CT muscle which controls pitch at regular speaking pitches is disabled by it. But I am not sure about this.

Be sure however, pitch is your main issue in the voice - if you have other issues, like resonance or inflections, it may be worth working on those already before the surgery. Timbre seems to change somewhat with glottoplasty, inflections can be easier for some, also resonance control seems to be easier for many, but the "basics" have to be there. Maybe you want to share a voice recording anyways for comparison and also for others to comment on your voice as it is now (looking at the non-pitch parameters)?

[ainsley]

I'm tired of being sir'ed on the phone myself, esp at conference calls at work.

INDEED!!  And that is why I am meeting Dr. Haben for a consult in 3 months.    Enough with the Sir's.  And in person, everything is fine until I open my mouth.  ugh.

[Dena]

anhaq : Back in 1078-79 I spent a good deal of time with a very skilled speech therapist finding my current voice. He didn't just teach me how to use my voice but instead taught me how to find my voice and that of others. One of the things I did was to keep a tape recorder handy and if I found an interesting voice, I would record it and bring it to the next session in order to pick it apart. As for you at first, that was the only option for years. I have developed a pretty thick skin about it but my refrigerator kicked the bucket last week and I purchased a replacement with all the water features (needed in a hot climate like mine). To make a long story short, the filter was causing problems because of the low water pressure and I needed to know how to disable it. I made 5 calls to Sears getting disconnected and wrong answers before I got what I was after. The calls would start out in another country with a non-English speaker and then I would get transferred to a support location. I got a big batch of Sirs in a short time which really rubbed it in. The fact I was dealing with non English speakers was part of the problem as English wasn't their first language, they were using pitch instead of other audio clues to place a gender the voice. My neighbor who has a regional accent did the same thing but the boobs caused her to be polite and call me by name and not gender.
My highest pitch is around an E3 so my main voice has to be around a C3 which is a full octave below a female voice. Even at that I know I could use more inflection but I would end up in the upper end of the male voice if went that far down. Having gone through the work before I understand the work I will need to do in order to lock in the new voice and I don't have a problem pitching my voice after the surgery. In fact I think I will have to in order move the new voice into my mouth where it belongs for a woman. You can't get a female voice by talking out of your chest. After all these years, I don't even recall how to talk out of my chest. I never thought that would happen but it did. To bad I don't talk in my sleep because it would be interesting to know if my body remembers how to talk out of my chest. The two things I want are pitch and the ability to project my voice at volume. I currently have the volume but not the pitch.

I have been an assembler computer programmer for 40 years  but I will be the first to admit I am clueless about sharing voices on the internet. I use this board well because I am also over at SETI and they use the same software but I have only gone as far as sharing pictures. A little help in that area would be appreciated. By the way, I use MAC hardware and iPhone if that helps.

I have to get ready for work but I will see you latter.

[iKate]

It's not really the phone as I mostly do not use the telephone, but it is the stupid drive thru window. Once you make an order you can look fem as they get once they hear the voice it's "sir." Some people hesitate now and some are surprised when I pull up and they see me. But enough is enough which is why I went with the surgical option.

[anjaq]

Hi, Dena.
Ity good to hear you had a good voice therapist that far back. When I was trying to fond anyone who can help me in 1997, it was kind of pointless. So I turned to online stuff, but Melanies voice tapes helped me - I know for many they dont do that. No one knows why for some people it takes a long time and for others there seem to be shortcuts.

Anyways, being misgendered so much really sucks - luckily in Germany, people rarely use gendered language so mus if talking to a person directly. It is uncommon to be called "Sir" or "Madam" all the time. Its just not part of regular language patterns, so it is a bit harder to be openly misgendered, but I had this kind of funny incidence where I was selling an old car and making a deal on the phone with that guy, when he came he tried to cheat me by claiming that he has talked to my brother on the phone and already agreed on a lower price. That also rubbed it is, even though it was kind of funny. It clearly showed to me however how different my voice was perceived on the phone versus face to face

I got a big batch of Sirs in a short time which really rubbed it in. The fact I was dealing with non English speakers was part of the problem as English wasn't their first language, they were using pitch instead of other audio clues to place a gender the voice. My neighbor who has a regional accent did the same thing but the boobs caused her to be polite and call me by name and not gender.

Thats also really bad - if people deliberately use names and avoid gendered language even if they normally would

I totally would also look into VFS in your situation.

