Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Hello, everyone!

For those who don't know me, I've been a long-time poster here since early 2013 or so when I began transition, I haven't posted as much recently because there really hasn't been much to talk about, but, well, here we go, it's time.

I'm going to be having GRS/SRS with Dr. Chettawut 5 days from now, on August 9th. I just arrived in Thailand earlier today, and I'm planning on talking about every detail that I can, especially the details in terms of what I'm feeling mentally/physically, and therefore hopefully what others going on this same path can expect to feel. I'm going to keep posting until I feel like there's nothing else to talk about and my physical/mental state has returned to what I'd consider "normal," just like I did with my transition blog. I'll try to post once a day or so.

Right now I'm just waking up after a (well-deserved) nap following a day and a half straight of flying. I flew out from Cleveland, OH on August 1st at about 3:00 in the afternoon, then had layovers in Nashville, LAX, Taipei, and then finally got to Bangkok at 11:40 AM on August 3rd.

I'm not going to sugar-coat it, long 20+-hour international flights are NOT fun. I slept on the planes for a good portion of the trip, and I was still exhausted when we finally made it to Bangkok. Pretty much as soon as I made it to our room at the Vertical Suite Hotel, both me and my mom collapsed in bed and took a 10-hour nap, and now I'm just waking up from that.

Anyway, my schedule is as follows...
-August 4th (in about 5 hours) - Initial consultation with Dr. Chettawut, and possibly re-taking a couple of my blood tests, since my WBC count was high during my original CBC blood test in America last month. (He wants to make absolutely sure that I don't have a UTI or anything of the like.)
-August 5th/6th - Two days free, me and Mom are going to get to be tourists, sample the local food, visit the temples in downtown Bangkok, etc.
-August 7th/8th - Bowel prep at the hotel. So yipee, laxatives, SWIFF, enemas, soup broth, and Jell-O are my new friends.
-August 9th - Surgery date
-August 13th - Discharge from surgery center back to hotel

Bottoms up! Here we go! :)
-

So, so far emotionally I've still mostly just kinda been in the tired/cranky "I want my hormones back" mode.

I've been off of my HRT medications for the past 2 weeks, and while there haven't been any signs of testosterone coming back so far, (I haven't had an increase in sex-drive or body hair or anything yet,) my moods are still pretty bleh.

One of the big things that HRT changed for me was in the emotional department. Estrogen is basically like a happy pill for me. Pre-hormones I tended to veer toward the constantly-tired/cranky end of the spectrum, where ever since HRT I've generally been in a much better mood, more mellow, less easily-annoyed, and my sleep schedule corrected itself to where I wasn't as constantly-tired. Well, predictably, going off of HRT has brought me back to that kind of closed-off easily-annoyed emotionally-blunted sort of mindspace.

So yeah, you might expect that getting to Thailand and meeting Chett's driver at the airport and getting to the hotel and such would be one of the happiest experiences of my life, but really I ended up being too tired to really enjoy most of it. Due to the lack of hormones, it's more like a "yay! I'm finally here!" moreso than "omigod, I made it! And I'm HERE! And this is the car that's going to take me to get my SURGERY! YAY!" If you know what I mean.

So yeah, it's a bummer that I have to be off of hormones, which means my brain has to be in this dreary-annoyed mode instead of being able to really fully enjoy it, but whatever. I'm here, I'm excited, and lacking my little blue happy pills can still only pull me down so much. (And I definitely still had a couple of those "EEEE!!!!!!" squees of excitement as I realized that it really is time.)

Honestly, though, it's weird, it almost doesn't feel real yet. Like, I don't know, when you're planning SRS you expect that somehow the reality of it will sink in more and more the closer to it you get, where really it still hasn't yet. I was expecting reality to sink in, expecting that "OMG, it's REAL" feeling to start hitting me when I left home, or when I got on the plane to Thailand, or at least when I landed... nope... honestly, it still hasn't sunk in. I think my brain, despite how much I've wanted this for so long, despite 15+ years of praying that I'd wake up in a body with girl parts, has gotten so used to that just being an unobtainable fantasy that it's just not ever going to be able to process it until it actually happens. So on the one hand it feels real, on a head level I know it's happening, but on a heart level I still haven't internalized that I really am about to have girl parts. It still feels like it's not real. It still feels like some fantasy that I'd like to have happen rather than something that currently is happening.

Maybe that will change, but based on what my other post-op friends have told me, you don't really internalize that it's real for a long time. And I'm no exception to that rule so far.



The flight, as I've mentioned, was not fun. Long international flights never are. Your butt is going to be sore. Mine was numb by the time we finally made it to Bangkok. It happens. There's no way around it. Regardless of how much you get up or how much you sleep, you're going to be in pain by the end of it. (God, I am so not looking forward to the flight back... -___- ) As far as long international flights go, though, this one wasn't too bad. EVA air's economy seating is still relatively spacious compared to what I'm used to from Southwest, Delta, etc, the chairs lean back a good amount, so I can't complain, it was as painless as it could have reasonably been. We also got 3 (pretty good) meals between LA and Bangkok, plus I got to pick up a bowl of curried beef udon noodles at the airport in Taipei (YUM!!! I'm going to be in culinary heaven during this trip because I love East-Asian food so much... Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Thai, Vietnamese, I seriously love it all,) so it was a good trip overall, despite the inevitable butt pain.

Chettawut's driver met us at "meeting point 1" at the airport, (we almost had an issue there, because we weren't sure exactly where he was supposed to meet us, I'd heard "right outside of international customs," but when we exited customs there was no one there, so we had a bit of a moment of panic and had to go searching. So yeah... anyone else doing this, go to Meeting Point 1,) and then it was about a 20-minute drive out to the Vertical Suite Hotel, where we'll be staying for the next month.

This hotel is REALLY nice! The rooms are so spacious! We've got a double bed, an entire living room area, a full kitchen with a fridge, oven, microwave, pantry, washer/drier, the bathroom has a shower and a tub, basically this hotel room is even nicer than the 1-bedroom apartment I live in. No complaints there. And we get breakfast every morning as well, and are basically right across the street from Seacon Square and the Tesco Lotus store which is basically the rough Thai equivalent of a Walmart in terms of the variety of things you can buy, from food to amenities.

Also, in case anyone is curious, I can see one of the other "Chett Hotels," the Dusit Princess, right from my window. Both hotels are within about a block and a half of each-other.

So anyway, consultation in a few hours, I'm so grateful to have that long flight over with and my tired aching butt back in a nice soft bed instead of an airplane seat, I'll update once I've had my consultation and blood tests and such.

I had a little trouble finding the driver also, and I exited the airport trying find him at one point, then I went back inside and continued walking in the general area that he was supposed to be in and he recognized me from the picture a I sent to Dr. Chettawut 😊

I stayed at the Dusit Princess; it's a nice hotel, but it seems like the one you are staying at is better for an extended stay.

So, remember that thing I said yesterday about how it doesn't really feel real yet?

Well, you can strike that.

Today was my consultation day. And now it's definitely real. I definitely had an "OMIGOD IT'S REALLY HAPPENING!" moment of sheer delight this morning when I signed my consent form, (the one which goes through all the risks, talks about "this surgery is irreversible," and "you will no longer be able to have biological children afterwards," and asks you to acknowledge these things, sign that you agree, and give the surgeon consent to proceed,) and then there was a big moment of happiness when I actually got to see my legal paperwork that listed my surgery date and basically said "Carrie is now medically the equivalent of an infertile female," and described the procedures that were going to be performed. (Yes, you do get to see that before surgery ever takes place. It's the certificate of SRS completion that you can use to change the sex on your birth certificate.)

So yeah... now it's real. And wow, I am SO excited!



So, basically during the consultation, it was comprised of a few things. First of all, I sat down at the front counter and received the aforementioned consent forms. I also gave the physical copies of my x-ray images, blood test results, and psychologist referral letters to Som K, (she's the one who composes all of the emails that you'll send back and forth to Dr. Chett's office during pre-surgery preparation. She's very nice, and speaks almost perfect English, so there definitely won't be any communication problems if you have questions about things.) [Also, I had no issues with my letters being accepted, all you need to do is make sure that the letters are the original copies with the handwritten signature of your psychologists. I tend to be a double-check-to-make-absolute-sure kind of person, so I asked Som a LOT of questions via email whenever I had a doubt about whether something was okay or not, to make absolute sure that things were settled, and that I had exactly what they needed.] Then while I was signing the consent forms, a nurse came out and took my blood pressure and weight. And then once all of those things were settled, a nurse took me upstairs to meet Dr. Chettawut and have my official pre-op consultation.

So, they tell you beforehand that if you have any concerns about surgery, make sure you discuss them during your pre-op screening, because that's the only real chance you're going to get to make personal requests, bring up any personal questions or concerns that you might have about the surgery procedure, or to make special requests.

Dr. Chettawut is a soft-spoken humble kind of person, and he is very honest about what you can and cannot expect. If you ask about specific things that you're hoping to receive from SRS, he'll tell you beforehand very honestly whether those things are reasonable or not based on your own anatomy. (I personally asked about the appearance/definition of the vulva, so I told him that my main concern was the definition of the inner labia and the clitoral hood and all of the other intricate bits, and told him that if he needed to sacrifice a bit of depth to make the outside look better, that would be fine with me.) He replied to me honestly, saying "well, you are very small, and you do not have much elasticity in the scrotal skin, so I'll do my best, but that is going to limit how much we can do with the inner labia." (He will pretty much always say "I'll do my best," he is an honest humble kind of person, not the kind of surgeon who will load you up with false hope and be like "you will look EXACTLY like a cis woman, I promise." He'll be honest with what your personal limitations will be, and will say "I'll do my best" rather than making extravagant claims.)

(I feel like this last point is important for me to say, because I heard someone on this forum talking about how they were afraid that Dr. Chett isn't honest because his website contains nothing but pictures of beautiful cis women. Well, you definitely haven't met him in person. He's the exact opposite of a snake-oil salesman making extravagant claims of how beautiful you'll look and how perfect everything will be. He is 100% honest about personal limitations and what you can and cannot expect, he'll answer your questions/concerns very honestly, and he doesn't make bold claims, he's the type who will take your personal requests into consideration and say "I'll do my best" in regards to making them happen rather than making promises. So, well, just be realistic and you'll do great with him. I can see where there'd be problems with people who are insistent on getting a certain depth or getting certain results for 100% sure, but Chett isn't the kind of surgeon who likes to guarantee such things, he's the kind who will work with what you have to work with to the best of his ability, and just trust his expertise on the matter, he's done this thousands of times, he's seen everything at this point, he seems to know exactly what to expect, and, again, will be honest with you about what you can expect given what you have to work with.)

The consultation for these procedures involved having pictures taken of the area, a brief physical examination to check for size and elasticity and other things, and then a face-to-face Q&A as I've mentioned.

In addition to SRS, I'm having a trachea shave as well, and Dr. Chett showed me exactly where the incision on the neck will be, once again went over my individual plan with it, (he told me that my trachea is a bit large, so he's going to remove as much as he can, but there's a limit on how much can be removed safely, again, "I'll do my best,") and when I asked if there was a chance that my voice could be affected, (which is something that I've heard other people say, that a trachea shave can cause you to lose vocal strength,) he said no, that's not something that he's had happen to a patient before, and not something that I had to be worried about.

And then once all of my questions were answered, he handed me the pre-op instructions (mainly things to do with the bowel prep, including when exactly I need to go on a liquid diet, what things I am and am not allowed to eat/drink, how to take the laxatives and the SWIFF solution, and he also gave me an electrolyte drink mix to keep me hydrated during the forthcoming two-days-straight of digestive pyrotechnics.) He told me when to be downstairs and when to be ready to go, what I could and couldn't bring to the surgery center, when my mom could visit, things like that which a lot of people ask.

And finally, because my WBC count was high during my blood tests in America, I had to do a repeat blood test and a urinalysis to check for infections. (I asked him whether, if I do have some sort of infection, if that could possibly affect my surgery date, and he said no, not unless it's serious, which since I have reported no symptoms at all it shouldn't be, but they'd get back to me with the results later in the day and let me know for sure if there were any problems and how we would go about addressing them.) [Side note: I didn't get an email back with the results yet, so I sent an email to Som and hopefully I'll know by tomorrow morning.]

Finally, obviously since during the examination he noticed that I'm rather small in the downstairs area, I did need the additional skin graft, and I also had to pay for the blood tests, so I had to go back down to the front desk and settle the fees for those things with Som. (It was $980 extra for everything. And as others have said, almost everyone needs the additional skin graft. So just bring $950 with you. Odds are that you'll need it. I withdrew $1500 from my bank for the trip because I was expecting it, and yeah, good call, especially if you're small like me, you'll definitely need it.)



So, anyway, I'm all ready to go now.

Once the consultation was over, my mom and I ran over to Seacon Square to get lunch and to stock up on water, prepared meals, and other amenities that we're going to need, I made sure to get a big bottle of Sprite to take the SWIFF solution with in 2 days, as well as Jell-O (we're going to have to go back at a later date to get juice and soup broth, we had to buy 9L of drinking water, [you do have to buy drinking water in Thailand, not even the locals drink the tap water, so that's definitely something that you need to plan ahead on. The hotel only provides you with a single 500mL bottle of drinking water every day, so you're definitely going to need a lot more, and, well, that stuff is heavy. So just plan ahead before you go in to surgery to make sure you have enough water to drink during recovery.) So, yeah, there was a very hard limit imposed on how much we could conceivably carry since we were carrying six 1.5L bottles of water back from Seacon Square to the hotel, 20 lbs worth.

Also, Seacon Square deserves a separate post all on its own. If you're staying at the Dusit Princess or the Vertical Suite, you simply cannot not check this shopping mall out. It's amazing. 5 floors of retail stores selling everything from clothes to food to electronics, so many amazing-looking restaurants that I lost count, (I was completely floored by how many Japanese restaurants were there... like, we are in Bangkok, right? Apparently Japanese food is a big thing in Bangkok for some reason? There was a hand-made udon noodle restaurant (which had a Thai/Japanese fusion dish of Tom Yum flavored udon (YUM!!!,)) a ramen noodle shop, one of those all-you-can-eat sushi conveyor-belt buffets that you often see in videos about Japan, plus like 5 more. And this is in addition to a wide selection of American fast food, an entire giant Thai food court which had hundreds of different kinds of meat dishes ranging from curries to stir-fries to those delicious-looking fried pancakes that you often see in videos about Bangkok street vendors. And in addition to the Thai food court, there's also an entire assortment of small street-vendor-like stands, which fill the entire mall with amazing aromas. Like, wow... I'm seriously in heaven. I could probably spend an entire year here just going to every single food vendor and trying everything. This is food heaven. And I love Thai food and I love Japanese food, and can't really get good Thai/Japanese food like this in Ohio at all, so wow... I could not have asked for a more amazing location. I'm going to savor every moment of this.

Anyway, that's enough for now, I'm sure I'll do a full post on Seacon Square soon. (Which is right across the street, within very easy walking distance, from both the Vertical Suite and the Dusit Princess.)

Anyway, the next two days are "tourist" days for me and Mom, we're going to do some sightseeing, probably going to see the grand palace and the floating market. And we're also probably going to do more shopping at Seacon Square, because I need more clear liquids for my 2 days of bowel prep, plus I've got to get Mom some prepared meals that she'll like since she's not too familiar with Thai food or Thai ingredients, so she doesn't know what kinds of flavors will work for her, while I pretty much do.

Anyway, hopefully I'll know the results of the blood tests soon and I can post good news about them.




Things are amazing. I love it here so much already, and I'm officially getting super-excited!

Till next time!

It's wonderful how everything is working out so well for you!!! I also had a really good impression of Dr. Chettawut; his surgical team was great, and the Nurses that took care of me in recovery and at my hotel were awesome as well.

Dr. Chettawut did my tracheal shave, the scar is almost invisible, and my voice was not affected at all. I didn't have SRS with him though, but I am happy with my lip lift, tracheal shave, BA, and body contouring he did.

I am looking forward to seeing your post-surgery updates. Hope it is all that you have visualized.

Firstly Carrie Liz congratulations on your surgery date and good luck.

You're very spot on with your assessment of Dr Chett, He won't make grand claims about the results, He even believed he'd only achieved half the depth he did for me the day after my op. Some people find his attitude disconcerting because they want to see a surgeon who is so full of confidence which inside Chett is but he won't promise anything in case he cannot provide it later.

I have a video of the inside of a room at the vertical suites if anybody is considering staying there and would like to see it just message me.  ;D

Seacon Square is one of many huge malls in Bangkok and because of it's close proximity to all 3 of Chetts hotels it makes a great place to stock up.

Hope you enjoy the few days as a tourist and all that food which you love so much. I'll keep an eye on your thread. Again good luck and I hope to read more soon.

Hugs

Sorcha  ;D

Congratulations and good luck.

I think I subscribe to ur utube channel


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Just got my re-taken lab tests back, and in my CBC test, my WBC count was normal this time, and urinalysis was negative for bacteria.

So no infection, everything was in the normal range, and I'm officially in the clear now.

Today and tomorrow I'm going to be doing some touristing with my mom, we're going to visit the Floating Market today and hopefully getting a guided tour of the Grand Palace and the Wat Phra Kaew tomorrow.

Bowel prep begins on Sunday, and then my surgery date is on Tuesday.

Here we go!

Now I'm definitely getting excited! :)
(And I'm really getting anxious to be back on my hormones. I've been off all HRT meds for 2.5 weeks now, I'm starting to shed hair again, I've been a bit snappy and unpleasant recently like I used to be before HRT, and a few unpleasant signs of testosterone coming back are starting to reappear, so yeah, I'm getting pretty anxious to get the T out of my system forever at this point. Soon...)

Carrie I really wish you all the best! Im eagerly waiting for the next update to read. Im counting down now to my surgery in just less than 12 months.

The way you are handling it all inspires me!

good luck

I am really glad to hear you are in the clear and won't have to have extra antibiotics!

So, apparently I misread the pre-op instructions initially. I looked back over them earlier today, and it turns out that my liquid diet begins tomorrow, not August 7. (I confused the start of the liquid diet with the start of the bowel prep, which is indeed on August 7, but the liquid diet begins a day earlier.)

So, yeah, bummer, today was my last day of eating the super-delicious Thai, Japanese, and Chinese dishes that I simply can't get at home.

I'm still in heaven food-wise. Mom and I went to Chinatown today, explored the super-crowded super-busy market for most of the day, and then ate lunch at a Chinese noodle shop. (WHY, America, WHY? Why can't you have authentic Chinese noodle shops like this?) Then for my last solid dinner before surgery, I had a local specialty, a Tom Yum udon noodle dish which was a delicious fusion of Japanese and Thai flavors.


Some random notes for the day...

Almost nobody in this city speaks English. Be prepared for that. We tried to buy a Thai phrasebook at the local bookstore to help us out, but we still had a lot of difficulty communicating with anyone because the phonetics are so different from both English and the only other Asian language I'm vaguely familiar with, Japanese. Getting back from downtown to the Vertical Suite was a challenge, it took us about 5 different taxi drivers before we found one who understood where we were trying to go to, and then we still had to negotiate the price, and many drivers simply refused to drive that far. It was a bit of an ordeal, and it was raining on top of that, so yeah, communication can be very challenging. Most of the shop owners in Chinatown and Seacon Square don't know any English beyond the numerical prices of things. If you point at something and ask "price?" or "how much money?" they can at least reply "one forty" (although it's often hard to understand,) but beyond that don't expect anyone to know any English at all. Apparently American tourists aren't a very common thing in Bangkok. So yeah, if you have the time to learn any Thai before you travel here, do it. This definitely isn't France or Italy where English is a common second language for people to learn and you can still phonetically read the writing even if you don't know what the words mean. The writing is incomprehensible without extensive study, and people generally don't speak any English, so yeah, ANY amount that you can learn will make a big difference.


Final note, God, I am SO ready to be back on hormones. The biggest thing that's bad about not being on hormones, in my opinion at least, is that my patience and tolerance levels have dropped to 0. I can't multitask anymore, and I'm very easily annoyed by small irritants.

For example, tonight after walking home from Seacon Square (it was a tiring day because I'm really not used to crowds, so having to constantly make space for so many other people in the narrow market streets of Chinatown was a bit of an emotional ordeal for me, even though it was worth it,) I was trying to make Jell-o since I'm going to be on a clear-liquids diet as of tomorrow. I couldn't figure out how to get the electric kettle to work. I plugged it in, and the bottom of the kettle steamed when I poured the water in, but then it never got warm. So then I tried the stovetop, but the stove wasn't turning on no matter which button I pushed. After pushing EVERY possible button, and none of them working, I snapped. I screamed, slammed the pot down on the burner, and yelled obscenities.

Mom scolded me, gave me a big lecture about how I can't do that, yadda yadda yadda, and I felt TERRIBLE about it, wishing with anything that I could erase that last hour of my life because that one single bout of frustration basically ruined my entire day. I HATE feeling like that. It makes me feel completely unfeminine, like a fake, a fraud, someone who doesn't deserve to call herself a woman because I'm just not supposed to get mad like that, and I just felt awful. So yeah... this used to be a thing that happened to me all the time before hormones. It had been years since I'd snapped like that at something so stupid and petty. It did NOT feel good to do it again. I can't wait to get back on estrogen so that I can stop feeling so easily-irritated like this. It's a real buzzkill, something making me feel awful about myself, on what should be one of the happiest weeks of my life.

Anyway, minor problem, I hate it, hopefully I won't do any more snapping tomorrow. (Please God... just let tomorrow be easy, let us have a nice day, let me remain calm, let me go into surgery in a good mood instead of wanting to bury my head in the ground because of some stupid thing I've done.)

Tomorrow I begin the liquid diet, also me and Mom are going on a tour of the local temples and Grand Palace, again, fingers crossed that I can remain calm and not snap at anyone over stupid petty irritants.



The clear-liquid diet Chett requires for 3 days before surgery basically consists of clear juices without any pulp, clear soup broths without fat (consomme,) Jell-O, sugar and honey, clear carbonated drinks, and coffee/tea without cream. Everything else is forbidden. No meat, vegetables, fruit, noodles, bread, milk/cream, or anything else that's not a clear liquid. So it's not going to be fun, but on the other hand, OMIGOD I'M SO CLOSE!!! WORTH IT!!! :)

Good luck, Liz, I hope the best for you, enjoy reading about happenings there.  Keep us updated

Congratulations on your upcoming GRS Carrie Liz!!  Very happy for you! I hope all goes smoothly!

Kim :)

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 05, 2016, 10:29:31 AM

Almost nobody in this city speaks English. Be prepared for that. We tried to buy a Thai phrasebook at the local bookstore to help us out, but we still had a lot of difficulty communicating with anyone because the phonetics are so different from both English and the only other Asian language I'm vaguely familiar with, Japanese. Getting back from downtown to the Vertical Suite was a challenge, it took us about 5 different taxi drivers before we found one who understood where we were trying to go to, and then we still had to negotiate the price, and many drivers simply refused to drive that far. It was a bit of an ordeal, and it was raining on top of that, so yeah, communication can be very challenging.

The front desk of the hotel has a little card with the hotel address in Thai, That will definitely help with the taxi drivers. Your mom will need it also to get to and from Chetts while you're in there :) There is also another way which is to use BTS or Airport Rail Link. Your nearest Airport train station is Hua Mak which will cost less than a 100 Baht by taxi and about 45 baht to Phaya Thai station from there. The BTS is likely best though as that will get you to Siam from On Nut and is again about 100 Baht in a taxi and 42 baht for the BTS.

If you have a specific place to visit such as the Grand Palace and would like to order a taxi with an English speaking driver I could give you the phone number of a wonderful taxi driver who I used for various trips around Bangkok and out to the beach during my recent trip.

Hugs

Sorcha  ;D

Reading with interest and all the best Carrie.

One tip I read when I visited Thailand was to print out the name of your hotel in thai before you go, then you can at least show it to the taxi driver and they will know where to take you, possibly too late for you Carrie but might help someone else reading.

Sorry to hear your so stressed from the T though,  But don't feel too bad about it, Thailand can be pretty full on at the best of times, let alone with the stress your already under.

ETA or you could just get the card from the front desk..doh

Quote from: Lisa55 on August 05, 2016, 04:20:49 PM
Reading with interest and all the best Carrie.

One tip I read when I visited Thailand was to print out the name of your hotel in thai before you go, then you can at least show it to the taxi driver and they will know where to take you, possibly too late for you Carrie but might help someone else reading.

That's what I was planning to do .... I been studying Thai for months on my iPhone app ... They say it's easy if u know the Thai alphabets which I'm somewhat good at ...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks for sharing Carrie.   Your posts are really good.

A bit late on the update, but it's been a busy couple of days.

Time spent with my mom is never exactly slow, we're constantly talking and constantly going places, so it's not easy to just sit down and have an hour or so to write about what I'm feeling or what's happening. This would be a completely different experience if I was here by myself. As it stands, I've been so busy that I have barely had time to really digest what's about to happen, or take in the full atmosphere and full significance of it all because it's just been go, go, go.



Anyway... yesterday was our tour of the Grand Palace and the various Buddhist temples around Bangkok, and WOW. I don't feel like I need to go into elaborate detail on how amazing the local architecture is, but seriously, WOW. So many colors, so much intricate detailed tile work, glimmering buildings, gold, this is a WONDERFUL city to tour. We took a tour led by a local woman named Poo, she took us all around Bangkok and explained the history of it all, Mom was really curious about the culture and especially the schooling and religion since she's an education professor and was really into Eastern philosophy as a college student, and I took a ton of pictures and videos that I'll cherish for a long time to come, because this trip, probably more than any other international trip I've ever taken, is something I'll always look back on and want to remember.

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi68.tinypic.com%2Fspjk9h.jpg&hash=5009074854a6c96e23119b257764a7b00b4d45bd)
(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi66.tinypic.com%2F63w0pf.jpg&hash=a186a5ab7173d945c3bed004b73ea37b932f8f31)

One of the most interesting cultural experiences of the day, though, wasn't even the sights, it was seeing the sheer volume of Chinese tourists. The entire Grand Palace was completely packed, end to end, like a can of sardines, thousands of Chinese tourists. Buses of them. Umbrellas everywhere. Selfie sticks in almost every single hand. Huge groups with stuffed animals on a stick to make sure everyone could find the tour group. The entire time in the temple was spent trying to not run in to people, trying to avoid other people's pictures, and constantly starting and stopping every 10 seconds because everyone was taking pictures and selfies. So, yeah, that was definitely... interesting.



Emotionally, it was not a good day.

I had a complete meltdown in the morning.

Basically what happened is that I was still stewing over my emotional outburst from the previous night. And then these already-simmering negative feelings were escalated a hundredfold when I got out of the shower and ended up getting a bit rushed. Mom took over the bathroom for a long time, so I only had like 10 minutes to get ready, and, well, things didn't go well. When I tried to hastily do my hair and hastily get dressed, I looked in the mirror, and I looked like a man. The more I tried to fix it, tried to redo my hair, tried to change outfits, getting more and more panicked with every minute because our tour guide was supposed to arrive in only 5 minutes, I got clumsy, banged my shoulder against the bathroom door, I yelled "ow," and then Mom yelled at me for yelling, and I got angry because "what am I supposed to do when I run into the door? It hurt. Let me vent!" And we started bickering because I was mad, and then being mad again, having another anger bout that I couldn't control, that was when the meltdown started.

My mind ran away with me. Seeing a man in the mirror, and being out of control of my emotions, once again ending up in a guyish irrational rage, it was more than I could handle. I started feeling like a fake. I started getting into that horrific dysphoric mindset where I would have done anything to rip my own soul out of my body and somehow put it into a cis female body, just so I could be freed from my disfigured appearance, freed from this horrible rage/anger that I was dealing with and into a self that was raised female, etc. It was the worst kind of meltdown. It was the kind where I was incapacitated and couldn't do anything but cry. It doesn't happen often anymore, but yeah, being off hormones, it did it.

The crowded temples didn't help. I was surrounded by beautiful women. Beautiful small-framed women wearing beautiful clothes that I can never hope to wear because they just wouldn't look good on my giant trans body. I was fighting dysphoria for the entire time we were at the Grand Palace, basically it was not a fun morning emotionally even though the tour was amazing, and I was blown away by the gorgeous art and architecture all around me.

As the day went on, my dysphoria eased more and more, until by the end of the day I was in a great mood again.

I don't know what causes this, but there are still just some times where my brain runs away with me. It gets stuck in a self-depreciating spiral, a spiral that gets worse and worse, and it won't stop until I've had some time to get my mind off of it.



So, well, that's this entire trip in a nutshell so far. Amazing sights, amazing food, amazing people, and it really is the experience of a lifetime, but I'm still having a really hard time keeping my dysphoria and emotions from wrecking everything. I wish I could chill out and enjoy the experience rather than spending the entire time fighting against my emotions and fighting against my reflection

I've known for a while that I'm probably going to need Facial Feminization Surgery before I'm remotely tolerating of my own appearance, but ultimately my genital dysphoria is stronger, and I've heard from a few friends that "I thought I was never going to be happy unless I got FFS too, but that changed after bottom surgery." So I don't know. I have very strong bottom dysphoria. Having my current anatomy is a constant low-key reminder that my body feels wrong, and it definitely adds to my social anxiety and takes away from my ability to feel like a "real" woman and feel like my body really is a female body at all, (I'd like to reiterate that this is just me, that is my own judgment of my own body, and does not apply to anyone else. Not everyone needs/wants GRS and that doesn't make them any more or less "real," I'm just talking about how I feel about my own body.) So again, maybe my facial/frame-size dysphoria will ease after GRS, maybe it won't, I don't know. My therapist says that he sees it as a 50/50 split between people whose dysphoria eases completely after GRS and people who still stress out about their faces/frames afterward. So I don't know. It's one of those things that I'm just going to have to wait and see.



Anyway, this was the last day that we're going to be in public like this, I can finally take a break from constantly fighting against my social anxiety and not panicking, and start focusing on the pre-surgery bowel prep. Fun.



I would talk about how I'm feeling, but really right now I just want it done. I'm exhausted of being off hormones, exhausted from tucks coming undone and constantly feeling this stupid lump between my legs wherever I walk, and dealing with the negative effects of T in my system. I just want it done. I'm tired.

Good luck Carrie, you are in the home stretch. It will not be long until you are in recovery. You have come so far and there is just a bit more to go. I am sending good thoughts your way.

One day to go until surgery...

I just woke up, it's 6:30 in the morning here in Bangkok, and so we're officially down to the 1-day countdown.

I'm now on the second day of my all-clear-liquids diet.

This is probably going to sound REALLY stupid, but the liquid diet is actually making me feel better emotionally. Because the thing is, anger and rage and frustration only really happens for me when I'm feeling 100% vigorous and awake. The liquid diet has taken a bit of energy out of me, and it's forced me to feel a bit lethargic and to relax a bit, so it's harder for me to get angry at stuff, which is a very good thing. I feel calm and happy now, thank God. So it looks like smooth sailing from here, and I'm actually kind of glad to be feeling in this sort of semi-weakened state for now because it means I can finally relax and take it all in.

So far it's been surprisingly easier to be on all clear liquids than I was expecting. I'm really not that hungry. I've basically just been eating Jell-O (they have a lychee flavored Jello here which is AMAZING,) apple juice, coffee, tea, and last night I made my own clear vegetable broth to satisfy my need for something savory since all of the other options tend to be so sweet.

So, the surgery instructions say that you can eat any clear fat-free broth, recommending beef and chicken consomme, but the thing is, I could not for the life of me find consomme at the local store. Tesco Lotus has basically everything that you could need in terms of food and supplies, they're the rough equivalent of an American box mega-store (but actually better IMO, because they have a food court, a bakery, and WAY better freshly-made food than an American grocery store would have,) and if you do stay at the Vertical Suite or the Dusit Princess you're probably going to be shopping there a lot, but it seems like they don't have consomme. I Googled Thai brands of consomme to see if there were any, I called Dr. Chettawut's office to ask where in the world I could find it, but no answers came, even Dr. Chett's office said "just skip it" because it's difficult to find here.

I bought a mushroom bouillon package figuring that a vegetable-based broth would be okay, but I was disappointed to discover that when I cooked it, it had fat in it and solids in it, so that didn't work.

So what I ended up doing was making my own clear vegetable soup broth. Tesco has basically everything, and the Vertical Suites gives you a stove, chef's knife, and pots and pans, so why not? I just bought onions, carrots, scallions, ginger, garlic, white pepper, dried shiitake mushrooms, and a bit of soy sauce, and presto! Boil for 2 hours and drain the solids and I have my own clear broth. If you can't find consomme, do this. Trust me, you'll need it. Eating nothing but Jell-o and drinking nothing but juice, coffee, and tea will work for a while, but trust me, after a few days you'll really be tired of sweet things. You'll need something warm and rich and savory, and having that broth makes a big difference in terms of feeling satisfied food-wise during this liquid diet.



Last night I took the prescribed laxative, as well as doing an enema (It's required. And the next two days is going to full of fun digestive-pyrotechnics-inducing stuff like that... ugh...) and yeah, the later one hurt, it's like a one way ticket to abdominal cramps. Today I get to take the SWIFF solution twice, and probably spend most of the day in the bathroom. But again, honestly, this has been a lot less difficult than I was expecting.

I've never been on a liquid diet before. And I've never taken a laxative or done an enema before, and obviously never had surgery or been under anesthesia before. So this is all a new experience for me. With every single day of preparation I'm charting new territory for me. So I was definitely preparing for the worst, expecting myself to be miserably hungry, miserably in abdominal pain, but honestly so far it's barely been noticeable. The worst that I'm feeling right now is some mild lethargy from the lack of solid food, which again, is actually quite welcome because it solved what has really been my biggest battle of the trip, dealing with the emotional effects of testosterone seeping back due to the lack of hormones.



Also, so far I really haven't had much fear or emotional dread about surgery, honestly right now I'm still just like "OMG, it's HERE! YAY!" And then maybe I dread the recovery, dread the pain maybe, because once again, I've never done this before, so preparing myself for the worst is probably smart, but really it's been surprisingly hard for me to be scared so far.

I had a big moment of "EEE! This is REAL!" during my consultation, but ever since then I've slipped back yet again into to "whatever, business as usual" mindset where it's like my mind doesn't even realize or comprehend what's about to happen, or at least it feels impossible to grasp the fullness of it. (Like, again, I was expecting this would feel like some huge looming obstacle that would feel bigger and bigger the closer it got, like I'd feel the anticipation and feel the nervousness and the like the closer it got, when in reality it hasn't felt like that at all. Life is still going on just like life has always gone on, and while there are occasional moments of giddy excitement or a rare moment where I realize I should probably be afraid of how hard recovery might be or that I might be in pain for a long time after this, the reality of it just doesn't sink in as much as I was expecting. And I don't think it will sink in until I'm on my way back to Chett's office on surgery day.)

Anyway, that's my update for now.

Stay tuned for SWIFF solution and digestive pyrotechnics, and then tomorrow is the big day!

Good luck :)

Also, have I raved about the food enough yet?

Oh my gosh... this is seriously the best! I am a huge fan of Japanese food, Thai food, and Chinese food, and this is basically like all the flavors I love highlighted in one giant place. Seacon Square has an entire Thai food court loaded with every single kind of curry, stir-fry, and other street staples. Mom had a dish that's basically exactly like Pad Thai yesterday, stir-fried shrimp and squid with a light tamarind/citrus sauce with scallions and peanuts, it looked SO amazing, and it was only $2. You can seriously eat out EVERY single day in this country and not spend more than $5/meal. The ramen and udon and Thai food court are all under 120 baht per dish, and they're AMAZING. The most expensive place in the mall is the all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant, which is 500 baht per person ($15). (That's going to be my official post-surgery celebration meal. No hamburgers for this girl. Give me sushi!)

I've already had noodles in a ramen shop and an udon shop, had a duck dish in Chinatown, just... GYAH!!! Can I retire here and live in food heaven? American food is so bland and boring and just downright unhealthy compared to this... and I don't think I'll ever get enough. Moreso than any other international trip I've been on, I am REALLY REALLY REALLY going to miss this by the time I go home. These are some of my favorite flavors in the world, and they simply do not exist in America. There are Thai restaurants which are mostly pretty close to this, but the ramen shops? The authentic Chinese places with the dim sum and tabletop hot pots? The udon noodle shops where they make their noodles from scratch? Nope. The closest I have in Toledo is a "Chinese Buffet" which is basically nothing but B-grade sushi, fried Americanized wonton dishes, and a ton of chicken dishes loaded with sugar. I would kill for an authentic Chinese restaurant or a good ramen/udon shop in Ohio. But sadly, not going to happen. Toledo is a culinary wasteland when it comes to anything but American food. And hamburgers and pizza just don't compare to this. (Well, okay, maybe pizza... but my point still stands. :p )

Anyway, yeah, I'm so looking forward to getting out of surgery so that I can go back to tasting my way around the entire mall. It's been hard to be surrounded by my version of food nirvana and only being able to stare longingly at it while I eat Jello. :p

This is the first day since arriving in Bangkok that I haven't had anything on the schedule, I've just been in the hotel room all day, no excursions, no touristing, no shopping, no exams, etc. And I definitely needed today to let the full feelings of upcoming surgery really sink in.

(Also, I needed to stay a few steps from a toilet, because that SWIFF solution seriously feels like a brick going through your digestive system. The taste isn't too bad when you mix it with Sprite, but yeah, it's making me feel woozy because of the flushing that's going on inside, and no amount of water and Gatorade is counteracting it.)

Up until this point this trip has been a blur of activity. Now I've finally had a chance to relax and gather my thoughts. So here we go, this is what I just wrote in my journal about my anticipation for my upcoming surgery, which is now only 23 hours away.

(Possible moderate-TMI if you're uncomfortable reading about the physical sensations of tucking and sexual arousal.)



"   Tomorrow begins probably the biggest obstacle I've ever had to overcome in my entire life. Today is the last day I'm going to be in the body I've always known, the last day of this particular version of "normal." And again, I've long since realized that one of the reasons why I was scared about surgery before was just because even though I've always dreamed of having female genitals, I've gotten so used to this state of dysphoria, of begrudgingly dealing with this feeling of a lump in my pants and my primary form of sexuality being erections which make it impossible to enjoy any intimate encounters because they feel so wrong, it's still all I've ever known as normal, so it's hard to wrap my head around this. This really is the very last day of this old twisted version of "normal." Tomorrow begins weeks, months straight of pain, recovery, time-consuming dilation, the first time I've ever had any surgery in my entire life, and waking up to a body that will be completely different. I'm looking forward to it. But it is a bit scary simply because it's a great unknown.

   But at the same time, I'm so ready to be done with it that it's not even funny. I'm so tired of talking to friends and family about my convictions for surgery, having to explain myself and defend myself and go into elaborate detail explaining why I want it and how, no, this isn't because of some trauma or because of lacking a "male role model" or Mom somehow doing "male bashing" or all of these other nonsense accusations I've heard from other family members. I'm so tired of having to worry about what surgery, FFS/SRS/Voice, I should have done first or worrying about whether it really will be everything I've always wanted or not. As of tomorrow, no more speculation, no more uncertainty, no more explaining, I can simply let my body be what it is and enjoy it for that.

