CarrieLiz's GRS With Dr. Chettawut, 8/9/16

[islandgirl]

Glad to see that you have worked through those first few stages after surgery and that the pain is in at the manageable range. Being able to eat and retain your food is a great step! I really appreciate your willingness to share your journey. I am looking at the spring of 2017 for my GRS and your journal really helps me prepare. Hugs!

[Carrie Liz]

I just woke up after a full night's sleep, and WOW, what a difference a day makes!

Pain's almost completely gone now. It's down to a 1/10, and I actually feel well-rested and comfortable and energized.

I was so scared that my entire time in the recovery center (or worse, my entire time with the packing in,) was going to feel like it did when I woke up yesterday, but thank goodness, no. I feel 1000% better compared to yesterday. Sharp pain's completely gone, all that's left is some very mild soreness at the surgery site. I can move around with almost no pain now.

I think part of what was going on earlier is that the nerves in the surgical site were waking up and reorganizing themselves, because when I first woke up from surgery I remember thinking "it still feels the same," because my brain still had the same default mental "map" going on. I wouldn't exactly call it a "phantom" sensation, because it wasn't like I still felt like I had my old parts, but more like "I can still feel that everything that I used to have is still there in some way." Like, the very last distinct feeling that I had with my old parts before going in to surgery was the feeling of a nurse shaving all of my pubic hair off, and I could still very vividly recall what it had felt like to feel those latex gloves pulling and stretching on a very sensitive area, and I could recall perfectly how much it hurt when the latex snagged. Now over 2 days later I can't, my brain feels like it's reprogrammed itself completely already. Yesterday it was still halfway through the process. I had this very distinct burning pain for most of the day in what used to be my glans, where it felt like something was slicing through it or burning it, where now on day 3 there's no more of that feeling, all of the nerves feel settled into their actual positions. I can feel that the clitoris is made of the same material that the penis used to be made of, but it doesn't feel like a penis anymore. I can feel the flatness, and I can feel where the vagina is, but for the most part it doesn't feel different at all. It feels natural. It feels, unsurprisingly, EXACTLY like I was expecting it to feel. Which is basically, still feeling like genitals, just no longer really sticking out. I can't tell for 100% certain yet because the surgical padding is still making it hard to feel everything, but so far from what I've felt it feels great!

And again, this is something I could tell immediately, no erections. Just tingling. And that makes me so happy that I can't even put it into words. There is NOTHING in the world that I hated more than the sensation of erections.

I obviously can't tell how much function will be back once things are healed, but Chett's a surgeon that people rave about in terms of preserving nerves (and again, I don't feel any sort of "lack" feeling, it basically feels exactly like my genitals used to feel, just flat,) so I have faith that everything's working out. So far, from the limited amount that I've felt, again, no complaints at all. This is going to be great!

It hasn't really sunk in yet, specifically because I still haven't really been able to see it or really feel it very well, but I haven't had any negativity or regrets or "why did I do this?" moments at all yet. Even during the worst of the pain, it was never a question of whether it was right or not, just about how much it sucked that I had to deal with the pain in order to get it. And so far every time that I've really thought "wow, I really am done. I really don't have a penis or testes anymore, I have a vagina and a clitoris and a labia under there," it always makes me smile. I can't wait to actually see it and actually start living everyday life with it.

[Mariah]

That is fantastic Carrie Liz. I have really enjoyed following your journey on this site and your SRS experience. Thank you for sharing it. Hugs
Mariah

[Rachel]

Congratulations, I am so glad things are coming together and working out.

[Trini]

Aaaaah! I'm like fangirling all over your progress. XD <3

[I Am Jess]

Congrats on your success. I was considering Chett. Going to stay in the US.

[Carrie Liz]

I'm going to be discharged from the surgery center in about 5-6 hours. Recovery has been going great so far, I got my drains taken out earlier this afternoon as well as finally had the bandage taken off of my throat scar from the trachea shave, so I'm feeling good, I can feel that I have a vast majority of my energy back, and Dr. Chett has come into my little recovery room every day and told me that everything is healing well.

