Yesterday I officially ventured outside for the first time since surgery.
I knew I had to take it easy, both the nurses and a French trans woman who's also staying in the same hotel told me that I probably wasn't going to be able to be up for very long. I've managed going down to breakfast without much discomfort a couple of times now, I usually only started getting tired after about 30 minutes so when I did that, so the walk that I planned was intentionally a quick easy one, just a quick 40-minute walk back and forth from the food court at Seacon Square. And my mom was right next to me in case I started feeling faint or anything.
So, first of all, WOW, what a freaking difference being post-op feels in terms of walking around in a big public place which would usually cause me so much dysphoria, so much self-consciousness, that I'd be fighting against my internal self-hatred voices the entire time I was out. For me (again, this is just me, I don't want to preach this as universal truth,) walking around in my typical attire of athletic shorts and a mono-colored t-shirt is SO much less of a mental challenge than before. It's weird. I've been full-time for over 2 years. I've been to the mall a ton of times. But I just never felt comfortable before. There was always something, and I couldn't put my finger on what, that constantly made me feel like I was putting on an act... this sort of self-monitoring pressure of "I have to be careful, if I move the wrong way or something slips or if I speak the wrong way or act the wrong way, people will know I'm trans and all stare at me." I constantly felt like I had a target painted on my forehead, and I had to dress and act as feminine as possible and as nonchalant as possible to avoid being detected. I always felt like I was someone who was trying to "pass" as a woman rather than someone who actually is a woman.
I suspected that my genitals might have something to do with that, because I noticed that I was constantly aware of them whenever I was walking around, and I was constantly self-conscious about "what happens if something slips? And how can I be absolutely sure that nobody can tell? Is there some way that they can see? Is there something about the tuck pushing my pubis forward too much that makes it obvious that I'm a trans girl who's tucked rather than a cis girl who actually has a vagina?" And just feeling my genitals moving around down there, the fact that there was this pressured stretched lump between my legs constantly, I believed that that feeling maybe had something to do with my inability to relax in public, and this constant feeling that I was hiding something which undermined my confidence and made me feel like I had to "pass" and had to make myself as nonchalant as possible.
That feeling was COMPLETELY gone as we were walking through Seacon Square. The lack of being able to feel my own genitals constantly freed my mind to focus on other things... the way my tshirt hugged my feminine curves, the way the athletic shorts showed my butt, how my entire lower body felt feminine. Things like that. The end result is that I didn't feel like I was hiding or trying to "pass" anymore. I was more aware of the external parts of my body which were showing, parts that definitely were feminine. And I was actually able to imagine myself walking around in a skirt, walking around wearing other feminine things, and for the first time imagining those things felt "right" to me, the feeling clicked, it felt like it would be correct for me to wear those things, where before SRS wearing ANYTHING feminine made me feel like I was about 2 inches tall and terrified and feeling like I didn't deserve to wear it, made me terrified of showing off my body.
So, well, for me at least, I can tell that surgery really is going to be my "I'm not expecting this to happen but it might" near-best-case scenario, where it removes a lot of my anxieties about wearing feminine clothes, a lot of my anxieties about "passing," and a lot of my feelings of inadequacy and like "I don't feel like I deserve this." Having a body that doesn't make you constantly aware that it's different than how your brain is programmed to feel, for me, has made a BIG difference already. And I mean, I was still a bit conscious of whether people were staring at me or not, but it's different... I was constantly worried about people staring at me before, and whenever someone did I felt unsafe. I didn't feel that way this time. I didn't feel like the judgments of the world were weighing down on me as much.
I hope this feeling doesn't fade, and holds on by the time I get back to America and go shopping, because I have had the hardest time shopping for anything. My entire wardrobe is basically single-colored t-shirts and sweaters, jeans, athletic shorts, and a few pairs of suit pants and cardigans for nice occasions. I was still seriously struggling with having the confidence to wear anything else than that, because, again, I just constantly felt vulnerable, constantly felt like the eyes of the world were staring at me in a judgmental "haha" way every time I wore something that I wasn't absolutely sure was "safe." I went through an entire mental battle just to get myself to the point where I could wear a tank top in public this summer, and I was crying and fighting myself the whole way. And it was only by wearing those things multiple times and slowly calming my mind down with "it's okay, you've worn it before and nobody stared at you, just calm down," that I finally started becoming comfortable enough. I have trouble wearing anything pretty. I have trouble wearing any bright feminine colors because I'm afraid they make me stand out too much. My most commonly-worn colors were gray, black, tan, dark green, and dark purple. All colors that were very "safe" and nonchalant. And I was constantly jealous of every girl around me wearing bright feminine colors, cute patterns, body-expressing and self-expression-expressing clothes that made her feel beautiful. So clothing, and self-expression in general, were still big battles that I was going through. But maybe now that my body finally feels right, that I finally don't feel that constant sense that I'm hiding something and feeling vulnerable and trying to disappear to hide it, maybe I can finally go shopping for things that I actually like, things that make me feel pretty, instead of things that are "safe" and make me feel suitably well-hidden. Maybe I'll even finally wear a skirt and show off those legs that everyone tells me are so beautiful but that I felt too vulnerable to wear.
Fingers crossed. I'll know once I get back home and once I've ventured out in public a few more times.
In terms of stamina, I did pretty well.
Most people had told me that stamina was their biggest problem with walking around immediately after surgery. If you're out too long, they said, if you exert yourself too much, you'll suddenly reach a maximum capacity and start feeling weak and light-headed.
I had no problems with that.
The problem that I had was that the feeling of pressure and swelling in the surgical site slowly built up the longer I was standing. (Specifically pressure/swelling concentrated around the stitches which are on the bottom of the pubis and the sides of the outer labia.) It was very much okay for the first 25 minutes or so, but then the feeling of pressure and swelling started, and it got greater as we were walking home, and I needed to lay down for about 10 minutes once we got back just to disperse that swelling pressure. But that was the only issue I had. I took it easy, so I really didn't get to the point where I was testing my stamina. I probably could have gone another half-hour or so stamina-wise without being too tired if it weren't for the swelling.
I do feel like I'm going to take it easy today, just to give everything a chance to settle back down, give the pressure and circulation a chance to rest and recover. I don't want to push myself too much. But so far so good on my ability to walk. The 40-minute walk felt just about right, just enough that it gave me a chance to get up and move around, but not so much that I felt like I was pushing it. I got home right as my body was starting to tell me "okay, we probably could use some time to lay down now."
So a good first day out, and our prospects of being able to go on some more (short) sightseeing tours, hopefully to the Jim Thompson House and the Ancient City, before we leave next Saturday are looking good.
Yesterday the nurse seemed really excited because I was healing so well, she showed me the color of my discharge on the long wooden q-tips that they use to prod and examine everything and said "see? This is exactly the color that we want to see! You are doing so good! You are looking beautiful!" And she excitedly patted me on the insides of the knee and actually seemed really excited about it.
So I can definitely say that I've had a very good recovery all things considered, even with the few minor issues I've had. I already feel my strength coming back more and more each day, and there's been less and less discharge (and clearer) in my sanitary pads every time I change them, so things are going well!
The very last moderately-unpleasant feelings that I'm still dealing with is the persistent feeling of swelling pressure around the scar line, and the fact that I still have a double-bump look going appearance-wise because my pubis is still swollen. Clitoral hypersensitivity is mostly gone, no more burning urethral sensation at all, dilating's still pretty easy (we'll see how it goes once I have to scale up dilators to include the #1 starting on Saturday,) and yeah, I do still kind of spray all over my backside when I pee, but aside from that, everything's great!