   Again, omigod, tonight is the last time that I'm going to go to bed and be dealing with this stupid lump in my pants flopping around, having to constantly re-adjust and re-tuck and everything just to find a comfortable sleeping/sitting position. From tomorrow on, I'll never have to deal with that again. Tomorrow, after dreaming about it for 13 years straight, this is it. I really am finally going to experience the reality of waking up and having girl parts between my legs. It's finally all of those dreams, all those years of wishing and dreaming, coming true. Tomorrow. Only 24 hours from now. And it's all real. YAY!!! (Even though I'm probably not going to remember much about that waking-up.)

   I had to write that. I had to get it out. Because otherwise I'm scared it would pass right by me and I wouldn't get to savor how big of a deal this is mentally. But writing this has given me a chance to let it all sink in. Tomorrow. In real life. I'm going to wake up and, for the first time in my entire life, be living in a body that is, to my own judgment, female. For the first time ever, and forever after that. No more questions, no more uncertainty, from then on it's just who I am.

   And THANK GOD, no more erections, no more tucking, and a flat beautiful feminine pubis just like every other girl has. No more jealousy, no more staring longlingly at girls wearing bikinis and leotards and athletic shorts and wishing so much that I could look like that, no more hating myself when I start feeling sexual because my body won't fundamentally betray me with its incompatible version of "arousal" that my brain isn't programmed to expect to feel, no more pants re-adjusting at work, no more tucks slipping, no more social anxiety about a bump showing or things slipping into visibility, I am SO ready to be done with that stuff forever.

   Also, I'm not sure if it's the T or what, but I've been getting medium-soft erections for like the last 3 days straight, and it's REALLY annoying, and I can't wait to not have that penis or its stupid erectile tissue anymore. I'm so tired of that feeling of pressure pushing this organ out of my body that I feel like shouldn't be there, and which every single time I feel it happening I can feel phantom sensations of a vagina/clit being there and what it would feel like for that area to be flat, flush against my body. I'm so tired of that mismatch, and so tired of feeling it and yearning for it to be different every single time it happens. Tomorrow it will be a reality, and I'll NEVER have to deal with erections or dangly bits again. My body will be mine, exactly the way I've always wanted it to be.

   YES. I am so hyped now. And now that I've had the chance to type all of this out, to let my emotions on it out, I feel like I'm ready. It won't just pass me by without being able to enjoy the full magnitude. And here we go. :) Last day ever. Recovery will be hard, and my very daily definition of feeling "normal" isn't going to be the same again for several months after this because of the difficult recovery, but it will be worth it in the end. I'm sure. Here we go!"

good luck

So, I'm in to the final stages of bowel prep now, and I'm not going to lie, it is really starting to feel awful. The laxative last night wasn't a big deal. The enema was not fun, it gave me bad abdominal cramps for a solid half-hour, but it mostly cleared up and was a temporary discomfort. But the SWIFF solution, I'm not going to sugar-coat it, it's been a miserable day, and SWIFF is by far the worst part. The taste honestly wasn't the bad part, I mixed both doses with a full glass of Sprite, so the Sprite diluted it enough that I barely tasted it. But the texture made it feel like a brick going down into my stomach. And then ever since it got in there, it's been awful. A full day of abdominal cramping, this feeling of heaviness weighing down on my entire stomach, feeling nauseous, and running to the bathroom every 15 minutes for hours on end.

Not a fun day. I am REALLY glad that I'm not going to have to do this again any time soon.

People complain about the taste, for me it was just more about the general feeling of "ugh" that follows for hours afterward. It's not too bad, it's not like any serious pain or anything, but it's just that the feeling of "ugh" lasts for hours at a time, and after so long it starts to wear on you, you really start wishing your digestive system would go back to not feeling so blegh.

I'm really glad that I've taken my last dose of the stuff, and that very shortly after I wake up from surgery I'll be on at least semi-solid foods again.

I wish you the best of luck. Looking forward to your posts....Post-Op. (No Pun) :)

Carrie you have looked forward to this day for so long; since the first days back on EA when you thought it would never happen.  Wish that I could have accomplished the same thing. Now that disgusting thing will finally be gone.

I will look forward to your post surgery posts. GOOD LUCK!

good luck to you Carrie Liz, I know that being off hrt's are playing with your mind and body. T is having it last chance with you with you all those effects that you want gone.

Good luck, I hope all goes well. Hugs
Mariah

5 hours to go until I leave for the surgery center.


When I was imagining what this day would feel like 8 months ago when I was booking my surgery date and putting in the down-payment, I was expecting to be way more scared than I actually am. I was expecting to have this kind of "omigod omigod omigod" sort of freakout dread hanging over me, where I was so terrified about this big upcoming thing that was now imminent.

Now that it's actually here, surprisingly, I'm not really scared at all. Nothing but excited anticipation, maybe a little bit of that "I wonder what it's going to feel like when I wake up," and "I hope it's not too painful/difficult," but aside from that nothing but excitement, nothing but feeling ready to get this new chapter of my life started.

Chett's driver arrives at the hotel to pick me up at 1 pm, surgery is around 4 pm. (It's 8 am right now Bangkok time.)

Thankfully the SWIFF has now run its course, the nausea and the persistent "ugh" feeling are done. I was able to have a nice big (liquid) breakfast of lychee jello, apple juice, green tea, and two packets of this gross oral-saline electrolyte drink mix stuff that Dr. Chett gave me to replenish electrolytes. (Personal advice, that oral-saline stuff is kinda gross, I was expecting it to taste like Gatorade but there's something really offputting about it, it tasted nasty to me. I recommend just buying bottled sports drinks from Tesco rather than drinking the powder that he gives you.) So for the next few hours everything's good, no more hassle for now, I'm feeling really good, enjoying the peace and quiet, and just waiting in eager anticipation. :)

5 hours and counting!!!

Good luck and congratulations :)

Carrie - honestly all the best for your surgery! I really hope it brings you what you are seeking and that you can feel comfortable in your own skin! Really looking forward to hearing from you on the other side of it!

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 08, 2016, 07:53:59 PM

and two packets of this gross oral-saline electrolyte drink mix stuff that Dr. Chett gave me to replenish electrolytes. (Personal advice, that oral-saline stuff is kinda gross, I was expecting it to taste like Gatorade but there's something really offputting about it, it tasted nasty to me. I recommend just buying bottled sports drinks from Tesco rather than drinking the powder that he gives you.)

That's what I did after tasting the first one. I tell everyone SWIFF tastes foul but I'd sooner take that than the rubbish electrolyte drink Chett provides.

I asked Chett was that allowed and it is so when stocking up on water a few bottles of Gatorade is a must.

Now you're just over an hour from collection as I write this post so I hope when you have time to read it you've woken up and all is right with your world and everything went well for you :)

Good luck and welcome to the posties world :)

Hugs

Sorcha  ;D

All right, off I go!

I'll post as soon as I can.

Anxiously awaiting your Post-Op replies.

*hugs*

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 09, 2016, 12:40:06 AM
All right, off I go!

I'll post as soon as I can.

OMG this is it! So excited for you!

Well, I made it!

Everything went well, I made it down the infamous Chettawut stairs, and I'm in the recovery facility now.

I'll post a full update once I can get on my computer later.

Short version is that so far it hasn't been very painful, it was a 0/10 or 1/10 when I first woke up from the anesthetic, now it's to about a 3/10 but still very manageable. So far so good!

It's wonderful to hear everything went well. Hugs
Mariah

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi1279.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy537%2FDevlynMarie%2FModstuff%2Fp120128b_zps5bb84833.jpg&hash=392b515c1c1b611e038eedc089df3bda42da5ccb)

Glad to hear everything is good.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 09, 2016, 07:38:33 PM
Well, I made it!

Everything went well, I made it down the infamous Chettawut stairs, and I'm in the recovery facility now.

I'll post a full update once I can get on my computer later.

Short version is that so far it hasn't been very painful, it was a 0/10 or 1/10 when I first woke up from the anesthetic, now it's to about a 3/10 but still very manageable. So far so good!

OMFG... Sorry for cursing... I'm so happy for you... How did you feel when you woke up and you didn't have that thing anymore... OMG OMG OMG I'm so happy!

Congratulations, I'm so happy for you!!!

Apparently my body doesn't like anesthetic very much. Every single time I've sat up today I've thrown up. So it might be a while before I can comfortably get on my computer.

You are brave..I enjoyed your Post.go girl! Congrats

Ow, my tailbone, ow, my tailbone, ow, my tailbone, freaking OW!!! I want to get out of this bed so badly right now... this is like 3x worse than my international flight, and it's only been one day. :'(

Butt pain is up to a 7 / 10 right now, nothing I do helps, and I can't remember the number to call the nurse. OWWW!!!! 😭

Congrats

So glad you made it thru ok. Time to heal Girl! :D

To those who came before me who said that SRS was a lot less painful than they were expecting, I really envy you. Because I've never been in this much pain for this long before. I've had higher-intensity pain before, but that pain went away quickly after meds or sleep. In this case, I've gone to bed in pain and woken up still feeling the exact same amount of pain 2 days in a row now.

This is by far the hardest thing I've done in my entire life, and suddenly I'm having second thoughts about ever having FFS, because this pain is so hard.

At least my legs are finally out of the anti-DVT compression sleeves so now I can move around a bit better, but the surgical site and my tailbone are still hovering in the 5/10 to 6/10 pain range, and there's no break, it just keeps going and going and going. And I'm not even halfway done yet. ARGH! :'(

(It's worth noting, before this I'd never had surgery before, never had an inpatient stay at a hospital before, and never even broken a bone before. So this is way beyond my realm of prior experience.)

Carrie, congratulations on getting yourself there and doing it!

Im sorry you are in so much pain. It is temporary and in a few days im sure you'll be looking back on this feeling relief!

Hugs!

Phew... morning pain meds finally kicked in. Thank God! Pain's finally back down from 7/10 to 3/10.

For most people GRS isn't terribly painful but for some it is. If you have pain medication available, take advantage of it. If pain medication isn't available, ask about it because sometimes it's available but not freely offered. For me it felt like somebody was trying to shove a baseball up between my legs. It may have been about a 4 or 5 in pain level but I didn't want any pain medication because my head was clouded from what they gave me in surgery and I didn't want anymore of that feeling. After my head cleared two days latter, I was better able to live with the pain. Because I was confined to bed for 6 days, the problems became finding a part of my body to lay on that wasn't sore. I could lay on my back or sides but wasn't allowed on my stomach. After 6 day back and sides were all sore and I was happy to be on my feet as they weren't sore.

Sorry you're having a lot of pain, hopefully it will ease up soon.

Just had my first soft-solid meal in almost a week, and ahhhh... creamy soup never tasted so good. That really hit the spot. Also, pain's back down to a 2/10 now, so I'm finally starting to feel relaxed again.

Still can't feel much, but the limited amount that I have been able to feel so far has made me very happy, because it's matched exactly what my phantom sensations have always been so far. Packing is in the exact spot that I always felt a phantom vagina, and when I tried to focus on the feelings for a while this morning and no erection happened, just some minor tingling, that was great! Aside from those brief feelings, though, mostly so far it just feels a lot like it used to when I used to tuck everything down with duct tape in high school. So mostly just pressure. Minus the pulling and stretching of tape tucking, thankfully. That's a relief.

So far so good, minus the pain. No regrets at all based on what I've felt thus far. Mostly it feels the same as before, minus the unpleasant functions that I hated so much and plus the hole I always wanted. It's felt exactly like I was always expecting so far. I know I'm going to be VERY happy once I'm healed. :)

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 10, 2016, 08:49:53 PM
Just had my first soft-solid meal in almost a week, and ahhhh... creamy soup never tasted so good. That really hit the spot. Also, pain's back down to a 2/10 now, so I'm finally starting to feel relaxed again.

Still can't feel much, but the limited amount that I have been able to feel so far has made me very happy, because it's matched exactly what my phantom sensations have always been so far. Packing is in the exact spot that I always felt a phantom vagina, and when I tried to focus on the feelings for a while this morning and no erection happened, just some minor tingling, that was great! Aside from those brief feelings, though, mostly so far it just feels a lot like it used to when I used to tuck everything down with duct tape in high school. So mostly just pressure. Minus the pulling and stretching of tape tucking, thankfully. That's a relief.

So far so good, minus the pain. No regrets at all based on what I've felt thus far. Mostly it feels the same as before, minus the unpleasant functions that I hated so much and plus the hole I always wanted. It's felt exactly like I was always expecting so far. I know I'm going to be VERY happy once I'm healed. :)

im glad the pain is slowly going away! Hang in there girl!

It's wonderful everything is going so well for you. I'm not looking forward to the gap in sold food either, but oh well. Hugs
Mariah

Pain update:

One of the nurses brought me a pillow to put under my knees so that I could take some weight off of my tailbone. It's been a BIG help. Ever since this morning where I was crying in bed because it hurt so much just to sit, pain's been back down to a 2/10 to 3/10 all day, which is right about in the range where you can ignore it and not be too bothered by it. Getting the air-inflated anti-DVT pads off my legs and the IV out of my left hand helped with my freedom of movement a lot too. Those air pads were really annoying, made it really hard to sleep, because it felt like your legs were being smushed every 30 seconds.

Also, the nausea has finally died down, I can drink water without throwing up, and I was actually able to enjoy both breakfast and lunch, (the first day I felt so sick that I could barely get anything down at all, they brought out both soy milk and hot chocolate at all three meals, but I couldn't even drink half if it because my stomach just wasn't up to it. I threw up twice.) But today it's been creamy corn soup of some sort and hot chocolate, and YUM. Nice savory warm soup and drink feels so good.

Also, I did finally get my computer set up, but I'm not sure that I really want to go into elaborate detail on how everything felt yet, I might just wait until I can get back to the hotel and get the packing out, because sitting up to type on the computer still hurts for now, so I can only do it in small doses.

Anyway, as a brief summary, day 0 when I first woke up was barely any pain, but my head was spinning from the residual anesthesia, I couldn't focus my eyes on anything. Day 1 was a hellish day of pain both from the packing as well as from the pressure of the hard hospital bed pressing on my tailbone for 24 hours straight. Plus I was still nauseous, couldn't keep food or water down, threw up a lot, just generally felt miserable. This morning was the absolute worst, mainly because of the tailbone pressure. (People who are heavy like me probably need to be wary of this. I feel like these hospital beds were definitely not designed for those of us with a lot of weight pressing down.) Once that was resolved, though, the day's been much much better. Pain's mostly stopped, no more sharp stabbing pains from nerves coming back online, now that I've got the pillow to support my knees the tailbone pain has stopped, and the nausea is gone.

Now I'm just waiting... slowly feeling better...

I am so pleased for you, keep the posts coming. I fly out end of March next year for my srs. i am staying at the dusit as thats where I stayed for my ffs and ba.

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!

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :)

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...

Very happy for you young lady!!

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

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. :P

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.

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.)

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

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.)

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

So, the only thing I'm worried about is, thinking about my experience and then looking back at the "IWentWithChet" posts from a couple weeks ago, I'm worried, am I doing this whole hotel recovery thing wrong? Like, it seems like she talked about the individual recovery in the hotel being really hard because somehow she wasn't allowed to move her legs or something, and it was hard to pick things up off the floor?

Am I doing something wrong? Because I've been moving around all the time in bed. I do try to limit my standing and walking as much as possible, I only get out of bed to prepare meals and empty my urine bag, maybe 5 times a day at the most, but I move my legs around while I'm in bed all the time. And it's like, I was doing the same thing in the recovery facility. Back when my tailbone still felt like it was being crushed, I didn't have much of a choice, I was constantly folding one of my legs down under myself to prop one side of my butt up just a tiny bit to take the pressure off the middle. I also often was leaning sideways in a sort of crab-walk position, one leg at a 90-degree angle, again, to just take pressure off of my poor crushed tailbone. I think at one point the nurse maybe told me to not put my leg up, but I don't really remember, they didn't seem to ever correct me or attempt to after that. And I didn't feel any pressure or stretching in the surgical area, so I just kept doing it. All it says in the information packet is "remain on bed rest as much as possible, unnecessary movement or walking may interfere with healing."

And now here at the hotel, same thing, I'm moving around in bed a lot. I'm avoiding using my abdominal muscles for anything, and avoiding anything that causes a feeling of pulling/stretching in the surgical area, but I'm moving my legs around all over the place. I'm resting my legs in an Indian-style position, propping them up, folding them under, and, like, am I doing something wrong? Nobody really seemed to correct me, but I'm reading conflicting reports about how moving your legs too much is bad for you? I don't know. I haven't felt anything stretch, but I guess now maybe I'm getting a little concerned that I might have popped a stitch at some point without knowing it? I don't know, whatever.

Also, in my case the floor hasn't been much of a bottomless pit. I dropped some hot chocolate powder on the floor by mistake this morning, and was easily able to clean it up with my feet. I'm very adept at picking things up with my feet and passing them up to my hands without ever bending over, it's something I do all the time at home, and again, there's no pulling or stretching in the groin area when I do it, so I'm assuming it's okay? Again, I don't know. I also got the misfortune of being dropped back at the hotel on a Saturday, and thus going 2 days straight with no nurse visits at the hotel to be able to ask questions, so I've basically just been flying blind and trying to avoid pressure/stretching as my guide point.

Walking completely isn't a problem, I can usually walk for about ten minutes or so (like a penguin because of all the packing that's there in the way, :p ) before I start feeling tired and wanting to sit back down, I've been trying to limit my walking to only a few times a day though. My endurance gets better and better every day in that regard.

The cab ride back was nowhere near as painful for me as it was in the previously-mentioned report. It hurt, don't get me wrong, sitting really hurts with the packing in, but I'd rate the pain as a 6/10 or so, so it was bearable. I've had worse. The ride back to the hotel and the wheelchair ride up to the 14th floor was short enough that it didn't really bother me.

I'll have my first nurse visit at some point today, maybe I can finally figure out if I'm doing anything wrong or not, and then packing comes out tomorrow.

I felt a bit anemic when I first got back from the recovery center, but a few days of creamy soup and hot chocolate and my strength has mostly returned, I'm actually feeling very good physically. Mostly the issue is just the packing being very cumbersome. It makes standing, sitting, and walking a bit difficult because there's a lot of material there keeping you from closing your legs completely, and normal sitting/standing motions put strain on the surgical site, so I've been doing this weird motion where I lean back on one leg and then just sort of push myself up or down with my arms to keep my legs apart and put the strain on healthy areas rather than the healing area.

Things still feel generally good, the packing is still a pain, but it comes out tomorrow, and I can't wait, I'll update once I've had the nurse visit.



And as a final note, I am NOT in very good athletic shape, so I'm really surprised with how mobile I feel already. I play sports occasionally, but my endurance and cardio levels are crap, and I'm about 30 lbs overweight. And yet I'm already moving around really easily to the point where I barely feel encumbered. I was fully expecting this recovery to completely knock me out, and yet it hasn't. The only day that I felt a bit anemic and had to take it really carefully was the very first day back at the hotel. But once I got some soup and hot chocolate in me, my energy levels perked back up pretty quickly. So yeah, add one more name to the list of people who found recovery way easier than I was expecting, and way less physically taxing. The only really hard part to get through for me was the first two days, when I was in near-constant pain in the 6/10-7/10 range. But ever since then, as soon as that first wave of pain tapered off, it's been rapidly getting easier and easier, to the point where now it's almost easy. I wasn't expecting to be this mobile and this energetic only 6 days after surgery.

(Also, I'm still in 7th heaven emotionally. This new body is still the best thing ever. :) )

CarrieLiz, thankyou so much for being so generous with sharing your experience, feelings and some very personal stuff.

I dont know if you realise, but Im sure that this thread will be looked at by so many between now and in the future for inspiration, information and a heads up on what to possibly expect.

My surgery date is still a long way off... however this thread has already helped me in such a huge way.

Thankyou!

Just had my first daily nurse visit, and she basically just looked everything over, reassured me that everything still looks good, is still healing well, and I was able to ask questions.

So first of all, I've been doing the catheter wrong. They hung the catheter from my panties when I left the surgical facility, so I just left it that way, but apparently that's not how you're supposed to keep it, it's supposed to be as low to the ground as possible so that gravity can do its thing. I'd been inhibiting it from working properly by keeping it strapped to my waistband like that. So now I know.

Obviously I asked about the whole moving-around thing, made sure that none of the packing had dislodged or anything from my leg-fidgetiness, and she reassured me that everything still looks good, swelling is at a good level, no discoloration, and everything is still in place. However, she advised me against elevating my legs like I've been doing. She says it's not a huge deal, but I should try to keep my legs flat down on the bed as much as possible because lifing my legs up to a 90-degree angle stretches the surgical site a bit. So I'm going to try and not move as much.

Also, I'm now free to eat whatever I want, the packing comes out tomorrow and obviously nothing can possibly pass through my entire digestive system in only 24 hours, so I can eat whatever I want tonight. I'm going to get Mom to grab me one of those delicious stir-fry dishes from the Thai food court at Seacon Square that I've had my eyes on for the last 10 days straight. So celebration meal tonight, and then as soon as I'm allowed to leave the hotel my big celebration meal is going to be hitting up the local sushi buffet.

Aside from that, she just made sure I've been taking my meds, made sure the pain level was good, (it definitely is, I feel really good today,) and just reminded me to limit my standing, only to get up to empty the urine bag and to eat meals.

So yeah, there we go, that's it, packing comes out tomorrow, I'm so super-excited I don't even have words for it.

The pain and swelling have dropped to a level now where any negative feelings are completely out of me, all that's left is elation, because seriously, this is amazing. :) I'm so happy.

Greats posts Carrie. I'm not posting much but I'm reading them all.

Now you're post-op have you given any thought to your choice of FFS vs SRS first? I remember you thinking about decision that a lot. I think I can guess, but how's it all feel now?

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 15, 2016, 12:01:40 AM
Also, I'm now free to eat whatever I want, the packing comes out tomorrow and obviously nothing can possibly pass through my entire digestive system in only 24 hours, so I can eat whatever I want tonight. I'm going to get Mom to grab me one of those delicious stir-fry dishes from the Thai food court at Seacon Square that I've had my eyes on for the last 10 days straight. So celebration meal tonight, and then as soon as I'm allowed to leave the hotel my big celebration meal is going to be hitting up the local sushi buffet.

Probably too late now, but I find when I eat something that seriously upsets my digestive system it goes though pretty quick...

Quote from: AnonyMs on August 15, 2016, 01:31:28 AM
Now you're post-op have you given any thought to your choice of FFS vs SRS first? I remember you thinking about decision that a lot. I think I can guess, but how's it all feel now?

SRS, 100%, Jesus, dear God, I am SO glad I chose SRS first it's not even funny. Because seriously, this surgery is like all of my dreams that I've had my entire life coming true.

I was NOT expecting SRS to be this good. Back when I was making that decision, I seriously believed that SRS would barely be a change at all. Some testimonials from other people made me believe that. Even some of my closest friends convinced me "I know you, you're still just going to be nitpicking all of your flaws afterward." So I believed them. But I was SO wrong. It definitely was a change. The biggest change I could imagine in how I feel about my own body. It exceeded even my most optimistic expectations, I've never felt so good in my own body, I've never been so happy in my entire life, and that persistent dysphoria would still be there had I chosen FFS first. Thank God I picked SRS. That's all I can say.

FFS would have eased anxiety about passing, but my body still would have felt wrong. SRS has made me so happy/grateful to be living in my own body, feeling so right, even if maybe I don't look right, that I can barely contain my own excitement.

And this is coming from someone who very likely still might get FFS in the future because I'm still not a fan of my face bone structure. (And might even try to get a consultation with Dr. Chett while I'm still here to see what he'd recommend for my face.)

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 15, 2016, 02:45:21 AM


I was NOT expecting SRS to be this good. Back when I was making that decision, I seriously believed that SRS would barely be a change at all. Some testimonials from other people made me believe that. Even some of my closest friends convinced me "I know you, you're still just going to be nitpicking all of your flaws afterward." So I believed them. But I was SO wrong. It definitely was a change. The biggest change I could imagine in how I feel about my own body. It exceeded even my most optimistic expectations, I've never felt so good in my own body, I've never been so happy in my entire life, and that persistent dysphoria would still be there had I chosen FFS first. Thank God I picked SRS. That's all I can say.

I am hoping to feel this way after my srs...

i just love reading your updates...

Just had my first real meal in a week and a half, and it was oh so satisfying. :) Thai chicken stir-fry of some sort with eggs, and these big wide soft rice noodles plus some crispy fried things. Then Mom bought one of the pre-cooked chickens from Tesco (so much tastier than American chicken that it's not even funny,) I had one of the nice seed rolls from the bread shop right next to Tesco, and it was seriously heavenly. After not eating for so long, it was so amazing to have a nice satisfying meal.

Also, I did sit down at the dining room table in the hotel room to eat, and while it is still pretty uncomfortable, definitely a lot more painful than standing and laying down, it wasn't unbearable. Maybe a 5-6/10 in pain. I could tolerate it for 15 minutes or so with the butt donut pillow for the sake of having a nice meal. (I guess the real sitting-comfort test will be tomorrow once the packing comes out, because really that was what made it uncomfortable, having this big hard lump in my vagina pushing up against my internal organs.)

I continue to feel better and better, more and more energized, moving freer and freer with each passing day, to the point where I'm really pleasantly surprised how easy this recovery has been. Again, it was basically 2 days of difficult pain, 2 days of sleepiness, one day of anemia, and then back to practically feeling good as new. Everything's great now, and I still have 2.5 weeks before I have to fly back to America, so I'm going to have lots of time to enjoy myself here in Thailand and lots of time to recover before facing the hell of the 13-hour international flight. Overall, things are just going amazingly well.

Off to bed soon, and the nurses from Chett's said that they'd be here tomorrow between 7 am and 9 am to remove the packing, so I can't wait to see what everything looks like, I'm super excited to see what my new body looks like.

Also, once the packing is out, I can finally take a freaking shower. My hair looks so awful it's not even funny. They give you a sponge bath twice a day while you're in Chett's clinic, and I've continued to clean myself with a wet towel at the hotel to keep myself clean here, but you can't really do hair that way. So I'm really looking forward to finally being able to not look in the mirror and cringe at the rats' nest up on top of my head.

Congratulation's CarrieLiz!!!   :) :)

I have been reading your posts intently since I will be going in for GRS in 9 days!!!! I will be getting mine done by PIA though, but still in Thailand!

Many of your thoughts before and after surgery are ones I have had and feel I will probably have. One difference is that I just became so accustomed to my parts being tucked that I don't have much dysphoria. I do though want it gone so badly, and I'm looking forward to a having sex again some day :) (Its been over 10 years, nothing, zilch!) The times I have become very dysphoric are when I was dating. One reason I stop for awhile then start back up. This has caused some anxiety but something I figured I would have to live with the rest of my life.

Having surgery is a top priority for me as it has been for you. I don't think I even realized it until I was able to schedule it. I have been able to integrate into society as a female fairly well, not that I haven't done some hard work. This was one reason my dysphoria had gone down quite a bit. In reality no one knows what's in between your legs, all just assume its the same as any other women. I wear yoga pants, leggings, swim suites and look like any other female, but I still have those worries of if something we're to move or God forbid grow! And I KNOW what's in between the legs! Probably the only person that doesn't accept it LOL

I hope you continue on with the great recovery you have had so far! If there are some minor things wrong, please don't tell us LOL I want just good news! No, really do tell us everything, this is sooooo much helping me prepare for my day. I'm still numb over all of whats about to happen. I havn't had that much anxiety or even euphoria for that matter, but I have felt more at peace with myself than ever before!

Keep up the great posts!! 

CarrieLiz

How long were you in the hospital? It appears to be 3-4 days? I'm not sure if that is correct. I know at PIA I stay in hospital for 5 days including surgery day. If yours is shorter, do you feel you were discharged timely or could you have used more time in the hospital?

Quote from: shellsters on August 15, 2016, 01:45:25 PM
CarrieLiz

How long were you in the hospital? It appears to be 3-4 days? I'm not sure if that is correct. I know at PIA I stay in hospital for 5 days including surgery day. If yours is shorter, do you feel you were discharged timely or could you have used more time in the hospital?

It was 4 days including surgery day. I was admitted on August 9th at about 2 in the afternoon, and was then there for the 10th, 11th, 12th, and was discharged in the early morning of the 13th.

Honestly, the duration was fine. I was reasonably mobile by the time I was discharged, at least enough to be able to cook simple meals and get up to use the bathroom without any feeling of straining myself beyond what I was capable of. I only had to be up for about 10 minutes at a time a few times a day.

I was actually pretty glad to be out of the hospital when I was discharged, because it meant I could just relax, breathe, take it all in, do things on my own schedule, and not have nurses popping in all the time, propping the bed up for me, and saying "time to take pill," and "clean your body?" and other things. I seem to have recovered very quickly, though, and got my energy back very fast, so I'm not sure how others would feel about this.

The only thing is, I wish I could have had the once-per-day visit on the first day back to the hotel. I have a lot of questions, and tend to be a bit anxious about whether I'm doing everything right or not, so being alone for 2 days with nobody to ask to make sure I was doing everything right made me worry a bit, but aside from that I have no complaints about the schedule they have.

The stairs are definitely not a good thing, though. I know there's nothing they can do about it, but yeah, having the surgical facility and the recovery facility on different floors and making patients walk down the stairs only about 9 hours after they've had surgery definitely can't be a good thing. They're very careful about it, but yeah... I threw up and was in pain during that walk down the stairs, so it can't have been good for me at the time. (No long-term issues, but still.)

So, I got my packing out earlier today, and what a huge relief that was.

After a week of having the surgical padding on, things were starting to get really uncomfortable. Having several inches of padding constantly pushing down on your pubis at all hours of the day for a week straight gets really old after a while. And the worst part is the surgical tape. Every single part of my torso and legs and butt that the surgical tape was on (to hold the padding in place) was red with irritation by this morning, was itchy as heck, and I was so glad to finally get it off.

First of all, getting all of that padding off is the biggest difference in the world when it comes to transitioning from the feeling that you're still a newly-out-of-surgery "girl in progress" to feeling like you really are done. There's something about still feeling the surgical packing in your vagina, and still feeling all of that padding covering everything which makes it impossible to see or really feel anything, and something about being forced to walk like a penguin and stand up like someone whose legs are locked together that really makes you feel like someone who's still in recovery, still in need of physical coddling and nurse assistance and still fragile and breakable. Once that padding comes off, you can MOVE again! You can lay on the bed with your legs together, you can sit, you can stand up without teetering on the edge of your bed like a rigid puppet with a wooden pelvis, and you can actually walk like a normal person instead of waddling around like a penguin. It is such a big relief. And you finally start feeling normal again.

The packing removal "ceremony" seriously feels like your first gynecologist visit. You strip naked, spread your legs as far apart as you can in a crab-walk position, and after 5 minutes of having layers of skin ripped off as they remove the surgical tape that holds the padding in place, someone pokes and prods your ladybits with a bunch of medical tools including a depth-measuring rod, spreading it apart with a speculum, and the entire time you're just laying there staring down at what basically amounts to spread legs and (for the first time in your life) your completely-empty flat hair-stubble-covered female pubis in all its glory.

I did my best not to cry tears of happiness, but oh my God, there it was. There was that thing that I've wished for 17 years straight that I could have, that I cried myself to sleep so many nights because I couldn't have, and there it was! And I was like "eeeee!!! There really is no penis or testes there!" Seeing it, having it right there in front of your eyes, is a completely different level of amazing than feeling it is. You know it's there on a head level, but yeah, now it's REAL.

I don't really have much to say about what the packing removal felt like. It felt like something was being pulled out of my vagina, and that's about it. I've had a phantom vagina feeling since I can remember, and well, this felt like something coming out of my vagina. (Well, okay, if you really want to know what having a vagina feels like, it basically just feels like another orifice down there. It doesn't really feel much different from something being pulled out of your butt, but just a little bit more forward and without the sphincter at the end making the opening tight. It's just really soft and wet. Or maybe if you were a weird teenager like me who was desperate to experience what ANYTHING going into your body felt like, maybe you stuck something into your urethra before? It feels like that, except without the burning sensation, because seriously, the urethra burns whenever anything is stuck into it.) Okay, that was probably TMI. But whatever. I'm just trying to be as honest as possible, and I feel like the physical sensations aren't really discussed in much detail most of the time, people just say "it feels interesting" or something.

It didn't hurt. It was just more like a persistent low-level tickle in that area. The only part that hurt was the very end, when the last segment came out.

And then out came the mirror, and I got to see myself for the first time.

Me personally, I'm super-happy. It's very compact. Because of the swelling pushing the outer labia to puff up around everything, the clitoral hood, urethra, and vagina are all really close to each-other, and everything is sort of pulled in toward the vagina by the pressure so it's almost like a "gaping hole" effect minus the clitoris, which was pretty obvious. One of my big fears with Chett, which many people have mentioned before, is that he tends to leave the clitoris a bit bigger than most surgeons, and I've always been very small downstairs, so I was worried that my clitoris was going to be left too big for me, I didn't want to look down there and see what blatantly looked like a chunk of penis sticking out. Thankfully, it didn't. It looked normal. It was bigger than the average cis woman's clit that I've seen, but not by much. On a scale of 0-10 in terms of the clit sizes that I've seen on cis women, it was probably about a 6 or a 7. So it was a big relief having that fear eased.

When you first see it, again, it's not very pretty, everything is still rather swollen, especially if you're overweight like me, so it almost looks like there's no inner labia at all because the pressure has everything pushed out really far, but don't fret, I've seen how Chett's results settle, as things heal the scar site around the vagina slowly retracts and that's where the inner labia is. So I can't tell for sure whether it will end up being everything I hoped for or not, but based on what I saw today, I'm optimistic. It will at least be a result in the "good" range. In terms of the best result I was expecting versus the worst result I was expecting, I'd give what I saw about a 6-7 on a scale of 1-10 with 5 being average.

What I am definitely really happy with with Chett is the placement of the scars. Some surgeons leave very obvious scars above the clitoris which are visible from the front, with Chett that's definitely not the case, he has almost all of the scars right along the seam of the inner labia, in a place where once the swelling goes down it will be wrinkled up and barely visible. So yeah, happy about that.

Honestly, though, I really don't care about the current appearance too much. First of all, it's too early to tell, so as long as everything is in relatively the right place and the doctor says you got a good result, that's enough for me. Also, to me, the appearance matters somewhat, but I'm not the type of person to freak out about everything looking EXACTLY textbook perfect, I'll be completely happy as long as it's within the reasonable range of what a woman could reasonably have, and this definitely was. So I'm happy. And finally seeing it was amazing. Like, come on, I have a vagina! How amazing is that! And I actually got to feel what having a labia feels like, and what having a clitoris feels like! Seriously, that was amazing! How cool is that? And that's what really matters to me, is how it feels. And it feels WONDERFUL.

Having all of that cumbersome padding removed, and finally feeling what it's going to be like to walk around, and sit, and lounge, and do all of the normal daily things that I'll be doing for the rest of my life, and basically feeling for the first time what those things are going to feel like with a vagina and no penis/testes in the way, seriously, SO amazing. Now that the padding is removed, it basically feels completely normal now. All that's there absorbing fluid is a maxi pad. So things look normal now. And by normal I mean flat. So just sitting down and seeing the crotch of my sweatpants resting down perfectly flat on my front, looking the same way that I've always been so envious of girls for looking, GYAH!!! So amazing! And it's ME!!! (I'm never going to get tired of this, I swear. I'm so glad that I get to look this way and feel this comfortable every time I lounge around now. I got a taste of it a few days ago when I got back to the hotel for the first time with the padding still in, but now this is like everything that I've always wanted coming to full fruitition, finally experiencing it in the way that I'll be experiencing it for the rest of my life.)

The padding is a huge burden that's been removed. I can basically walk around normally now. Getting up isn't a hassle anymore, I can sit and lay down in any position I want without discomfort, and I can bend down and turn and stretch, and my discomfort level when sitting has dropped from about a 4-5/10 to a 3/10. I was able to sit down at the dining room table to eat breakfast this morning, probably 20+ minutes straight, and it was only mildly uncomfortable.

Also, I finally got to take a shower, so yay, having clean hair again is really nice.

Basically, packing-removal day feels like graduation day. I feel FREE, and I feel so wonderful and unencumbered and just plain happy that I can barely put it in words. Seriously, this is amazing.

Oh yeah, and not that I really care much, depth isn't my main concern, but I got 6" of depth. And when the nurse put the depth-measure in, it didn't really hurt much, so I was relieved, dilation shouldn't be too problematic for me.

I'm amazed at how pain-free every single day since that 3rd day in the recovery center has been, just how elated I've felt, and honestly just how great life feels right now. I'm so happy that I'm going to get to experience life in this new body. :)

(Also, I'm already at the point where I don't really need pain pills any more. There's still some definite swelling in the pubis/groin area, so there's a little residual pressure pain on some of the more sensitive parts, but it's barely noticeable. It's a persistent 1/10 to 2/10 at the most. And frankly most of my energy already feels back, walking basically feels normal, I can sit with only moderate discomfort, and while I am still definitely taking it easy and staying in bed most of the day because I know I do still have a newly-healing surgical site to take care of, and I can feel that swelling picks up after I've been moving around, and I'm probably still a bit weaker than my brain is leading me to believe, I'd seriously rate my current level of recovery energy and feeling outside-world-capabale at about a 65% to 70% already. Once those first couple of difficult days were past, this recovery has been so much easier than I was expecting that it's not even funny.)

Also, it has to be asked, am I going crazy here? Why do I feel like I'm the only one who's made a real-time account of my SRS experience and reacted with this much sheer joy? Like, surely other people have felt this good too? I mean, please, tell me I'm not crazy and other people felt this way too but just toned it down, or just didn't want to talk about it, or were afraid of making it sound too good and getting other people to rush into it recklessly or something? What's going on with that? I hope I'm not coming across as ridiculous here... :P Maybe the eventual tedium of dilation will kill my mood or something?

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 16, 2016, 04:39:36 AM
Also, it has to be asked, am I going crazy here? Why do I feel like I'm the only one who's made a real-time account of my SRS experience and reacted with this much sheer joy? Like, surely other people have felt this good too? I mean, please, tell me I'm not crazy and other people felt this way too but just toned it down, or just didn't want to talk about it, or were afraid of making it sound too good and getting other people to rush into it recklessly or something? What's going on with that? I hope I'm not coming across as ridiculous here... :P Maybe the eventual tedium of dilation will kill my mood or something?

Everyone is different and everyone feels pain differently. I even read someone who said they didn't feel pain getting their catheter removed?!?!?!? Lucky...

For me, SRS was a ton of constant pain and uncomfortable back-lying until after getting the packing removed (this was the biggest QoL improvement of the whole experience to me - your mobility improves SO MUCH). Then dilation was a nightmare until I got used to it (which is an experience I just had to go through again moving up to #2). Sitting was a nightmare until only recently. Getting my catheter removed was... Incredibly awful.