Pain level is down to basically nothing still, the most it's been today is about a 2/10 right after they took the drains out and there was a little bit of swelling for a couple of hours, but aside from that today has still just been the day that I could finally relax and just take it all in. I can move my legs to pretty much any position now without any pain, which is making lounging in bed and typing on my computer a lot more comfortable. Everything is really starting to feel settled already, worst is long gone, I'm starting to feel normal again. the only real persistent sensation left now is the pressure from the compression pads on my groin area. (Those will still be there until the packing is removed in 3 days.)

I go back to the hotel tomorrow, spend another 3 days there before the packing is removed, then probably another 4 days or so before the catheter is removed because they don't take that out until the swelling goes down enough. But everything's good. No more persistent pain, no more nausea, basically no more discomfort. It seems like the first day and a half was the only difficult part of this, aside from the forthcoming hassle of devoting 2 hours per day to dilation for the next year or more.

Time has honestly flown by during this recovery process. I've been asleep so much that the days feel half as long as they usually do ever since I started being able to sleep without the compression pads on my legs. It's kinda hard to believe that it's been 3 days already, because it feels like just yesterday. And yet here we are, halfway through the most significant part of the recovery. But I guess it shouldn't be a surprise considering how much sleeping I've done. Surgery takes a lot out of you. You need to sleep a lot. Usually a couple of hours awake at a time is about all I can handle before I need to take a nap again, so yeah, time goes quickly and before you know it it's discharge day already,

Now, I knew this was coming, and I know I'm going to be having dreams like this for months to come, because it always happens after a major life change, but tonight I had a couple of dreams about going in to surgery. And they were those annoying kinds of dreams, exactly like I used to have all the time after graduating college, where in the dream I have a ton of papers still due, and I'm not going to make it, and the entire dream is spent in panic because this thing that I've been working so hard toward is slipping out of my grasp, and I'm freaking out, and then of course I wake up and realize "phew... it was just a dream. I really am graduated / post-op still in real life." Those are never fun, but they happen.

Mentally right now, I'm feeling really settled, although again, I don't think the reality of surgery will really sink in until the packing is removed and I can actually see it and feel it for myself, so that will have to wait.

Also, I definitely feel conscious enough now to start recounting the events and how they felt as I was going through them, so here we go, I'm going to go ahead and start back at the beginning and recount how it felt to go through each step of the surgery, starting at the very beginning when I was picked up from the hotel and going through the pre-surgery prep.

[Carrie Liz]

So, recounting surgery day...

I was really expecting it to be a much bigger emotional deal than it was. When I was preparing for what those final few hours before surgery were going to feel like about 6 months ago when I put in my down-payment, I was fully expecting me to be freaking out, going "omigod am I sure I know what I'm doing? This is IT! I'm about to wake up with a VAGINA, and it's PERMANENT." But in real life, that feeling of dread/fear just never hit me. I'm not sure if it's just because I'd done so much research on what to expect that my mind knew that there wasn't much to be afraid of, or just maybe I'm a braver person than I thought I was, but honestly the final few hours leading up to surgery barely felt like a huge deal at all. It just kind of happened.

The driver picked me up from the hotel, and Mom was the one freaking out, not me. (This seems to be a thing, where from the outside looking in it seems like the biggest deal in the world, something that everyone freaks the hell out about because it seems like such a huge permanent change, where from the perspective of the person going through it it just doesn't seem like as big of a deal. It's a big deal, yes, but nothing to be having a complete panic attack over, it's a positive exciting thing that you're finally getting to experience.) I was excited the whole way in to the surgery center, looking around me and just savoring every little street market we passed, every single place we drove because it was like "the next time I see this, I'm going to have girl parts!" But again, I was expecting more emotions than I actually felt. I really over-estimated how freaked out I was going to be. I was surprisingly calm and happy, moreso that freaked out or overly giddy.

