Well, that was interesting...
I think the anesthesia used on me included a propofol infusion. Nothing quite like brilliant turquoise urine to catch one's attention.
I kept falling asleep Friday, and was still a little spacey on Saturday. The color display is back to normal.
I did manage to go for a walk, which helped clear my head a bit, and went to a movie Saturday aftenoon. "Ghost in the Shell" Futuristic, violent, melancholy, full of questions and questioning of what makes up our identity. Just my cup of tea. OK, some of the original stories did resonate with me, and the fantasy of swapping one's body for a custom replacement is appealing, of course. It's a well done, but difficult film. I expect most people won't get it. (Stay for the credits if you liked the 1996 film and Kenji Kawaii's soundtrack.)
I spent this morning at Kaiser's Multi-Specialty Transitions (MST) clinic in Oakland. Mondays are a sort of Surgical Transition orientation and kickoff session, followed in the afternoon by their review board to see who gets treatment. I met with a surgeon, a nurse, and a social worker. They were there to provide information and sit on the review board. Will they believe me to be worthy of GCS? (Hint: Oh, yeah!)
The surgeon, Dr. Gurjala, is a microsurgeon doing primarily FtM top surgery and phalloplasty. He assists on vaginoplasty procedures. We talked briefly about the procedures Kaiser is using and the available surgical teams.
The current process for GCS is a two-stage surgery. The first stage vaginoplasty includes the orchiectomy, construction of a neoclitoris, and penile inversion vaginoplasty using methods based on Dr. Toby Meltzer's work. A second state labiaplasty is done six months later to refine the appearance.
GCS includes a 7 night stay in the hospital. I'll need 2-3 days of 24 hour care at home afterward.
Surgeries can be done by Dr. Meltzer as a Kaiser contractor, or by Dr. Ali Selim and his team in-house. The Kaiser team trained under Dr. Meltzer. Wait times are somewhere around 20 months for Dr. Meltzer and 16 for the Kaiser team. Dr. Meltzer doesn't take Medicare, and since I go on Medicare in 19 months, that option is out for me. This means I will be referred to Dr. Selim.
The nurse did a chart review to make sure everything is up to date. We went over options for surgeons, and hair removal in preparation for surgery. I've got the authorization for that now, and prescriptions for EMLA ointment and ibuprofen to be taken before electrolysis.
My surgical consult for facial feminization surgery is scheduled with Dr Klineberger for mid-May. There is well over a year wait for this as well. (Another summer with turtlenecks and scarves...) FFS will have an overnight stay in the hospital and I may need assistance at home for a day or two.
I will need to coordinate GCS and FFS so they are not too close together, to allow time for healing and recovery from general anesthesia.
I should hear back from the San Francisco surgery clinic in 7-10 days, and a first appointment will be scheduled in about 3 months with Dr. Selim.
The social worker went over various options for home care, preparation, and recovery, verifying that I have a social support network in place and am aware of the physical impact of all the surgery on me. There won't be any surprises in that what he told me is pretty much what everyone here discovers in reading posts from our freshly post-op members. Oddly, he didn't have Susan's Place down as an online resource, although he did have a few other places that surprised me. That oversight has been rectified, and Susan's Place will be on future handouts.
I'd say that was a fairly productive morning spent in the depths of Kaiser MST.
Time to do some grocery shopping, and meet up with some friends later for dinner.