So that's the part that may have been worse for me than others. On the plus side - almost everyone I've read initially had issues with 'spraying' pee or pee that was 'uncontrollable' or even incontinence due to the shorter urethra. I didn't have those issues even slightly - I was peeing like a champ from day one. Additionally, lots of people have issues walking - but I was like you: I could go minutes, if not hours even, walking straight out of the hospital. I basically even went down stairs almost solo on the way out of the clinic. I also had zero issue with the tape being itchy.

It really does vary, is the key here. There's advantages your body is going to give you that other people won't have. And there's things that may suck for you that won't for other people. Don't judge your SRS experience until you've dilated regularly with a larger dilator. Even I'm holding off judgement until I reach the dreaded #4.

I think the only universal thing everyone hates is the flight back. Make sure you can sit on that Chett pillow for like 18 hours straight because that's what you're going to do. If you can't, and I'm very serious when I say give sitting in it for 18 hours straight a try, my recommendation would be, once you get clearance from the nurse, to go to the local mall (assuming you're at the Princess) and pick up a softer one. Your flight home WILL suck - you want to make VERY certain that you're as comfortable as possible.

I think I got a bit too overexcited today and exerted myself a bit too much. I sat down at the dining room table for all three meals, was up out of bed constantly, took probably a 40-minutes-straight-of-standing shower to wash my hair and clean all of the sticky tape residue off my stomach and butt, and I think I maybe overdid it a bit. By the end of the night, I noticed that things have swelled up a little bit downstairs, and I feel like my delicate bits are under a little bit more pressure

So yeah, I think I overdid it a bit, got a little bit too excited about how free the lack of packing made me feel, so I'm probably going to take it easier tomorrow, go back to more bed rest and trying-to-not-move-too-much to get my body back into healing mode.

It's hard to not get excited like that and go a little overboard when you've been cooped up in the same position for days on end. I just have to remind myself that I'm still recovering, I still need to take it easy.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 16, 2016, 08:56:54 AM
I think I got a bit too overexcited today and exerted myself a bit too much. I sat down at the dining room table for all three meals, was up out of bed constantly, took probably a 40-minutes-straight-of-standing shower to wash my hair and clean all of the sticky tape residue off my stomach and butt, and I think I maybe overdid it a bit. By the end of the night, I noticed that things have swelled up a little bit downstairs, and I feel like my delicate bits are under a little bit more pressure

So yeah, I think I overdid it a bit, got a little bit too excited about how free the lack of packing made me feel, so I'm probably going to take it easier tomorrow, go back to more bed rest and trying-to-not-move-too-much to get my body back into healing mode.

It's hard to not get excited like that and go a little overboard when you've been cooped up in the same position for days on end. I just have to remind myself that I'm still recovering, I still need to take it easy.

I'm glad you are so happy, and I am very excited for you! Thank you for sharing your experience with us 😊

Carrie Liz,

At the risk of fan girling a lot. I have been reading many of your posts for the past year or so. I just don't always reply to everything.

I too like kittenpower am so happy for you. I guess I always hoped that most people undergoing this would feel as giddy as you have. It is what I would love (selfishly) for myself too.

Please take care of yourself. Take it easy and have a safe trip home.

Enjoy your life.

Warmly,

Joanna

I definitely felt like that... about day 3, my wife explained how to clench the vaginal muscles so that I could actually feel it, and I cried from joy at the sensation. But, well, Brassard's wireless sucked and I was way too busy with all the aftercare to write paragraphs. :) Still, I saw/know quite a few women who were over the moon; I don't think it's just you. I've had such a smile on my face reading about it from you, though!

(Brassard also believes in getting patients active as soon as possible, so I was walking at 18 hours post and climbing stairs on the third day, and we had instructions to go walk the circuit of the recovery residence every hour or so if we could. I cursed this plan frequently, but I have to admit it did seem to help, in that I was able to do everything I needed to by the time I left for home. I could even bend to pick things up/put shoes on. I didn't mind the actual dilation that much, either, because it didn't hurt and I could get to full depth immediately, but it was so time-consuming! That plus the sitz baths and antibiotic ointment and antibiotics and I forget what all else kept me super busy for the first few weeks.)

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 16, 2016, 04:39:36 AM
Also, it has to be asked, am I going crazy here? Why do I feel like I'm the only one who's made a real-time account of my SRS experience and reacted with this much sheer joy?

Well, I for one am really glad that you have taken the time to write about your experience.  Were else would those of us in the early stages of transition get this much information about what the surgery and recovery are like?  Granted our mileage may vary, but there's nothing like a first-person account.

I am so glad for you that your recovery is going so well, and that you are feeling the joy of it.

So, some quick notes about how things feel before the nurse comes and I do my first dilation...

Everything is still very swollen. The outsides of the vulva feel a bit rigid to the touch (not completely hard, just "I can tell there's a lot of pressure underneath these,") because there's still a lot of swelling back there pushing on it, and it does definitely feel like there's pressure constantly pushing against everything from the inside. (Like, the pressure makes it feel like there should be more of a bulge than there actually is. It feels swollen and bulgy from the inside, but it still looks completely flat and vagina-y from the outside, so yeah.)

The inner labia skin (which stretches from the vaginal opening up to the clitoris) is suitably loose, the skin there can actually be moved back and forth a bit when you touch it, I can feel that there's extra skin there and thus that once everything is settled down and healed I will have a proper inner "lips."

Pubis feels mostly normal, squishy and completely non-swollen. It's the intimate bits below it that feel really swollen.

The clitoris is basically completely enclosed within a swollen hood at this point. So it almost feels like your clitoris is encased inside of you or something, I can constantly feel the skin covering the outside of it and it feels like the swelling is compressing it a little bit. (Also, for note, I was circumsized, so maybe I'm just not used to having a clitoral hood because I didn't have a foreskin before.) Nonetheless, because of the swelling, it's odd, it almost feels like I have this big swollen mass on the inside and then all of the sensitive parts are encased in that swollen outer mass, like you almost have to dig inside to feel them to find the sensitive parts because of the swelling around them.

The vagina clearly has a ton of stitches all over it, on both sides, I can feel the stitches still. It's also surprisingly moist. Like, when I was imagining what an immediately-post-op neo-vagina would be like, I basically pictured an almost-completely-dry bloody mess that you had to practically encase in lube to get it wet and dilate-able. I imagined that dilation and putting anything into the vagina would feel like trying to keep an open wound open. I was totally wrong about that. It feels like a vagina, albeit with a few stitches. It's almost always wet. And there's very little blood or feeling of it being a "wound" or other things that people have freaked out about. And frankly it doesn't feel at all like outer skin that was grafted together and then stuffed inside of you, it really does feel like a vagina. And I was definitely worried about that, because I'd heard of people crying when their neo-vagina was referred to as "the wound" by doctors during recovery. So hopefully others who were worried about that can have their mind eased now too. It doesn't feel like a wound. It doesn't feel fake. It feels like a vagina. It feels like a wet internal orifice. Seriously.

Also, I'm hoping this is something that everyone already knows, but just in case it isn't I'll say it anyway... you can't see your own vagina when you look down. You basically need a mirror to see anything or to do anything down there. When you look straight down, all you see is the pubic mound. So yeah, just making sure on that one. :P

Anyway, that's that, aside from the swelling things are still going great, and now time for the dreaded first dilation.

(I will admit that looking at Chett's dilation schedule looks VERY VERY daunting. 2.5 hours per day? And having to change dilators 3 times EVERY single time I dilate? Yikes!)

Hi Carrie;
I have been regularly reading your posts over the last few years and am really very happy for you. Congratulations and do keep your news coming. Don't worry about talking about how things that you experience on a daily basis, as I am sure it all helps others both young and old. Quite often it your posts that talk about the really joys of being a woman, discovering your femininity etc that are the most interesting.

Personally  even though I pass pretty much 99% of the time and love being seen as female I still enjoy those little moments  like just recently when a Cis woman friend said .. Judith you blend in very well and basically people would only see you as a really feminine woman"..
Best
JudithLynn

So, first dilation just happened, just a quick 15 minutes with what I'll call "Dilator #0" (Chett gives you 4 different-sized dilators, those are the ones referenced in the dilation manual as "#1" through "#4," and then there's a tiny one (girth-wise at least) which is even smaller than #1 that they use just to demonstrate what the proper depth is. I'm calling that one "#0." This first dilation was with the #0.)

Basically, mostly this was just Chett's nurse coming in for 5 minutes, getting me into the proper dilation position (legs spread wide apart, knees up, basically in the "gynecological exam stirrup" position,) and then she shows you how to lube the dilators up (Jeez, she used a lot of lube. And considering that in Chett's dilation schedule he has you using every single one of the smaller ones every single time, you always build up from #1 to #4 one at a time without skipping any, and doing that 3 times per day, JEEZ. That is going to be so much damned lube. I've already used a whole tube just by doing two test dilations, it takes half a tube just to lube one dilator up, so I swear, I'm going to go through like 6 tubes every single day. I have to ask, surely there must be a more efficient way to do this?) Anyway, and then once everything is lubed and you're in the right position, she shows you how to put it in. Basically, you start with the dilator angled down at a 45 degree angle, slowly tilt it to a horizontal position as you push it in, and roll/twist it back and forth as you're putting it in. Then you keep going until you're at your full depth, apply a little bit of pressure to the back wall, and hold it there until the timer is up.

Considering how some people have said that the first dilation can be painful, I was pleasantly surprised yet again, it was pretty easy for me. Honestly this #0 dilator is so tiny that there was basically no pressure against the side walls at all as I was sticking it in. The only uncomfortable part was when it hit the back wall. It feels like it's hitting your internal organs, and it's a bit unpleasant. And I was kind of bummed when the nurse told me "keep pressure," so I had to maintain a bit of pressure on the back wall during the whole 15-minute session, so mild discomfort, and my hands are probably going to get pretty tired once I start doing longer 50-minute dilation sessions, I was kind of hoping that I could just stick it in and leave it and watch Netflix or something. :p

I was very gentle, I'm kind of scared of pushing too hard or something, but then when I'd hit about the 5" mark I asked "how do I get it in the last inch?" And then she pushed harder, and I was really shocked that it was okay to push it that hard, because I was scared of hurting something, but then it just kinda went in the rest of the way, so... that's going to be interesting and a bit anxiety-inducing because I feel like it's hard to know when you've hit the back wall and when it's okay to keep pushing harder or not. Whatever. Hopefully that won't be an issue.

Overall, though, not too bad. Discomfort level was only about a 2/10-3/10. I can tell it's going to be a LOT of work, though, once I move up to using multiple dilators per session three times a day. That is a LOT of cleaning, a LOT of sanitizing, a LOT of lubing, and a LOT of work. Chett's schedule has you using EVERY single dilator, all the way from #1 to #4, EVERY single time you dilate. That means lubing every single one up, and then cleaning/sanitizing every single one afterward. So I am definitely not going to have fun with that, and I'm probably going to be searching for some sort of shortcut to make it easier, because seriously, come on...

Also, this is just me, but I kept a mirror down there the whole time so that I could see what I was doing better, and EEEEE!!!!! I was so happy just looking at it. It's so cute! It's so pretty! :) Also, I'm definitely still feeling the "omigod I have a vagina!" feeling which just makes me so happy it's not even funny.

So, a few things I noticed in the mirror that I hadn't really had a good chance to look at before. First of all, I was wrong about my clitoris being big. (And I just heard from a friend, apparently the "Chett makes big clits" thing is just an urban legend, and one that Chett himself is actually well aware of. As well as the rumor that he asks you to prioritize whether you care about depth, sensation, or appearance the most. You can make special requests, but he doesn't ask you to choose like it's been widely rumored.) Anyway, back to clit size... the thing is, the clitoral hood is swollen. And I had basically just taken a look at the clitoral hood and assumed that the clitoris itself took up the entire space underneath it, and thus was rather large. I was REALLY wrong about that. I actually got to take a peek under the clitoral hood while I was dilating, and it's not big at all. It looks COMPLETELY 100% normal. Perfect size. So itty bitt and tiny and cute, I squeed like crazy. And it's very sensitive already, and just thinking that that little tiny dot is all that's left of what used to be a penis made me REALLY REALLY REALLY happy. I love it! :) (And it was that closer clit investigation that triggered that "squee! It's so CUTE!" feeling.)

Also, I'm so surprised how quickly the stitches and the scars and the incision sites are healing. It's only been a week, and already the wounds are completely sealed, nothing is open, (I'm not sure if I'm allowed to include a picture of the incision/scar so that I could show just how quickly/well it's healed after only one week or not... I personally feel like it would be really important for easing some people's fears, especially because the word "mutilation" is tossed around a lot in regards to anti-trans individuals criticizing trans surgery. Where I don't feel "mutilated" or "brutalized" or even like I had a surgery creating a new organ at all. It frankly already feels like it's always been there, and feels natural and healthy, after only one week of the skin healing. It has already healed so thoroughly and so naturally that it already feels completely natural. But I'm not sure if it would be allowed because the picture is very close to the genital area. But I do want to say... Being trans is beautiful. Trans surgery is beautiful. It doesn't feel like anything destructive or mutilating. It feels like a beautiful flower blooming. It's beautiful. You're all beautiful too. :) )


Anyway... in case it's not obvious, I'm still so happy with this surgery, and how everything feels, that it's not even funny. And dilation hasn't killed my mood yet. Mostly it was just sitting there with some mild pressure on the back of the vagina for 15 minutes, and then it took a few minutes to clean up, and then I was done. It wasn't too bad. I can't see longer dilation sessions being too much different.

Today was a very quick 15-minute session with the #0 dilator, tomorrow hypothetically I'll be doing two 20-minute sessions with #1, but I'm not sure yet, it depends what the nurse tells me.

So far it's really easy, but I'm definitely not looking forward to all the time and effort that's going to be involved once I start doing multiple dilators 3 times per day. I feel like dilation is going to take up half of my life once that time comes...

Only other update is that I'm officially off the strong painkillers. I've been slowly tapering off of them for a few days now, and I was still on them until yesterday because the swelling was still a problem, but this morning everything finally felt much more settled / less painful, enough so that I think I can make it with just the anti-swelling and anti-bacterial pills, so I decided to call a mortem on the painkillers. So far so good, it's 2:00 in the afternoon and I'm still basically completely pain-free. I feel basically healed aside from the swelling now. The incision sites don't hurt anymore.

Anyway, that's my update for the day. More tomorrow.

One quick thing I forgot to mention...

During recovery, the low-level pain is pretty constant and predictable, starting higher but then tapering off. But every so often, for about 2 seconds or so, there will be this sudden shotgun-blast of intense pain from a single nerve that lasts for about a second and then suddenly disappears again as fast as it happened. This happens. As far as I can tell, it's something to do with nerves waking back up, being shocked back awake, and it REALLY hurts, but it's for such a sudden split-second and then gone that it can barely be called an annoyance, it's just something that happens as all of the nerves in sensitive areas slowly wake back up one by one.

So far for me, it's happened probably a few times a day on average. And usually it's near the clit area.

Anyway, no real purpose in sharing that, it's just something that happens which I forgot to mention.

So, not sure if this is allowed or not, (if it's not, I'll gladly take it down,) but this is the scar on the upper right side of the surgical site. (There's no genitals shown and I've tried to frame it in a way that's not the least bit indicative of where the genitals even are in this picture, so hopefully I've met the criteria for it not being "obscene," or "provocative.")

This is only 8 days out of surgery. This is the scar on the top of the surgical site, and seriously, look at how nondescript this scar already is. Without the (few) visible stitches, it would seriously be almost completely invisible already. I'm kind of blown away at how skilled Dr. Chett is from an aesthetic standpoint. And I'm so excited to see the eventual settled non-swollen stitch-healed results in a few months I can't even contain myself!

Swelling has been going down all day, and I actually watched Dr. Chett's 2-year post-op exam video of another patient from a few years ago on his Youtube channel so that I could compare mine with a settled result, and I really recommend doing that while you're healing, because it puts everything in perspective. Once the swelling goes down, now I know where everything will be, and it's right in the exact position as the woman in the video (who by the way I said to myself going in "if I can get a result like that, I would be completely over the moon," so I'm definitely looking forward to everything being healed, I know it's going to be beautiful. :)

Anyway, here's the picture of the scar (with none of the obscene parts even on-screen. Just a scar to show how well healing along the scar lines is going already.)

http://tinypic.com/m/jjodbm/2 (http://tinypic.com/m/jjodbm/2)

Thank you soooo much for the descriptive updates. It really makes me feel better when I go in about a week. TMI doesn't exist in this situation! I love your candor and honesty about what you now have! Yes you should be happy! I'm praying for similar or close to the same recovery as yours.

I haven't read about how urination is going. This is one area that concerns me since I have a week bladder.  Even now I have to wear liners because of leakage and inability to make it quick enough. I'm wondering if the ability to hold your pee, or in my case not hold it well enough is the same, better or worse.

The dilation thing also scares me, I know I may not go deep enough in fear. I hope they will show me thorough enough and that I listen good too!

Keep posting!!! I hope all keeps going well for you!!  :)

I had a similar experience with dilating being relatively easy and yet eating my life at the 4X daily level. :)

So my one helpful suggestion comes from Brassard's own regimen: rather than scrubbing the dilators after every session, we were supposed to give them a quick rinse and then soak them in disinfectant until the next time (dry them off before use, of course). The disinfectant was hibiclens, diluted as suggested on the bottle. I imagine this might cut some time out of your sessions, since you have to clean *four* dilators, and it also provides better disinfection than hand cleaning anyway. Oh, and it might seem obvious, but dump out and replace the solution each time. You'd have to invest in some hibiclens, of course, but I used an empty gallon water jug to mix up the solution and only had to do that about once a week, because it didn't take much to fill the little soaking container I was using.

Once the first 2 months were up and the dilation frequency dropped to twice a day, we were allowed to stop the disinfectant bath and just wash them very thoroughly with antibacterial soap.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 17, 2016, 08:28:50 AM
So, not sure if this is allowed or not, (if it's not, I'll gladly take it down,)

Carrie Liz,

I just cleared this. Your photo is fine. Thanks for sharing such personal yet helpful information.

Warmly,

Joanna

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 17, 2016, 03:41:39 AM
One quick thing I forgot to mention...

During recovery, the low-level pain is pretty constant and predictable, starting higher but then tapering off. But every so often, for about 2 seconds or so, there will be this sudden shotgun-blast of intense pain from a single nerve that lasts for about a second and then suddenly disappears again as fast as it happened. This happens. As far as I can tell, it's something to do with nerves waking back up, being shocked back awake, and it REALLY hurts, but it's for such a sudden split-second and then gone that it can barely be called an annoyance, it's just something that happens as all of the nerves in sensitive areas slowly wake back up one by one.

So far for me, it's happened probably a few times a day on average. And usually it's near the clit area.

Anyway, no real purpose in sharing that, it's just something that happens which I forgot to mention.

I can confirm that both of these things keep happening as far out as a month or so post-op (where I am now). Constant low-level pain (especially after dilation) and occasional spurts of intense, localised pain. Though the latter has diminished substantially to about once every other day or so.


Also, be careful with investigating your vagina. I was told by Chet during the checkup that, no matter what, you shouldn't pull open your labia for three months, even to 'take a peek.' Otherwise you can damage your cosmetic result. Thankfully I hadn't (and still haven't), but with your enthusiasm - be VERY careful you don't do that... Though anything from leg spreading or dilating should be okay.

Thank you Carrie Liz for the detailed information; it is very useful.

Quote from: shellsters on August 17, 2016, 10:16:35 AM
I haven't read about how urination is going. This is one area that concerns me since I have a week bladder.  Even now I have to wear liners because of leakage and inability to make it quick enough. I'm wondering if the ability to hold your pee, or in my case not hold it well enough is the same, better or worse.

I still have a catheter in for another few days, so can't answer that yet.

Quote from: IWentWithChet on August 17, 2016, 04:06:24 PM
\Also, be careful with investigating your vagina. I was told by Chet during the checkup that, no matter what, you shouldn't pull open your labia for three months, even to 'take a peek.' Otherwise you can damage your cosmetic result. Thankfully I hadn't (and still haven't), but with your enthusiasm - be VERY careful you don't do that... Though anything from leg spreading or dilating should be okay.

I've been super-careful with not pulling the labia apart, or doing anything else which exerts pressure on the skin in that area, because I knew that it was something I was supposed to be gentle with. But I am kinda afraid that I messed up yesterday by pulling back the clitorial hood. I was still a bit scared about my clitoris being too big because of that bogus rumor I'd been fed before surgery about Chett making big clits, so it was something that I felt like I had to check to make sure... and while my mind has been reassured, and I'm glad it's completely normal-sized, I've been dealing with some hypersensitivity in that area ever since. So I hope I didn't hurt anything. I might have been a bit too aggressive with that. :/

Quote from: shellsters on August 17, 2016, 10:16:35 AM
Thank you soooo much for the descriptive updates. It really makes me feel better when I go in about a week. TMI doesn't exist in this situation! I love your candor and honesty about what you now have! Yes you should be happy! I'm praying for similar or close to the same recovery as yours.

I haven't read about how urination is going. This is one area that concerns me since I have a week bladder.  Even now I have to wear liners because of leakage and inability to make it quick enough. I'm wondering if the ability to hold your pee, or in my case not hold it well enough is the same, better or worse.

The dilation thing also scares me, I know I may not go deep enough in fear. I hope they will show me thorough enough and that I listen good too!

Keep posting!!! I hope all keeps going well for you!!  :)

It's a matter of biology that it will be more difficult to hold it in. The distance between your urethral opening and your bladder will be shorter by several inches. As a result, it'll be more difficult to hold in.

It's mostly a question of 'how much more difficult.' For me, it doesn't feel too bad. It just gets 'urgent' slightly faster than before. But it is slight - negligible even. Barely noticeable. I'm very interested to see how it is for Carrie (as well as if she experiences the same degree of pain I did when the catheter came out).

For others, I've heard the difference can be striking and incontinence is relatively common in the first while (not an issue I had). If you have problems with this currently, it's something to consider when considering doing SRS. Mention it to your surgeon - they may be able to take that into consideration.

Regardless - no matter what the degree is, your ability to 'hold it in' won't be the same and it will get worse.

Okay, I have to share this picture during the only time in my life that it will actually be relevant, genuine, and not the least bit sarcastic... :P

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Forig07.deviantart.net%2F60cb%2Ff%2F2013%2F128%2F9%2F0%2Fi_pooped_today__by_chalk_q-d64m6u4.jpg&hash=c9650490ec765db1482800775f337b0b035de248)

So yay! I was getting a bit worried because today was the 4th day since I'd started eating solid food since going off of my soft diet, and I could feel things getting a little bit backed up in there, some slight sitting discomfort was becoming an issue. So I was worried about constipation being a problem, and was actually going to ask the nurses about it if nothing came out today, but nope! Looks like everything's officially back online! Now I'm just waiting for the catheter to come out and all of my digestive functions will be back to normal...

So, before the nurses come and I have to start shoving plastic rods in myself for 20 minutes, (they're a bit late today, they sometimes come as early as 10 but today it's past 12:30 and they're still not here,) there's something else I'd like to mention quickly which I remember hearing from Calico way back when, in the spring of 2013, when she was getting her SRS in the exact same place, and I was just starting hormones.

SRS can make a big difference in how feminine your overall body looks to yourself.

I'm someone who does have a lot of body issues. I'm very large, I have a large chest cavity, a large head, I can always see the residual masculinity in my face's bone structure and my hairline, so I'm someone who often has a lot of trouble seeing a woman in the mirror. I saw Calico say this, something along the lines of "My body looks like a female body now. I always saw myself as someone who was very square and shapeless, but now it's like I can see my womanliness better."

I think one of the reasons why I'm so elated is because of being able to see the "complete picture" for the first time.

I'm not sure how many of you have read the study "Gender: An Ethnomethodological Approach," but there's a section in that book where it talks about which parts of the body cause someone to gender a naked body as a male body or a female body. It's the reason trans women often have a bit of a harder time passing than trans men, because masculine-typical signifying features held more weight in terms of gendering a body male than female-signifying features held in gendering a body female. For example, people would almost consistently still gender a body male if it had facial hair and short head hair even if that body also had breasts and a vagina. But a body with long hair, no facial hair, and breasts, people would be unsure what gender that body was if it had a penis. The presence or absence of a penis was the single most powerful gender-signifying feature which made a body look "male" or "female."

So here's the deal.

Based on my daily life experience, I'm generally not read as trans. I'm not out to most people I work with, nobody ever seems to notice I'm trans, I'm never misgendered. But I often have a lot of trouble seeing it myself. There was always something, and I couldn't put my finger on what, that made my body look androgynous to me, as though it was teetering on the edge of looking either male or female depending on whether my hair looked good that day or what clothes I was wearing, which I felt like for some reason I was the only person who could see it, because absolutely everyone else always gendered me female no matter what. Even when I wore male clothes and tried to pass as my pre-transition self in order to vote (my name wasn't changed on my voting records,) I was still gendered female. But again, I just can't see it. So I really did wonder, with the "Gender An Ethnomethodological Approach" study in mind, was there a chance that it was because I knew I had a penis but nobody else did? Was it because that single male-signifying feature was counterbalancing the feminine features of my body to such a degree when I looked in the mirror that I couldn't see how feminine the rest of my body was?

I feel like I've got my answer now. Yes.

It's not the only factor, and it's definitely not a "fix" that I'm recommending for anyone, because from my own experience of being close to the trans community for so long, the "man in the mirror" is quite often the bane of every trans woman's life, and yes, almost always, we're the only one who can see it. It's just something you have to learn to deal with. That image burns itself into your mind after all those years of fighting against your own appearance, and it's really hard if not impossible to make it go away completely.

But surgery helps. This morning, looking in the mirror at myself completely naked, I noticed things that I never noticed before because the penis was subconsciously "masculinizing" my body as a whole in my mental image. I have hips. I have boobs. My shoulders are nowhere near as wide-looking as I thought they were. I have a feminine waist shape. And when I looked in that mirror, there was absolutely NONE of that "my body looks androgynous" feeling that I had before. I saw a woman. Completely. Nobody looking at me could ever say otherwise, even though I am still objectively large framed.

Basically, it helps to complete the picture. The whole picture went from looking 50% to 60% right to looking about 80% right. So yeah. It has helped me, in more ways than one, feel like my whole body is more "complete." And to look in the mirror and be able to definitively say "yes, that is a woman in the mirror."


(Again, though, disclaimer, I've always had strong genital dysphoria. So to me, this was a BIG deal in terms of finally having the body I've always wanted, so that's probably also why it's made such a big difference in how I see myself and how I relate to my body on a fundamental level.)

So, second dilation just happened, (once again with the "#0" wax one,) and it was pretty much the same as yesterday. Lube up, stick in, set a timer, sit there doing whatever for 20 minutes while applying gentle pressure to the back of the vagina with the dilator, then clean up.

I've had very little pain at all so far, so mostly it's just going to be a time-consuming chore for me, not something that I'm dreading or anything. But 20 minutes feels like nothing. It's felt like a completely insignificant part of my day so far. You start the timer, you zone out for a while, and then before you know it you're done. Hopefully 40 minutes won't be too different. (Fingers crossed.)

I am having a bit of a problem with reaching full depth, though. Basically, this has happened both times that I've been dilating on my own now, once I get to 5 inches using the twist-back-and-forth-and-push method, it feels like I'm hitting the back wall. It feels like it won't go in any further, and yet I'm only at 5 inches. "How do I get it to full depth?" I asked the nurse, "I can't get it the last inch." And then she basically grabbed the end of the dilator and pushed harder, I screamed "OW!!!" and poof, 6 inches. And she basically said "you don't stop when you feel like you can't push any more. You keep pushing until it hurts. And then you stop."

So yeah, it's always funny, I'm all careful and gentle with everything, I'm scared that I'm going to hurt the vaginal wall if I push too hard, and then she goes and pushes so hard that I practically leapt out of the bed because I was so surprised. :P

She explained "this happens because the end of the vagina is small, and when you push in you get an air pocket. So it will feel like it's stopped. It's not. Just push a little harder. Push until you get 6 inches."

So yeah, I guess I just need to remember to keep pushing, and not to stop until it's at 6 inches and pushing any further hurts. Fun.

Also, I did ask how the swelling was going, asked about what time I might get the catheter out, (it's getting really tiring by this point to still be peeing using an artificial plastic bladder that I have to carry everywhere,) and she said "next week." So I'm stuck with it probably until at least next Tuesday.

And finally, I mentioned my concern that I'd damaged my clitoris when I pulled the hood back, she said "no, it's okay, it looks fine. The sensitivity is just because of the nerves coming back, it will be very sensitive. And the stretching, just make sure you don't pull on it too much, because if you pull on it it consistently it will make the skin loose and it will be pulled out of shape." So mind eased on that. Thank goodness.

Anyway, back to more healing, being bored because I'm stuck in bed all day, and spending all day blogging, chatting with friends on Facebook, playing computer games, and watching "Chef's Table" and "Cooked" on Netflix.


First completely-solo dilation is later tonight, at 9:00 pm, hopefully I can get it to full depth without a nurse shoving it in the rest of the way for me. :P

So, apparently the nurse was right about the clitoral hypersensitivity just being because nerves were waking back up, because back when I was worried that I'd damaged it, it was just the left side that was hypersensitve. This afternoon, suddenly I had this big jolt of "nerve waking back up" pain, and suddenly the right side was feeling hypersensitive too.

Jesus, the clitoris is sensitive. It actually hurts to touch it at all. And every single time the catheter moves the wrong way and accidentally presses against it, it's a very sharp raw kind of pain, the kind that makes you jump straight up in the air because it's so sensitive and feels like a needle-prick.

So yeah, I'm actually kinda in pain again now after several days of almost 0 pain, because I'm starting to be able to feel the constant pressure on the clitoris from the swelling, and it's definitely not pleasant. That organ is so sensitive. Criminy. I really hope it settles down once the stitches come out at least.

(Also, I am so curious, how the heck does Chett even make a clitoris that sensitive? Like, in cis women it's absolutely that sensitive, my ex constantly had to tell me "stop, use some padding" when it was being touched too directly. But really? That much sensitivity from a neo-clit which was made using a tiny part of the glans, a body part which is barely sensitive to touch at all? How? I just have no clue how that's even possible.)

(But oh well, I guess that kind of sensitivity this soon after surgery is a good thing, because it's a virtual guarantee that I'm going to be orgasmic once I'm healed enough. That was one of my other (obvious) fears going in.)

I've heard hypersensitivity just happens in a some percentage of results, but it will return to normal after a while. Same for no sensation.

Hi Carrie Liz.. I have been reading your story with fascination.. You have provided such detailed information. If my SRS goes ahead in January, I will understand a lot more about the process and what to expect. However, I will probably be having mine done at the PAI.. They are about $1600 cheaper than Chett.. I was hoping he would be cheaper since after your experience I feel like he might be a better option.. But that is a huge difference..

I really hope I will end up as happy has you seem to be.. I really can't wait.. :)

Tess..

So, for the first time since the first couple of days after surgery I'm starting to have a couple of problems due to the way my body works.

Basically, I've always healed fast. But at the same time, my skin doesn't handle repeated stress very well.

A good example would be how early in hormones I started on estrogen patches. My skin reacted REALLY badly to the patches. After about 5 days, the entire area under the patch would be red and swollen and itchy as heck, and it would take a week or more for the resulting red marks to go away. This happened again with the bandages near the end of the time that the packing was in. I was SO itchy and red all over that it wasn't even funny, and I still have dark red/purple marks all over my abdomen and butt and upper legs from where the medical tape was holding the packing in place for 7 days straight.

So now I'm starting to have real issues with the catheter. It didn't bother me much at first. But now, the more and more days I've had it in, the more and more sensitive my urethra and the entire area around the tube have gotten. Every single time I move the catheter tubing the wrong way, there's a really sharp pain that makes me jump.

I've been off of pain pills for 2 days now, I've only been taking the anti-swelling and anti-bacterial pills, but now I'm considering going back on them until either the catheter is removed or my clitoris stops being so hyper-sensitive, because right now I've got two sources of really sharp pain every single time the least bit of pressure or agitation is applied to them, and it's really not fun. So yeah, for the first time in a while I'm not a completely-happy camper, I'm really wishing the pain in those two areas would stop. And I'm kind of surprised, because this clitoral hypersensitivity has kind of come out of nowhere. I was completely fine up until yesterday, 8 days worth of basically no clitoral discomfort at all, and now all of a sudden out of nowhere it's almost constantly sore. So blegh. Still on the fence about whether I want to go back on pain pills or not, but this is definitely annoying, especially because both pains are so sharp rather than just dull and achey.

(Late addition: It's weird, I just sat down for dinner on the butt donut, and the hypersensitivity completely went away. I then laid back down in bed, and it immediately started again. So I don't know what the deal is. Something about the laying position is putting pressure on the clitoris that sitting for some reason isn't. It doesn't make sense. I'll ask about it tomorrow. So I'm going to hold off on any pain pills, I'll wait to see what the issue is first. I'm so glad I get to ask the nurses questions every day!)

ive watched your count down.... today it says 9 days after your surgery :) congratz girl

It's got to be the position Carrie liz and frankly that is actually normal for having a catheter. It can be very irritating to things.I'm not looking forward to another catheter myself, but that comes with having SRS so it is worth it. Hugs
Mariah

So, I dilated by myself, and was able to get myself to full depth. As usual, the last inch was the hard part, but after some jiggling it went in the rest of the way.

I'll admit, I kind of hate that tiny little wax "#0" dilator they've had me using for the first 2 days. It's so small that it clearly doesn't take up the whole vaginal cavity, and when it gets to the back wall, it exerts a really sharp localized pressure back there because it's so small, so it feels like being poked by a stick in the back of the vagina for 20 minutes straight. Not pleasant. I'm actually looking forward to moving up to the real ones, because they hypothetically won't exert that kind of small-area poking pressure and hopefully be less unpleasant.

But whatever. I got to 6 inches on my own, I was bored for 20 minutes because the localized pressure made it hard to concentrate on anything to distract myself with, mission accomplished, yipee...

Carrie Liz, thank you so much for your updates. I may now become a Chett girl. What is the waiting list like?  Sensitivity and depth are the most important things for me and I am so glad that you are happy. Just imagine the fun you can have in the future  >:-)

Love Jools x

Quote from: juliehope on August 18, 2016, 01:07:01 PM
Carrie Liz, thank you so much for your updates. I may now become a Chett girl. What is the waiting list like?  Sensitivity and depth are the most important things for me and I am so glad that you are happy. Just imagine the fun you can have in the future  >:-)

Love Jools x

I would also love to know the waiting time before he will schedule. Thank you Carrie, keep us updated. :)

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 18, 2016, 10:17:48 AM
So, I dilated by myself, and was able to get myself to full depth. As usual, the last inch was the hard part, but after some jiggling it went in the rest of the way.

I'll admit, I kind of hate that tiny little wax "#0" dilator they've had me using for the first 2 days. It's so small that it clearly doesn't take up the whole vaginal cavity, and when it gets to the back wall, it exerts a really sharp localized pressure back there because it's so small, so it feels like being poked by a stick in the back of the vagina for 20 minutes straight. Not pleasant. I'm actually looking forward to moving up to the real ones, because they hypothetically won't exert that kind of small-area poking pressure and hopefully be less unpleasant.

But whatever. I got to 6 inches on my own, I was bored for 20 minutes because the localized pressure made it hard to concentrate on anything to distract myself with, mission accomplished, yipee...

Yay to 6inches on your own :)

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 18, 2016, 01:03:22 AM

SRS can make a big difference in how feminine your overall body looks to yourself.


I think one of the reasons why I'm so elated is because of being able to see the "complete picture" for the first time.

So here's the deal.

Based on my daily life experience, I'm generally not read as trans. I'm not out to most people I work with, nobody ever seems to notice I'm trans, I'm never misgendered. But I often have a lot of trouble seeing it myself. There was always something, and I couldn't put my finger on what, that made my body look androgynous to me, as though it was teetering on the edge of looking either male or female depending on whether my hair looked good that day or what clothes I was wearing, which I felt like for some reason I was the only person who could see it, because absolutely everyone else always gendered me female no matter what. Even when I wore male clothes and tried to pass as my pre-transition self in order to vote (my name wasn't changed on my voting records,) I was still gendered female. But again, I just can't see it. So I really did wonder, with the "Gender An Ethnomethodological Approach" study in mind, was there a chance that it was because I knew I had a penis but nobody else did? Was it because that single male-signifying feature was counterbalancing the feminine features of my body to such a degree when I looked in the mirror that I couldn't see how feminine the rest of my body was?

I feel like I've got my answer now. Yes.


But surgery helps. This morning, looking in the mirror at myself completely naked, I noticed things that I never noticed before because the penis was subconsciously "masculinizing" my body as a whole in my mental image. I have hips. I have boobs. My shoulders are nowhere near as wide-looking as I thought they were. I have a feminine waist shape. And when I looked in that mirror, there was absolutely NONE of that "my body looks androgynous" feeling that I had before. I saw a woman. Completely. Nobody looking at me could ever say otherwise, even though I am still objectively large framed.


(Again, though, disclaimer, I've always had strong genital dysphoria. So to me, this was a BIG deal in terms of finally having the body I've always wanted, so that's probably also why it's made such a big difference in how I see myself and how I relate to my body on a fundamental level.)

This is spot on for me also!

I have integrated into society as a woman even more than I ever could dream of, even in very intimate situations with woman or men. (intimate not specifically meaning sexual, but that also has been the case) after all no one knows what's in between your legs, unless it does involve sexual intimacy. I have become very accustomed to just living how I have for the past 9 years, I always dreamed of GRS but figured it would never happen. I dwelled more on the physical traits such as my hair and breasts. I am happy with what I got but I figured bigger would just confirm me even more. I still have some of this feeling, reason for BA along with GRS. But my BA was not my first choice and it still may not happen if a few things don't pan out. I will be disappointed but I look at my BA as a want and my GRS is definitely a NEED!

I often think what will really change? I now will just be at home alone on a Friday night with a vagina rather than a penis. I know though that this will be the start of my life. I am somewhat social now but know I will be even more once I accept the fact I am like all woman now. Because I will now know what is in between my legs! You are absolutely correct CarrieLiz, the negativity we feel for ourselves is so much more mental than physical, but its the physical that needs to change to make the mental picture correct!

I will admit one of the biggest reasons I look forward to having the right parts is sexual. It has been far too long! I have been pursued by many men, and have been intimate up to the point of sex with more man now than I have ever woman. I don't plan on jumping into bed right away with just anyone, but it sure would be nice to on a 3rd or 4th date! Or who knows, if he is hot, well....

Well, this was completely unexpected, but I'm officially orgasmic.

I just had this weird dream where my mom and I were Disney World, but for some reason it was like the Thai part of Disney world that's out in the parking lot where you can get Thai food, near the big transport area where you catch the train back to your car (which completely does not exist, but dream logic...) And there was a scene where I went into the bathroom and for some reason instead of SRS I'd had this half-penectomy where the stub was still erect but otherwise everything was smooth, and it was the weirdest thing, and for some stupid unknown reason my brain registered sexual feelings, and then all of a sudden I woke up and I was orgasming.