Almost as soon as I got to the surgery center, I was immediately led upstairs, took my clothes off and got into a hospital gown, and the nurses started taking all of my vitals, blood pressure, heart rate, etc. They then questioned me to make sure I'd followed the dietary restrictions, and briefed me on what to expect from the anesthesia, that when I woke up they were going to ask me to take several deep breaths for a couple of minutes to make sure that everything remained oxygenated. (They also asked me if I'd ever been under anesthesia before, which I replied no, this was a brand new experience for me, so they spent a bit more time telling me what to expect that I was going to feel (basically nothing, they said I wouldn't remember a thing, I would basically go straight from being injected with the anesthetic to waking up and being asked to breathe,) they briefed me on the first couple hours of recovery, how I had to try and not move my lower body as much as possible, and how I was likely to feel nauseous, etc, etc.


The next (and most painful) part was that one of the nurses came in and shaved my pubic hair. OW! Seriously, OW! Honestly of all the things that has happened over the last few days, that was actually one of the most painful of them. Latex gloves and how they tend to snag on skin combined with a very sensitive area was not a fun experience. Lots of painful pulling and stretching was involved. And, well, that was the last physical sensation that I ever had of someone touching my pre-operative parts, so yipee, I ended on a high note that made me wish with everything that those damned dangly bits weren't there. Plus they used a single-blade razor and no shaving cream, so seriously, OW! There's got to be a better way to do that, Chett's office. It's worth it in the end, but seriously, OW! Awful mix of dysphoria and pain.

After that, basically it was just a matter of waiting. They left me alone in my room for an hour or so while the surgical team was preparing. And again, I was expecting this to be a big "Omigod, this is the last time in my entire life that I'm going to have these organs! What's it going to feel like? Is it really going to be be okay? What if I'm wrong?" but again, it wasn't. Somehow I just seem to have accepted it a long time ago, and was just ready to have it done. My biggest personal thought was just curiosity, wondering what it was going to feel like, wondering how similar or different it was going to feel, and wondering if it really was going to be everything I'd dreamed it would be or not. I was watching TV at the same time that I was waiting, though, so it wasn't really a burning question, more just like eager anticipation, realizing that I was finally going to know what it was like to have this thing that I'd spent so many years, so much hardship wishing that I could have.

About an hour later, Dr. Chett poked his head in the room and said "we are ready for you." And grinning in eager anticipation, I walked down into the surgery room. It was a small room, one green flat bench with arm rests in the middle. The anesthesiologist shook my hand and introduced himself, I took off the hospital gown, and then the anesthesiologist prepped my hand to insert the anesthetic. He said "this might hurt for a second" as he inserted the needle into the big vein on my left hand, warned me "it is going to feel cold for a second," and then I could feel that coldness coming in through my hand.

I'd never been under anesthesia before this. It's weird. You seriously don't remember a thing, and seriously don't even notice yourself getting tired. I was wondering if it would be a sleeping-pill kind of effect where you just get more and more tired until finally you can't fight it anymore, but it wasn't like that at all. Once second I was fully conscious, the next second I was out, and didn't remember even falling asleep in the first place. And there I was in the recovery room with Dr. Chett telling me "everything was successful, it went great," and I was in the recovery room.

[Carrie Liz]

When I first woke up from surgery, and they said "everything went very well, it was successful," I was fully expecting to not remember any of that. Many people had told me before that you really don't remember much of the first 24 hours after surgery.

I beg to differ. I remember what it felt like pretty clearly. And I immediately asked the surgical staff if they'd called Mom to let her know that I was okay, because I knew she was probably freaking out.

And then basically, me being curious, me having been so eager since I first started feeling dysphoria in the first place to know what it would feel like to have girl parts, immediately I did a mental check of "ooh! What does it feel like?"