I did not completely understand this:

My highest pitch is around an E3 so my main voice has to be around a C3 which is a full octave below a female voice. Even at that I know I could use more inflection but I would end up in the upper end of the male voice if went that far down.

Nor C3 is mid male range, 130 Hz, E3 is in the neutral range about 160 Hz, female average pitch usually stars at about 180 Hz, which is F3 and average female voices seem to be at the G or A (195-220 Hz) depending on country and language. A C4, a full octave above the C3, would be a very high feminine voice which would often be close to the "head voice". If I understand you correctly, your relaxed ("male") voice would be around a C3, in the mid male range, but your present voice is around E3 which is in a neutral range? Or have you trained to be higher in pitch? If you speak at an E3 on average, I am sure you drop a lot to the D3 or C3, which would make your pitch sound more male indeed. This was basically the same pitch level I had pre op. I was usually speaking around the E3, but if I relaxed it a lot it went to C3 and if I was not careful or if I was strained or a bit sick, it could go down to A2. As far as I can tell , my average now is close to the G3 or F3, but this is relaxed - I can still go down to the C3, but it is kind of really consciously lowering the voice.

In fact I think I will have to in order move the new voice into my mouth where it belongs for a woman.

Oh sure. But you already do that, right? So it will not be different now and post op.

The two things I want are pitch and the ability to project my voice at volume. I currently have the volume but not the pitch.

I think projecting at high volume will be something that cannot be guaranteed. As I have heard it from Yeson patients, it took 1-2 years to get volume back, but others who have had voice surgery said, that for them it never came back fully :\

You can use either soundcloud (permanent until you delete it) or vocaroo (temporary for a few weeks) to put voice files online. You can of course also use dropbox and share links to the files there. After you posted a bit in this forum, you should also be able to attach a zip file to a post in the forums, but it will have to be approved by a mod. So using vocaroo is probably the fastest as you can record the clip in the browser and just share the link. All other options need registration.

[anjaq]

It's not really the phone as I mostly do not use the telephone, but it is the stupid drive thru window. Once you make an order you can look fem as they get once they hear the voice it's "sir."

Out of curiousity - how does it work in english? Here if I go to a drive through they say (roughly translated) "Welcome at xxxx, what would you like to order", then I tell them, then they say "thank you,  [repeating my order] - is this correct?" and once I tell them yes it is, they tell me "please drive to counter number 1" or something like that. There is no gender involved - they still may be surprised if I drive there and pick it up, but they dont show it . So, obviously in english they use a lot of gendered language in it?

[Dena]

I will work on the other post in a bit but proper english always needs a noun or subject in each sentence. Most of the time it's at or near the start but it can wander such as in "Will that be all SIR". English can get very sloppy in common use and an example would be to leave the SIR off the end. It is also a common to use the person's name when you know it. The formal would be Mr. Last Name or first name when informal and you know the person. When you don't know the person, you use sir or madam or mam with mam being the more common of the two and Madam the more formal.
English is so complex because it was cobbled together so you have the formal rules you learned in school and what everybody uses on the street. We are not offended if the rules of English get bent out shape a bit because we all do it. In short, your written english is so good that I didn't know you were a born german speaker until I learned it from other sources.

[iKate]

Out of curiousity - how does it work in english? Here if I go to a drive through they say (roughly translated) "Welcome at xxxx, what would you like to order", then I tell them, then they say "thank you,  [repeating my order] - is this correct?" and once I tell them yes it is, they tell me "please drive to counter number 1" or something like that. There is no gender involved - they still may be surprised if I drive there and pick it up, but they dont show it . So, obviously in english they use a lot of gendered language in it?

They don't use gender much but last weekend I had this incident.

"Hi welcome to Burger King, may I take your order?"

Me:"I would like ....."

"OK that's $..... please pull to the 2nd window."

The order shows on a LCD screen so you can verify.

Then I pull to the 2nd window, pay with Apple pay (NFC contactless payment using your iPhone). It's a terminal right outside the window where you can swipe or tap. I pay then without looking at me she said, "sir please pull to the front we will bring your order out." They do this because sometimes an order like a veggie burger or fish takes extra time and they want to reset the sensor at the window so their performance numbers don't suffer.

Usually I don't get gendered at the window or sometimes ma'am or miss. But they were busy and she really did not get a good glance at me, she mostly went by the voice is what I gather. It's pretty much automatic for people. The voice is the swing vote for people and once you get put in the male box it is hard to climb back out.

[Cadence Jean]

Ikate, same stuff happens to me in drive thru's. :/