So, well... that was unexpected. And that dream COMPLETELY made no sense. But it happened. So yeah, big surprise, the hypersensitive clitoris that was bothering me all day yesterday is definitely functional for its intended purpose. (Side note: do NOT play with it during the initial recovery. There's the serious potential for damage if you play with things down there while they're still healing. This was a dream. This was completely my mind deciding to run away with me (and the mind is the body's real sexual organ, not the actual sexual organs,) so no actual touching was involved.)


I would say this was an amazing super-positive experience, but the thing is, that dream was REALLY weird, and did strange things to my internal mental map of my body for a few minutes after waking up, so there's more that I need to talk about.

Basically, I think dreams like this happen because my brain is lagging behind the reality of my body a bit, and I think it's still taking a while to fully internalize everything and fully catch up. Because I've had some dreams that have been a bit backwards in regards to how my body is shaped. This was one of them.

Basically, in the first few days after waking up from surgery, I had three dreams where I was going in to surgery in the dream. But in all three of those dreams, for whatever reason, I wasn't able to actually get the surgery. Something kept happening, or it kept turning out that I had more loopholes to jump through, or there was some sort of error that kept it from happening, and when I woke back up to my actual reality of being post-op it was such a relief. So I suppose that period of dreams was my mind getting past that mental barrier of disbelief that built up for me because I was just so sure that something was going to happen to prevent it, whether that thing was fighting with work to get FMLA, or the whole possible-UTI thing, or Mom not being able to get time off, or certain naysaying friends, whatever. Because of all of that, it was almost like my mind needed some time to internalize that YES, it actually did happen, there were no loopholes, no last-minute disasters, nothing happened, I really did have surgery.

So now with this dream, I think it's my mind's mental map of my body trying to catch up now that I've seen how it looks without the packing and feeling is starting to come back. Basically, in this dream I was kind of in a half-surgical state, as I mentioned. It was like, in the dream I didn't have a penis or testes, but it wasn't SRS, my brain still had everything organized as if they'd just been chopped off at the base rather than reformed into a vulva. And it wasn't a negative experience in the dream, it was a positive for me, I remember thinking "wow, it's so smooth! They did such a good job!" But it's weird, because in the dream I was feeling everything halfway back to that original position, with an "erection" happening in the stump of the penis rather than in the clitoris, I woke up feeling a sort of "phantom" feeling just like I had when I first woke up from surgery.

Now, in terms of phantom sensations, I've barely had any. Usually what I've felt isn't a physical sensation like phantom sensations are, where I can feel a part that's not there, or like a certain nerve feels like it should be somewhere else. But when I first woke up from surgery and everything was still completely numb, I could still remember in my brain's mental map what it had felt like to have my prior anatomy. That feeling quickly faded as soon as sensation started returning and I started being able to physically feel what my post-op anatomy felt like. Well, after this dream, it was just like that feeling when I'd first woken up. It's like "woah, from the mental space that I just came from I still had everything organized in this way, but now it's back to being organized in this way," and like there's this residual mental map from the dream that took a few minutes to go away. So, like, when I woke up this morning I remembered what it felt like to have a penis again because I'd just been touching the stump of a penis in my dream. So yeah, REALLY weird.

Especially weird since in my everyday life now, my new anatomy already feels ordinary, completely normal, as though I'd always had it.

Anyway, kinda bizarre entry, but I promised to be honest, so there you go. :P

Quote from: juliehope on August 18, 2016, 01:07:01 PM
What is the waiting list like?

3-6 months. I personally scheduled about 9 months ahead because I needed a very specific date for it to work with my mom's work schedule.

The short waiting list is one of the reasons why I picked him, because I really didn't want to wait a year or more for Suporn and some of the other widely-regarded top-level surgeons.

(The thing is, I really feel like Chett has some unfairly bad reputation rumors circulating about him. There's that entire website "Dr. Chettawut Victims" and an entire Youtube channel devoted to making him seem like someone who mutilates people and botches surgeries, and those are basically the first thing that anyone would see when googling him, so I feel like it turns a lot of people away (unfairly) almost instantly. And even among those who know that this negativity is basically one troll trying to take him down, there's rumors about him making clitorises that are too big, (which in case it's not obvious even I believed,) and a few others.

(There are some legitimate complaints about his practice of combining FFS and SRS into one marathon 10+-hour surgery, but I didn't have that nor did anyone I know, so I can't comment.)

Now, absolutely, different surgeons produce different results, so do your research and make sure you're not just rushing into it based on one person being happy. One of the reasons I picked Chett was because I personally liked his results pictures that I saw from the big SRS gallery on Anne Lawrence's website (which has since been taken down,) specifically because I liked the way he shapes the inner/outer labia, plus I'd heard multiple accounts that his sensation was world-class, as good as Suporn, (that one is definitely true, 10/10, even though I'm still only about at a 6-7/10 on the overall aesthetic results in their current swollen state, I'm hoping the swelling settles the outside down more to make the vulva look less vagina-centric,) so I felt like I knew exactly what I was getting into. And I've been comparing my recovery pics to recovery pics from Brassard and Suporn, and there are a lot of differences in regards to where the stitches are, how much blood there is, how prominent the inner and outer labia are, and even where the urethra is in terms of visibility. So there are differences. Just make sure you study first.

So, elaborating quickly on the "comparing my results to other surgeons' patients' recovery pictures" thing...

The first comparison that I have is with a close trans friend who had SRS with Brassard just over 2 years ago. The just-after-packing-removed pictures, in terms of how the internal anatomy is shaped, are almost exactly the same as mine. Everything is swollen, the clitoral area is at the top, and then the entire anatomy looks like it's being pulled down into the vagina, with the catheter coming out from somewhere down there. The only real difference is that everything is a lot smaller in her case, I've got a lot more loose material around the inside, my inner labia is way more prominent while her outer labia is more prominent, and she had a LOT more blood. Brassard spatulates the urethra for the inside of the labia, that's kind of his thing, so things are REALLY raw and REALLY painful for a long time after surgery, but as a result in the final results the inside of the labia looks redder and more mucosal in nature.

Second comparison is with another Brassard patient, pretty much same thing, prominent outer labia, everything kinda pulled into the vagina just like mine, although she had a super-prominent urethra that the catheter was coming out of, and WAY WAY more blood and swelling and just generally looking gruesome. (Although her final results look AMAZING! Wow!)

Third comparison is with a Suporn patient, and it looks WAY different. This Suporn patient has a super-prominent super-well defined outer and inner labial structure despite being only a few days post-op. On this person, you can see the inner labia going all the way down from the clitoris past the vagina. On mine you can't yet, basically there's a well-definined clitoral hood at the top, some loose well-defined labial material around the outside of that clitoral hood, it goes down for a while, but then everything just kind of falls into the vagina with some more loose labial material on the sides.

Anyway, yeah, different results from different surgeons.

Just had my daily nurse visit, so I got to ask about the clitoral hypersensitivity (which has calmed down significantly since yesterday, thankfully, but I still figured I'd ask.) And as with most things I've asked about, it's normal. She told me that hypersensitivity is normal, a feeling of constant pressure on that area is normal, and even though I've never asked her about this, she said that sudden sharp pains which last for a few seconds, particularly in that area, are normal. It's all a part of the nerves reconnecting and re-adjusting to their new positions, and it will subside as time goes on.

Also, what I said above about "everything just kind of falls into the vagina from there," that's now changing. Swelling has gone WAY down over the last couple of days since the last time I took a good look, and the part of the vulva underneath the clitoral hood, between the clitoris and the urethra, is starting to pop out a bit more now that the swelling has made the outer labia area settle down a bit. And I have to say, in my opinion, it looks so beautiful. :) I'm still super-happy.


In terms of how I'm feeling, I'm not sure if you've noticed this in my posts or not, but the period of elation that I had right after surgery has quieted down a bit. Back when everything was still completely new and completely exciting because I was comparing it to before and it was basically everything that I'd ever wished for in my pre-op state, my expectations were blown away, etc, I was practically crying because I was so happy... well, now, especially for the past few days, things are settling down a bit. Things aren't so new and exciting anymore, they're already starting to feel normal. Dilation feels normal. Looking down and seeing a vagina feels normal. I'm still super-happy, don't get me wrong, but more in a contented "my body on a boring normal day-to-day basis feels right" kind of way, not in an "OMIGOD I HAVE A VAGINA AND IT'S AMAZING!" kind of way. Elation doesn't last. And it's not supposed to. And I'm totally happy with that, because I still feel great. :)

Anyway, I've talked enough for one morning. As a final wrap-up, today's the first day that I'm doing 3X-per-day dilations of 30 minutes each, so 90 minutes of dilation total. I'm kind of bummed because I found out that we're not going to be using the actual #1 dilator for a few more days, for the first week all of the dilations are going to be with that tiny little poking-the-back-of-your-vagina-with-a-stick wax dilator, but it's not like it's painful or anything, just annoying. I had much less trouble getting the dilator to full depth this morning, after three times doing it I've become much better at it, and can do it with much less discomfort, so as a whole everything's moving right along, and, well, that's that for the day. Time for more video games, Netflix, a lot of acquaintances messaging me on Facebook because they're constantly checking up on how I'm doing, and dilating... lots of dilating...

Okay, one last thing...

I did also have a trachea shave in addition to SRS, and so far I haven't said anything about how that's going, so I'll do that.

Basically, the recovery from that has been anything but euphoric. When I woke up from surgery, my neck actually hurt worse than my genitals. This feeling quickly subsided, but yeah, having bone shaved off definitely hurts pretty sharply from the very start.

I had almost no voice immediately after surgery. I could only speak a few words to the nurses at first. It improved quickly over the first day, but was still very hushed and raspy by the time my mom visited me for the first time in the recovery center.

Swallowing was painful for the first several days after surgery.

Also, I kind of freaked out about it when I first woke up because my neck actually felt worse than before. There was so much swelling that my neck stuck out more than it did before, and there was this huge lump in the top of my throat every single time I swallowed for the first 6 days or so. I could feel that the thyroid cartilage was gone, but at the same time the swelling was so bad that it really made me freak out, I was terrified that some degree of the swelling and the swallowing-bump was going to be permanent. (And the initial few days of neck recovery actually made me rethink FFS, because God, if one little neck bump made me freak out that much, I can't imagine how freaked out I'd be if my entire face was that swollen and objectively disfigured-looking right after surgery.)

Since then, it's been slow improvement, I had pretty much my full speaking capacity back by about day 3, but it was still a bit raspy and still a bit deep, and it's basically been a slow gradual recovery. Swelling has gradually gone down, voice has slowly gotten stronger, pitch control has been the slowest to come back, I've had a lot of trouble speaking in my trained voice with the same strength and ease and control as before.

Now 10 days after surgery, most of the swelling in the neck is gone, there's only a small little bump left directly below the incision site, and it's gotten smaller and smaller every day. (I was terrified that this was never going to go away, and that I was still going to have a neck bump once it was healed, that's another thing I asked the nurses about a couple days ago was "can you feel this hard lump right here under my neck stitches? Will that go away?" And they reassured me, as they always do, that yes, it's temporary, it will go away, the final result will be flat.)

I'm still not quite back to my pre-op pitch, though. I just recorded my voice on Audacity, and it still sounds about a half-tone lower than before. The inflections and overall resonance is still the same, so absolutely nobody else would be able to tell the difference, and it still objectively sounds like a female voice (just with a slightly more androgynous pitch,) so I'm still holding out on that and hoping that I completely recover my original speaking pitch. Strength is still returning. I tried to sing some of my favorite songs, and had trouble reaching the high notes, my voice petered out in terms of strength up there. (It takes a lot of vocal strength to reach high notes.) So again, they've assured me everything will heal, strength and pitch will return, and honestly of all the things going on right now in terms of recovery, my voice is the thing I'm the most nervous about, and really really really really hoping that they're right.

Carrie Liz, thank you so much for your informative and personal updates on your GCS.

I hope that things continue to go well (and that the voice returns in full flow!)

One more quick thing...

Hormonally, things finally feel back to normal now. I feel a million times better than I did in terms of the hormonal balance of my brain and body than I did before surgery. After a week straight of T very clearly coming back due to being off of T-blockers, which resulted in short patience/temper, skin looking more guyish, hair falling out everywhere, eyes losing a bit of their big starry-eyed feminine look, a few facial hairs sprouting back up, erections and genital size in general becoming more of an issue for the first time in 3+ years, and a loss of that general "calm glow" feeling in favor of a sort of constant-low-key-irritation feeling, I'm back to feeling balanced. My skin looks better again. My moods feel calm again. My eyes and skin have the feminine glow back. I'm not shedding an entire shag carpet of hair from my head every time I take a shower. And my patience and tolerance levels have gone WAY back up.

So I think my T levels are finally back down to the female range. And it's a big relief to know that I survived my last bout with testosterone, and now I'm never going to be forced to deal with that crap again. Because seriously, that was NOT a fun week emotionally before surgery. I'm so glad to be feeling calm and patient and generally feeling in control again.

(I don't go back on estrogen for another couple of weeks, but honestly I don't think my body cares too much. E is my happy pill, but not having it doesn't really cause me any dysphoria. Whereas having no T is a huge deal, no T is my patient, calm, anti-frustration anti-dysphoria formula. So the main point is that my hormonal dysphoria is gone again.)

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 18, 2016, 08:16:09 PM
the Thai part of Disney world that's out in the parking lot where you can get Thai food, near the big transport area where you catch the train back to your car (which completely does not exist, but dream logic...)

I know that place! I love that place and visit all the time ;)  (Even my friends and SO say it's true).

It is great to hear how well you are coming along. How everything seems to be calming down and becoming common(swelling, dilation, "the shave", the items you got in exchange of the wrong ones and the hormones). I hope everything continues to go smoothly.

Warmly,

Joanna

Ive just been reading, congrats =) I had SRS with Suporn 34 days ago and went through a lot of the same feelings... Its finally GONE, its beautiful, I had O on waking at 11 days post op =), I could feel it when the T was gone for good and thats still one of the best parts of it all to me, and then theres the dilation... I can tell you dilation is different here, we started off with the "medium" 32mm for about a week then I added the "large" 34mm and thats where Ive been since... Dilation started off being easy but it's getting harder and harder as things heal up... I was told the 2nd and third month will be the most difficult... I go 3 times a day for as long as it takes to get to depth (6 1/2") then about 15 minutes with the medium and 10 minutes with the large...

I have a lot of PAIN =( I usually heal fast and that seems to be the case here but I DONT do pain well... This has been hard as the nerves all reconnect... I had some superficial necrosis on my clit and the inner labia thats healing but WOW does it suck... I have to put a silver burn cream on it and that can add a whole new degree of pain right there... The skin is sloughing off on its own leaving raw new granulation underneath... Its been the worst part here so far but I figure its probably good that it hurts and is so uncomfortable because it means everything is still hooked up right and its just the outer layer of skin and not a lot worse... Suporn said it would heal on its own and its been going exactly how he said it would so thats good... This took about 2 weeks post op to start to become an issue for me after initially thinking everything was perfect =(

I hope things continue to be smooth and pain free for you but you may want to prepare yourself mentally for some hard days ahead... Good Luck!!!

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 18, 2016, 11:41:15 PM
Just had my daily nurse visit, so I got to ask about the clitoral hypersensitivity (which has calmed down significantly since yesterday, thankfully, but I still figured I'd ask.) And as with most things I've asked about, it's normal. She told me that hypersensitivity is normal, a feeling of constant pressure on that area is normal, and even though I've never asked her about this, she said that sudden sharp pains which last for a few seconds, particularly in that area, are normal. It's all a part of the nerves reconnecting and re-adjusting to their new positions, and it will subside as time goes on.

Also, what I said above about "everything just kind of falls into the vagina from there," that's now changing. Swelling has gone WAY down over the last couple of days since the last time I took a good look, and the part of the vulva underneath the clitoral hood, between the clitoris and the urethra, is starting to pop out a bit more now that the swelling has made the outer labia area settle down a bit. And I have to say, in my opinion, it looks so beautiful. :) I'm still super-happy.


In terms of how I'm feeling, I'm not sure if you've noticed this in my posts or not, but the period of elation that I had right after surgery has quieted down a bit. Back when everything was still completely new and completely exciting because I was comparing it to before and it was basically everything that I'd ever wished for in my pre-op state, my expectations were blown away, etc, I was practically crying because I was so happy... well, now, especially for the past few days, things are settling down a bit. Things aren't so new and exciting anymore, they're already starting to feel normal. Dilation feels normal. Looking down and seeing a vagina feels normal. I'm still super-happy, don't get me wrong, but more in a contented "my body on a boring normal day-to-day basis feels right" kind of way, not in an "OMIGOD I HAVE A VAGINA AND IT'S AMAZING!" kind of way. Elation doesn't last. And it's not supposed to. And I'm totally happy with that, because I still feel great. :)

Anyway, I've talked enough for one morning. As a final wrap-up, today's the first day that I'm doing 3X-per-day dilations of 30 minutes each, so 90 minutes of dilation total. I'm kind of bummed because I found out that we're not going to be using the actual #1 dilator for a few more days, for the first week all of the dilations are going to be with that tiny little poking-the-back-of-your-vagina-with-a-stick wax dilator, but it's not like it's painful or anything, just annoying. I had much less trouble getting the dilator to full depth this morning, after three times doing it I've become much better at it, and can do it with much less discomfort, so as a whole everything's moving right along, and, well, that's that for the day. Time for more video games, Netflix, a lot of acquaintances messaging me on Facebook because they're constantly checking up on how I'm doing, and dilating... lots of dilating...

This is actually interesting. I never got to use #0. It was #1 from day zero. I wonder why?

Quote from: IWentWithChet on August 19, 2016, 11:13:24 AM
This is actually interesting. I never got to use #0. It was #1 from day zero. I wonder why?

you were prolly used and abused alreadt LOL im KIDDING!!! dont ban me :)

i want to know why as well

Quote from: IWentWithChet on August 19, 2016, 11:13:24 AM
This is actually interesting. I never got to use #0. It was #1 from day zero. I wonder why?

Could be because I'm staying in Thailand after surgery a lot longer than you did, so you were on a more rushed schedule or something, while they're taking it easier with me...

(I'm in Thailand for almost an entire month after surgery. My surgery date was on August 9th but I don't fly back to America until the 3rd of September. If I recall correctly, you were only in Thailand for like 2.5 weeks after surgery, from July 26 to August 14.)

Congratulations Carrie Liz! I've been reading your posts for a long time and it's very nice to see you reach this point after all the hurdles you've been though.


I wish you all the best!

So, last night when I was dilating I was kinda in a "sigh... really? third time today? Can't this just be done?" sort of mood, so I think I might have been a little careless, and almost as soon as I took the dilator out I could tell that something didn't feel quite right, somewhere on the inside it felt like I had hit something in the wrong way.

I'm having a really hard time keeping the wax dilators straight, it seems like every single time I dilate with them they emerge from my vagina with like a 10-degree bend in the middle. I already snapped one dilator in half by mistake because I tried to bend it back with my hands afterward, so the nurse gave me another one and said "If it bends, don't try to unbend it." Again, these dilators are made of wax, so when they get warm from your body heat, they become pliable, and therefore they bend. And after the nurse gave me a new "#0" dilator and I did my afternoon dilation, it emerged yet again bent at like a 10-degree angle. (I assumed at the time that it was my fault for doing this because when I apply pressure to the end of the dilator often the pressure is slightly upward, so I thought it was my own technique error that was bending it.) So during my nighttime dilation, I figured since I couldn't bend it back with my hands without breaking it, I'd just insert the dilator upside-down and assert the same upward pressure as before in order to bend it back to being straight.

Again, as soon as I was done I knew that something was hurt a bit, something felt a bit sensitive and "off."

Well, this morning I woke up and there was a little bit of blood as I was wiping the area clean during a bathroom trip.

Morning dilation wasn't painful, so I figured it was nothing major, figured I'd ask the nurse. She came this morning and I told her I'd had some blood, she poked around on the inside, and informed me that it was because I'd hit my urethra with the dilator. (Which apparently is going to take a while to heal, so, freaking great... :/ ) I'm not sure if it was because I was in a hurry last night, or because of that thing where I turned the dilator's bend upside-down and tried to unbend it which would have made it scrape the top, but she basically told me, "make sure you insert it down at a 45-degree angle first," which I am going to remember today, and also "the dilator bends because the shape of the vagina isn't straight. So it will bend like that. Keep using it bent, because that's what the shape is supposed to be, and then if it breaks, here's another one." And she gave me yet another #0 wax dilator to replace the one I broke and the one which is currently still bent and hopefully won't bend anymore during today's dilation.

Anyway, I guess that explains why my urethra's been so sore, and so jolty with "ow!" pain every single time the catheter moves the wrong way.

(And I did find out that I'll be getting the catheter out on Wednesday... thank goodness... I'm so sick of peeing using an external artificial plastic bladder that I have to carry with me everywhere.)

Mood's still mostly in the same place as yesterday. Not elated anymore, still pretty happy and "wow" when I look down and see a completely stereotypically-female body, though, but also kinda slogging through the persistent minor pains and annoyances and swelling and catheterization and general tedium of recovery.

I need to talk about something less happy for a moment. Because recovery isn't all happiness and sunshine and everything is right in trans world.

I sort of had a breakdown this afternoon.

It wasn't because of my surgery recovery, which is still just mostly boring.

It's because I met my neighbor.



TRIGGER WARNING. BIG TRIGGER WARNING. LOTS OF BAD PAST MEMORIES AND SELF-HATRED AHEAD...



She's a trans girl from Australia who also just had surgery with Dr. Chett just a couple of weeks ago. She was getting bored from the monotony of recovery, "I ran out of series to watch" she said, so she asked the nurse if there were any other Chett patients around that she could talk to, and, well, it turns out we're on the same floor. So she visited me this afternoon, and we talked for a while.

Beautiful trans women make me dysphoric. They make me feel inadequate. When I feel like they're so beautiful that it's not even fair, specifically when those things involve a thick full head of hair, a feminine face, other body parts that are objectively "normal" compared to cis women, and the super-smooth completely-clear creamy skin texture that cis girls have but I don't have, it's hard for me. They make me feel fundamentally broken. They make me look at myself, and look at how I still feel like I barely "pass" as a woman while they're so very clearly ideally feminine, it gets hard for me.

She didn't just have SRS. She also had facial feminization surgery and breast augmentation at the same time, in a 10+-hour marathon surgery that she said didn't get over until almost 4 a.m. She saved up for these surgeries in only a few months, she's only been on hormones and socially transitioned since December, and once she gets back home she'll be moving and likely going stealth. She showed me her pre-transition photos and she basically looked so androgynous and feminine that she always got to play around with gender and got to socially experiment for a long time, have fun with queer culture and the LGBT community before settling on transition at age 22/23 and getting the ball rolling on almost everything immediately. And she sat feminine, and her mannerisms were perfectly maidenly and feminine.

It was hard for me to not hate myself. I never got that freedom. As soon as puberty hit me, I felt like Pinocchio turning into a donkey. I looked so masculine, so big, so unfixably male, that I never had ANY hope of ever expressing femininity or androgyny and getting that kind of freedom with it. I knew I was trans and cried myself to sleep every night wishing I was a girl from age 13 onward, but I felt like there was nothing I could ever do about it. If I transitioned, I thought for so long, I'd never be rid of my big neck or my wide shoulders, my skin would never be that delicate soft skin that I was so jealous of girls having, the feminine clothes that I wished I could wear would never look right on me, I'd never be anything but a freak. Every time I tried to express any femininity I was teased and called "gay" and mocked by my peers. I repressed myself for 14 years due to those fears, feeling like I was being denied my very existence. And once I finally learned that transition really was possible, and got on hormones and started transitioning, it took me a year and a half of hormones, and being fired from two jobs, to transition socially. I didn't pass at first. I was teased, scoffed at, stared at, thought I was never going to get another job as long as I lived, and cried myself to sleep about how I was still never going to look like a woman, and asked "why would anyone want to hire a freak like me when they have all these normal people?" And then when I finally did get a job, it took me 2 years to finally save up the money just to have SRS.

So, well, it was really hard for me to be sitting next to a girl who always got to experiment with gender, socially transitioned and passed almost right away, and was able to get SRS, FFS, and a BA only 9 months after doing so.

And me being curious about the recovery from FFS and BA because maybe those things are in my future, she showed me what her immediately-post-op forehead scar looked like, and what the implants looked like, and, well, it was hard. It's always hard for me, someone who still feels in so many ways that my body is inadequate, that it's mostly feminine, at least enough to be passable, but it's not REALLY a female body, "real" female bodies all have softer skin than me, and fully-grown boobs, and completely-female faces... seeing fully-developed breasts and a completely-female-looking face was hard. Really hard. She even showed me what she called her "parlor trick," being able to lactate.

I started getting down on myself.

There's just so many ways that I hold myself back in terms of clothing and self-expression because I'm so scared that I'm not "female enough," that if I did things like wear a skirt or try to even have feminine interests, people would just laugh at me. That haunting "man in a dress" label follows me, whispering in my ear, wherever I go, and it's inescapable. I just wanted to be done like her so bad. I want to look in the mirror and see a completely-cisnormative face so bad, one that I never have to worry whether it looks androgynous or guyish or not. And I want to have normal-looking breasts so bad... it just spiraled, and I started having a breakdown. (She reassured me that I look feminine, just like everyone does, but no amount of reassurance stops me once I start dwelling on all of the ways that I feel "lesser" than other women.)

I locked myself in the bathroom, and started crying. It took me a couple of minutes.

And then the feeling slowly passed, but things like this never completely go away. It's the dysphoria bug. It haunts me. It always makes me feel unworthy and "lesser" and makes me afraid that every single person is laughing at me.

And then the stupidest thing happened. I was jealous of her ability to lactate. A lot of trans women report that hormones makes it happen, because Spiro sends their levels of prolactin up. I never did. Seeing her do it, in the midst of my breakdown, made me desperate to try. When I started doing the motion, I expected it to not work, I expected it to be something that would let me prove that I had a reason to hate myself because I was lesser, less functional, less of a woman, but then it actually worked. I'll be damned.

I took a shower, and I'm mostly back to feeling okay now. I just wish transition had been easier for me. And I wish I could actually feel completely done, and finally feel like a normal woman, someone who looks in the mirror and my body looks normal, not "do I pass or not?"

Anyway, spiel over. Dysphoria still happens.

In other notes, Jesus, Chett is a freaking wizard with scars. She showed me her forehead scar from FFS and the BA scar under her armpit, and they basically might as well already not be there at all, only about 2 weeks after surgery.

Chett is a super-skilled plastic surgeon. Goodness. I am seriously considering coming back here for FFS now, because I'm just so blown away at how good he is at making surgically-altered parts and the scars on those parts look like they weren't even operated on. And her forehead work was completely amazing. Flat feminine forehead, eyes open and shining, it's one of the reasons I was so jealous.

And in final news, dilation is still painless, just a time-consuming thing that starts and then is over in exactly the duration of one episode of Bojack Horseman, so easy. It's just an excuse to chill and watch Netflix shows or anime. But my urethra with the catheter in it, which I apparently injured last night, hurts like a ***(censored)*** ***(censored)***. I keep hitting the tubing of the catheter with my left arm by accident, and every single time I've done it today, it's been so painful that I wanted to cry.

I'm really really hoping that I haven't hurt my urethra too badly, popped a stitch or something, because this is seriously REALLY painful. Like, the sharpest pain I've felt during this entire recovery process. I'm walking on eggshells every single time I stand up because I'm so scared of the pain that would result if the catheter tubing moved in the wrong way.

I had bladders spasms and urethral irritation from the catheter, and it was seriously the worst pain of the whole surgical period, by far. Like, if the surgical site pain was a 3-4 at worst, the catheter was about an 8. So I sympathize a lot; it sounds like you didn't cause serious injury, but the whole bladder and urethra can get irritated from the catheter alone, and accidentally making it a little more raw will hurt like hell.

(Also, that wax dilator sounds so weird and inconvenient. I would have been utterly terrified to use something like that - I was scared to death even with the designated plastic ones.)

Nurse was here early today, so I asked about the severe sharp pain that I'm having in my urethra every time the catheter tube moves around.

She looked inside, but said that there's no injury, it's just very red and swollen, so I guess on the one hand I'm happy that I didn't hurt it or pop a stitch or something, but on the other hand this means days and days more of pain, because it's the catheter tubing itself that's causing the irriration. So the pain's not going to go away until they take the catheter out on Wednesday.

So, freaking great... three more days of really bad pain every single time I move the wrong way, every single time the catheter bag or catheter tube touches anything, and having no choice but to just deal with it.

Jenna wasn't lying, this actually is the sharpest pain that I've felt during this whole recovery process. It's enough that I scream "Ow!" every time it happens, and because it happens so often, it is REALLY mentally draining to deal with that kind of pain so many times a day. And there's basically nothing I can do about it, because not moving the catheter tube in the wrong way is kind of impossible. Probably half of the ways that I try to move it constitute the "wrong way" that causes that sharp pain.

In better news, swelling is still going down really well, I can feel that there's a bit less pressure on everything. And I'm definitely starting to notice an increase in stamina and my ability to sit and walk without my body feeling like a weak recovering-from-surgery body. I was sitting in a chair for almost 4 hours yesterday afternoon while I was talking to my neighbor with basically no pain whatsoever, and I can feel that I'm moving around, standing up, laying down, just in general being mobile, MUCH freer than earlier this week. So that's a positive.

I still feel like there's a little bit of constant pressure on my clitoris from the inside, and the clitoris itself is still in the hypersensitive range, so I'm still dealing with that annoyance, but it's slowly getting better.

Recovery as a whole is still way less difficult than I thought it was going to be, especially compared to the Brassard recovery pics which I was preparing myself for by saying "when you see this, don't freak out," but I haven't really been much of a happy camper for the past few days. Chronic pain, especially chronic pain this sharp and unavoidable, and especially when it's combined with the constant low-scale discomforts of a slowly-healing slowly-de-swelling surgery site, is very mentally tiring. And even my mom is starting to notice that my moods have soured. She even lashed out at me last night when I screamed "OW!!!" after hitting the catheter and after my crying-in-the-bathroom bout of dysphoria. "You were doing so well until yesterday... what happened?" So... ugh... pain... I guess I'll just be thankful that the dysphoria is over and I'm feeling better about myself this morning.

Oh yeah, and also I think I have a cold. So yipee. Sniffling, sneezing, and a hoarse voice to go with all the other stuff.

I'm so sorry that you're having to deal with the same stupid catheter from hell. :( It may or may not be useful - I don't know what drugs they have available - but I ended up on Oxycodone for 2 days until the catheter came out. Yes, that meant I needed painkillers again for the catheter, after I'd weaned myself down to Tylenol by day 3 post-op, but on the other hand, it worked really well. Even if that's not an option, painkillers of *some* kind for the catheter pain is a totally valid choice. As you say, chronic pain wears you down, and you shouldn't have to suffer through that.

(I also think you may have seen a set of Brassard pics from the scarier end of the range, because I basically looked like I had a vulva from the day they took the packing off, just a really swollen and kind of irritated version. The stitches were visible and there was some of the usual wound-healing aspects, but it didn't look anything near as bad as I'd been told to expect either.)

Quote from: Jenna Marie on August 20, 2016, 08:50:14 PM
I'm so sorry that you're having to deal with the same stupid catheter from hell. :( It may or may not be useful - I don't know what drugs they have available - but I ended up on Oxycodone for 2 days until the catheter came out. Yes, that meant I needed painkillers again for the catheter, after I'd weaned myself down to Tylenol by day 3 post-op, but on the other hand, it worked really well. Even if that's not an option, painkillers of *some* kind for the catheter pain is a totally valid choice. As you say, chronic pain wears you down, and you shouldn't have to suffer through that.

(I also think you may have seen a set of Brassard pics from the scarier end of the range, because I basically looked like I had a vulva from the day they took the packing off, just a really swollen and kind of irritated version. The stitches were visible and there was some of the usual wound-healing aspects, but it didn't look anything near as bad as I'd been told to expect either.)

Fortunately, I weaned myself from the strong painkillers and down to nothing but the SaRa acetaminophen VERY quickly, pretty much as soon as the packing was removed, and I'd been slowly reducing my dosage from 3X per day down to 1X per day even before that, so I still have 6 days' worth of them left. I'm probably going to take that advice and go back on them until the catheter is removed.

Also, in terms of the Brassard results that I saw, there were two of them. In both, yes, the vulva looked like a vulva, but there was a LOT of blood, swelling, clotting, some necrosis, severe bruising of the entire lower abdominal region in one case, and raw bloody-looking tissue on the insides of the labia. The healing was amazing, it looked beautiful and nearly-perfect afterward, but the first two weeks of recovery in both cases looked like they were going to be really hard. So I was shocked when after my surgery there was basically no blood at all, no raw tissue whatsoever, and it didn't look like the outer labia was swollen like a balloon.

I hope the painkillers do the trick! It may seem silly to use them for the catheter, but you're in serious pain. Another 2-3 days of taking those will be less of a risk to your recovery than suffering through the pain (and the fear that you'll move wrong - I remember that too, and not fondly).

Huh. I guess I was lucky that most of what I got was tremendous swelling; no necrosis, thank goodness, and no serious blood or clotting either. I was braced for the "raw hamburger" thing, and it wasn't like that. I did have the huge bruising, but it didn't hurt at all - it's not like regular bruises, where an injury caused it, but more like bruising from giving blood, where it's just blood leaking under the skin. On the other hand, the woman who shared a room with me at Brassard's hospital and who had surgery as #1 that day, had bleeding severe enough that the bed was soaked and they had to rush her back to cauterize something. (She was fine in the long run.) I guess it's partly the luck of the draw. I'm so glad things are going so well for you this early in recovery, aside from that awful catheter!

Well, the pain pills immediately perked my mood up. Hooray for opioids, I guess. :/

(And honestly I kinda don't like that, because while I enjoy feeling happy, I don't want it to be a drug-induced happiness. I don't like that, because I don't want to be dependent on a pill to make me feel happy. It's actually one of the reasons why I wanted to get off of the strong painkillers as soon as possible, because I knew that the opioids were artificially inflating my feeling of elation, and I didn't want to feel good because of pills, I wanted to feel my own genuine elation, my own genuine emotions. Anyway... whatever.)


Also, I switched dilators this morning, my 2nd wax dilator has turned into this hideous misshapen monstrosity after 3 days of use, so I was overdue for a new one.

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Foi68.tinypic.com%2F3479x0k.jpg&hash=0ba5a8d91811e64fb9f57517709c164232ec5758)

And it feels WAY better to have a nice clean straight one again.

Dilation isn't painful. Nor is it really annoying anymore. Just time-consuming, and limiting of the activities that you can do while you're doing it. Like, normally I can sit on my computer and either game, type, click around social media, watch movies/TV/video, whatever I feel like doing. When dilating, I'm stuck in a single position with only one hand free, so I'm basically limited to just watching videos. Usually I just find a 30-minute video to watch (usually Netflix or anime or watching the Olympics on Thai TV,) and once it's done I'm done. But that's the only thing that really makes it annoying, is just that I'm an information maven, I like being free to browse or search or do whatever my brain wants to find out, so I have to take a break from my usual train of free thought and exploration and set aside 30 minutes to just sit and watch something. It's a minor annoyance at worst, though, even though I've already caught myself procrastinating and doing it a couple hours late a few times because I didn't feel like it.

I'm going to be watching a LOT of anime in the coming year, though, because I'm going to need a lot of video content to take up the dilation time. So I guess just think of it as a medical diagnosis that requires you to sit in bed watching TV for 2 hours every day. :P

So, I guess I can't dump on the pain pills too much, because yes, it's an artificial happiness, and I hate that, but now with pain and discomfort suddenly down to a 0/10, me practically feeling completely healed thanks to the magic of controlled substances, I guess I didn't realize how much I needed a break like this. After 2-3 days straight of pain, annoyance, swelling constantly bothering me, catheter constantly bothering me, I will admit, it is very nice to get a mental break from all of that chronic pain and to just be able to relax and enjoy a quiet afternoon without constantly having to tolerate persistent discomfort.

I was honestly starting to feel overwhelmed. When you come here solo, generally, it's unbelievably boring because you're just in your room all day alone. It's not boring for me. Not in the least. Because I'm here with my mom, and she's working on her promotion packet for work, so she's all stressed and hyper and bouncing off the walls and always asking me questions and talking and she has this habit of asking me a question and then asking me another question before I've even finished answering the first question, it feels like her brain is operating three times as fast as mine right now, so it's a bit frustrating. Plus I constantly have acquaintances on Facebook messaging me and asking me how I'm doing which then evolves into like hour-long conversations. So I've been anything but bored. Combine all of that social hyperactivity with the strain of the chronic pain of recovery, and I've REALLY REALLY REALLY been wishing I could just lock the door and not talk to anyone and let my brain relax, do some breathing exercises, take it all in, give myself a while to just think in solitude without people messaging me and asking me questions every 10 minutes, let my body heal, let my mind heal, enjoy some blissful quiet.

I was getting to the end of my rope, and starting to get unpleasant and confrontational and impatient again because I was getting so exhausted.

Now I get a break. No pain for a while. No constant negative emotional stressor making me short-tempered and exhausted constantly. My brain can breathe. I can relax. I can heal. Social interactions don't exhaust me as much as a result. So yeah, I really needed this break. And I don't think it's a good idea to take the pain pills constantly, and I'm not going to, but every 3-4 days or so when the chronic pain of recovery combined with the constant hyperactive socialization becomes too overwhelming and I just need a break, yeah... not much of a choice.

I just hope that once the catheter comes out and therefore the biggest source of that chronic pain is done with, I'll feel like this naturally again. (I did for the first couple of days after the packing was removed, but then the hypersensitivity and the urethral pain started and it's been emotionally overwhelming ever since then.)

I... think I just had a phantom pain.

That was weird.

Basically, suddenly one of my nerves started going in to that painful "shock" feeling, it persisted for a while, and it felt like a nerve that my brain associated with being somewhere on the surface of the left part of the scrotum, which is now generally the outer labia. But when I reached down to touch the left part of the outer labia where I believed it was coming from, it wasn't there. I kept feeling for the nerve but couldn't find it, and then I realized that my brain was registering the pain as floating in midair about a half-inch above where the labia actually is. So for a few seconds there, I was feeling pain in a part that's either not there anymore or has been moved somewhere else that my brain doesn't recognize yet and still thought was in the old position.

So yeah, weird.

And there's been many times where I've felt that "it's cold, my genitals are shriveling up" feeling only to reach down and the labia isn't.

So honestly, I was completely expecting to have no phantom sensations whatsoever since I'd always had a phantom vulva, but I was wrong. I am having a few phantom sensations.

Also, for the most part I don't feel like I have "nothing" down there. It still feels like my genitals. Newly-shaped, but still my genitals. And honestly most of the time it just feels like I'm tucked really well. And yet even though it kinda feels like being tucked, at the same time there isn't the feeling of a "shaft" or an "erection" or any of the pressure and stretching that comes with being tucked to go with that feeling, everything feels completely free and loose, so it's kinda like not being tucked, and it feels like there's no penis or testes there and yet at the same time it kinda still feels like the same anatomy, and yet it doesn't... It's weird sometimes.