And in those first few hours after waking up from the anesthetic, it feels exactly the same. I'm not joking. I distinctly remember waking up from the surgery and thinking "it still feels the same." In retrospect, I think this is the case because Chettawut's staff gives you an epidural, so really the entire area is completely numb for several hours afterward, which means that your brain and its muscle memory is filling in the gaps of what it should be feeling there, so since it can't feel anything contrary it still just keeps everything feeling the same. So when I first woke up, I still felt like I had my old anatomy. I could still feel where my penis used to be, I could still feel where my testicles used to be. It wasn't exactly a "phantom" sensation, it was more like "I can tell that all of these parts are still here and still in relatively the same position," and my brain just hadn't completely sorted out where they were yet, so it kept assuming they were in the same place. I'd describe it as more like the sensation when you take off an earring that you've been wearing for several weeks straight and you still kind of feel it there out of habit, because your brain's so used to it being there.

For the first few hours, there was no pain whatsoever in the groin area. Everything was completely numb. I was really surprised, the part that hurt the most was my throat from the trachea shave. My voice was so hoarse I could barely get two words out, my throat hurt, and basically, I was having serious doubts about ever getting FFS, because wow, bone work hurts.

The feeling of numbness and "nothing feels different" didn't last very long. Over the next few hours, nerves slowly started reconnecting and settling in to their new actual position. And as this process has gone on, it's like, I can still feel that this part used to be on the penis, and this part used to be on the scrotum, but the more time goes on, the less and less they feel like their original parts and the more they're rapidly settling in to their new positions. So again, it's not really a "phantom" feeling where you still feel like you have the entire original organ even though it's not there anymore, it's more like it just takes your brain a few hours to reprogram itself to learn where everything's been moved to.

For the first day or so, I could still vividly recall that final feeling that I felt on my pre-op parts, the pulling and stretching of the nurse's latex gloves while she was shaving me. That feeling has gotten harder and harder to recall as time has gone on, and now only 3 days later, I already can't recall the feeling of what it would have been like to pull on the penis or the scrotum, because everything's already settled into its new position. I can feel that my clitoris used to be penile skin, but it doesn't feel like a penis, and erections don't happen (YAY!)

It's a gradual process, but it's felt better and better, and more and more congruent with how I was expecting it to feel, as time has gone on and more and more nerves have settled into their new position.

So yeah, in terms of how it feels, no complaints so far. I can already tell that it feels way better, and way more mentally congruent, than how my pre-op parts felt.

I'll update on that once the packing is removed, because again, the compression garment makes it really hard to feel anything except pressure over the whole area. But just the fact that that pressure can be there for several days straight without ANY pulling or stretching or certain parts feeling crushed is a big freaking deal. I used to tuck all the time, but couldn't make it last more than a few hours because my genitals got smushed in uncomfortable ways. I can tell that there's nothing there to get smushed now, and that's more than enough to make me super-happy. I'm so looking forward to wearing shorts with a single layer of underwear and not having to worry about anything slipping or shifting or anything. Thinking about that makes me so giddy with excitement that it's ridiculous!


On the flip side, because of the constant pressure, sometimes it's hard to even realize that I really am post-op, and I have to remind myself about it. In order to really feel the difference, I have to really pay attention to how certain things feel when I move around. Because there's so much pressure over such a large area that it's honestly hard to discern how things feel different sometimes. And the pressure padding is so thick that you don't really get that "flat crotch" feeling unless you're really paying attention.

So yeah, can't wait to get the packing out, that's when I'll really get to start enjoying it and experiencing it in its full glory.



I didn't sleep much the first night. It was really hard, because I had a blood-pressure monitor on my left arm which was compressing tightly every couple of minutes, anti-DVT compression pads on my legs which were tightening and inflating every 30 seconds, plus a pulse monitor on my left hand, an IV on my right hand, so much tape all over my body that it was borderline-impossible to get comfortable, plus they were waking me up what felt like every single hour to take pills and take my body temperature. A nurse actually stayed in the room with me all night to make sure that everything was okay, and monitor my vitals and things, but no problems arose. But still, first night honestly wasn't too bad. Pain was manageable.

There were very clearly some heavy residual effects from the anesthesia, though, because I could not focus my eyes at all. I tried to focus my eyes on the little red light at the bottom right corner of the TV in my room, and I couldn't. My eyes kept lolling back and forth, unable to stay focused on that one spot. I felt really dizzy all night, my head was still spinning from the anesthesia and my muscle control wasn't fully back, even though I was plenty conscious in terms of my thought patterns feeling normal.