I'm honestly glad the pain pills helped, even temporarily, because the "chronic" part of the pain is what's so hard to cope with; even a brief break can be a huge benefit. I also wouldn't expect you to need them past the catheter removal, so it's 3 days at most. You were recovering well and with low levels of pain until the catheter injury, and a lot of that will go away almost instantly when the darn thing comes out. (The urethra may stay raw for a little while, but it won't be nearly as bad without something to jab at it and cause those jolts of pain, and it'll heal pretty quickly when the irritant is out.)

Oh, and "medical prescription for TV" is kind of still how I feel about dilating. ;) It should get easier to tolerate being forced to sit and watch, too, with the routine setting in.

Dilation's officially a piece of cake now. When I first started dilating, for the first few days I often had trouble getting the dilator in the last inch. It would go in 5 inches and then I'd have to force it to 6. That doesn't happen anymore. I've basically been able to get it straight in to 6 with no problems for the past few times, so basically now there's no hassle, no pain, it's in, I hold it, set the timer, done.

I'm really happy that it's this easy, frankly. And hopefully it will stay easy when I start moving up sizes.

I used to minimize the use of painkillers when I was younger, but I really can't see the point these days. I'm not sure what I was thinking before. Its like I had some philosophical problem with them, but I realized I don't like suffering more than anything. As long as your not going to get addicted or accidentally overdose why worry about it?

*
Carrie Liz:

Congratulations and welcome yourself to the Chettawut sorority and alumnae.  It is one fine club. 

Yes, to all who choose but have yet to make their acquaintance with Dr. Chettawut and his staff - the are all very nice personally and very experienced professionally.

Carrie Liz you have done a fantastic job describing your experience here at this site. 

If I might add my two cents on a few topics.  Many people feel that catheter as pain; it is actually your body telling you that you are ready to remove it.  Also be careful with dilation that you do not press on either your bowel or urethra - that can create pain.  Maintain your appliance along your internal structure.  Relax.  Some people use a towel or pillow to hold it in place or cross your legs - those options will free both hands.

Follow doctor's orders and you will pass your final exam with flying colors.

You are good to have taken in the sights before getting to business.  Many people arrive in time for their first exam, hole up alone in their recovery residence without a companion, and depart the day of their final exam not seeing the people and culture of a wonderful country.  I am so happy for you that you had you mother to help you.

Your final responsibility will be going to Chaengwattana to get your papers notarised.

Dr. Chettawut's medical release should also help you get extra seating space at each leg of your journey home.  Keep your donut pillow handy for long sit-downs; feel free to move about the cabin to stretch your legs.


*

My mom left for Seacon Square to get lunch and get her hair done at 12:30, and now it's been 5 hours, it's 5:30, and I'm starting to really really freak out and get worried...

Because our phones don't work here, there is absolutely no way for me to check to see if she's okay. And if something happened, I don't even know if they have a way to contact me. I'm just praying she comes back soon now, and that nothing happened...

EDIT: as soon as I wrote this post, she came back... thank God...

Well, dilation is officially no longer a painless thing. I just had something go VERY wrong.

I've been getting scared for the last two days or so because I could feel that my vagina was getting tighter around the dilator with each day, but I ignored it figuring that the nurses kept clearing me, so it was probably supposed to happen.

Well, today something happened that turned that concern into an emotional meltdown.

Basically, as I mentioned, Chett's nurses gave me 2 wax dilators, one of which was getting bent beyond recognition after days straight of use, and one which they gave me 2 days ago as a "backup" in case the first one broke. The first one not only was bent, it had holes in the latex, so I stopped using it as of yesterday. Well, today during my afternoon dilation, the latex glove which was covering the non-bent wax dilator unexpectedly broke. It wasn't salvageable, and I had to discard it. And you can't use the wax dilators without the covering, because they can and do break, and it would be very bad to have a piece of wax break off inside of you.

So basically tonight, I had two options. Either use a dilator that was completely bent out of shape and had multiple holes in the latex covering, or try using the official clear-plastic Chett-certified "#1" dilator.

I chose the later. I figured, I'm the only one using the wax dilators, everyone else started out using those #1 dilators, they're not that much bigger, I should be fine. I made sure to use extra lube to make it easier to insert, I tried to be extra careful when putting it in, and I was just assuming I'd have no problems.

It was tight. I could feel it stretching the outsides of the vaginal opening as it went in. I kept inserting it, figuring it was okay, but it didn't get easier, the stretching feeling kept going. After it was in about 3 inches, the feeling of stretching became painful. The pain kept going. And finally I realized that it was too tight, I couldn't keep it in.

And then as I was pulling the dilator out, the dilator's lube coating was now mixed with a coating of blood.

I started panicking. I had a breakdown. I cried. My brain was racing "what do I do? I can't get the #1 in... I'm bleeding... what if I just damaged something? What if I just popped a stitch? What in the world am I supposed to do? I can't use either of the wax dilators but I can't just skip dilation tonight? And what does this mean for the future? What if I can never get the #1 in? What if I've already lost too much width from using the wax ones for this long? What do I do? /panic /panic /panic.

And then the worst thing happened. I woke my mom woke up, (after coming back from Seacon Square 3 hours late, she went to bed early so that she could be rested for a tour of Bangkok that she's going on early tomorrow morning,) because I was panicking, and I started frantically asking her for advice on what to do, freaking out about the fact that I was bleeding, not knowing what to do. And she yelled at me. First she impatiently said "just use more lube," which I through tears told her I did, then she said "well just be careful. You can't go too fast." "I WAS careful! I went as slow as I could!" And finally she just said "Look, you've woken me up THREE times now!" I appealed, crying, "Mom, I'm BLEEDING. And I think I hurt something, and I just hurt myself but I can't not dilate tonight, it might close up and I couldn't even get the wax ones in, and I don't know what to do!" But she just told me "Just go to bed. A nurse is coming tomorrow." Then she scolded me again for waking her up, rolled over, and went back to sleep. And so basically I had to keep myself from crying, keep myself from making any noise, and clean up a horrible bloody mess of paper towels and dilators and figure out what the heck I was going to do, having a panic attack the whole way, tears coming from my eyes the whole time, but I couldn't make a sound because I knew Mom would just yell at me.

This was hard. And this is the lowest I've felt during recovery so far. I really just want to cry right now. And I'm terrified that I've hurt myself, and I'm terrified that I've permanently lost width, and I don't know what to do about it, and I'm scared that my entire time with the larger dilators is going to be nothing but pain and bleeding, but I can't say a freaking word because Mom's still asleep, she yelled at me "The nurses are coming tomorrow, be quiet and let me sleep!" And I feel abandoned and like my pain doesn't even matter, and I'm still crying about what just happened.

I did eventually dilate with the bent wax one. I was too scared of losing depth not to. And it still didn't hurt, and there wasn't blood (at least no more than was already there,) so I did finish the chore, but I was basically spending the whole time trying to keep myself from having a panic attack.

All I can do is write about it. I'm sorry. I just don't know what to do, I had to say something, and I'm going to be crying myself to sleep tonight worrying.



The bleeding wasn't too serious, there wasn't ever a continuous flow of blood, so if I did hurt something it's not a major surgery-threatening injury, but I'm still terrified. And I'm sitting out in the dining room crying, worrying, as I type these words

Carrie Liz,

I don't know if you are still up. I am so sorry you experienced this. Is there not an emergency number for the nurses  or Chett's office? I also want to remind you that the human body and mind are very accommodating and flexible. We heal, we are able to bend.

Easy for me to say the following. Deep breathes and breath exercises. Try to distract yourself and lose your anxiety. I know it is easy to get lost in the forest of self loathing and bad experiences. Look at how far you have come. Try not to look to others for whom it all seems easy and who have hit the genetic lotto. You are a strong independent woman with the ability to overcome. You are becoming one of my heroes.

With warmth,

Joanna

First of all, so much sympathy. The first couple weeks are tough emotionally as well as physically, and that isn't discussed much; you go into surgery healthy and strong and come out of it physically "broken" and coping with all sorts of new experiences to boot. I'm so sorry that your mother wasn't kinder to you.

If it helps, some concrete advice: width is an issue with the muscles and can always be [re]gained (depth is what can be lost permanently), blood is a problem if it soaks through a surgical pad in 1-2 hours (said Brassard's nurses) but anything less than that isn't likely to be serious (and blood mixed with lube can look like a LOT when it was just a few drops of actual blood), and even skipping one dilation session is not likely to cause long-term issues as long as it's a super-rare occurrence. You're almost certainly fine in all respects, but I'm still sorry you're having such a hard night.

Those wax dilators just do not sound like a good idea, with the breakage and the getting softened out of shape.

Hi,

First of all, some bleeding at this stage isn't unusual, especially when going up a dilator size.  I seemed to just accept a bit of bleeding from time to time and if I wasn't bothered too much, neither was anyone else.  With time, you will start to take the bad dilations in your stride and look forward to making the next one better.  Sri is not one to raise unnecessary issues during her visits.  She is very experienced with surgery recovery.  If she doesn't mention something, it is OK. 

I too was on just the candle for the first week or so (but I didn't manage to bend mine out of shape that much!).  I was still using it to start dilation when I was back at home.  It broke later when I was putting new latex on it so I threw it out.  Ask Sri for some spare gloves as the latex is just a finger off a glove tied off.  When mine broke, I just started off with the No 1 and went very slowly.  I am now at 8 months and this week I am trialling once a day to see if I appear to lose anything.  Looking good so far.  So after about 520 dilations, it seems it might be time to cut back.  I only did 3 times a day for 7 weeks.  Once I was back at work, I did 2 x 1:15 instead of 3 times a day.  I am replacing that time with sleep!!

Oh, and the odd meltdown is OK too!  I was alone at the Vertical Suite and had to sort of manage the ups and downs alone.  Not the easiest thing to do when you are using a candle instead of the real thing because Chet had to start you very small.  Looking back at what I went through, at the time I tried not to underestimate the recovery required, both at the op site and elsewhere and emotionally.  As others have said, breathe, relax and go with the flow.  Recovery takes time.

All the best

Emma

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 21, 2016, 08:20:21 AM

Also, for the most part I don't feel like I have "nothing" down there. It still feels like my genitals. Newly-shaped, but still my genitals. And honestly most of the time it just feels like I'm tucked really well. And yet even though it kinda feels like being tucked, at the same time there isn't the feeling of a "shaft" or an "erection" or any of the pressure and stretching that comes with being tucked to go with that feeling, ...

It's kind of funny you said that about feeling like being tucked.  A friend of mine had surgery several months ago.  A few days ago she was sitting at work and suddenly had the "distinct feeling" she came untucked.  She said the feeling was so real she actually started to check before she realized it was now an impossibility.

Glad to hear you're doing well.

So, thankfully this morning when I went to the bathroom there was no blood, unlike when I'd injured my urethra a few days ago.

So I don't think I hurt myself as badly as I was afraid I did last night when I saw blood all over the dilator.

I'll have an official report once the nurses come, but for now I think I might be okay. I'm just really glad that I was relatively careful last night, stopped as soon as it started becoming uncomfortable, and it was just the smallest of the plastic dilators, so I think I minimized whatever damage I did. Fingers crossed.

Big super-happy surprise, and best possible news!!!

The nurse decided to take the catheter out a day early! I'm FREE!!! YAHOO!!! :D

(The catheter coming out hurt a little bit more than the surgical drains coming out, but it peaked at about a 6/10 in pain and only lasted for a couple of seconds, so it really wasn't a big deal. It wasn't much more painful than getting blood drawn at the doctor's office, which on my scale is about a 4/10 for about the same duration of time.)

Also, here's the best possible news. Not only did I not hurt anything when I dilated with the #1 last night, (she said there was no injury at all,) I have a new #0 dilator, and it's not a freaking wax candle! It's an official clear plastic one just like the other ones, which means no melting and bending, no latex glove on the outside to worry about, so a BIG yay on that! I can dilate without so much hassle now!

(Apparently they just got the new dilators in from the manufacturer yesterday, and everyone is getting one today.)

(https://www.susans.org/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi68.tinypic.com%2Fnv8o4n.jpg&hash=05b7fffc779dd42c518bd4696ca5fd216e4802ee)

I dilated with the new clear plastic #0 as soon as the nurse left, and I think a bit of my panic about how tight it felt with the #1 last night was a bit just because of the material, not so much because of size or stretching. It feels different dilating with something that has no "give" to it whatsoever versus the wax one which does have a bit of "give." The plastic one felt a bit tight at first, but then went in with no problems, and once it actually was in it felt a LOT better, because unlike the wax, you don't have to worry about it breaking or bending or touching it the wrong way and making the latex glove break or fall off, you can just put your finger on the end of it and you're done, no worry, it's just there and you set the timer. So it feels a bit heavier, it feels more like it's pushing and stretching with no "give," but at the same time it's much less of a mental hassle to use, so definitely happy about that.

But basically, yay! I'm finally officially free, officially done, no more pee bag, no more tape all over my pubis, no more catheter bopping my oversensitive urethra and clitoris every 10 seconds, I'm finally DONE!!!!!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D

Also, I've been cleared to leave the hotel. I can go wherever I want now. (As long as I'm careful and don't over-exert myself.)


First pee in 2 weeks probably won't happen until later tonight, it will take a while for my bladder to fill up enough, but I guess I'll update once it happens? I dunno, whatever. I'm just happy, and I can finally feel completely done with every single surgical-tools part of surgery and just focus on recovering my strength now. I feel so happy! :)

That is good news! thanks for all the posts and details. may you have a speedy recovery

Deanna

Welp, pee happened. And it basically went absolutely everywhere. Not even close to a solid stream. It was a wild mess of dribbling, spraying, and whatever else it felt like doing. It got all over everything, all over my vagina (in fact it actually felt like it was spraying backward into it,) dribbled almost all the way back into the butt area, all over the labia, it was just a big mess. And honestly I couldn't even feel it coming out of the urethra like I used to be able to because of the lack of a single stream. This basically felt like I let the typical "pee" muscles loose and then it just started dribbling out everywhere as I applied gentle internal pressure without much of a sensation that it was coming out at all, it was just going everywhere

Not a big deal, none of it got on the toilet, just all over my genital area, and while I am hoping it eventually solidifies into a single stream, it wasn't a bit deal. I'm just going to be using a lot of toilet paper for a while because I'm going to be cleaning my entire genital area off every single time I pee for quite a while.

I'm really happy that I can finally pee on my own again, though. One of the annoying things about the catheter is that you feel like you constantly have to pee while it's in, it constantly feels like your bladder is full because of the internal weight/pressure of the inflated bulb, but now FINALLY I actually felt relief from that feeling. So it was a big "Aaaahhhhhhh..." feeling once everything was finally empty, and things are definitely back to feeling normal now, and that is GREAT.

Also, getting the catheter out has virtually eliminated the phantom sensations I was speaking of a couple days ago. Things feel normal now. I lay in bed and everything is just comfy and cozy and nice and non-moving and non-external, and it feels AMAZING, and I'm really enjoying my nice relaxing day now. :)

Every single surgical thing that comes out improves the feeling by a significant margin. Now I'm at the point where if this is how I always feel, even if the pressure and swelling don't go down any more, I'd be very very happy with how things feel now. So a significant portion of that "pressure on the clitoris" feeling that was I was complaining about bothering me was actually because of the catheter. I could constantly feel this feeling of pressure on my clitoris before, and I was actually kind of worried that that was going to be a permanent thing, that it was caused by most of the clitoris being internal. But I was wrong. It was just the catheter. It's completely gone now. I don't feel that pressure when I'm laying on my side now, and I'm not constantly consciously aware of the feeling of my clitoris any more. I don't feel it unless something actually touches it. And that feels REALLY good!

Now it really does feel like how cis women describe having a vagina. "Having a vagina is like having a nose. Unless you're actually thinking about it or unless it's causing you pain, you don't even notice it's there." (Whereas cis guys describe having a penis as "it's like having a live fish in your pants, and sometimes it flops around," which is EXACTLY the feeling I was looking so much forward to being rid of. Now that feeling really is 100% gone.)

So yeah, I'm back to being super-happy and super-elated now. Things are back to feeling 100% exactly like I'd always wished/imagined they would feel like. Beautiful motionless don't-even-feel-it-unless-you-want-to serenity. :) I still feel a bit of swelling pressure when I stand up, but that's about it now.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 23, 2016, 12:38:24 AM
Welp, pee happened. And it basically went absolutely everywhere. Not even close to a solid stream. It was a wild mess of dribbling, spraying, and whatever else it felt like doing. It got all over everything, all over my vagina, dribbled almost all the way back into the butt area, all over the labia, it was just a big mess. And honestly I couldn't even feel it coming out of the urethra like I used to be able to because of the lack of a single stream. This basically felt like I let the typical "pee" muscles loose and then it just started dribbling out everywhere as I applied gentle internal pressure without much of a sensation that it was coming out at all, it was just going everywhere

Mwahahaha. Finally my SRS experience had an advantage over yours! Just kidding haha.

But yeah - that not feeling it come out is probably the main difference imho in terms of peeing. Like the peeing sensation is such a nonevent that you kinda build up as something that's gonna feel SUPER WEIRD when you do it the first time. Then it feels mostly like nothing.

That said, that near lack of feeling can... Be an issue. When I was on the plane, since the toilet bowls have no water, it actually was kinda hard for me to learn when the peeing started and stopped! The stream hitting the water is a nice audio cue.



On a side-note - I'm still fascinated by the #0. Did the nurse or Dr. Chett explain why you're starting on that dilator vs the #1? They had me start from the #1 and go from there - I never even knew a #0 existed until your diary. I'd be fascinated to know why, if it isn't too much to ask.

Quote from: IWentWithChet on August 23, 2016, 03:04:03 AM
On a side-note - I'm still fascinated by the #0. Did the nurse or Dr. Chett explain why you're starting on that dilator vs the #1? They had me start from the #1 and go from there - I never even knew a #0 existed until your diary. I'd be fascinated to know why, if it isn't too much to ask.

Nope, no explanation. But the way the nurse put it, it seemed like a lot of people were also on the #0, my next-door neighbor from Australia was started on the #0 too (until she got impatient and scaled herself up to the #2 without asking, popping a couple of stitches along the way,) so my best guess is that they started you on #1 because of your shorter recovery time before you had to leave Thailand. I think the #0 is the common practice. (Again, I'm staying over a full week longer than you did, so is my neighbor, and that's the only variable I can think of.)

Hi, I've been following your thread with great interest as I am having my srs with Dr Chett at the end of March next year. I came out and had ffs and ba with him this year. Please keep the thread going as it is giving so much useful information. I am so happy for you and glad everything is going well xx

A friend of mine had her SRS in the Philippines. Bit dodgy and very cheap, but she seems happy until she peed.. She is still peeing all over the place.. The first time she peed without the tube in, it shot out over the top of the seat.. She is still having issues after 6 months.. I think she is thinking about having some corrective surgery.. Perhaps she should have had it done in Thailand. I do not hear so many issues about peeing so I am sure its not a common issue..

Tess..

My peeing was pretty messy for a few months after surgery because the remaining swelling resulted in a stream that shot mostly forward out of the stool. I was able to correct it by leaning forward but as the final swelling faded, the stream moved downward and I no longer have to lean forward. Urine samples require I hold the container well under my bottom and sometimes it's a bit difficult finding the stream. One of the minor advantages of having more control.

According to my wife, having pee sometimes trickle over your butt or go "forwards" is also just a fact of having labia. :) Sometimes they get stuck together or something and redirect the stream...  I had the same "it got everywhere" thing for a couple weeks until the swelling went down, and still occasionally thereafter for months; it's more or less a stream now, but once in a while, yeah, it dribbles (not sprays) somewhere unexpected. 

I actually l can feel myself peeing, btw, but it's feedback from the bladder and not the urethra now.

Quote from: Tess2016 on August 24, 2016, 05:29:02 AM
A friend of mine had her SRS in the Philippines.

That's the first time I've ever heard of SRS in the Philippines. How would anybody ever find out about it?

Quote from: AnonyMs on August 24, 2016, 11:07:56 AM
That's the first time I've ever heard of SRS in the Philippines. How would anybody ever find out about it?

I didn't even know they did SRS in PH

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!

Peeing is still kinda funny.

The first few times I did it, there was actually this weird disconnect. Because for my entire life, pee has come out in the place that I now associate with where my clitoris is. That's just where pee came out of. So it was strange to be pushing in one place and expecting it to come out of a certain place, and yet it came dribbling out the back. It actually kinda felt like I was peeing into a barrier of skin, and then the pee was dribbling off the bottom of that barrier. It was weird. It didn't feel anything like I'd always imagined it feeling, where you could feel it coming out of a spout down on your underside. I actually stopped mid-pee a couple times because the feeling of it dribbling down across the back of my vagina surprised me so much. There was also one time while I still had the catheter in where after wiping my butt I instinctively folded the toilet paper up and reached up front to wipe pee off next, but then realized "oh wait, that's not how it works anymore," but my muscle memory had gotten the better of me while I wasn't paying attention.

Now, though, it's more normal. It doesn't surprise me anymore, and my brain is already re-wiring to expect the pee to come out from there, so it doesn't feel like I'm peeing forward into a wall of skin anymore, it feels more like I'm peeing down.

I'd surmise most of the "newness" of surgery as being like that. At first it's a bit strange, (well, some of it was strange, other parts of it felt exactly like I'd always been expecting them to from the very beginning,) but your brain adjusts to where everything is and where its new location is pretty quickly and it just becomes what you're expecting to happen.

It definitely varies from person to person, though.

I was actually kinda surprised, as I've mentioned before, I was fully expecting surgery to feel completely natural for me because I'd had phantom sensations beforehand, and felt like I had a very good sense of what everything was going to feel like. And I was right about some things. Having a vagina felt exactly like I'd always imagined. Putting my hand down over the top of my flat pubis felt exactly like I'd always imagined. My mental image of what I look like in the mirror has already adjusted itself so that looking at pictures of myself pre-op feels VERY weird, looks wrong, looks like "that's not me." But in the end, I did have phantom sensations afterward. I had phantom pains from the scrotal skin. And the clitoris does feel a bit different from what I was expecting. So there's been many times where I still felt like I had a penis even though it's not there anymore, and I had to reach down to reassure myself "no, it's still not there, just a clitoris." Sometimes these feelings are there, other times they're not, and I'm not sure why, but again, I wasn't expecting to feel phantom sensations at all, but I have.

There's still this strange feeling I have sometimes where it's almost like the entire penis is still there but it's just tucked under the skin very well, and it almost feels like it might pop back out again if I move the wrong way.

Last night, probably because of that feeling, I had yet ANOTHER dream where in the dream I still had a penis and I was crying and freaking out about my surgery being botched, the penis is still there, it came popping back out, they retained the ENTIRE glans when making the clitoris and it still looked and felt completely like a penis, and I was SO freaking relieved when I woke up and everything was back in the right place, and my clitoris was just a normal clitoris again.

Basically, my brain's taken a while to adjust. And there definitely is a feeling of "change" and "difference" for me even though all of those "changes" and "differences" are things that make me REALLY happy that they feel changed and different, and the "phantom" effects are often distressing because I never wanted those parts in the first place and now they feel like they're haunting me and won't go away.

But it is still an adjustment in terms of feelings.

And I do want to say, this morning my mom was talking to another trans girl, one who's here supporting a friend who came for GRS, and she was scared because apparently that friend has locked herself up in her room and is having a really hard time healing from surgery because she's saying "I feel like half of myself is gone."

For me it's been sunshine and roses and just dealing with a few occasional residual effects and feelings that I wasn't expecting. For another person, she's having a breakdown because she feels a very definite sense of absence and change from surgery. It's a big deal. How you react to the changes varies from person to person, feeling completely natural for one but like a sudden unexpected "none of this feels familiar" for another. So, well, again, just putting some truth out there. Your experience will vary.

By the way, there's currently 4 people here for SRS with Chettawut from what I can tell. And it's been fun to hear their own unique takes on the level of care.

To me, the level of care here seems exceptional. From my perspective as an American, the nurses and doctor clearly care a lot, are very knowledgeable, want to make absolutely sure every single day that they're checking on you to make sure the healing is going well, they answer whatever questions you have, I thought it was amazing that a nurse actually slept in my room with me the first night just to make sure I was okay, basically I couldn't be happier with the level of care. Plus it was amazing to me that the initial surgical recovery kit and the paperwork and revisions were included in the cost of the surgery, that I didn't have to pay for any of those nickel-and-dime kinds of expenses for the required medications and initial supply of dilators and lube and the certification form and everything. And I think it's so great that a nurse comes every single day to check on your recovery, that is not something that I'm used to and I thought it showed that they really care about their patients.

The one girl from Australia thinks that the level of care at Chett's is really subpar, she's used to the Australian medical system where the patient is actively involved in the decision-making process and actively involved in their own treatment. She finds it frustrating that she can't really make requests, can't really decide for herself how she feels and when things are right (she completely skipped the #0 dilator, by the way, because she felt it was "too small, training wheels," and skipped straight ahead to the #2 dilator, popping stitches and enraging the nurses in the process,) and she doesn't like that she's basically expected to just trust the surgeon's and the nurses' expertise and listen to what they tell you, and they scold you if you don't. And she said that the social climate here is rubbish, that she feels like Chett basically dumps you in a hotel, tells you not to leave, and says "good luck," while Suporn makes an active effort to get you meeting the other girls who are there and really fostering a sense of community and support. (Which she feels like is the main difference between Suporn and Chett, aside from the official certified name "Chonburi Flap" which Suporn acts like he has exclusive rights to but really Chett does the same thing just without the name patent.) She was also appalled that she had to pay for refills on lube and refills on the (optional after the initial dose runs out) strong opioid painkillers out of her own pocket.

There's a French woman who says that the level of care is fantastic, she's really happy.

And then there's another American, she had surgery the day after me, and she's the one who's currently having the freakout about "half of myself feels gone."



So yeah, just illustrating different experiences from different people.

Not sure.. The doctor she said she went to was a bit backdoor'ish and refused to provide any details.. My friend Mia went to see two so they are there.. Just not advertising.. She was desperate and had very little money so she just went for it.. I read a post on the internet about the Philippines SRS too.. She found out via two local transgender ladies the Dr. who did SRS on them.. My friend was teaching in the Philippines at the end of last year.  I read there were surgeons in China too..

Tess..

Quote from: AnonyMs on August 24, 2016, 11:07:56 AM
That's the first time I've ever heard of SRS in the Philippines. How would anybody ever find out about it?

Is seems you can.. I have read heaps about it for a long time.. But you need to be careful.. There are backdoor operators, like my friend Mia went to see..  http://immersivemedical.com/sex-change-operation_philippines_2.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpdPJt1O46w

Tess..

Quote from: jujubes1986 on August 24, 2016, 12:10:33 PM
I didn't even know they did SRS in PH

Yes, Thai's seem to really good at this.. "To me, the level of care here seems exceptional." We had to go to a hospital last time we were in Thailand.. We were treated very very well.. They are not backward either. They have some awesome medical people.. That is one of the main reasons why i have decided on Thailand for my SRS... I am sure most of the top SRS surgeons would have the same level of care..

Tess...

Carrie,  Please keep going with your updates. I am really enjoying every moment of them. It brings back so many memories and some things that are also so different. It is so good to read how well you are doing both in medical recovery and also the important one of physically and mentally. It is so obvious that you were ready for this and you definatley believed that you need it done. It is now time for you to move foward with your life and make the most of living how you have dreamt.

I loved hearing how you feel so excited about no more dangly thing there, I found it amazing how free things felt down there with nothing there anymore, although as you are now learning there is actually more there than there ever was, just it is now internal and feels great.

Dilation will take up a lot of time, but it only gets easier and as months turn into years, it will become far less frequent and not an issue at all. You will get to know your lady bits and you can tell how often you will need to dilate after time.

Yeah the peeing thing did take a bit of getting used to, especially with the mess and feeling it. Goods news for me my stream adjusted approx 6-8 weeks ( I think) and now I feel it is what I woud call normal. I do at times sometimes have the odd spray or drips towards my backside, but very rarely and not enough to bother about. It is now natural and easy and the best part that I am still delighted about, is when you finish and pull your panties up, you just pull them up with nothing there to worry about. I was like you I could not stop thinking about "it" being gone. I would constantly touch my pubic region with delight. You will also be amazed at how comfortable panties  are now they are fitting a correctly shaped body.

Moving on I have had so much confidence installed mentally. All the things I couldn't do before hand, like lying on a massage table just in bra and panties. I now love wearing leggings/tights and how they feel so comfortable against your lady bits, trips to the beautician, and even just getting ready to go out, standing in front of the mirror putting on a bit of make up or doing my hair feels right.

I look foward to your updates and please keep them coming as you progress into the best years of your life. This is actually where your dreams have come true (even though it was hard work to get there). I wish all the best and thanks again for the reading

regards
Shelly

Quick trachea shave healing / voice update...

Things have REALLY improved over the last few days.

I think I mentioned, I had a hard lump right along the incision line for a long time immediately after surgery, and I was actually kinda afraid "is this going to go away? Because honestly this sticks out just as much as the thyroid cartilage did." And then there was my biggest fear of all, that my voice wasn't ever going to recover its former range and strength. Because my voice has been very slow to heal. The pitch was noticeably lower, and I had lost a lot of my upper singing range immediately after surgery.

Now finally the scar lump is starting to subside, things are getting flatter and much better looking there, (although the scar itself is still a bit red, so it's obvious that it's a scar. I'm hoping that the redness fades before I have to go back to work in 5 weeks so that I don't have to constantly answer questions about it.) And most importantly of all, my voice is recovering its full strength. About 2 days ago my full range started coming back. I couldn't sing in my falsetto range at all since surgery, but now that's coming back. And I started being able to sing my usual karaoke songs, from Karen Carpenter and Stevie Nicks, without trouble again. Now I'm only missing the very top 1 or 2 notes, and my speaking voice feels about 90% recovered. For the first couple of weeks after surgery, to my own ears I sounded like a boy again when I spoke. Now I'm finally starting to sound like a girl to my own ears again.

So yeah, vocal recovery takes a long time, but it is recovering. It's healed enough now that I could go back to work and nobody would be able to hear the difference. And I was REALLY scared about that, so it's a big relief to have everything working there again. I was really scared that I was permanently going to lose vocal strength or range, as I've heard can happen with a trachea shave. (And Dr. Chett was definitely aggressive with it. I don't feel any of that protruding v-shaped bone bump left there at the top at all, and I think he might have taken off the bump on the bottom too, because I don't feel it anymore either. Just the round middle-throat lump that even cis women have.

My last concern with the trachea shave is the scar, everything else is basically healed enough to make me happy now.

In terms of SRS recovery, not much has changed.

I'm mostly still surprised how bother-free dilation has been as a whole, it still just feels like "doctor prescription to watch 90 minutes of TV per day." It doesn't feel like an hour and a half of time, because really you're only spending a total of about 10 minutes setting everything up, lubing, and then cleaning things, which is the only part that involves actual effort. And something I do which I learned from Jessica Tiffany on Youtube, I always put a paper towel under myself (on top of the sanitary mat,) so that cleanup is easy, I can basically just let all the excess lube dribble down freely onto the paper towel and just then wipe upward once the timer is up and I'm basically done.

Tomorrow afternoon is when I finally officially move up to the #1 dilator (I'll be doing 30 minutes with the #0 and then 10 minutes with the #1, so hopefully everything will be suitably stretched by the time I go in with the bigger size.) I'll report on that of course.

In terms of residual pain, now that the catheter is out the biggest hassle I'm still dealing with is just swelling pressure. There's still a persistent feeling of pressure and swelling in a few very specific areas... namely, along the stitch lines on both sides of the outer labia, and in the clitoral area where all of the stitches are. In both cases, it's pressure along the stitches. So fingers crossed that it will subside once the stitches are removed next Thursday.

I haven't been outside again since Wednesday's 40-minute trip to Seacon Square because I'm still feeling a bit sore, and standing up triggers some extra pressure along those stitch lines, so I really don't feel like aggravating it any more. Maybe tomorrow or Sunday I might go again, and then Mom and I are going to try to take a short tour of the Jim Thompson house on Monday, so I'm saving energy for then. The nurses have told me that healing is still going great, the discharge coming from the vaginal area has been getting clearer and clearer (and less and less in quantity) with every day, and they're the ones who told me that the pressure was probably coming from the stitches, which are now slowly beginning to dissolve, so the swelling feeling is to be expected and isn't a problem, so I should still be okay to go wherever, and I do have the stamina to, so it's just a matter of comfort right now.



Mentally, it's kind of funny, I realized today that my brain kinda doesn't even realize that it's had surgery half the time. Mostly I'm just lounging around on my computer, and mentally it feels like nothing's changed, I still feel like the same person, so there are some times where suddenly I'll snap out of that "normal" brain state and suddenly realize "oh crap, I just had sex reassignment surgery, that crazy super-taboo thing that every religious group freaks out about and everyone tries to label as some big humongous life-changing deal. I actually just went through that. And my body is permanently changed, I have a vagina now! And I always will! Wow!" but then I just shrug and go back to whatever it was that I was doing because frankly it's not a big deal, genitals are just genitals, I don't know why everyone acts like they're the end of the world when in reality you barely notice that they're there 95% of the time. Mostly just trying to think about surgery as this "oh my god" kind of big taboo deal I just laugh.

I'm still feeling a bit meh on the overall external appearance of everything. Basically I have a serious double-bump thing going on where my pubis hangs down a bit and then the outer labia is like this secondary bump just behind it that also hangs down, but the clitoris and other inside-inner-labia areas are really pulled inward toward the body and really tight compared to the loose pubis and loose swollen outer labia, and really it's not the most aesthetically pleasing. I'm definitely hoping that the outer labia swelling shrinks down as recovery progresses, and hoping that the inner labia becomes more prominent rather than looking like it's pulled tightly all the way between the clitoris and the vagina. Most of my elation has been based around how it feels rather than how it looks.

Anyway, back to recovery and back to waiting for the swelling and pressure to go down...

From what I have read about other SRS outcomes, it can take around 8 months before you get to see your new womanhood bits as they should be... SRS is a big thing to recover from..

Are you peeing ok yet...

Tess..

Quote from: Tess2016 on August 26, 2016, 07:23:33 PM
From what I have read about other SRS outcomes, it can take around 8 months before you get to see your new womanhood bits as they should be... SRS is a big thing to recover from..

Are you peeing ok yet...

Tess..

It's improved a little bit, there's some semblance of a stream going down now, but it's still spraying over everything.

I guess I can't complain too much, though, because even though it's a mess that gets all over myself every time I pee, at least it all goes down. At least it doesn't spray all over the toilet too.

So, right now 3X daily dilation is definitely necessary.

The schedule that I'm on right now is basically dilating once at 9 am, once at 3 pm, and then one final time at 9 pm. Usually for me this schedule ends up being more like 11 am, 4 pm, 10 pm because I tend to sleep in and prefer eating breakfast later.

I've noticed that it's almost always harder for me to reach my full 6" depth during the morning dilation session, after 13 hours of not dilating. Usually the dilator only goes just past 5" on its own at first, and it's only after 5 minutes or so of applying pressure that things stretch back out and I get to my full 6" depth. (And I've actually been able to go a bit past 6", close to the 6.5" range, once everything is stretched. So I think healing is bringing some elasticity back to the skin graft. And it doesn't hurt, and it doesn't feel like I'm stretching anything too far, so all good!)

So yeah, going 12 hours without dilating is actually kind of stretching it, I feel like if I were to cut myself down to only 2X daily I'd probably be fighting to not lose depth.

So people have asked "is 3X per day really necessary?" And my personal answer is yes, it is. Because every single morning it's taking me a while to get back to depth, so without that afternoon dilation session it probably wouldn't be enough. So just follow the doctor's orders on that one and don't try to cut it down.

I'll keep this updated as time goes on, of course. They say "listen to your body" in regards to when you can scale down dilation frequency, and right now my body is definitely telling me that 3X per day is necessary. It's going to be difficult to keep this kind of a schedule once I go back to work in 5 weeks, so I'll see if my body is telling me that I can do 2 longer sessions or not. Being able to cut it down to 2 would definitely make my daily schedule with an 8-hour work day much easier to work with. I'll see once I get there.



So, the big thing today is that I'm going to take another trip to Seacon Square with Mom. I'm going to visit the Japanese street festival that's currently taking place in the plaza, eat some takoyaki, yakitori, taiyaki, dango, and sushi (because I've always wanted to try the first 4 on that list but can't get them in my culturally-non-diverse hometown of Toledo, OH,) and hopefully also do a video record of all of the amazing places in Seacon Square for my Youtube channel.

Then I'm going to take tomorrow off to recover, then hopefully on Monday I'm going to take a day trip to the Jim Thompson House with Mom.

(And I have discovered that I'm able to sit in certain positions comfortably without the "butt donut" cushion, so I should hopefully be able to handle it, take a taxi ride there and back and be able to walk around for the couple of hours or so that the guided tour lasts. It's going to be pushing it a little bit, but it's a site that I feel like I have to see before we leave Thailand, and it might be my only chance to do so since I only have another week before I leave, and Thursday and Friday are going to be booked with my final examination with Dr. Chettawut and going downtown to get my SRS certificate notarized respectively.)

Other big thing today is that I'm officially scaling up to the #1 dilator for the first time this afternoon. So once I've done that, (hopefully it's easy, and hopefully goes better than last time, again, I feel like I've gained some elasticity in the last few days,) I'll update.

Hooray! I used the #1 dilator this afternoon, (30 minutes with #0 and then 10 minutes with #1,) and this time there was no pulling, stretching, or bleeding. The 30 minutes of dilating with the #0 first suitably stretched everything and made everything elastic enough that the #1 went in with no problem. It did feel a bit tighter, but not to the point that it was uncomfortable at all. It was a mild and natural gentle-stretching feeling which felt like it was gently coaxing my vagina to be wider, completely unlike the first time where it hurt the whole way in.

So I've graduated up a dilator level without any problems.



Also, today I took a trip back to Seacon Square with my mom, it was only my 2nd time out of the hotel since surgery, and we visited the Japanese street fair.

I was up for 2 hours this time. The feeling of downstairs pressure took a LONG time to come back this time, and although there was a moment during the street fair where the combination of packed narrow alleyways between the food stands and crowds and lack of ventilation made me a little bit light-headed, this 2-hour trip by the end of it felt no more strenuous than the 40-minute trip I took last time. We ate some delicious street sushi, takoyaki octopus pancake balls, taiyaki fish cakes, and grilled yakitori skewers, all of which were heavenly (And which I'd been dying to try because I'm an anime fan, and lots of anime shows have street-festival episodes, so I've been dying to try takoyaki and taiyaki for years now, and FINALLY got to do it tonight, and they taste just as good as they look.)

So yeah, today was an AMAZING day.

And I was able to be up and about and walking for 2 hours today before things started getting uncomfortable, so it's official, I'm well enough to go on our planned 1-hour Monday tour of the Jim Thompson House, and probably also well enough to do our possibly-planned 2-hour Wednesday tour of the Vimanmek Mansion.

It feels so good to be up and walking and able to explore again!



Also, I'm going to be watching a lot of anime this year. :P I've already knocked out 2 anime shows on my "want to watch" list during dilations this week ("ERASED" and "Cute High Earth Defense Club LOVE," I'm slowly working my way through "Revolutionary Girl Utena," with some "Cardcaptor Sakura" and "Bojack Horseman" on the side. Yeah... LOTS of TV in my future. But I'm enjoying it, because I've wanted to finish those shows for a long time, and watch a lot of the shows in my backlog, but never had the impetus to before.

...And now a day later I'm completely wiped out.

Exhausted, low energy, staying in bed all day and need a nap. :P

So yeah, if you do an outing during recovery, expect to need some rest for a while afterward. Being up and walking for a while takes a lot out of you.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 08, 2016, 02:15:41 AM
...Up until this point this trip has been a blur of activity. Now I've finally had a chance to relax and gather my thoughts. So here we go, this is what I just wrote in my journal about my anticipation for my upcoming surgery, which is now only 23 hours away.

(Possible moderate-TMI if you're uncomfortable reading about the physical sensations of tucking and sexual arousal.)



"   Tomorrow begins probably the biggest obstacle I've ever had to overcome in my entire life. Today is the last day I'm going to be in the body I've always known, the last day of this particular version of "normal." And again, I've long since realized that one of the reasons why I was scared about surgery before was just because even though I've always dreamed of having female genitals, I've gotten so used to this state of dysphoria, of begrudgingly dealing with this feeling of a lump in my pants and my primary form of sexuality being erections which make it impossible to enjoy any intimate encounters because they feel so wrong, it's still all I've ever known as normal, so it's hard to wrap my head around this. This really is the very last day of this old twisted version of "normal." Tomorrow begins weeks, months straight of pain, recovery, time-consuming dilation, the first time I've ever had any surgery in my entire life, and waking up to a body that will be completely different. I'm looking forward to it. But it is a bit scary simply because it's a great unknown.

   But at the same time, I'm so ready to be done with it that it's not even funny. I'm so tired of talking to friends and family about my convictions for surgery, having to explain myself and defend myself and go into elaborate detail explaining why I want it and how, no, this isn't because of some trauma or because of lacking a "male role model" or Mom somehow doing "male bashing" or all of these other nonsense accusations I've heard from other family members. I'm so tired of having to worry about what surgery, FFS/SRS/Voice, I should have done first or worrying about whether it really will be everything I've always wanted or not. As of tomorrow, no more speculation, no more uncertainty, no more explaining, I can simply let my body be what it is and enjoy it for that.

   Again, omigod, tonight is the last time that I'm going to go to bed and be dealing with this stupid lump in my pants flopping around, having to constantly re-adjust and re-tuck and everything just to find a comfortable sleeping/sitting position. From tomorrow on, I'll never have to deal with that again. Tomorrow, after dreaming about it for 13 years straight, this is it. I really am finally going to experience the reality of waking up and having girl parts between my legs. It's finally all of those dreams, all those years of wishing and dreaming, coming true. Tomorrow. Only 24 hours from now. And it's all real. YAY!!! (Even though I'm probably not going to remember much about that waking-up.)

   I had to write that. I had to get it out. Because otherwise I'm scared it would pass right by me and I wouldn't get to savor how big of a deal this is mentally. But writing this has given me a chance to let it all sink in. Tomorrow. In real life. I'm going to wake up and, for the first time in my entire life, be living in a body that is, to my own judgment, female. For the first time ever, and forever after that. No more questions, no more uncertainty, from then on it's just who I am.

   And THANK GOD, no more erections, no more tucking, and a flat beautiful feminine pubis just like every other girl has. No more jealousy, no more staring longlingly at girls wearing bikinis and leotards and athletic shorts and wishing so much that I could look like that, no more hating myself when I start feeling sexual because my body won't fundamentally betray me with its incompatible version of "arousal" that my brain isn't programmed to expect to feel, no more pants re-adjusting at work, no more tucks slipping, no more social anxiety about a bump showing or things slipping into visibility, I am SO ready to be done with that stuff forever.

   Also, I'm not sure if it's the T or what, but I've been getting medium-soft erections for like the last 3 days straight, and it's REALLY annoying, and I can't wait to not have that penis or its stupid erectile tissue anymore. I'm so tired of that feeling of pressure pushing this organ out of my body that I feel like shouldn't be there, and which every single time I feel it happening I can feel phantom sensations of a vagina/clit being there and what it would feel like for that area to be flat, flush against my body. I'm so tired of that mismatch, and so tired of feeling it and yearning for it to be different every single time it happens. Tomorrow it will be a reality, and I'll NEVER have to deal with erections or dangly bits again. My body will be mine, exactly the way I've always wanted it to be.

   YES. I am so hyped now. And now that I've had the chance to type all of this out, to let my emotions on it out, I feel like I'm ready. It won't just pass me by without being able to enjoy the full magnitude. And here we go. :) Last day ever. Recovery will be hard, and my very daily definition of feeling "normal" isn't going to be the same again for several months after this because of the difficult recovery, but it will be worth it in the end. I'm sure. Here we go!"

Now that it's been almost 3 weeks since I wrote the above post where I was speculating on all of my excitements and fears, I thought I'd do an official follow-up, and answer the question of how much my own thoughts about surgery beforehand match up to, or don't match up to, all the things I was excited about and scared about before.



So basically, I was expecting it to be a WAY bigger deal than it actually was. I had myself so hyped up with fear, so scared over "either this is going to feel exactly like I've always wanted and it's going to be the best thing ever, or I'm going to have mental breakdowns because of how difficult recovery is," and the sheer anticipation and sheer not-knowingness of it really had me anxious and really had me hyped up. I was expecting that I was going to grin like crazy every single time I got to look at myself and see a flat pubis, I was going to feel this big sense of relief when I could lay in bed and finally not have anything flopping around, etc. In practice, this may sound anticlimatic, but it's not really a big deal.

I mean, on the one hand, it is absolutely a big deal. Everything I always wished really is happening. I'm able to sleep comfortably without moving around and adjusting. Clothes feel so much more comfortable. Sitting is more comfortable. My body itself feels so much more comfortable (except for the pressure/swelling pain part,) and it really is wonderful to not have to tuck and not have to wear two pairs of underwear everywhere I go and constantly be terrified of whether something is going to slip or not. And I know intimacy is finally going to feel "right" too.

But at the same time, it's not a big deal. It's still just life. And it doesn't really feel like my life has suddenly turned into this amazing super-great utopia of feeling those things... those things already feel normal. I've said this before and I'll say it again, to me transition is like the cure to a medical condition. Pre-transition, I was expecting the same thing, to be so super-happy because I could finally be pretty and finally be feminine, where in reality it was still just life afterward, the difference is just that I didn't constantly get bogged down by depressive episodes of dysphoria because I constantly felt like my body was wrong and everyone was treating me wrong. Everything just stopped being a hassle and more of life felt normal and "right" with that negative thing removed. And it's the same thing now. Life is still life. At the end of the day, it's still just the same me sitting here in bed watching anime series and doing everything that I've always done, and the only difference really is that the stressor of constantly having a body part flopping around that I didn't want there, and constantly having to hide it and constantly feel it when I didn't want to feel it, that stressor is gone now. And it's not that life is all sunshine and roses now, it's just that this persistent bother, this thing that constantly intruded into my life when I didn't want it to, now that negative thing doesn't happen anymore. And I barely even notice or have a chance to enjoy that it's not happening because it's simply not something that I ever have to think about.

That's what being post-op is like for me. I barely even realize that I'm post-op, because it feels normal already. It feels like me, and just with another persistent source of distress that constantly used to distract my mind and which constantly used to take me out of my default happy place no longer in the picture. But you don't really realize it's gone.

Think of it like the feeling after being healed from a sickness. While you're sick, it's distracting. It hinders your ability to enjoy life. But once it's gone, you don't really think about being sick, you don't really think "oh wow I used to be coughing and sneezing and have a fever but now I can walk and play and do things normally again," it's just that you're not bogged down by those irritating symptoms anymore, and they pass out of your life and you basically forget you were ever sick.

Go figure.

I'm still healing. And the healing is still a bit painful and makes me have really low energy levels. But already I'm forgetting that I used to constantly deal with floppy genitals that were constantly bothering me. And then I'm like "oh yeah, I used to constantly deal with that feeling of genital dysphoria, didn't I?"




So, hopefully I'm not being anticlimatic here, but once that initial feeling of euphoria and relief passes, this is what it is... life. Life going on minus a stressor, but still just feels like boring ordinary life going on as it always has.


(And as an aside, in case it's not obvious, it is SO nice to finally have my hormones permanently fixed. No more testosterone! Pre-surgery, I could not deal with my body's default hormonal state of affairs. It was making me have horrible emotional meltdowns. So I constantly felt like I was fighting against my own body's hormonal programming, and it was really distressing to know that if I ever lost access to hormones I was going to be right back to being constantly miserable. But now, I can deal with this no-hormones state just fine. I don't have the same kind of energy and zest and pep that I have on estrogen, but I still feel calm and relaxed and in control of my emotions again as things are now. So now should I ever be deprived of HRT for whatever reason, I can deal with it. I won't be angry and miserable and dysphoric and wanting to rip my own soul out of my body like I did that one day. Thank God. I am so freaking glad that I'm never going to have to deal with that again. Getting the T out of me after 3 weeks of being off hormones for the first time in 3.5 years was honestly probably an even bigger relief than finally having a vagina.)

Phew... LONG trip today.

I only have 5 days left in Thailand, so now that I'm mostly getting to the point where I can walk for a reasonable amount of time without getting pain/tiredness, Mom and I decided that we wanted to see at least a little bit more of Bangkok before we have to leave this weekend. So we took a day trip out to the Jim Thompson House.

This was by far the hardest I've pushed myself in terms of physical exertion since surgery. We left at about 11:45 this morning, the cab ride to the house was about 30 minutes, and then we spent over 2 hours taking a tour of the inside of the house, walking around the garden and taking pictures. We had delicious Tom Kha Gai soup for lunch, visited the house's art exhibit and gift shop, and then finally left to go back to the hotel at about 3:30. (After some hassle with finding a cab to take us back to the hotel, same problem that happened in Chinatown, none of the cab drivers were willing to drive all the way out to our hotel which is 20+ minutes to the east of downtown.)

I was spent by the end of this trip. Near the end of the walking part of the tour, my head was starting to spin a bit.

Here's the thing with walking after surgery... usually when you're up and walking somewhere and you start getting tired, you can simply sit down on a bench in order to rest and recover energy. I can't, because sitting upright is still an energy exertion which puts pressure on the surgery site. (Not as much as standing, but enough that you won't really recover energy by sitting.)

So basically, sitting only delayed the light-headedness I was feeling, it didn't really improve it. So by the end of the tour I was starting to feel that "oh God I'm going to pass out" feeling. We finally got a cab, and most of the trip was okay, but then once we got off the highway and did a lot of stop-and-go driving, I started feeling nauseous. My head was spinning again as soon as I got out of the cab, I was fighting the urge to pass out, and only just made it back to the hotel bed before I would have fainted. I was breathing heavily for a couple of minutes, and had to lay in bed with the air conditioning on me for a while before I could stand up again.

I feel all right now that it's been a couple of hours, and there was no abnormal discharge or blood or anything, so everything's good healing-wise. But yeah, I definitely did push my luck today energy-wise for the sake of a cultural experience. And while the physical-exhaustion part of it wasn't fun, it was a good tour, the garden around the house is really beautiful and peaceful, I got some great pictures, and since I don't know if I'm ever going to be in Bangkok again, it was worth taking in as much culture as I can while I'm here. (Again, I might come back for FFS, but I'm not sure if I'm going to do it or not, or when, and I still might pick a different surgeon for FFS if I do have it, so it's not a definite.)

I'm getting more and more strength every day, I was wiped out yesterday but managed today pretty well, this was a LONG day out, so things are looking good for us being able to go to the Dusit Palace Park in 2 days and getting one last dose of Thai architecture before we go.

Today was yet another day of being out in public and I was kinda monitoring how my body felt in relation to my persistent struggles with social anxiety.

Before surgery, as I've mentioned, I had this constant feeling that I was being stared at, judged, I always felt "clocky," I was always worried that people could tell, and when I was walking I always felt like I was having to hide something, hide some innate guyishness that I couldn't quite put my finger on where that feeling was coming from.

And now, yet again, today for whatever reason, I felt like a girl while I was walking. I don't really understand why surgery has had that impact on me, because it's stupid, I'm not even looking at my genitals. I'm looking at my face and my hair and my body shape, none of which have changed in the slightest due to surgery. And yet for some reason before, those body features didn't look female to me before, they just looked liked an androgynous maybe-slightly-female-ish overall shape. After surgery, for some reason, and it's been this way every single time I've been out, my body now looks female to me. My stomach looks like a girl stomach, my arms and legs look like girl arms and legs. I don't understand it. And when I'm walking I feel like a girl walking. I feel feminine when I'm walking.

I have no freaking clue why suddenly I feel that way, but didn't feel it before. It really is an intangible thing that for some reason having a vagina has made it possible for me to see the rest of my body as a female body. (And I kinda feel bad about that, because my body was absolutely a female body before surgery, and yet for some reason no matter how many times I told myself that, it just didn't feel like it to me, but now it does. I feel bad about that. Genitals shouldn't define my sex or my gender. And yet it took surgery to finally feel like the person I knew on an intellectual level that I was. Now I feel like it on a heart level too.)

And this doesn't mean that I don't still have insecurities. In fact, I have a LOT of them. During the tour, there were a lot of girls with smoother skin than me, and more feminine frames and builds and faces. And I was still really jealous, and still really wished that my body could be that way. But the difference is, it doesn't feel like dysphoria as much now. Before surgery, those things hurt a little bit more. It was like "how can I even deserve to call myself a girl compared to them? That's a REAL girl right there." And I had breakdowns because I felt like a fake. That "fake" feeling, the feeling that I'm not a woman at all and that these other ideally-feminine people are rubbing that fact in my face just by existing isn't there anymore. Now it's just good old fashioned jealousy. :P Lots of it.

So yeah, as I say, surgery doesn't fix all of your problems. The same old insecurities are still there. But for me, it really has been the difference between feeling like I'm somewhere between the genders, and just dressing up as a woman and trying to "pass" as one even though I'm not (no matter how much positive self-affirmation I did to say otherwise,) and actually feeling like I really am living in a female body, and feeling like when I'm walking I'm a girl walking, feeling like my walk is feminine, my body is feminine, and actually being able to see the feminine body features that other people could find attractive when looking at me. I honestly couldn't see those things before, no matter how hard I tried, and no matter how much self-affirmation I did. It's true, I really was always distracted by the feeling that I had a penis between my legs. And it was keeping me from seeing what was blatantly there in front of my eyes all along. I feel like I can finally see what other people had been seeing for all this time.

I feel so shallow. I feel so bad for not being able to talk myself into feeling valid. I feel so bad for how much I had to reassure myself "I really am a girl, and I really am REAL" for these past 3 years of transition straight, and yet in the end, it didn't do anything. I tried so hard. And it should have worked, because I was valid, I was real, I was a girl regardless of whether I got surgery or not. And yet after all of that, it still took SRS for me to finally feel it inside.

And honestly, I'm NOT okay with that. Before surgery, I actually thought of telling my Facebook friends directly something along the lines of "I know it's common practice to post "It's a girl!" and things like that when someone has bottom surgery. Please don't do that. I don't want to reinforce cisnormative genital-centric notions of human sex. And I refuse to have my legitimacy as a woman reduced down to whether I have the ability to afford a $10,000 surgery or not. Plus it would kinda insinuate that I somehow wasn't a woman before surgery even though for the last 2 years I've been accepted as a woman by everyone around me and living as a woman, and I'm really not okay with that. Plus I refuse to throw my non-op and pre-op friends under the bus."

And yet apparently I really am that shallow. Apparently SRS really did make me finally feel like a girl.

I wish I could say otherwise. I really do. I actually feel guilty about surgery taking that "fake" feeling away. I actually feel like I'm betraying my own values.

CarrieLiz, I bet that if a non-op friend were to tell you that she feels "like a real girl" (or however you choose to phrase it) without a vagina, you would have no qualms whatsoever in believing and supporting her. I had to wrestle with similar feelings, in that I 100% do not think that having a vagina makes someone [more of] a woman, and yet I felt so much more comfortable in my own skin after GRS. The conclusion I came to is that there is a difference between how you feel about your personal body and how you think about *other people's* bodies; you don't need to feel guilty that this was something that worked for you and your psyche as long as you don't in any way suggest that there's a way to generalize that feeling to judging other trans women. And I think I know you well enough by now, if virtually, to know that you would never do that. :)

In addition, you do make it clear that the rest of your body didn't change - what changed was your perspective of it, and there's nothing particularly controversial about the realization that GRS was a way to change your *mind,* not your body. Some people can achieve that same perspective without bottom surgery (and some will tell you that it's impossible without FFS, for that matter); there are a lot of different routes to the same outcome, which is all you need to say to prove that GRS isn't a *necessity* to get there.

(There are similar discussions going on around the subject of, for example, cochlear implants for deaf people and a cure for autism; some people want to be "changed," some don't, and it can get pretty contentious when either group tries to translate their personal desires into the needs of the whole population.)

So, I'm not the only one?!?

My surgery is a month away, not behind me like yours.  Yet, I've had a lot of those same feelings.  In fact, I had a dream just last night that I came out of surgery and saw "It's a girl!" signs in my room.  In my dream I was telling people that I didn't want that.  That I already was female before surgery.  But in reality I am so excited that my date is almost here.  And I fully expect to feel some sort of validation from it even though, intuitively, I know its not right. I would never question another woman's validity over this surgery.  I don't know if this makes me shallow or not, but either way, I am right there with you.

So, unfortunately, my level of happiness with the aesthetic results of my surgery have dropped a bit over the last few days...

Immediately after surgery, when there was still a lot of swelling in the outer labia and the inner labia was therefore pulled very tight, I felt like things were a bit more correct, and I felt more optimistic about how things were going to heal because I figured "once swelling goes down, the insides will become more prominent and the outside will become less prominent."

As swelling has gone down and things have settled down a bit, though, it hasn't quite gone that way. And I've become less satisfied with how everything looks.

The outer labia has slowly deflated. When I first woke up from surgery it was a bit puffy and tight, I felt only a little bit of loose material there. Where now as the swelling has gone down it's become loose to the point that it's almost droopy. Basically, there's a lot of loose material on the outside now, and I feel like it's not a good kind of loose, it's like a "there's too much skin here" kind of loose.

The inner labia still hasn't gained ANY definition whatsoever. Everything is still pulled completely tightly back into the vagina, to the point where I still basically don't see any inner labia at all, and there's not even any loose skin in the area where it's supposed to be to suggest that eventually there will be one once swelling goes down.

Dr. Chett was honest with me before surgery that making a defined inner labia was going to be difficult with me because my anatomy was so small, but I'm still bummed that I don't have that "defined stretchy inner labia coming down from the clitoral hood" look that one associates with a cis vagina. Like, the part of Chett's demonstration cases that I liked the most was how he created such a natural-looking inner labia, and his "2-year post-operative SRS" video on his Youtube channel shows EXACTLY the kind of inner labial structure I was hoping for, and was one of the big reasons why I chose him. And, well, I feel like I don't have that. I will be really bummed if I don't ever get that same kind of inner labial structure. And again, the appearance on the outside is looking a bit droopy and loose right now while the inside is practically non-existent.

All of the internal structures are perfect. Clitoris is exactly the right size and the right definition and has perfect sensation and perfect placement. And the structures that are inside of the inner labia area, the urethra, the vagina, all perfect. Totally happy with that. But I'm not completely happy with how the outside is starting to look as it's healing. I might be asking for a cosmetic revision down the line, asking for a reduction of the outer labia and enhancement of the inner labia, if things don't improve.

(And yeah, I know, it takes time, wait, let things heal, but, well... I don't think that this is an issue of swelling. I don't see how swelling going down could possibly fix both of these issues at once. And it's a bit distressing because I actually said before surgery "I care about how it looks on the outside more than depth. Specifically I care about the definition of the inner labia. So if you need to sacrifice a bit of depth to give me a better-looking result, I'd actually prefer that." So basically I feel kinda bummed that the only specific request I made, to make sure the inner labia looked defined and good, is the one and only thing about the surgery that I'm now unhappy with.)




I guess what happened here is that up until this point I was giving the nurses the benefit of the doubt, their reassurances of "everything looks normal, it will heal" reassured me. Where today I read a topic ( https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,213763.0/topicseen.html ) about someone unhappy with their SRS results with Chett for the EXACT same reasons that are making me currently concerned about mine, so now I'm sorta panicking about those things never correcting themselves or getting worse, so I'm a bit more concerned now.



How it feels is the most important part of SRS to my mental health, in case it's not obvious, and the "feel" of everything is a HUGE success, Chett did such an amazing job with the nerves and the function and the internal structure, so this isn't a huge deal, it's just the superficial cosmetic things on the outside. But it is still something that I'm going to be a bit disappointed about if it doesn't improve (or gets worse) as swelling continues to go down.

So basically, happiness with how everything feels/functions is a 10/10. Happiness with how it looks was about a 7/10 immediately after surgery, but now down to about a 5/10.




I've kinda already expressed a little bit of concern to the nurses, (I haven't vocalized it as if it's an "I'm unhappy with this," more just "I'm a bit concerned about how this is healing, is it going to improve?") And they've just always responded with "no, this is normal. Good result. It looks beautiful," so I let it pass, assumed it was just a matter of healing and would improve, but maybe I'm kinda getting to the point where I should actually say I'm a bit unhappy with it? Point out the differences between how I look and how the results I was hoping for look, and ask for more clarification? I don't know...

Carrie, have you asked him what he could do in terms of a revision to improve things later? I think it would be a good idea to ask while you're still there.

Quote from: AnonyMs on August 30, 2016, 03:26:32 AM
Carrie, have you asked him what he could do in terms of a revision to improve things later? I think it would be a good idea to ask while you're still there.

I'm going to send an email with pictures today so that hopefully I can get answers in time for my final checkup in 2 days.

...and I just got a call that they're moving my final checkup date up a day, so now it's tomorrow morning at 7 instead of Thursday at 9.

Um... hopefully that had nothing to do with my email... Ms Som did say "I got your email with the pictures, you can ask him these questions tomorrow." So now I'm a bit scared that I'm not going to get the questions from the email answered directly, that it will just be "everything looks fine" and then I'm on my way back home still worrying.

So, uh, well... I'll see? :/

This scares me, because Chett's responses (or lack thereof) to post-surgery concerns is one of the areas where people have criticized his staff the most...

Having a breakdown now...

I'm so scared that Chett is going to brush off my concerns, say "everything is fine" without answering a single one of my questions directly, I'm going to get shipped off, and then I'm going to spend the next several months straight freaking out about the healing progress and possibly ending up with a permanently less-than-what-I-was-hoping-for aesthetic result.

My brain runs away with me a lot. This is one of those times. Uncertainty over something so important to me turns me into a nervous crying mess.



And really, I'm not worried about a "bad" answer, them saying "sorry, you were too small before, so you won't ever have an inner labia and we can't fix the outer." I can deal with that. I'm good at coping. What I'm terrified of is a non-answer... an "everything is fine, you look beautiful" answer that doesn't answer whether such a loose outer labia or tight inner labia is normal or not normal for my point in recovery. What I'm scared of is months and months of feeling like something is off and yet having to wonder if it really is or not. What I'm scared of is waiting and waiting, hoping and hoping that things are going to settle and look as beautiful as the demonstration pictures/videos, but never knowing for sure.

Coping with bad things is easy for me. Uncertainty and not knowing, not knowing if I should be hoping or not, is what eats me alive.

Hi Carrie, I'd not worry too much at this point. Dr Chettawut would be very foolish to dismiss you so causally. Yours is a great series of posts by a high profile poster on a major trans site and anything you post here that's particularly noteworthy about Dr Chettawut is going to get linked from other major sites. I'd hope he takes very good care of you.

I'm looking forward to your posts tomorrow to hear how it went and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Worst case there's other surgeons you can go to.

I think it is too early to judge the results. Plus you certainly experienced post operative euphoria due to general anesthesia and now you are experiencing perhaps mild depression and you start seeing the dark side of the things. Give yourself a few weeks to get past this emotional journey, get fit and wait for the swelling to subside and evaluate the results than. In the worst case scenario revisions are always an option. Things that can not be revised are sensations, hard to revise depth and cosmetic outcome is easy to fix.

The good news is that "too much skin in one place and not enough in another" is one of the easiest things for a plastic surgeon to fix. :)

Also, for the record, Brassard says to wait at least a year to see the final results - and for me it was closer to two years - so things really can change *amazingly* much over the next few months. You may be shocked by how different it looks in another month, much less a year. Heck, it's already changed dramatically over the past few days, as far as you're concerned (I know that wasn't for the better, but that's also normal with healing at this stage - one thing they don't always mention is that early on the swelling doesn't so much leave as move around, and things often do look worse a few days post-op).

Carrie Liz,

From what I understand Jenna Marie is right. One should wait a year before making decisions on revision. Like so much of our journey patience is our best friend.

I was recently editing a post about Dr Chett that you had replied to, from 2014.

https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,160388.msg1371849.html#msg1371849

Most of the ladies with experience said you really should wait a year. It will take that long to really show your final result.

With warmth,

Joanna

I think this is your first surgery where as in my  case it ends up being just another one. The two surgeries that I could best determine how fast the body heals were my  nose and voice. As simple as voice surgery is, at 7 months I noticed a large improvement though at a year I still notice it's not fully normal. With my nose I could still feel swelling mid way in the surgical area after over a year. It wasn't very visible but I could feel it with my fingers when I rubbed my nose.

Swelling will be reduced over time and skin will tighten up. I can't guarantee what it will look like in the future but try to remember what was there before and be thankful for what you have.

I was going to say before someone else mentioned it..

Ask the Surgeon Face to Face.

Hope it works out well.

Okay, I had my final consultation, and everything's fine. Internet rumors about Chett's aftercare got the best of me again. In real life, he was able to answer every single one of my questions/concerns directly, he was very specific, very straightforward, and there was no runaround or non-answers at all.


So, final exam day is the day when he checks how your healing is going, addresses any concerns you have, and he'll tell you directly if there were any unique problems with your surgery that might affect results.

Because my final consultation got moved up a day, I had another girl with me getting her exam at the same time. And this was something that was running around in the back of my anxious mind, "he just tells everyone that they're small so that he can get away with charging everyone for the skin graft and give everyone subpar results and divert blame from himself." Not true. With the girl I was with, her unique challenge that he said he had with her surgery was that she had very thin skin. After her consultation she said "I guess that explains why I was having a lot more pain than others, and couldn't sit or stand as long as you can even though I had surgery the very next day." (Her surgery was August 10th.) She was over the moon with her aesthetic results, saying that everything looked very natural.

Before I could even ask a question about the tight inner labia area, Dr. Chettawut told me "your surgery was difficult because your skin was very short." And I did ask him if things would loosen, if the inner labia area would become more defined, and if there was any sort of structural deficiency between my surgery and the surgery on his Youtube channel where he showcases the inner labia elasticity of a UK patient, and he said "no, the structure is very good, it is the same, it will just be a little tighter because you had not very much skin in the penile area."

I asked about the loose outer labia, and he said "it is within the normal range, and you can absolutely expect this to shrink as swelling goes down. It is a bit big, and I know no woman wants a very loose outer labia, but the structure is still correct. And there's not really a good way for us to pull and make it tighter right now. Wait 6-8 months to see how it heals, and then maybe you can correct it if it's still a problem."

Straight, honest, not diverting blame, no non-answers.

He then told me "there was a small lesion in the vagina area, so I just want to make sure that you use enough lube when you're dilating. Use a lot. Do not try to save money," and we both laughed. "And make sure that when you insert dilator, insert it slowly. Do not rush." (Which is actually what I did yesterday... I was trying to use less lube. Plus I rushed through my dilation because I was in a hurry, sliding the dilators in very quickly. And during my afternoon dilation, the phone rang from Chettawut's clinic to tell me about my new final exam date/time in the middle of it, so I had to abruptly take the dilator out to answer the phone. And when I was putting it back in, I figured "eh, it was already lubed up, I should be just fine sticking it right back in," and I didn't feel any discomfort at the time, but then there was a little blood during my evening dilation and I wasn't quite sure why. Now I know. Take it slow, and don't try to skimp on lube, just make sure you're not creating friction. [And I didn't tell him any of this, so this was all just his expertise from him having seen all of this thousands of times before.])


So, my concerns are eased, I REALLY need to learn to not let my mind and my emotions run away with me when I get scared of something, (and maybe not let myself freak out because of internet rumors about aftercare and them giving diverting non-answers to concerns,) and yeah, this is always a problem with me and anxiety, I freak out about things and the more I dwell on them the more I freak out about them because of panicking about the worst-case-scenario what-ifs.

Happy customer, so glad he was willing to take the time to address each of my concerns directly, and I have a lot more to say about the overall experience here, the social environment, and particularly the experiences of one of the girls I've been talking to at breakfast who just came from Dr. Suporn's clinic but was unable to go through with surgery there due to a personal issue, and her perspective was really enlightening to me on the differences between Suporn and Chettawut that so many people are interested in, particularly why Suporn is more expensive and why he has such untouchably-high reviews, but that's for another post.

I also did get a consultation for facial feminization surgery.

(Most people's concerns with FFS consultations are probably that the doctor is going to tell them that they need more surgery than they really do to try and squeeze more money out of them, and hopefully this will demonstrate that Dr. Chett is not one of those people.)

What he told me I needed most was the traditional FFS trifecta of forehead/browlift/nose. I asked him about my hairline, as that's one of my biggest concerns, whether there was any way to correct that at the same time as the forehead, and he said "no, actually, the scalp advancement, which is often done at the same time as forehead reconstruction, that would actually make your hairline worse, because it would pull down the middle, but not fill in on the sides. So it would actually make the sides look even thinner." He was straight-forward honest with me "to fill in the hair recession, you would need implants." (Something that his clinic does not do.)

When I asked him what the second most-important thing would be for me, he said "Jaw. You have a very square jaw. And we would also work with the chin, because when you round the jaw, you need a different chin shape to compensate. And that is your other big feminizing procedure, because it would take away some of the harshness of your face, you have very strong facial features. But that's the only other thing. You have very feminine cheeks and lips, so you do not need lip lift or lip augmentation or cheek shaping."

I am VERY happy with that analysis, because it's seriously EXACTLY the same conclusions I'd come to on my own analysis of my own face's masculine features. Chett basically agreed with me 100%. (And I didn't tell him. This was him completely going off of his own analysis.)

My FFS quote came in two parts... part 1, which probably need to be done together, forehead/browlift was 320,000 baht, rhinoplasty was 178,000 baht. 498,000 baht total, or about $15,500 for "part 1." For chin/jaw contouring it was another 280,000 baht. ($8500.) Grand total for both parts, what would be considered "full FFS," about $24,000.



I'm not sure that I want to come back to Chett for FFS, though. It was great that I was able to get a price quote from him, and get his honest opinion on what procedures I could benefit from, this was my first FFS consultation so now I have a baseline, (And I really do think that one of the best aspects of Chett as a surgeon is his honesty and trustworthiness. After two Q&A sessions and two consultations with him, I've come to really trust his word and his judgment.) But I'm still on the fence in regards to which surgeon I'm going to seek FFS from. I've personally seen two people who got FFS from Chett, and both turned out well, specifically how flat and feminine their foreheads were afterward, which is why I was seriously considering him in the first place. But they also didn't either have major nose work done, and there's a girl here freaking out right now who just had nose work. And one of my other Chett-SRS friends is saying "you might be better off going to Facial Team," so I don't know. One of the big factors in that would be that Chett does FFS using the traditional hairline-incision method, and I don't have a very thick hairline so I'm scared that I couldn't hide it very well, whereas Facial Team does it using a much-more-invisible incision behind the hairline, plus they do hair transplants at the same time as forehead work, and FFS is their main area of expertise while SRS is Chett's main area of expertise with FFS secondary, so I might be leaning back toward them, but I'm not sure, I still need to get a consultation and a price quote from more FFS surgeons before making a final decision.

thanks for posting

A wise friend once told me, "going through SRS is like going through transition all over again."

I understand what she meant now. And it really is like that.

In transition, you get the elation of experiencing amazing new things that you've wished you could experience for your entire life. And this really does feel like that all over again... it's just like the elation of experiencing estrogen in my body for the first time, the elation of wearing feminine things for the first time, the elation of looking in the mirror and feeling feminine, feeling beautiful, for the first time... the elation of people calling you by a female name for the first time. SRS is just like that. It's the first time in a very long time that I've had that same kind of feeling of elation.

But just like transition itself, because of that elation and how it artificially inflates your emotions, you can be prone to emotional crashes too, like what I had a couple of days ago. When the elation of "I look like a GIRL!" faded during transition, I was confronted with the reality that I wasn't there yet, that I still only really looked kinda female-ish, that I still had a long way to go with my hair and face and developing a feminine shape. And because of that abrupt transition from an elation where everything is perfect because it's new and validating and exciting to reality, that reality hits a little bit harder and you can be prone to breakdowns where the exact same face, the exact same body that you were looking at in the mirror and squeeing with joy only the day before now suddenly makes you cry and have breakdowns.

In reality, things are good. You're happy with how you're progressing, and you're happy that you've become more like the person you've always wished. But because you have such a high emotional stake in what's happening, and therefore can tend to exaggerate the highs because they give you a taste of that perfection, it's hard to be realistic. You have to mitigate that line between "this is exactly what I've always wanted" and "OMG it's not 100% perfect, that means I'm a failure and I'll never be what I've always wanted to be." It's a vulnerable emotional time where you can be prone to complete 100% elation followed by crying breakdowns where it feels like the world is ending.

That's what you saw play out in this blog over the last couple of days. I was super-elated when I first woke up because I was experiencing not having erections for the first time, and being able to lay in bed with no floppy bits for the first time, and even just seeing myself with a vagina for the first time. But inevitably that "newness" elation faded. And I realized that there were a few things that weren't 100% exactly like my hypothetical ideal vagina, and so because of that "coming down from elation" state of mind, I had a breakdown because I started panicking.

In reality, I am VERY happy with my results. My weeks straight of elation are a testament to that. And today I'm back to being very content, and just relaxing and enjoying the ride as everything heals.

Ultimately, though, sometimes there's no way to stop it, this elation/breakdown cycle is just how my brain works a lot of the time. It's the same cycle that frustrated a lot of people back when I was writing my transition blog, that I'd teeter back and forth between "OMG everything is perfect I feel so good" and "OMG I'm a hideous freak" over and over and over again.

So, yeah, sorry about that. Like I said, SRS really is like transition all over again. Just like transition as a whole, it will pull every single hope, dream, and fear right out of you.

Also, just a quick FYI, I'm really starting to feel my strength returning now. I went out for dinner to a local yakiniku restaurant last night, then to Tesco with Mom, and I had plenty of energy left this morning to shower, go to breakfast, and we're about to go on a tour of the Dusit Palace.

Going out every day for multiple hours is becoming possible again, and I don't feel completely wiped out the day afterward like I did the first couple of times we went out to Seacon Square.

People have asked what a good time frame is for when you can conceivably travel comfortably back home after surgery... I REALLY recommend going the full 3-3.5 weeks. I can't imagine taking a 15-hour flight back to America in the state I was in last week. Now I'm finally starting to feel strong enough and recovered enough for it.

That means I should be about right.. I will have my SRS second day then home in 3 weeks...  Although its been fascinating reading your journey, in some ways I am more scared but in other ways you have enlightened me into what to expect.. I just want it over and done with.. It all seems to be a bit of a dream.. The realisation I am soon to have my own SRS is brain numbing..

Tess..

And here we are, at my final day in Thailand.

Now begins quite possibly one of the hardest parts of this entire process... the flight back.

I've had a couple of friends who came for surgery in Thailand, and every single one of them said "I'm not going to sugar-coat it, the flight back is hell. Make sure you sit on the aisle and make sure you get up and walk around as much as you can, because you're going to be in a lot of pain for a long time."

We've sectioned the flight off to try and reduce our air time as much as possible, so we have a 3-hour flight from Bangkok to Taipei, a nice long layover so that I can relax, and then our big flight is a 13-hour flight from Taipei to LA. And then we've actually planned in an overnight stay at a hotel in LA, to give me a chance to rest, dilate, and catch my breath before we do the final 5-hour leg from LA to Tampa. Hopefully we've planned this well enough, hopefully I'll be able to get some sleep on the plane, and hopefully I won't be in too much pain by the time we land. (Chett gave me some extra painkillers in case I need them.)

I'm able to sit fairly comfortably recently, I actually just had a pedicure last night (first one ever, by the way,) where I was sitting with no doughnut cushion on a seat for over an hour and a half. And although the swelling was a bit uncomfortable, and I kept my weight on my arms as much as possible, it wasn't unmanageable. Sitting for a couple of hours, switching back and forth between sitting on the donut cushion and sitting on one of my feet, seems to be a viable strategy for reducing sitting pain as much as possible and going long-term.

We'll see.

Not looking forward to this. But on the plus side, once we land in Tampa, I can FINALLY be back on my hormones! Hooray!

Off we go! I'll miss Bangkok a lot... I love it here. I really wish we'd had more time to explore than just 2 days before surgery and the past few days.

But oh well. One last delicious hotel breakfast, one last chat with the 4/5 other Chett girls all staying at this hotel who I've bonded with over the last few days, (more on that later,) and then off we go.

Yeah, the flight back was rough; I flew coach, but on the way to Thailand there was no one sitting next to me so I had a lot of extra room, plus I was excited about the trip and having my surgery, but on the way home, I had to sit with an annoying guy on the flight to Tokyo, and then another annoying guy on the flight to L.A., plus the added pain from my surgery (I didn't have SRS, but I still had a lot of gnawing pain from my BA and Lipo, and I was wearing a compression girdle), and the desire to be back home with my family, made it seem like I was traveling for a week!!! Try to get to Bangkok airport as early as possible, because it takes a couple of hours to get through customs. Have a safe trip. 😊

Carrie have a good flight back girl.

I have a question which I may ask you in a PM or email (if I still have it) later.

First leg of the trip is over, I made it from Bangkok to LAX.

The pain honestly wasn't that bad. Basically, I asked Dr. Chett if I could keep a few of the tramadol pills (strong painkiller) I had left over from the early stages of recovery for the sake of making the flight a bit less painful, and he was more than happy to give me a few more. So because I was taking a strong painkiller pill every 6 hours or so, I was able to manage the flight pretty well without much pain from the surgical site.

I had a bit of swelling, and dilation was really difficult tonight after having not done it in 18 hours, it was VERY tight going in and I couldn't get to the full 6" depth, I only made it to about 5 1/2", but in terms of sheer pain, the highest it got was about a 4/10. So after what I'd endured already during recovery, this was very manageable. The butt doughnut cushion kept me nice and comfy, I got a wheelchair ride through the Bangkok, Taipei, and LAX airports so I never really felt overexerted, and honestly I was expecting the flight to be way worse than it was.