[Carrie Liz]

Morning after surgery, this is something that you have to be ready for if you're going to have surgery with Dr. Chett, you're going to have to walk down the stairs. The surgery center is upstairs. The recovery facility is downstairs. Which means that about 9 hours after waking up from the anesthesia, you're going to have to walk downstairs.

Getting up into an upright sitting position when you just woke up from anesthetic is not easy. They adjusted my bed up to make standing easier, and I immediately felt nauseous. I threw up, they had a bucket ready, this happens a lot, so be ready for it. It's one of the few negatives of getting GRS with Chett. I slowly stood up, I had 3 nurses helping me and making sure that my walking was stable and making sure that I didn't fall down as we were going down the stairs, thankfully it didn't hurt much at all, and then I was in a wheelchair and back in a hospital bed again in under 5 minutes, where I'd stay for the next few days undisturbed.

The first day of recovery was really hard. Lots of nausea, lots of pain, plus I still had the anti-DVT pressure pads on both legs and the IV in my left hand. So sleeping was difficult, I felt like I was being woken up every 15 minutes to have my blood pressure checked, my teeth brushed, body cleaned, a meal, or nurses insisting that I drank water while I really didn't want anything but to sleep and be left alone because I was so tired and nauseous. You get three meals of soy milk and hot chocolate during the first day, unsurprisingly I couldn't keep breakfast down, I threw it up, and lunch and dinner I only finished about half of because I just did not feel like eating anything, and even drinking water made me feel nauseous. Also, as I mentioned before, near the end of the day my tailbone was really starting to hurt because I'd been sitting on it for 24 hours straight at that point. Also, there was a lot of sudden sharp pain around the surgical site as nerves reconnected and re-positioned themselves in the 3d space of my brain, slowly my sense of my body's shape down there started changing to match its new position, plus I constantly felt like I had to pee due to sitting directly on top of the packing, which puts pressure on the bladder. Just all around, it wasn't a fun day. The nurses even told me "day one is the hardest, just keep going, it will be better tomorrow."

Day 2 started in absolute agony. That was when I wrote the big "OW!!! " post where the surgical site was burning and my tailbone felt like it was being crushed, because after 36 hours of sitting on it with no padding, it was getting unbearable. Thankfully it only lasted for a few hours. Once the anti-DVT pads were off my legs, they finally let me have a pillow to put under my knees, and my tailbone finally got a break. Pain got less and less through the entire day, but I was still very tired, honestly this is the day that I remember the least because it was the first time since surgery that I finally felt comfortable enough to sleep. I was finally laying in a comfortable position, the nerve pain finally started dying down as everything settled, I finally had my legs and hand out of the DVT/IV that was causing them to constantly be disturbed, and so I finally got some sleep and rest.

Day 3, I woke up finally feeling fully rested, and it was a good final day where I could finally relax with almost no pain, and just breathe. Thank goodness. I finally started feeling more awake, I was able to get on my computer without feeling dizzy or tired or overwhelmed, and it just felt like the world was coming back in focus again. And that feeling has stayed.

Day 4, this morning, I was released from the surgery center and back to the hotel. I still have the packing in, but I feel so much better and so much more rested and awake and alert that it's not even comparable. This is the first day that I've really had a chance to let it all sink in. More on that next.

[Carrie Liz]

As one last quick note before I talk about today...

Recovery was really hard on me. I'd never been in that much pain before. I cried. But not once did I get a single pang of regret. I knew it was worth it, because as soon as I woke up I could immediately tell that things were slowly, more and more, starting to feel right. My biggest fear going into surgery was that I was going to be wrong about how it would feel, that somehow it wouldn't match the phantom sensations that I'd always felt, or that I'd somehow been deluding myself for the last 17 years, that I'd just developed some sort of strange aversion to erections, that girl parts wouldn't really feel right, that I was just somehow fundamentally deluded

As soon as I woke up those fears were immediately eased. Because everything felt natural right from the very beginning. Not a single one of the sensations was offputting or unexpected, everything really was exactly how I'd always felt it in the back of my mind. It felt exactly like how I imagined girl parts would feel during all of those years that my brain was telling me "this is what you should be feeling."

And because of that, because the sensations felt EXACTLY like I was expecting them to feel, EXACTLY like I spent so many nights wishing they could feel like, there was never, not once, a single pang of doubt in my mind. I knew I'd made the right decision as soon as I woke up. And it's only been getting better and better the more nerves have come back online. So yes, recovery was hard. But it was manageable because I always knew it was going to be worth it in the end.

And anyone else who experiences phantom sensations like I did, who actually gets this dull physical feeling of what it would be like to have a hand run over a flat pubis, or over a labia, who can actually imagine the feeling of something going into a vagina that isn't actually there, or who constantly is subjected to involuntarily feeling like erections are this strange alien sensation that shouldn't be happening and you really want to be touched in your non-existent vulva, it just feels like your body wasn't meant to experience intimacy like that, absolutely, DO THIS. Seriously. Do the analagous non-inversion technique. It really does feel exactly like I'd always felt it in my phantom sensations. Everything is in exactly the right place I'd always felt it.

[Carrie Liz]

And with that said, today I've been relaxing. I'm back in the hotel, back to laying on a nice soft bed, and I have the biggest most giddy smile imaginable on my face right now, because this is the first time I can EVER recall laying in bed and my body feeling completely right.

For at least the last 17 years, I couldn't even lay in bed without having to shift around, because there was a penis there, something that flopped around and constantly felt like it was making me uncomfortable because I dealt with the constant dysphoric feeling that that stupid thing shouldn't be there. And I didn't realize just how much I'd gotten used to tolerating that persistent low-level stressor until I experienced not feeling it for the first time ever.

Oh my god, YES!!!!!! I just about cried. Because it was the first time I've ever been able to just lay in bed, and my entire body felt right. Nothing shifted out of place. Nothing flopped around. Nothing moved that my brain was telling me wasn't supposed to move. There was just me, and my body, and a body that felt EXACTLY like my brain felt like it should feel, and it was the first time I'd felt that feeling that I can ever recall.

You don't realize just how much you get used to tolerating persistent low-level stressors, things that aren't a huge bother on their own but that you still nonetheless have to constant shove aside and ignore, until that stressor is gone. And suddenly you realize just how amazing it feels to not have to deal with it anymore.

I am so happy right now I don't even have words for it.

Pain from the packing is still a 2/10 to 3/10, but dysphoria has dropped to a 0/10. My body feels right. Completely. And I could not be happier right now. And I'm just giddy with excitement thinking about all of the little ways in my life that I've learned to tolerate having guy parts, all of the little annoyances, which I'm now never going to have to put up with again. And it's the most amazing feeling in the world. Color me 100% happy. I wish I could have done this decades ago. It would have made me so much happier, felt so much more like my body is actually mine again.

[Tess2016]

I am so happy for you... You provided so much information and so much of what you said I can have empathy in how you feel about the yuck floppy things, I am with you on that one sister... I tuck at night which has caused me some issues but I just cannot stand going to sleep with the yuck thing flopping about.. I am not looking forward to the snip snip post-op surgery but I am soooo looking forward to the weeks and years that follow..

I use an electric shaver which has a sensitive head.. Its absolutely wonderful.. No hair so I will not have to experience the rough shaving part.. thank god.. I had two of those done to me in the past, one in England and a second in Australia after I suffered from Testicular Torsion. The first time I was shaved by a guy with a knife for a razor... Very scary but I have to admit it did to hurt, but there again I think I was numb from pain killers since I suffered really badly from pain during the entire night before being rushed to hospital. My right ball had swollen up to the size of an ostrich egg... I was about 20 years old at the time.. I can still remember the young nurses peeking through the curtains and laughing.. Not a partially nice experience at all. The second time was in Australia, at about 32, it hurt like HELL to have my hair shaved by a women.. Since this was the second time I had Testicular Torsion I asked for my testicles to be removed but they refused, saying I required a psychiatrist letter.. I am so glad they were not removed otherwise I would have issues with my own SRS I have planned for January at the PAI.. It will be interesting see how that mob handle post-op surgery... I wonder if I am forced to walk down stairs..