With that said, I did have one super-miserable moment during the flight. Don't drink the water in the Bangkok airport. Seriously, don't. I thought "oh, hey, a water fountain," and took pills with water from that water fountain while I was waiting for the flight to leave for Taipei. Big mistake. About halfway through the Taipei flight, I started getting a headache and started feeling nauseous. And then after taking off from Taipei, I started feeling downright sick. My headache progressed to a "my head is splitting and every single word that the people around me speak feels like a jackhammer in my ears" headache, and the nausea progressed and progressed. Finally about 2 hours into the flight I threw up. And thankfully after that both the headache and the nausea were gone, so I don't think there's much doubt that it was the Bangkok water fountain that did it.

That was the only miserable part of the flight, though. Once I was done with my digestive pyrotechnics, the rest of the flight was only a bit more painful than the flight there in the first place. Mom and I got really lucky and ended up in a row with an empty seat, so I had all the leg room I wanted, made sure that I got up and walked a bit every couple of hours, took lots of bathroom breaks and took my time in the bathroom, washed my face, changed pads, etc, because I do agree that that's the best way to give your tired bottom a break after hours of sitting on the doughnut cushion, and I made sure to keep up with my pill schedule, and everything was fine. I got a bit swollen, but wasn't ever in much pain.



Anyway, stage 1 complete, final leg of the trip is tomorrow afternoon, a final 5-hour flight from LAX to Tampa. And then YIPPEE!!! I finally get my estrogen back!!! Oh, sweet little blue pills, I've missed you so much!

Good to see that you are on the last leg of your journey! Thanks for sharing your story with us. It really helps those of us who are looking forward to GRS in the near future.

And, there we go, I'm back home. (Well, at my mom's home at least. I won't be going back to Ohio for another month still.)

Thankfully I was able to get my dilators back to their full 6" depth this morning, so no harm no foul on going so long without dilating during the flights back, it didn't take any time at all for everything to snap back to normal. I still feel really swollen, and it will probably take a few days to go back down to where it was when we left Bangkok, but it's to be expected.

Final leg of the trip was easy. Southwest Airlines thankfully honored Dr. Chettawut's letter for me to get wheelchair assistance, so I was able to speed through security, plus take advantage of pre-boarding so I didn't have to wait in line to board either, plus got an aisle seat right at the front of the plane with easy bathroom access.

Take advantage of the wheelchair. Trust me, you won't regret it. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to try and push/carry my bags all the way through the airport, stand in the many lines, and do it FOUR times with all of the transfers. The wheelchair and assistance took something that would have been horrifying and turned it into something that was really easy.

I am so happy that the flight wasn't as bad as I feared it would be. So many people had told me that the flight back was going to be hell, I was terrified.

(And, well, maybe that's why everything has felt so easy for me... because I was preparing for the absolute worst, preparing for a hellish recovery of blood and pain and a flight of constant 6-7/10 pain, so it was a REALLY pleasant surprise when the pain mostly stayed down in the 3/10 manageable range. Yes, it was constant pain, and it wasn't exactly fun, but it was very much manageable.)



So, well, there we go, my trip is officially over.

It was truly amazing. I took a lot of pictures and videos, because this is definitely a trip that I'm never going to forget. And honestly, I am SO glad I went to Bangkok for surgery, because Bangkok is a tourist destination in addition to a surgery destination. Some of the things I saw (specifically Dusit Palace and the Wat Phra Kaew) are among the most amazing things I've ever seen in my entire life, easily rivaling or surpassing the palaces and churches of Europe. And the culture of Bangkok is so vibrant and alive, where there's a street market or a vendor on almost every single corner, and I seriously didn't have enough time to truly experience it. Bangkok is a place you simply have to visit.

(I bawled my eyes out when we left, by the way... I was so sad thinking that I'm probably not going to see that place again. [Also, my T levels have definitely dropped way further than they were pre-surgery, because I've never cried like that before. Every single little emotion was making me feel like crying, which never happened to me before on just HRT.])

I enjoyed your journey... It has prepared me to what is going to be...

Thank you Carrie,

You helped a lot of us who will be having GCS. This is an awesome thread. Good luck in healing and lease keep going with the thread.

So tired... goodness...

That trip apparently took more out of me than I was expecting. I slept for 10 hours last night, was still exhausted when I woke up, went back to sleep for an afternoon nap, and was still exhausted even after that. I'm not sure if it's just exhaustion from all of the physical exertion of the flight, or residual drowziness from two days' worth of taking tramadol, but yeah, I am really wiped out. Today is definitely a day for laying in bed and resting and recovering my strength.

I think that this is inevitable given the last few weeks. The body will tell us when it needs to lay low and rest. Think of it as time to refill the tank, as it were, and enjoy the down time.

Welp, bit of a setback just now.

According to my official schedule, I was supposed to move up to the #2 dilator yesterday. Obviously that wasn't possible given that I'd just gotten back from Thailand after 2 days of flying, and I was feeling really swollen, so I decided to play it safe and just dilate with #0 and #1 like I'd been doing for the past week and a half.

Tonight I finally did try to dilate using the #2 dilator (the instructions say 10 minutes with #0, 20 minutes with #1, then 10 minutes with #2, so that's what I was attempting,) and, well, no go. I couldn't even get it in. When I first started using the #1 dilator it was a bit tight but would still go in, albeit with some pain and bleeding. This wouldn't even go in in the first place. No matter how much I pushed, it wouldn't go in.

So, looks like I'm going to need some more time to recover, and I might be a bit behind on my dilation schedule for a while. What I'm going to do is go ahead and do my 2 dilation sessions with #0 and #1 tomorrow, then during my final dilation of the night try the #2 again. If it goes in, great. If it doesn't, I try again the next day. If it still doesn't go in the next day, I might contact Dr. Chett and ask what to do about it.

To be fair, of all the dilators, #2 visually looks like the biggest difference percentage-wise. #1 and #0 look really close to each-other, but #2 looks like it's WAY bigger than #1. So this is probably the hardest step out of all of them. But it's still a bit worrisome that I can't get it in at all, not even a little bit.

You haven't mentioned it so I figured I should suggest it. When you dilate do you use a mirror to make sure you are properly placing the dilator in the entrance of the vagina? When starting a larger dilator it's easy  to get off center a little bit and it just doesn't want to go in. I am currently using a makeup mirror and that gives me a good view of my underside. Before that I used a hand mirror which works as well.

Quote from: Dena on September 06, 2016, 12:08:00 AM
You haven't mentioned it so I figured I should suggest it. When you dilate do you use a mirror to make sure you are properly placing the dilator in the entrance of the vagina? When starting a larger dilator it's easy  to get off center a little bit and it just doesn't want to go in. I am currently using a makeup mirror and that gives me a good view of my underside. Before that I used a hand mirror which works as well.

Yep, Dr. Chett gives you a little Hello Kitty (appropriate :P ) hand mirror to use to make sure you're putting things in at the right angle and everything. I always use it.

So nope, not an issue with angle or location, it's just too tight.

Brassard's instructions and nurses both addressed "what if I can't manage the step up in size when the schedule says I should," because it happens a lot; the answer was "keep dilating at the higher frequency with the smaller sizes, and try again in a few days." Width is something that can be gained/regained at any time, so there's no significant concern with not being able to use the larger one yet, as long as you can still get full depth with the narrower dilators.

Plus, honestly, the swelling from the flights might take longer than 1-2 days to fully subside.

Liz, so good to see you got back home with minimum problems.  Your recovery seems to be going very well for you.  Great that a your last meeting with Dr. Chettawut went well, he answered all your questions so well.  I know you had a graft; was this material used in making the upper most part of your vagina longer where you had a problem dilating the first few days.  Where was the graft taken from, has that site healed nicely for you?  I hope you continue to get stronger after your big trip back home, traveling takes a lot out of normal person, so I expect you will need extra rest for a few days.

Welcome home.

Urgh... not a fun day.

For some reason dilation just got more painful.

I haven't changed a thing in my routine, I'm still making sure that I'm using a lot of lube and making sure I'm inserting it in the right position, but all of a sudden the #0 dilator has started hurting all the way in, (#1 doesn't hurt as much for some odd reason,) and I've had blood all three times I dilated today.

Swelling pressure and soreness in the entire surgical site has also been especially high today, I even had trouble getting out of bed because moving hurt. Clitoris has been super-hyper-sensitive, I can barely move and it twinges with pain. I've also had bloody discharge showing up on my pantyliners all day.

I'm still exhausted, but not as much as yesterday. A single afternoon nap was enough to make me awake enough to talk to people and do a couple of things. (Made my own breakfast and helped with dinner at least.)

I really hope everything's okay, because I haven't felt this much pain, been this wiped out energy-wise, and had this much discharge, since right after the catheter was removed 2 weeks ago.

I would strongly suggest you make contact with your doctor and apprise them of your procedure and check for infections.. also Thrush..

Tess..

So, the pain and the bleeding are still going on.

However, I'm still kinda in the ballpark of thinking that it's not a deeper problem, it's just overexertion. Now that I'm back home, I'm sort of out of the routine that I had in Thailand where lunch and dinner were always two steps away from my bedroom and a simple matter of heating things up in the microwave or just eating whatever dish Mom had grabbed from Seacon Square for the day, and spending the entire rest of my day in bed. My bedroom is upstairs, which means at bare minimum walking up and down the stairs three times a day for meals, and I've done a lot of preparing my own. Yesterday when the pain and bleeding started getting bad, I cooked breakfast, then spent a couple of hours cooking dinner with Mom, and in general spent a lot of time walking around.

Also, because the dilator wasn't quite going to full depth, and because I'm now a couple of days behind schedule with starting the #2, I'll admit, I started forcing it a little bit. I started pushing a little bit harder than normal with the hope of stretching the skin out. And most of the sharp pain is coming from the vagina area, with the worst of it coming when the dilator hits the very back where I was applying all of that pressure. (There's also a "bruise" kind of ache coming from the stitches and the clitoris, which I believe is very likely just from being sat on for 23 hours on the planes, because that's what it feels like.)

So, I think I overdid it. And I think that's probably where the bleeding and pain are coming from. I've noticed the bleeding is a lot worse when I'm up for long periods of time, while when I stay in bed the pain and bleeding does subside, and this afternoon when I take it easy while dilating and didn't try to force it, there was no blood at all.

I'm not ruling out that there might be a deeper problem, I'm going to stay vigilant and watch out for any abnormal discharge, abnormal coloration, abnormal swelling, or other symptoms of infection like fever. But for now I've had none of those things. All of the discharge has been normal-colored pale pink discharge, bleeding mostly just happens when I've been up and exerting myself, and there's been no abnormal swelling at all. (In fact, I'm finally starting to form a more normal-ish urine stream finally, so that's a sign that swelling has gone down.) Also, my energy level has been recovering each day since we got off the plane. So for now, I'm going to give it another day, take it easy tomorrow, and see if it improves. If not, I'll contact a doctor.

(Also, I don't know how much of the pain might be due to me being back off of pain pills. During our last week in Thailand, I was taking two tramadol pills every single time we left the hotel for any reason to mitigate the pain of being up and about. So this is the first time I've really been up and active and gone outside to run errands without the aid of tramadol, so I'm not sure how much of the pain is just from lack of painkillers.)

Things to think about. This hasn't been a fun couple of days, this is by far the most painful that dilation's ever been, and I'm still at a pain level and energy level that feels like I've lost two weeks of recovery progress, but hopefully it will improve.

I am at least going to send an email to Dr. Chettawut's office and ask them whether pain and bleeding are normal after a 23-hour international flight or if they're something to be concerned about so that I know.

Please do email Dr Chettawut. Before I left, Sri said they often never hear how patients have managed the trip home.

Dr Chettawut told me not to follow the schedule (they didn't have no. 0 when I was there). I was very tight and stayed on the candle and #1 for longer. He did say I would eventually get to #4 and he was correct.  I would wait each time until I had done about a week or more of trouble free dilations before I attempted the next size up.  The slow approach worked. Remember, it isn't a race and you are unique in every way. Listen to your body, don't let it get its own way all the time and trust your judgement as to when you raise an issue with Chet or your own doctor. Better to mention something than not.

I am almost 9 months post op and things are still settling down. A bit slow perhaps but it is my way, it seems.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Progress! Thank goodness...

This morning I decided to do an investigation to see where the bleeding was coming from. I took a bit of extra time dilating so that I could just hold the mirror there, wipe quickly, and then sit and watch to see where the discharge was coming from.

I wasn't sure where the blood was coming from before, because it showed up on the front of my pantyliners, but I couldn't see any lesions or blood in the clitoral area every time I looked. As I watched, it was very clear that the blood was coming from the vaginal area. So I suspected that it only ever looked like it was coming from the clitoral area because the forward-leaning shape of the inner labia was probably making the blood from the vagina run forward along the inside. So there we go. I knew the culprit was blood from the vaginal area.

Now, I've suspected that somehow the blood was tied to my physical exertion, because I was noticing that it got worse when I'd been standing, walking, climbing stairs, and other things that required me to exert force with my hips and abdominal muscles. So I started paying attention to how I was sitting, how I was getting out of bed, other things like that, and started using my arms and legs more to reduce my exertion.

It's been a slow process today, but I've seen some healing. There was less discharge this morning. I had some blood still during my morning dilation, but once I'd cleaned it up, it didn't keep coming. And then through the course of the day, with me deliberately staying in bed and not doing any physical activities whatsoever to let myself heal, the discharge has completely stopped now. No blood on my pantyliner when I just changed it, and no blood at all during my afternoon dilation.

The "dull swollen bruise" kind of low-level pain is still all over the place, and dilation was still a bit painful due to that swelling/bruising, but the discharge has stopped and the bleeding has stopped. So seems like I'm making some forward progress again, and limiting my physical exertion is seeming like a very good plan.


Hopefully I'll also be getting an email response from Dr. Chettawut via email at some point tonight. (His office usually takes a day or two to respond during the week, so either tonight or tomorrow.)

...And, regrettably, scrap that. The bleeding stopped, but now suddenly there's been increasing swelling, and an entire day of bed rest didn't help it, it's only gotten worse overnight. Dilation has regrettably gotten harder every time I've done it, and even the #0 hurts and feels tight. (Although #1 will still go in just fine, oddly enough.) Also, now I'm having an issue with over-frequent urination, that's another sign of possible infection, so yeah...

It's been four days. There's no way that this is just a simple matter of exertion or too much dilation pressure anymore. Something's wrong.

I'm going to go to a doctor or a gynecologist to get it checked out.

There's still been no discoloration or burning pain, and pain levels are still only moderate, so I'm assuming it's not major and can be fixed with simple treatment, but I'm still just REALLY REALLY scared that something is going wrong, and so scared that I'll be in jeopardy if I don't get it corrected, because this seriously means the world to me. I'd completely lose my mind it if the surgery is compromised.

I agree with seeing the doctor but if you have trouble getting into the office, you might try an anti-inflammatory like ibuprofen to help control the swelling. If it were external, ice packs would also be a possible solution.

Unfortunately, our American health care system at work...

Local diagnostic doctors won't treat me because they have no experience/specialization with SRS or reproductive health. Mom called her gynecologist but she won't see me either because apparently she doesn't have the ability to treat me if there actually is something wrong, her work is purely preventative.

The options I was given were either to go to the emergency room or leave it alone.

And seeing as how this isn't anywhere near major enough to merit a $250 emergency-room visit, I basically have no choice but to wait it out and hope it improves on its own, and count on Dr. Chettawut to let me know if it's something to be concerned about or not. (No reply yet, but it's to be expected, Ms Som is super-fast with answering any question she can answer, but direct replies from the doctor himself usually take 2-3 days.)

(grabs pillow, screams into it. ARRRRGHHHHH!!!!!!! Why, America? Why? You and your lousy healthcare system...) >:(


Please, God, just let this get better... and please don't let it be anything major. That's all I can do right now, is pray.

I'm not religious, but you have a ton of positive energy directed your way. And those who are religious are surely praying for you as well.
I don't comment on your threads very often , but they have helped me a lot. Especially from when you were in the "everything sucks ,everything is great phase" helps me know I'm not the only one to feel this way.
Now this blog or whatever has been a fabulously detailed account of what myself and I'm sure many others are looking forward to.
Stay strong girl, you've a lot of people rooting for you.
[emoji3][emoji8]

Oh, wow, I'm so sorry. And it's appalling that doctors will refuse to treat you; it's essentially a surgical site and/or a UTI, both of which are super common. (It'd be different if you were asking them to perform complicated plastic surgery fixes, but all you want is a *diagnosis.*) That's in the opinion of my GP, too - he said basically "it's all about healing and scar tissue, and I see that all the time."

I'll be thinking of you.

My referral for after surgery care came from my Endo as he had may patients who needed followup.

I don't know if it would help, but some painkillers, like voltaren, reduce swelling.

Heya...

As far as I am concerned, Australia's Medicare systems is worlds apart from any other country.. I have already apprised my GP, he is working with my Gender Doctor and will provide scripts for HRT when needed.. My GP already knows what I will be doing and is prepared.. When I check in with him after arriving back in Aus, he will check me out, check my blood pressure etc and monitor me.. All for free.. If I develop an issue, he will refer me to the hospital where I will be seen quite quickly and also for free... We Aussie will fight any government who tries do kill off Medicare.. 

Tess..

All right, so if the doctors won't help me, I'm going to do it myself, damn it...

Fortunately my mom was able to find a self-test for infections at our local pharmacy, so I'm taking matters into my own hands and doing a pee-stick test for elevated levels of white blood cells and nitrites.

So, hopefully I'll know very shortly whether there's genuine reason for concern or not, or whether it really is just swelling from exertion.

(And in addition to that, I did a thorough cleansing of the entire area earlier, and dropped the air conditioning temperature in my room plus left my panties off and am just sitting on top of a bed pad naked for a while in order to let everything air out and keep as much moisture/dampness off of the area as possible to keep as much bacteria growth at bay as possible.)

I hope the best for you. I have really enjoyed your updates. Good luck and hopefully its nothing but healing.

Pee sticks are for urinary track infections and most of the time they work but there are some things the don't detect. Most of the time when you have a UTI, it's hard to pee and you feel the need to do it all the time.

Another thought came to me and that is you should be looking for a surgical gynecologist. They should have the skill to look at the surgery and deal with any problems you might have. I suspect it is swelling and the best solution is to elevate it as much as possible or in this case, sit as little as possible and lay horizontal as much as possible. Save the walks for another week or two until you know the swelling is under control.

So, the UTI test was negative.

There was the faintest bit of nitrites that showed up on the test, but it took over 2 minutes to start changing colors, and therefore was not enough to generate a positive result, the box says "test after 1 minute" for nitrites.

My mind is eased a little bit, but I'm still stumped as to what in the world is causing all of this sudden post-flight swelling and pain. (And again, it's just weird because it took a day and a half after the flight to start hurting like this, and for dilation to become as difficult as it has become. It wasn't really until the night I tried putting in the #2 dilator and failed that the pain and bleeding started.)

Also, regrettably, no reply from Dr. Chettawut yet, so looks like I'm going to be waiting until Sunday night for an answer.

So, I'm stuck in the same situation as earlier today. Either do nothing and continue to just hope that eventually the swelling and pain will go away on their own, or go to the emergency room. (Which, the swelling and pain haven't gotten any better since this morning, but they haven't gotten any worse either, and there's still no signs of discoloration or fever or abnormal discharge, so I guess I'm just stuck waiting and hoping.)

Personally, I would not bother with the No2 until your situation becomes normalised. No point in trying to push something into a swollen hole. Take a nice warm bath with sea salt.. then try off your women bits with a hair dryer.. keep it dry.. do not force the situation by trying to leap before you have managed the smaller option. Seems to me the USA medical system is third world.. If I had issues, I can call a doctor for free 24/7 after hours.. If they find an issue, they will call an ambulance. I would be seen immediately on arrival at the hospital. Which is a very good one....

I really hope you are ok.. Relax, do not think about it. Take some pain killers and have a sleep.. ZZZZ

Tess...

I did my SRS with Dr. Chet in 2005 and It was the start of my rebirth.... I am able to orgasm... Dr. Chet, his wife and their assistants were beyond nice and when I have any concerns when I got back to LA they may it be paper stuff or medical they get back to me real fast... In the past they require a bunch of stuff to legally change your name and gender. I love the results and I'll do it all over again with Dr. Chet. The only not so desirable thing is that the width of penis that my vagina can accomodate is limited to average to below average width which is not the doctor's fault... I guess it is due to my anatomy being a very petite asian girl. My advice is try to advance to the wider dilators when u can or when it is tolerable already. I've dated a handful of doctor's including  some OB/gynecologist and none commented or clocked my vagina... Genetic females vagina varies a lot too.... Anyway goodluck and enjoy :)

And you will be more prone to UTIs no matter how hygeinic you r... I am a RN so I dont believe in those supplement stuff but I gave it a shot and never had UTIs again after taking cranberry pills everyday....

Dilating can be really painful first few months take it easy..... Swelling can be from a lot of things... Pain can also be from your nerves rewiring.... Is it fresh blood -bright red like the Target logo or brownish?If it is bright red u r having active bleeding... And what's the amount? I had a bit of blood stains before so that I got so worried luckily I stayed in Thailand for almost a month- Dr. Chet's wife came right away then Dr. Chet but it was nothing.....but you should go to the ER if it persists or if it is more than just a stain whether they r experienced or not with SRS bleeding is bleeding and any doc will know how to deal with bleeding! Plus d  construction of d vagina isnt that complicated not to find where d bleeding is coming from...... If it is brownish it could be from d betadine, skin sloughing of from inside mixed with d lube.... Hope you r ok.... Expect to have UTIs in d future and ur regular doc dnt need to examine u for uti u dnt even need to disclose that u r trans for just uti...a uti is a uti... They'll just prescribe u with antibiotics but preventive is always better....

Quote from: Miss Lux on September 10, 2016, 06:12:13 AM
I did my SRS with Dr. Chet in 2005 and It was the start of my rebirth.... I am able to orgasm... Dr. Chet, his wife and their assistants were beyond nice and when I have any concerns when I got back to LA they may it be paper stuff or medical they get back to me real fast... In the past they require a bunch of stuff to legally change your name and gender. I love the results and I'll do it all over again with Dr. Chet. The only not so desirable thing is that the width of penis that my vagina can accomodate is limited to average to below average width which is not the doctor's fault... I guess it is due to my anatomy being a very petite asian girl. My advice is try to advance to the wider dilators when u can or when it is tolerable already. I've dated a handful of doctor's including  some OB/gynecologist and none commented or clocked my vagina... Genetic females vagina varies a lot too.... Anyway goodluck and enjoy :)

That's probably because they have below average <sized> penises ... Genetic women vaginas are average 4-5 inches but can be stretched (guess that's the correct term ) ... If <GRS results in> 5-6 inches well dear their vaginas not going any deeper


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Moderator Edits for clarity

Quote from: TinaVane on September 10, 2016, 06:41:57 AM
That's probably because they have below average penises ... Genetic women vaginas are average 4-5 inches but can be stretched (guess that's the correct term ) ... If sex changes get 5-6 inches well dear their vaginas not going any deeper


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Personally my problem is more on the width of the penis I can accomodate.

Quote from: Miss Lux on September 10, 2016, 06:46:35 AM
Personally my problem is more on the width of the penis I can accomodate.

Hhhhmmmm I thought it would at least be able to stretch with width ... But I never bothered looking at how the operation is done on utube ... I tried but I have a weak tummy ... Just cut me open I don't need the details  Lol 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote from: TinaVane on September 10, 2016, 06:49:13 AM
Hhhhmmmm I thought it would at least be able to stretch with width ... But I never bothered looking at how the operation is done on utube ... I tried but I have a weak tummy ... Just cut me open I don't need the details  Lol 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am a nurse but I coulnt watch it... If I watched it I probably would not have pushed through with it.... Same here just do it I dnt wanna know d gory details...actually in d middle of d surgery I woke up and tried to sit up, I dint feel d pain and I dozed off again quickly .. C

Carrie Liz, if it helps, it's common wisdom that the swelling and tightness from it will set in 24-36 hours after the packing is removed in penile inversion; in other words, "delayed onset" swelling is perfectly normal. Since overdoing it with walking/exercise can also cause swelling, it may be that you came home from the flight, got carried away, and now are seeing a lot of renewed swelling. If that's the case, it *will* go away, but you might have to take it easy for a couple days. As long as your only symptoms are swelling, tenderness, and brownish discharge/slight bleeding, it is absolutely possible for there to be nothing wrong besides overtaxing your body and needing to recover.

Width can in fact be regained, so concentrate on maintaining depth for now.

(Oh, and cis vaginas can be stretched *to* 5 inches or so on average. In the "resting" state, the average is more like 3 inches. Since it's also impossible to get the whole penis in there - bodies get in the way - most average to largish guys will have no problem with 5-6" of depth. And if a guy's over 8", he already  knows that some cis women are going to have issues too. ;) )

So, when I woke up this morning it felt like I'd made no improvements whatsoever. Exact same amount of swelling and exact same amount of pain as yesterday.

I've been feeling ever-so-slightly light-headed since yesterday, so I decided to take my own temperature to see if I had a fever, but that came back normal as well, so I guess it was just because I took a tramadol pill yesterday afternoon because I was tired of being in constant pain, and tramadol does tend to make me a bit light-headed. (I still have like 6 of them left, by the way. Dr. Chett gave me like 10 more of them as part of my final prescription package before I left Thailand.)

On the plus side, dilation was finally easier this morning. The level of pain on insertion was definitely a bit less than yesterday. So hooray! At least something is improving. (And swelling might have gone down a little bit since I woke up, but it's hard to tell.)

So I'm still kinda on the fence in regards to whether this is a concern or not, I feel like things have gotten a little bit better, maybe, but it's really hard to tell. But since I don't have a UTI, don't have a fever, and vaginal discharge has still been looking completely normal, ranging in color from translucent pink to clear to slightly-milky-white-clear, none of which are considered abnormal, (no yellow, no green, nothing chunky, nothing smells abnormal, nothing that is normally associated with infection,) I guess I can still just assume that this is just swelling from a day and a half of prolonged pressure/exertion during the flight and due to me definitely not taking it easy for the first two days I was back in Tampa? I guess?

I don't know. At least nothing is getting worse, I guess, so I still don't really have a concrete reason to go to an urgent care clinic because it doesn't really seem urgent.



In the meantime, I'm still just taking a little bit of extra care to make sure I'm keeping everything clean, aired out, and disinfected, plus making sure I rest to conserve as much energy as possible, so that I don't take any risks of aggravating it

If Dr. Chet or his wife has not emailed you back try calling them if it will relieve your fears and anxiety, I did in the past; i called his wife Tair every time I had questions or concerns she's a nurse too. Buy a phonecard or something and call. If it is diluted pinkish in my opinion it is part of normal healing but go easy on your dilation but if is bright red it  is an active bleeding.

Carrie it might be best to seek either urgent care or emergency care.

Swelling's down a bit since yesterday, dilation was definitely easier this morning, and while there still is quite a bit of residual swelling and pain, at least it's progress.

I came downstairs and watched football with Mom and Steve last night, and before then I was really starting to feel better, but the swelling came back up a bit, so today once again I'm just staying in bed, and hopefully things will keep improving.

Also, fingers crossed, I should hopefully finally be getting a reply from Dr. Chettawut tonight in regards to how much pain is normal after a long international flight.



I just took the very last of my anti-bacterial and anti-swelling pills from Thailand yesterday, so now I'm kinda on my own in regards to medication. I'm probably going to switch over to ibuprofen now that the original meds are out. (You can't take ibuprofen at the same time as the anti-swelling pills Chett prescribes, since they have an interaction. But now I can.)

Hooray! Dilation's finally back to not being painful! #1 is finally going in with no resistance again, just like it was before we left America.

I'm going to give it at least one or two more days, but I'm finally going to be able to try the #2 again soon.

Hi Carrie, I've read that you should be very careful with hygiene, because if you get a UTI early on its very very unpleasant and painful. Personally I'd go a bit over the top with hygiene to minimize any risk of a UTI.

Freaking damn it...

I woke up just now with a ton of discharge on my sanitary pads, decided that maybe I should do another pee-strip test just to make absolute sure, and unfortunately this time the test was positive.

If I didn't have an infection somewhere a couple of days ago, apparently I do now.

Just great... :'(



(And by the way, I still haven't gotten an answer back from Dr. Chettawut's office after 5 days. I just got failed by the medical system in every way this time, and now I've probably set my own recovery back by weeks because of this.)

Oh, heck.  Time to skedaddle into the office of a GP somewhere, flat out tell them you've got a bad UTI and suspect an infection at the site of a recent surgery, and go from there.  You're in Urgent Care territory now.

Call your primary doc, go to an urgent care preferably ... You won't be seen in ER right away for UTI they triage patient's....  My first uti post op was really scary too went to the ER took forever so I left went to Primary next day antibiotic 5 days done....I know it can be scary because  of what if it's this or that and you aren't familiar with your new parts yet....  happened several times over  to me ... Cycle stopped few years ago after giving cranberry pills a chance to prevent but not  to cure... I never really believed in supplements before but I do know...

what you are seeing is the lubes and betadine plus fluds from the swelling which goes down to your napkin when you get up via gravity... Remember it is a closed pouch inside and the only way out is thru the vagina.... And ur lube is water based.... D discharge u r referring to is brownish right? But if it is puss or red well that's somrthing else... But every after dilation even in the future you'll see a little bit of pseudo discharge from d lube or remaining fluids inside etc coming out via gravity... Hope it helps a little bit.....

I finally got an appointment with a doctor. Apparently when this was just a vague "I think I have an infection in the post-SRS surgical site" the gynecologist wouldn't see me, but now that it's possibly a UTI and a vaginal infection she will. So I'll finally be going today, at 10:30 this morning. All I can say is urgh, this needs to be over NOW.  >:( (Or, in my honest self-expression, it needs to have been over with last freaking week. This is so frustrating after having felt almost completely healed for the last few days before I left Thailand, healed enough that I was able to take a 7-hour tour of the Dusit Palace, only to suddenly now feel like I've been set back by over 2 weeks, dealing with more pain and swelling and lack of ability to move than I'd dealt with since right after the packing was removed. And this has been especially scary because I can't afford any more unpaid medical leave, I only budgeted for 2 months out of work. And I'll be going back to a full-time job which involves sitting for VERY long periods every day only 4 weeks from now.)

Quote from: Miss Lux on September 13, 2016, 04:26:23 AM
what you are seeing is the lubes and betadine plus fluds from the swelling which goes down to your napkin when you get up via gravity... Remember it is a closed pouch inside and the only way out is thru the vagina.... And ur lube is water based.... D discharge u r referring to is brownish right? But if it is puss or red well that's somrthing else... But every after dilation even in the future you'll see a little bit of pseudo discharge from d lube or remaining fluids inside etc coming out via gravity... Hope it helps a little bit.....

I haven't been using the betadine solution yet. And when I spoke of "a ton of discharge," I was referring to both the fact that the stitches on the right side of my outer labia were very swollen and bleeding almost continuously, plus along with the blood there was a brownish discharge from the stitches, plus for the last couple of days my vaginal discharge has veered toward being more yellowish after having always been light pink, and it has a bit of an odd fermented kind of smell, where in Thailand it didn't really smell like anything.

...And, just now, about 15 minutes ago, after 5 days, Dr. Chettawut finally got back to me.

Quote"Bleeding can happen for the first six months post-op. For as long as it is not active/profuse bleeding, it won't be a problem.

To help prevent bleeding, Dr. Chettawut recommends you to use plenty of lubricant gel, stay calm and relaxed when inserting the dilator. Start with the smallest dilator and its ok if you don't get the original depth for dilator no. 2 at this point but make sure you always get the original depth with the smallest dilator. Do not force the dilators, take your time and do not hurry.

The hypersensitivity of clitoris come from the impulse of nerve from the process of nerve regeneration which is normal during recovery. This may last up 1-2 years."

It all sounds like a slight infection of the surgical site. I think that a course of antibiotics will fix the issue. It is very important to wash the dilators before every dilation with soap and water to prevent any further infection. Also make sure you wash your hands before every dilation and keep the surgical site as clean as possible. In case there is infection of the surgical site ask the doctor to prescribe you antibiotic spray that will keep the surgical site dry. Discharge is a good soil for an infection to happen. Many doctors recommend at your stage of healing bathing in salt water. It speeds up the healing process.

Also, cruel irony, the morning that I FINALLY get a doctor's appointment is the first morning in over a week that I've genuinely felt a lot better.

Swelling's down, pain level is down, the giant pressure-causing lump that was on my right outer labia yesterday which triggered the bleeding and discharge from the stitches has gotten much smaller, and I feel less tired and light-headed than I have on any morning since the flight came back.

I'm still going to the doctor's office, there's still some rather unpleasant-smelling discharge and I did test positive on a UTI strip just yesterday so it's still absolutely necessary, but again, it figures, cruel irony, the morning that I finally get a doctor's appointment is the first morning that I start genuinely feeling better.

Do u have fever? Hopefully it's not infected... If puss is coming out definitely an infection but if it's serous or serosanguinous - it's part of normal healing... If  ever u get prescribed antibiotics make sure you finish all of it even if it looks and feels better bec if u dont complete d entire prescribed duration of antibiotic treatment you might develop mrsa or drug resistance.... When i was dilating Early post op I was using condoms with dilators , water based lube, hand sanitizer all d time, aired my vagina with cool air blower after washing, peeing, i dont just tissue after peeing i gently wash with water or water and cetaphil, was cleaning d suture line religously etc....hope everything goes well..

Carrie any results yet? What did the doctor say?

All right, so I officially had an appointment yesterday with the gynecologist, and I am REALLY glad that I went there rather to an urgent-care place, because while she doesn't have a lot of expertise in post-SRS recovery specifically, she was able to tell me what the discharge meant, was experienced enough to know the difference between an infectious discharge and a normal one, she is indeed super-familiar with care methods for dealing with vaginal infections and healing, and she was able to show me exactly where everything was coming from and how to care for it.

So basically, first order of business, she gave me a fresh dose of antibiotics to clear up what looked like a minor UTI and possibly some bacterial vaginosis. (Or at least that's what the visit summary paper said.)

Secondly, she was able to show me that my discharge wasn't in fact a vaginal discharge, it was coming from the healing wounds all along the inside of the inner labia just under the clitoris. Basically she showed me where I still had a raw incision wound, and explained that this was where the discharge was coming from, but it's normal, it's part of the healing process. Then she showed me that there was a lot of white skin in that area, and she explained, it's part of the wound-healing process as well, the white skin will slowly slough off as it heals, and the discharge and smell were basically just a process of skin shedding. Some of the pain was because she could see a little bit of granulation.

The swelling, she said, was likely because I re-injured the area somehow. That might be why some of the insides were still so raw while the outside was very well-healed. So there's a definite chance that I split the healing skin back open somehow either during the flight, or through the limited pulling/lifting of my baggage that I had to do on my way to and from the airport. And that resulted in a situation much like the original surgery, where for the first day I had almost no pain or swelling, I was just tired, but then the pain and swelling started kicking in the next day and were at their worst around days 4/5 afterward. So yeah, the flight... 23-hour international flights with 4 layovers extending the time sitting on a freshly-healing surgical site even more are just simply not okay however you look at them. But the good news is it's healing now.

Now in terms of treatment, to cut down on the discharge / bacterial levels and to promote healing, she recommended that I start doing twice-daily sitz baths. (And she was really shocked that Dr. Chettawut didn't say anything about them to me.) Basically what that entails is just sitting in a clean bath full of a few inches of warm water, (salts optional but recommended for maximum relief,) and letting everything irrigate for a few minutes. Either that or get a showerhead with a gentle sprayer. Something to get warm water up there to irrigate the healing wounds and get warm water directly there. The warm water promotes blood flow and therefore healing, and the irrigation keeps it clean and free from the discharge-causing buildup. And then afterward she said to dry everything with a blow-dryer on cold, because keeping things dry will keep more infections from happening.

Last piece of advice was to, if I'm swelling or in pain because of swelling, use an ice pack for a while.

Also, and this is just me, but I've noticed that the brand of sanitary pads I was using in Thailand were a lot drier to the touch than the pantyliners I switched to right before we left, so I've switched back to the original brand I was using, and hopefully that will help keep everything drier.

Anyway, those are the problems I was having... wound healing, (the gynecologist actually said "nothing special here, just basic wound maintenance.") and keeping things clean and dry as much as possible.

Liz, I am glad you got into a GYN and that your situation is not real bad.  Follow the instruction she gave you as she is definitely experienced in GYN surgeries and what problem to look for when she examined you.  You are now getting use to getting into stirrups i expect.  You also now have a GYN you can call if you have any other needs in the future.  Good luck and hope your recovery continues to go well for you.

Carrie Liz, thanks for the update.  That's wonderful news!  'Basic wound maintenance' indeed.  I think most of us non-medical types don't have all that much experience with this sort of thing, so it was good to get advice from a pro. More things for my little pre-op planning guide... :)

Good news and I am glad you got some great advise. Thank you for sharing what you learned it will help a lot of us.

I'm glad you r ok... See all I said were correct hihihi ... goodluck and take it easy ;)

Things have improved a little bit, I'm probably finally now getting back to about the energy levels and level of healing that I was at when I first started going outside the hotel in Thailand, so, well, it's something. Still a multi-week setback that I'm really not happy about, and REALLY getting frustrated because this healing is starting to drag on way too damned long, I was expecting to be done with the persistent discomfort by now. But oh well.

The big news tonight is that since I've been dilating with few issues, no more discharge, dilators are going in without much resistance, (some pain, but no resistance,) I decided that it was finally time to try the #2 dilator again.

The bad news is that it was still too tight to really get in.

The good news is that this time I did indeed get it in past the vaginal entrance, which I couldn't do last time. I probably got it about an inch in before the pressure and stretching got too much and I decided to abort mission before I hurt anything.

But yay! Progress! I actually made it in this time, even though it was only a little bit. I have a feeling that just being able to get it past the opening is probably the biggest challenge, because once you can get it in a bit, as you do it more, things will slowly start to stretch and gradually I'll be able to build up to getting it in all the way.

There was a tiny bit of blood from the stretching, but just a drop or two, nothing even remotely close to the bleeding that happened when I tried to force the #1 dilator in about 3 weeks ago.

So yeah, progress...

Slow, grinding, freaking-darn-it-why-can't-this-stupid-recovery-just-be-over-already progress...

How long did you work with #2 before aborting the mission? I only use a dilator equal to your largest and it may take 2-3 minutes to reach full depth. I just keep a constant pressure on it and as the skin slowly stretches, it will continue to go in.

If you are doing it slowly, I suggest if #2 stops, leave it there for a few minutes to stretch out what you can instead of aborting when you have gone as far as you can.