I am sure you are beginning to feel like a new women and in the months that follow you can appreciate your new vagina.. I have read it can take up to 8 months to see the final results as it will be for ever..

Tess...

[KimSails]

Very happy for you young lady!!

[jujubes1986]

Brave new girl... Thank you for the updates!

[Carrie Liz]

More and more nerves continue to come back online.

It's getting to the point where I'm genuinely shocked with how much I'm able to feel already this soon after surgery. Today it was the nerves in the vaginal area that came back online, so now I can really vividly feel all of the packing that's in there.

It's actually sort of amazing how much I can feel already. When my friend Zoe got her surgery with Dr Brassard, she said she was almost completely numb afterwards. So far with me, almost all of the sensation has already come back after only 4 days, to the point that it's almost hypersensitive, because it's an awful lot to be feeling while I still have the packing in. I can seriously feel the texture of the packing inside of me right now. So wow, Chettawut sure is a wizard when it comes to preserving sensation. But that might actually make the next 2 days harder, because there's still so much padding over everything, and I can feel every inch of that padding.

So yeah, definitely a big good news / bad news thing going on there.

Still super-happy with everything, and now even happier that I went with Chettawut, because it's blatantly obvious that loss of sensation, one of my few fears and one of the reasons I went with him, most definitely isn't going to be a problem.

[Jenna Marie]

I just wanted to say that I've been following along and am so delighted that everything is working out exactly as you'd hoped/expected. The fact that the phantom sensations match up is SO cool. I was thinking of you and hoping it would all go well.

(And I went to Brassard and had 100% sensation when I woke up... which means I can confirm that in some ways the earliest days are going to be a rougher ride for you than they would be otherwise. But it's worth it.)

[I Am Jess]

Thanks for the updates!  It is so wonderful that your dream has come true and you are doing so well.

[Carrie Liz]

I almost feel like it's irresponsible of me to be so positive, so happy, so over the moon with how I feel about the results of surgery, because it's not like this is easy or anything. This is by far the hardest thing I've ever done in my entire life. I'd never been in this much pain before, I'd never been in pain for so long before, and for crying out loud, as I'm typing about all of these positive emotions that I'm feeling, I still have the packing in, there's still constant pressure on my entire hip/groin area, I'm still objectively uncomfortable on a near-constant basis from the swelling and packing, I'm still constantly getting sudden sharp pains as nerves re-awaken, the packing makes walking, sitting, and even laying in anything aside from a few specific body positions super-uncomfortable, and by any stretch of the imagination this is NOT something that I want to take lightly.

But with that said...

I don't care. I am so happy I can't even contain myself. I have had the biggest smile on my face for the last 2 days straight because every single time I move, every single time I walk, every single time I shift in bed, I can feel that my body feels right. I can feel that my pubis is flat, I can feel that there's no penis or testes anymore, I can feel that erections don't exist anymore, and it's the first time in my entire life that my own body has felt comfortable. It's the first time I've ever been able to put my legs together without dysphoria, shift in bed without dysphoria, and my brain just keeps jumping around to all of the ways that I'm not going to have to deal with dysphoria as a constant state of my life now, from simple acts such as walking around, to laying in bed at night, and above all, imagining what it's going to be like when I finally get home and can give my possible-boyfriend a nice snuggle and FINALLY be able to enjoy it without my body feeling like it's fundamentally betraying me, forcing me to feel an erection that I don't want, a painful physical sensation that makes me feel so awful, and kills whatever mood I have because I can't even experience arousal without my body betraying me, where now I can just picture me snuggling up with someone, my soft feminine body perfectly flat against theirs, I can actually imagine sexual things and actually DO those things, and actually indulge those fantasies with no goddamned erections, and I can't help it. I am so happy I could cry. And this happiness can't be stopped even though at the same time I'm experiencing the most pain, and the most difficult physical recovery that I've ever dealt with in my entire life.

Again, I don't want to make it sound so perfect, because it isn't. It's painful. It's hard. I haven't eaten any completely solid food in over a week at this point and I can barely stand up without feeling anemic and feeling like I have to take it super-carefully or I might faint. I can't stand up for more than about 10 minutes without being exhausted. I sleep a lot. Moving at all is difficult because the packing forces me to walk like a penguin, and I can't bend down, and it's really hard to even do basic things like prepare meals.

I really believe that for most people going through this, it will be a taxing thing that will test your patience and test your endurance.

I don't care. I've dealt with dysphoria my entire life. I've never felt comfortable in my own body until this moment, and I'm so happy I can't contain myself. My dysphoria was always very physical. Lots of trans people have much more social dysphoria than I do, where it's being able to be female socially and accepted as such socially that matters to them the most. It varies. Some trans people have more social dysphoria, some have more body dysphoria. For me, it was always my body. It was always about me hating the physical sensation of having a penis, feeling uncomfortable with everything that testosterone did to me, hating the big uncute body frame, hating the deep voice, the body hair, the genitals, the skin texture, everything. I honestly didn't even know if I cared how people treated me, whether the labels of "man" and "woman" even mattered as long as I could have a female body. Now I do. So for me, I can now say, this is by far the biggest moment in all of transition for me, the moment where I finally truly feel like me for the first time ever.

It won't be that way for everyone. I don't want to be irresponsible and claim it will be such, because it won't. Don't expect this. Not even I expected this. I fully expected that maybe this was going to be a minor change at most, forcing myself to go through a bunch of short-term physically-taxing emotionally-draining annoyances in order to be rid of a few long-term persistent lingering annoyances that I had with my body. I was not expecting to be this happy. How it feels has COMPLETELY floored me, and taken me completely by surprise. Sometimes transition surprises you like that, and you don't realize just how much something was hurting you, bothering you on a constant basis, until it's finally gone.

Maybe it's just because I put so much effort into repressing this desire, spent so much time telling myself "you're delusional," or trying to convince myself that it wasn't worth it, or just believed that it would never happen. Maybe it's because so many anti-trans activists spend so much effort trying to make it seem like "mutilation" or "destroying your body" that I'd even managed to convince myself that it couldn't possibly be everything that I'd always imagined that it would be, that it couldn't possibly feel right, that what I called "phantom" sensations were surely just me deluding myself into believing that I was feeling things that I wasn't just so that I could somehow add credibility to my desire for surgery, that now that I'm awake and it really is EVERYTHING that I always wanted, and feels exactly like I always imagined it would feel, that I'm just breathing such a huge sigh of relief that it's the ultimate catharsis. Whatever. I don't know. All I know is I'm so floored it's ridiculous, and all of that pain, denial, hardship, suffering, it all ended up being worth it for me.

So that's my spiel. I'm super-happy. But don't take my experience as canon, please. This is just me, from some combination of who-knows-what factors all working out. But it varies for everyone. I went into this fully expecting to have an emotional breakdown at some point because I knew how difficult it was going to be. I never imagined it would be this big of a revelation, this big of a tears-of-happiness-inducing change.

All I know is, I can't wait for the packing to come out in 2 days, and I can't wait to live and love every single moment of my new life with this new body that finally feels right.

Sometimes life surprises you like this.

I'm in disbelief that it feels this "right" already.

(And by the way, I've already had 3 different nightmares where in the dream I wasn't able to get surgery for some reason, or I dreamed that surgery was just a dream, and I was about to wake up and it wouldn't be real again. And then I woke up for real and took the biggest sigh of relief because, yes, it's still real.)

[reborn]

I really like your posts. I felt similar after my SRS. I changed so much. Before SRS I used to hate my body, after SRS I started loving myself. Self love is a part of my life now and it feels so good. I really feel reborn