^It didn't stop itself. I aborted because it was too tight, (a bit tighter than the first time I used the #1 which resulted in bleeding everywhere after I forced it in and left it there for a minute,) so I recognized the danger signs, knew it was going to start bleeding if I pushed it in anymore or left it in any longer, and pulled it out before anything bad could happen. But again, point is, even though it was super-tight and going to bleed if I left it in, at least the first inch made it in for about 20 seconds. Which is way better than the first time, when I wasn't able to get it past the vaginal opening at all.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on September 13, 2016, 07:00:50 AM
...And, just now, about 15 minutes ago, after 5 days, Dr. Chettawut finally got back to me.

I'm neither surprised nor impressed by that ...

It's great that you now seem to be getting on top of the infection Carrie. Here's to it clearing quickly and to happiness with your results in the months and years ahead. Hugs x

Lots of improvement today, and finally, a week and a half after arriving back in America, I'm beginning to feel back to around where I was healing-wise the last week before I left Thailand.

FINALLY.

My next task is trying to catch back up to the dilation schedule, and get the #2 dilator to become a normal part of my routine. (You're supposed to do 10 minutes for the first week, then 20 minutes, then 30 minutes before moving up to #3.)

Last night I was able to get the tip in for a few moments, pain was too much, I pulled out without forcing it. I figured as long as I'm making progress each time, I'll get there. Well, just now I made more progress. I got it the whole way in, to about 5 inches of depth. I set the timer for 10 minutes, but it was really tight and really painful, (this time it was exactly as tight/painful as the very first time that I tried to force in the #1 dilator,) so I was only able to make it for about a minute.

But hey, that is definite progress! I made it all the way in with the #2, and got at least a bit of dilation with it until it became too uncomfortable. And no bleeding, so that's a big plus!

And now off for my sitz bath... (which has helped immensely with discharge. I had almost no discharge at all this morning.)

And, one dilation later, I did it! This time, the #2 went in, and I was able to get it to full depth and do the full 10-minute dilation with it there.

So hooray! Real progress now! And as always, if at first you don't succeed, try try again. Every little step, no matter how small, means more stretching, makes it easier, more of a step in the right direction.

Great news! Well done. Onwards and upwards from now on x

You are now known as Carrie Perseverance  Liz.  Congratulations. Once again, thanks for this thread.

With warmth,

Joanna

I've been following your surgery journey since last month, and oh god. My heart reaches out to you and that mini set back you recently just had. I'm having surgery with Chettawut also in 2 months. So excited.

Carrie it has been 5 days since you last posted. How are you doing?

^Doing fine. My uncle's visiting, so I've just been busy.

Hi, Silly question but are you still having to force the last inch of depth in with your dilators or are the smaller ones going straight up to maximum depth. Only interested as I can use it for a guide on healing and time after my op next year. Glad your healing well now, please kepp the updates coming xx
Ann

Quote from: Carrie Liz on September 23, 2016, 10:15:26 PM
^Doing fine. My uncle's visiting, so I've just been busy.

When are we going to get a new YouTube video, girl! Lol, love ya  :-* I'm excited to have srs with Chettawut in November. Your posts have helped a lot in preparing me.

So, I think I'm pretty much at the point of recovery where a lot of people hit the post-op depression.

I'm not depressed, but I'm just really exhausted from the tedium of recovery at this point.

It's been almost 2 months, and I'm still in pain almost every time I'm standing, sitting is still uncomfortable, dilation is still painful every time (that last inch is just SO painful... OW!,) and although swelling is finally starting to go down to a reasonable level and my energy levels have recovered significantly I am still REALLY REALLY tired of feeling so fragile and breakable and unable to just live life without recovery pain.

Every single day, day after day, for 2 months straight. That's enough to wear anyone down.

I have to go back to work in only 1 week. I start back on October 9th. I'm dreading it so much because I know I'm going to be in serious pain sitting down for so long every single day on a full-time schedule.



Dilating with the #2 dilator hasn't really gotten any easier since the 2nd day I did it. I still have to force it in every single time, and the resulting stretching sensation was still painful every single time. And it didn't get any easier. After a few days where it got easier, suddenly it started getting worse, it felt like I was hurting myself more and more, little by little, every single time I did it, so after about a week and a half of forcing myself to use it, yesterday I decided that for my own mental health I had to give it up and go back to just #0 and #1 until I'm more healed. Because it was getting to the point where dilation was becoming something that I dreaded, to the point that I was actually skipping dilations because I was procrastinating and then falling asleep.

Keeping up with the 3X daily schedule has been REALLY difficult. My uncle came to visit for 5 days last week, and because his schedule wasn't attuned to my dilation schedule, I missed my afternoon dilation for 4 out of those 5 days. I always got my morning and night dilation in, but that afternoon dilation is just really hard to keep up with when you're trying to have a life. Where was I supposed to fit it in? Once we left the house, there's not much I can do, we're not going to just go sit somewhere for an hour in the middle of the day just so I can dilate. And I'm not the type of person who can wake up at 7 am every morning just in order to squeeze a dilation in as soon as I wake up so that I can get another one in at noon before a hotel check-out. I don't have that kind of dedication. My dilation schedule was always 11 am, 5 pm, 11 pm, which just wasn't feasible with my uncle visiting.

So yeah, this has not been a fun two weeks. I haven't been able to keep up, my tolerance levels for this ongoing persistent pain are running thin, and I really really really want to just be freaking done with this emotionally-draining recovery.

Ugh...




I was not expecting surgery recovery to be this difficult. I was prepared for a lot of pain immediately after surgery. I was not prepared for my body still feeling fundamentally injured/recovering, still dealing with constant 2/10 pain that never lets up, a whole 2 months after surgery with no immediate signs of the pain getting better any time soon.

I've cried a few times in the last few days because I'm so tired of hurting.

Also, my hair is still falling out. (My hairdresser said "yeah, you can expect that after any major surgery.")

I don't think I like surgery recovery very much... I'm glad this one is done, and I wouldn't take it back for the world, but I'm actually rethinking FFS because this is just taking so damned long, and taking so much out of me. I don't know if I want do this again. I don't know if a minor improvement in my face is really worth going through this kind of healing process all over again. I miss feeling healthy so much.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 01, 2016, 04:30:36 PM
So, I think I'm pretty much at the point of recovery where a lot of people hit the post-op depression.

I'm not depressed, but I'm just really exhausted from the tedium of recovery at this point.

It's been almost 2 months, and I'm still in pain almost every time I'm standing, sitting is still uncomfortable, dilation is still painful every time (that last inch is just SO painful... OW!,) and although swelling is finally starting to go down to a reasonable level and my energy levels have recovered significantly I am still REALLY REALLY tired of feeling so fragile and breakable and unable to just live life without recovery pain.

Every single day, day after day, for 2 months straight. That's enough to wear anyone down.

I have to go back to work in only 1 week. I start back on October 9th. I'm dreading it so much because I know I'm going to be in serious pain sitting down for so long every single day on a full-time schedule.



Dilating with the #2 dilator hasn't really gotten any easier since the 2nd day I did it. I still have to force it in every single time, and the resulting stretching sensation was still painful every single time. And it didn't get any easier. After a few days where it got easier, suddenly it started getting worse, it felt like I was hurting myself more and more, little by little, every single time I did it, so after about a week and a half of forcing myself to use it, yesterday I decided that for my own mental health I had to give it up and go back to just #0 and #1 until I'm more healed. Because it was getting to the point where dilation was becoming something that I dreaded, to the point that I was actually skipping dilations because I was procrastinating and then falling asleep.

Keeping up with the 3X daily schedule has been REALLY difficult. My uncle came to visit for 5 days last week, and because his schedule wasn't attuned to my dilation schedule, I missed my afternoon dilation for 4 out of those 5 days. I always got my morning and night dilation in, but that afternoon dilation is just really hard to keep up with when you're trying to have a life. Where was I supposed to fit it in? Once we left the house, there's not much I can do, we're not going to just go sit somewhere for an hour in the middle of the day just so I can dilate. And I'm not the type of person who can wake up at 7 am every morning just in order to squeeze a dilation in as soon as I wake up so that I can get another one in at noon before a hotel check-out. I don't have that kind of dedication. My dilation schedule was always 11 am, 5 pm, 11 pm, which just wasn't feasible with my uncle visiting.

So yeah, this has not been a fun two weeks. I haven't been able to keep up, my tolerance levels for this ongoing persistent pain are running thin, and I really really really want to just be freaking done with this emotionally-draining recovery.

Ugh...




I was not expecting surgery recovery to be this difficult. I was prepared for a lot of pain immediately after surgery. I was not prepared for my body still feeling fundamentally injured/recovering, still dealing with constant 2/10 pain that never lets up, a whole 2 months after surgery with no immediate signs of the pain getting better any time soon.

I've cried a few times in the last few days because I'm so tired of hurting.

Also, my hair is still falling out. (My hairdresser said "yeah, you can expect that after any major surgery.")

I don't think I like surgery recovery very much... I'm glad this one is done, and I wouldn't take it back for the world, but I'm actually rethinking FFS because this is just taking so damned long, and taking so much out of me. I don't know if I want do this again. I don't know if a minor improvement in my face is really worth going through this kind of healing process all over again. I miss feeling healthy so much.

i sorry you are having a hard time... im sure it'll get better

I have followed you on this journey from your first post. I feel for you. After eight weeks, I can understand your frustration with your recovery to date. My thoughts are with you. I hope to get my date soon and have thought a lot about what my recovery will be like. I am sure that you will turn the corner soon.

Hugs,
Kelly

Just found this piece of information over on another one of the Thai non-inversion surgeon's information packets:

Quote
1.1. First Month Post-operative

In the first month post-operative (equating roughly to the period one stays in Thailand with us under our care), patients are asked to dilate twice a day for roughly one hour. This is the early phase of healing, during which the principle behind dilation is simply to ensure that the vaginal cavity remains open fully.

After about a month post-operative, scar tissue contraction starts to occur, and it is this process that causes vaginal depth and width shrinkage, and when dilation becomes most important.


1.2. Months 2 and 3 Post-operative

During this phase, the need for rigorous and diligent dilation is greatest, and the risk of losing vaginal depth and width is the highest. Dilation is also physically most difficult. During this phase, we ask patients to dilate ideally 3 times a day... but no less than twice a day.

So, this is the one thing I have to say about Chett, his aftercare is way less detailed. They just give you the bare basics and then you're largely on your own information-wise. I'm kinda bummed I had to go scavenging the Suporn manual that someone posted online to learn why dilation had suddenly become more difficult like this. Now I know it's because of "scar tissue contraction."



I also stumbled upon Suporn's technique for dynamic dilation, which involves gently "stirring" the dilator's base in a conical circular motion in 3-second circles , and someone said "I found that using this motion while inserting the dilator made insertion much easier," and I tried it, and I definitely concur, the stirring motion makes insertion WAY easier and less painful.

So yeah, I backed down away from the #2 dilator because I'm very careful, so when something is hurting I get terrified that it's because I'm doing something wrong and actively injuring it, but nope. It's just part of healing. So hopefully now I can get the #2 to work again and just push through it.

Thank you Carrie for sharing that information. I will be very helpful.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 02, 2016, 12:59:21 PM
Just found this piece of information over on another one of the Thai non-inversion surgeon's information packets:


So, this is the one thing I have to say about Chett, his aftercare is way less detailed. They just give you the bare basics and then you're largely on your own information-wise. I'm kinda bummed I had to go scavenging the Suporn manual that someone posted online to learn why dilation had suddenly become more difficult like this. Now I know it's because of "scar tissue contraction."



I also stumbled upon Suporn's technique for dynamic dilation, which involves gently "stirring" the dilator's base in a conical circular motion in 3-second circles , and someone said "I found that using this motion while inserting the dilator made insertion much easier," and I tried it, and I definitely concur, the stirring motion makes insertion WAY easier and less painful.

So yeah, I backed down away from the #2 dilator because I'm very careful, so when something is hurting I get terrified that it's because I'm doing something wrong and actively injuring it, but nope. It's just part of healing. So hopefully now I can get the #2 to work again and just push through it.

this might help me when im recovering... thank you

I think I may have posted this before, but it sounds similar to what you're experiencing. Also plenty of info on Suporn's dilation technique.

https://www.the-ress.net/files/SRS-With-Dr-Suporn-2015.pdf

Carrie with starting back to work on Sunday you should be returning to Ohio in the next couple days.

^I'm flying back tomorrow.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on August 07, 2016, 09:20:54 AM
A bit late on the update, but it's been a busy couple of days.

...

I've known for a while that I'm probably going to need Facial Feminization Surgery before I'm remotely tolerating of my own appearance, but ultimately my genital dysphoria is stronger, and I've heard from a few friends that "I thought I was never going to be happy unless I got FFS too, but that changed after bottom surgery." So I don't know. I have very strong bottom dysphoria. Having my current anatomy is a constant low-key reminder that my body feels wrong, and it definitely adds to my social anxiety and takes away from my ability to feel like a "real" woman and feel like my body really is a female body at all...

This made me tear up a little bit.  I have felt this for 18 long years...  It does seem to feel like I've been alive forever, that my life started forever ago...  My body feels wrong to me...  Next Thursday, I see the doctor to see about "upgrading" my transition experience.  I've already started cycling on my hormones, not doing the constant-dosage regimen I've been on for years.  I'm going to ask that she reads the Wiley protocol, and I NEED to find a way to finish what I started, and I'm scared...  My sexual response is absolutely phenomenal, almost always has been, and I'm afraid to lose it.  I would not have anyone to share my 'gina with anyway, so it makes me question whether to have the surgery at all, since I'm not attracted to men, and I'm already 50.  The only other reason I would have the surgery is to feel physically complete, not THIS.  What's hard is seeing whether this is pressure to conform to the biological binary from Western civilization (I see this from an Indic cultural perspective, i.e., Ardhanārīśvara from Indian Hindu culture), or simply the reality that "Hey, my body sex doesn't match my brain sex."  I do admit to having dreams of walking around in public naked, and wondering why I'm naked in the first place, and always covering myself down there to keep people from discovering my biological sex.  It happens quite often.

I've decided that I'm going to attempt to stay on the cycling regimen for a year before deciding whether to go for SRS.  I can say that I feel much more female psychologically after starting to cycle the estradiol.  It was particularly strong during the first cycle, and then settled down a bit during the second one, and now, I'm at the base line estradiol level before the primary peak starts again late this week.

The major obstacle has been money...  I am deaf (not to "poor me"), and the job reality is that it is hard to succeed in the job market as a deaf person, especially for someone who is born profoundly deaf with extensive hangover effects into late childhood and adulthood.  I don't know that I will ever raise the money to have SRS.

I'm still reading through this thread, so I don't know how your thread here turns out (successful surgery and recovery).  If it did turn out successfully, congratulations!

Quote from: Miss Lux on September 10, 2016, 07:09:20 AM
I am a nurse but I coulnt watch it... If I watched it I probably would not have pushed through with it.... Same here just do it I dnt wanna know d gory details...actually in d middle of d surgery I woke up and tried to sit up, I dint feel d pain and I dozed off again quickly .. C

Even you won't watch it?  To this day, I refuse to watch facial surgery videos, even though I've had top-bottom jaws repositioned while I was in braces to fix an overbite and misalignment of the jaws relative to the skull.  This complicated surgery was the reason I was rejected the first time by a surgeon-ortho team selection; my case was too complicated for them to handle, so they sent me to one of the two top surgeons for fixing dental bone structure cases like mine, and that surgeon in turn sent me to one of his orthodontists.

I'm back home. And God, I am so tired...

I don't think I really noticed it as much while I was with my mom in Florida, because that entire time I wasn't really doing much for myself, I was just sitting upstairs all day, and I only really had to come down for meals. Not much cooking, no cleaning, no chores, no work.

Now that I'm back home, and I'm back to being autonomous, jeez, now I realize how little energy I have. I woke up about 2 hours ago. I have a lot of things that I have to do today. My energy level for actually doing them is zero. My main tasks are that I have to go to the post office to pick up the mail that's been there for the last 2 months, then at some point I need to go to the store and restock on food and supplies. Then I need to clean the bathroom and replace the currently-moldy shower curtain so that I can take sitz baths without giving myself an infection. And somewhere mixed in with all of that, I need to dilate three times.

Dear God, it feels so daunting. I don't even want to get out of bed. I barely have the energy.

This is going to be a VERY long month. It's going to take twice as much energy as it usually does to do all of my normal daily tasks.

I have to say, again, I am so surprised just how much energy this is taking out of me. I've never felt this drained for this long, and it still shows no signs of letting up. I really don't feel much better than I did a few weeks ago. Still tired, still in constant minor pain from swelling and soreness, but now I can't just relax, I have a full-time work schedule.

I'm probably going to be skimping on cooking for the next couple of months. Fortunately the casino has an employee cafeteria, and I'm going to be working morning shifts now, so I can get two meals a day from them and avoid as much cooking as possible. (Which, if you knew me, you'd know that this REALLY shows you how drained I am, because I love cooking. It's not a chore for me, it's usually something that I look forward to.)

Blegh... I want my energy back... I can't wait to finally be done with this and just be in a normal-energy normal-feeling no-genital-pain body again, but unfortunately that still seems a VERY long way off.

I'm still super-happy with my results, and I know I'm going to be VERY VERY happy once the recovery period is over, but this recovery is just so grueling...

Hang in there girl.  I had my surgery a couple of weeks after you and I started back to work this week.  It has been hard but you can do it!  Rest as much as you need to and listen to your body.

I didn't realize what you were doing or I would have warned you to move around as much as the doctor would permit. I remained in bed for the first 6 days after surgery and when I was permitted to get up. I would walk until I was exhausted and then return to bed for a nap. I had pretty well explored everything I could in the hospital and spent time chatting with the nurses as much as possible. I knew I would have a fair amount of walking in my return trip so I wanted to build as much strength as I could. Two and a half weeks out of surgery, I returned to work and though I was sitting, I found I needed about 12 hours of sleep a day minimum. I blamed my weakness on 6 days of bed rest but it's possible the surgery was more draining than I thought.

I am not sure the day you return to work but if it's a few days off, move around as much as possible and take the last day off to rest. With the catching up you have to do, moving around may not be much of an issue.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 06, 2016, 10:24:29 AM
I'm back home. And God, I am so tired...

I don't think I really noticed it as much while I was with my mom in Florida, because that entire time I wasn't really doing much for myself, I was just sitting upstairs all day, and I only really had to come down for meals. Not much cooking, no cleaning, no chores, no work.

Now that I'm back home, and I'm back to being autonomous, jeez, now I realize how little energy I have. I woke up about 2 hours ago. I have a lot of things that I have to do today. My energy level for actually doing them is zero. My main tasks are that I have to go to the post office to pick up the mail that's been there for the last 2 months, then at some point I need to go to the store and restock on food and supplies. Then I need to clean the bathroom and replace the currently-moldy shower curtain so that I can take sitz baths without giving myself an infection. And somewhere mixed in with all of that, I need to dilate three times.

Dear God, it feels so daunting. I don't even want to get out of bed. I barely have the energy.

This is going to be a VERY long month. It's going to take twice as much energy as it usually does to do all of my normal daily tasks.

I have to say, again, I am so surprised just how much energy this is taking out of me. I've never felt this drained for this long, and it still shows no signs of letting up. I really don't feel much better than I did a few weeks ago. Still tired, still in constant minor pain from swelling and soreness, but now I can't just relax, I have a full-time work schedule.

I'm probably going to be skimping on cooking for the next couple of months. Fortunately the casino has an employee cafeteria, and I'm going to be working morning shifts now, so I can get two meals a day from them and avoid as much cooking as possible. (Which, if you knew me, you'd know that this REALLY shows you how drained I am, because I love cooking. It's not a chore for me, it's usually something that I look forward to.)

Blegh... I want my energy back... I can't wait to finally be done with this and just be in a normal-energy normal-feeling no-genital-pain body again, but unfortunately that still seems a VERY long way off.

I'm still super-happy with my results, and I know I'm going to be VERY VERY happy once the recovery period is over, but this recovery is just so grueling...

don't give up now carrie... i love reading your updates... you can do this :) xoxo

Little bit of an issue to report. (Unrelated to me, but still relevant to my goal of providing an overview of Chett.)

A couple of the girls I met during my stay at the Vertical Suites and I decided to start a Chettawut support group on Facebook so that we could stay in touch and give advice to future Chett patients.

Basically, we wanted to create something similar to what Suporn patients get, where there's a group with hundreds of people who've gone through the same surgery with the same surgeon and thus can answer basic questions about what's normal and what's not very quickly.

Right now the group consists of me, Youtube's Cindy Fox ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXVZz-kNsjtMzFnLqxZ11Fw ) and there's 10 other people in the group who we were in Thailand at the same time as.

Out of those 12, 11 of us had uneventful surgeries with no complications. But one of the women in the group just had one of the scary kind of experiences that have been reported intermittently before with Chett, and which I personally dismissed as "nah, that will never happen to me, she just got unlucky." Basically, she had an issue immediately post-op with severe constipation. She took 3 doses of laxatives, and it took 3 days for those laxitives to finally work, to the point that basically the gates of hell opened all at once. And then the next day the nurse examined her and reported that she had perforated her vagina. And Chettawut's office is refusing to fix it because they say that it's her fault. She had to transfer to a local hospital to salvage her surgery and receive treatment.

This is something that I've seen a few times before, but again, personally brushed it off because a vast majority of people have such positive experiences. And it continues the pattern of when Chett is good and nothing goes wrong, he is very very good. But if there's complications, it can be a serious problem where blame gets passed around.

I wasn't there to see it, so I can't really comment, but yeah, that just happened. (To be fair, though, Cindy had an equally negative blame-game experience with Suporn just over a month ago, which is why she was at Chett's in the first place, so that's not an endorsement of any other surgeon either. And I do plan on telling that rare negative story about Suporn, which will include an insight into why Suporn's reviews are so high and how he differs from Chett, once I get the energy to.)

(I should also mention, the woman in question with the Chett complication is 70 years old, and complications are obviously more common the older you are due to skin thinning with age, but still, it happens.)

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 07, 2016, 02:31:54 AM
Little bit of an issue to report. (Unrelated to me, but still relevant to my goal of providing an overview of Chett.)

A couple of the girls I met during my stay at the Vertical Suites and I decided to start a Chettawut support group on Facebook so that we could stay in touch and give advice to future Chett patients.

Basically, we wanted to create something similar to what Suporn patients get, where there's a group with hundreds of people who've gone through the same surgery with the same surgeon and thus can answer basic questions about what's normal and what's not very quickly.

Right now the group consists of me, Youtube's Cindy Fox ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXVZz-kNsjtMzFnLqxZ11Fw ) and there's 10 other people in the group who we were in Thailand at the same time as.

Out of those 12, 11 of us had uneventful surgeries with no complications. But one of the women in the group just had one of the scary kind of experiences that have been reported intermittently before with Chett, and which I personally dismissed as "nah, that will never happen to me, she just got unlucky." Basically, she had an issue immediately post-op with severe constipation. She took 3 doses of laxatives, and it took 3 days for those laxitives to finally work, to the point that basically the gates of hell opened all at once. And then the next day the nurse examined her and reported that she had perforated her vagina. And Chettawut's office is refusing to fix it because they say that it's her fault. She had to transfer to a local hospital to salvage her surgery and receive treatment.

This is something that I've seen a few times before, but again, personally brushed it off because a vast majority of people have such positive experiences. And it continues the pattern of when Chett is good and nothing goes wrong, he is very very good. But if there's complications, it can be a serious problem where blame gets passed around.

I wasn't there to see it, so I can't really comment, but yeah, that just happened. (To be fair, though, Cindy had an equally negative blame-game experience with Suporn just over a month ago, which is why she was at Chett's in the first place, so that's not an endorsement of any other surgeon either. And I do plan on telling that rare negative story about Suporn, which will include an insight into why Suporn's reviews are so high and how he differs from Chett, once I get the energy to.)

(I should also mention, the woman in question with the Chett complication is 70 years old, and complications are obviously more common the older you are due to skin thinning with age, but still, it happens.)

brassard's girl has a group like that... GRS MONTREAL and im part of it :)

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 07, 2016, 02:31:54 AM
I wasn't there to see it, so I can't really comment, but yeah, that just happened. (To be fair, though, Cindy had an equally negative blame-game experience with Suporn just over a month ago, which is why she was at Chett's in the first place, so that's not an endorsement of any other surgeon either. And I do plan on telling that rare negative story about Suporn, which will include an insight into why Suporn's reviews are so high and how he differs from Chett, once I get the energy to.)

I'd really like to hear that.

Boy, do I have an experience to share tonight...

Yesterday night, my trans-guy boyfriend came over for a visit, and I got to experience a bit of intimacy with my newly-reconfigured personal bits for the first time.

WOW!!!!!!!!! WOW, WOW, WOW!!!

I can't even begin to describe the sheer night-and-day difference that there is between how things feel now and how they felt before.

I had some doubts before surgery. I'd wake up in the morning in a cold sweat on many mornings because my brain, for whatever reason, would get stuck in this sudden panic where the reality of how permanent SRS was would for some reason overwhelm me. I had some genuine fears about whether SRS really was the right thing for me or not all the way up until surgery. How could I possibly know what it would feel like? How would I know whether the feelings that I'd always imagined feeling would really be that way or not? What if I was wrong, and I'd end up stuck in a body lacking an intimacy that felt satisfying?

The main thing that kept me moving forward through those doubts was two things... first of all, I realized that I'd had those same panics in regards to going full-time, and also in regards to my name-change. So I reasoned that part of the reason I had those fears and self-doubts was just because of my fear of the unknown. And second of all, it was because I did some research and for the first time realized that what I personally had always known as intimate desire was NOT what everyone else understands to be "normal."

The second one is the primary one that kept me moving forward. Because the thing is, I suspect that a lot of us with strong body dysphoria don't really know what normal sexual desire feels like. Go look at a list of people's most common sexual fantasies. What I quickly learned from looking at those lists is that for cis people, most of their sexual desires involve either an ideal person that they themselves want to have sex with, or imagining a certain sexual act being done to their actual bodies. For a lot of trans people with body dysphoria, myself included, I never had such fantasies. Because there was a disconnect between my brain and my genitals, it actually kept me from being able to find fantasies of anything involving my actual body enjoyable. I actually had a lot of trouble figuring out my own sexual orientation because of this, because I just never felt sexual desire like most people feel. I didn't really want anyone to touch me down there. And I didn't really enjoy what it felt like down there when I did get aroused.

That is what my only two intimate encounters were like pre-surgery. Things would get close. But then I'd start getting aroused, and it would COMPLETELY kill my mood, taking my mind out of the moment and making it impossible for me to enjoy it because as soon as erections happened, my brain disconnected and started focusing more on the fact that I hated my body and wished I could have a vagina so badly rather than what was happening. Most people, once they get going, it makes them want to be touched more and more, to feel more and more good feelings, to get more and more intimate. I never felt that.

Tonight, though... YES, YES, YES!!!!!! I did!!!

It's night and day. This was all my dreams coming true, the very first time in my life that my desires actually matched what my body was physically doing. No erection. I FINALLY was able to snuggle and feel that wonderful feeling of my body being completely flush against another person's body, feeling their warmth right up against mine, and wanting to pull them closer and closer, to feel better and better, and I was actually finally able to let go and get completely lost in how wonderful it was because I finally didn't feel that disconnect with my body. I actually craved to be touched for the first time. And when I got that feeling of craving to be touched somewhere, I could actually be touched there. I could FINALLY feel that desire that I've always wanted, to feel someone's hand on top of my flat pubis, and to pull it down more and more... (EEEEEE!!!!! :D )

And did I mention NO ERECTION!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!
(And by the way, in case anyone is interested, I really don't feel any erection. I can feel my heart racing, I can feel those cravings inside that makes me want to be touched more and more, want to feel pleasure, and it gets way more intense when I'm aroused, but there really is no "erect" feeling at all. Not even in the clitoris. No pressure, no feeling of "growing," just beautiful beautiful internal serenity. :) )

I seriously cried. This was definitely one of the happiest moments of my entire life. For the first time ever, my intimate life finally feels fixed. I can finally enjoy it and get lost in it and love it for the wonderful thing it is instead of constantly feeling disconnected.

Only problem is, I'm still healing. So unfortunately going any further than touching/feeling is still out of the question because things are still a bit sore and painful, so clitoral contact and pressure on the top of the pubis in particular feels a bit uncomfortable even though it's simultaneously pleasurable, and obviously penetration is still out of the question for another month or so, but still, I definitely can't complain. I wish my body wasn't craving more than what it is presently physically capable of, but the point is, everything that I actually was capable of felt SO right.

So yeah... the primary thing that I went in to surgery to fix (aside from no more tucking and dysphoria while sitting/standing/walking of course,) has indeed been fixed. I can finally cuddle and enjoy romance and intimacy in peace. :)

That is wonderful Carrie Liz! To be able to feel that way, the way you always hoped, is super.  Dreams come true! Enjoy!

Oh, I'm so happy for you!  Body and soul, all finally aligned and working together. What a wonderful experience.  (And thank you for sharing.  May we all have such wonderful times ahead!)

With happy tears and hugs,
Michelle

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 08, 2016, 10:41:06 PM

And did I mention NO ERECTION!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!
(And by the way, in case anyone is interested, I really don't feel any erection. I can feel my heart racing, I can feel those cravings inside that makes me want to be touched more and more, want to feel pleasure, and it gets way more intense when I'm aroused, but there really is no "erect" feeling at all. Not even in the clitoris. No pressure, no feeling of "growing," just beautiful beautiful internal serenity. :) )

That's wonderful!! I'm super happy for you. Also it's nice to know that you said don't have an "erection like" feeling in your clit area because that's one of my biggest concerns. Also, I know you didn't engage in penetration, but did you feel a sort of tightness, hard feeling below your urethra and above your vagina internally? Or no? I hope I explained that well enough.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 08, 2016, 10:41:06 PM
Boy, do I have an experience to share tonight...

Yesterday night, my trans-guy boyfriend came over for a visit, and I got to experience a bit of intimacy with my newly-reconfigured personal bits for the first time.

WOW!!!!!!!!! WOW, WOW, WOW!!!

I can't even begin to describe the sheer night-and-day difference that there is between how things feel now and how they felt before.

I had some doubts before surgery. I'd wake up in the morning in a cold sweat on many mornings because my brain, for whatever reason, would get stuck in this sudden panic where the reality of how permanent SRS was would for some reason overwhelm me. I had some genuine fears about whether SRS really was the right thing for me or not all the way up until surgery. How could I possibly know what it would feel like? How would I know whether the feelings that I'd always imagined feeling would really be that way or not? What if I was wrong, and I'd end up stuck in a body lacking an intimacy that felt satisfying?

The main thing that kept me moving forward through those doubts was two things... first of all, I realized that I'd had those same panics in regards to going full-time, and also in regards to my name-change. So I reasoned that part of the reason I had those fears and self-doubts was just because of my fear of the unknown. And second of all, it was because I did some research and for the first time realized that what I personally had always known as intimate desire was NOT what everyone else understands to be "normal."

The second one is the primary one that kept me moving forward. Because the thing is, I suspect that a lot of us with strong body dysphoria don't really know what normal sexual desire feels like. Go look at a list of people's most common sexual fantasies. What I quickly learned from looking at those lists is that for cis people, most of their sexual desires involve either an ideal person that they themselves want to have sex with, or imagining a certain sexual act being done to their actual bodies. For a lot of trans people with body dysphoria, myself included, I never had such fantasies. Because there was a disconnect between my brain and my genitals, it actually kept me from being able to find fantasies of anything involving my actual body enjoyable. I actually had a lot of trouble figuring out my own sexual orientation because of this, because I just never felt sexual desire like most people feel. I didn't really want anyone to touch me down there. And I didn't really enjoy what it felt like down there when I did get aroused.

That is what my only two intimate encounters were like pre-surgery. Things would get close. But then I'd start getting aroused, and it would COMPLETELY kill my mood, taking my mind out of the moment and making it impossible for me to enjoy it because as soon as erections happened, my brain disconnected and started focusing more on the fact that I hated my body and wished I could have a vagina so badly rather than what was happening. Most people, once they get going, it makes them want to be touched more and more, to feel more and more good feelings, to get more and more intimate. I never felt that.

Tonight, though... YES, YES, YES!!!!!! I did!!!

It's night and day. This was all my dreams coming true, the very first time in my life that my desires actually matched what my body was physically doing. No erection. I FINALLY was able to snuggle and feel that wonderful feeling of my body being completely flush against another person's body, feeling their warmth right up against mine, and wanting to pull them closer and closer, to feel better and better, and I was actually finally able to let go and get completely lost in how wonderful it was because I finally didn't feel that disconnect with my body. I actually craved to be touched for the first time. And when I got that feeling of craving to be touched somewhere, I could actually be touched there. I could FINALLY feel that desire that I've always wanted, to feel someone's hand on top of my flat pubis, and to pull it down more and more... (EEEEEE!!!!! :D )

And did I mention NO ERECTION!!!! YES!!!!!!!!!!
(And by the way, in case anyone is interested, I really don't feel any erection. I can feel my heart racing, I can feel those cravings inside that makes me want to be touched more and more, want to feel pleasure, and it gets way more intense when I'm aroused, but there really is no "erect" feeling at all. Not even in the clitoris. No pressure, no feeling of "growing," just beautiful beautiful internal serenity. :) )

I seriously cried. This was definitely one of the happiest moments of my entire life. For the first time ever, my intimate life finally feels fixed. I can finally enjoy it and get lost in it and love it for the wonderful thing it is instead of constantly feeling disconnected.

Only problem is, I'm still healing. So unfortunately going any further than touching/feeling is still out of the question because things are still a bit sore and painful, so clitoral contact and pressure on the top of the pubis in particular feels a bit uncomfortable even though it's simultaneously pleasurable, and obviously penetration is still out of the question for another month or so, but still, I definitely can't complain. I wish my body wasn't craving more than what it is presently physically capable of, but the point is, everything that I actually was capable of felt SO right.

So yeah... the primary thing that I went in to surgery to fix (aside from no more tucking and dysphoria while sitting/standing/walking of course,) has indeed been fixed. I can finally cuddle and enjoy romance and intimacy in peace. :)

i hope ill feel this inner peace feeling as well... Ive grown to accept my genital cuz I didnt think id be able to afford the surgery.... then bam.... canadian government decided that they'll pay for SRS in 2008 i was so happy...

I am very happy for you Carrie. What you described is a dream come true.

Congratulations Carrie. You will soon be able to fully experience the full pleasure which you have always desired.

Now, for today; may your first day back at work be as fulfilling and satisfying.

First day back at work...

OW!!!

Relatively speaking, this was a very easy day in terms of exertion. We didn't even have a table for the first hour, and I got an hour-long break once we finally did get one, and I laid down between downs. And yet I still only lasted about 5 hours before I started being in severe pain and feeling like I wanted to collapse in bed.

I took an early-out from work, and now I'm back at home resting, so hopefully I'll be in reasonable shape tomorrow, but still... urgh... this is going to be a VERY difficult next month. I'm going to be taking a lot of early-outs. :(

People were happy to see me back, though. And it was REALLY nice to, despite the pain, be feeling a lot more secure with my body, not having bathroom anxiety anymore. And SRS has definitely taken a BIG BIG chunk out of my social anxiety issues. I really do feel a lot more relaxed around other people now, because I don't have this constant low-level anxiety where I feel like I'm hiding something anymore.

So again, I'm going to be super super happy once I'm healed enough. I just wish I didn't have to go through all of this pain to make it happen.

Hang in there, it will pass. When, who knows. My turn for that same discomfort soon. Hugs
Mariah

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 09, 2016, 01:24:34 PM
First day back at work...

OW!!!

Relatively speaking, this was a very easy day in terms of exertion. We didn't even have a table for the first hour, and I got an hour-long break once we finally did get one, and I laid down between downs. And yet I still only lasted about 5 hours before I started being in severe pain and feeling like I wanted to collapse in bed.

I took an early-out from work, and now I'm back at home resting, so hopefully I'll be in reasonable shape tomorrow, but still... urgh... this is going to be a VERY difficult next month. I'm going to be taking a lot of early-outs. :(

People were happy to see me back, though. And it was REALLY nice to, despite the pain, be feeling a lot more secure with my body, not having bathroom anxiety anymore. And SRS has definitely taken a BIG BIG chunk out of my social anxiety issues. I really do feel a lot more relaxed around other people now, because I don't have this constant low-level anxiety where I feel like I'm hiding something anymore.

So again, I'm going to be super super happy once I'm healed enough. I just wish I didn't have to go through all of this pain to make it happen.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 08, 2016, 10:41:06 PMThe second one is the primary one that kept me moving forward. Because the thing is, I suspect that a lot of us with strong body dysphoria don't really know what normal sexual desire feels like. Go look at a list of people's most common sexual fantasies. What I quickly learned from looking at those lists is that for cis people, most of their sexual desires involve either an ideal person that they themselves want to have sex with, or imagining a certain sexual act being done to their actual bodies. For a lot of trans people with body dysphoria, myself included, I never had such fantasies. Because there was a disconnect between my brain and my genitals, it actually kept me from being able to find fantasies of anything involving my actual body enjoyable. I actually had a lot of trouble figuring out my own sexual orientation because of this, because I just never felt sexual desire like most people feel. I didn't really want anyone to touch me down there. And I didn't really enjoy what it felt like down there when I did get aroused.

This is wonderful that your life is getting back on track in this way!

I have to wonder, though, what you say means for me.  It seems that what you say means that I feel like a cis female, even though I am MtF...  I have fantasies (as a cis-woman) with certain women who are born with what is seen as Earth human male equipment.  I've had fantasies about being a woman naturally born with the equipment I have now, as though everyone looks like women in that world, but half are child bearers and the other half are not.  You'd have to look down there to see who is which.  Anyway, the latter fantasies are nowhere near as strong or satisfying as the former fantasies of being the child bearer side of this race of people.  Nothing else works.  Not with men, either...  I don't know why it has to be this way, as it would make my life a LOT more interesting/fun (stressful, sure).

Thank you, all of you ladies, for brightening what is a scary path before me.

Hi Carrie,

Sorry to post here like this (actually my first post), but I've been reading your story for a bit and feeling so happy for you!

Actually I think it's amazing you're taking so much time to describe the feelings you're having about undergoing SRS. You're right about not everybody delving that deep into describing their own personal feelings about SRS, and I think it's a bit sad but it's also understandable. perhaps people are just too happy and excited to want to stare at a display and type ;)

Not you though, and I'm deeply thankful for that! Me, I'm looking at my SRS happening next summer here in Germany, where I live. So no Chett for me, but the one I'll be going to has got a reputation as good as Chett/Suporn: Dr. Schaff (yes I know "schaff" is the german word for "sheep", but don't let that fool you ;) ). Perhaps I could get a loan or something and fly all the way there, but why spend 15K if I already got the go-ahead for this german surgeon (insurance is paying it)... How did you manage this? I keep reading so many stories from US girls like yourself struggling for years to get things paid for... Not to say the situation here in Europe is fantastic, but at least we've got some insurance coverage when taking the surgery in our own respective countries.

But really, your story made me fill up with joy for you, and what you're going through there! I can totally relate to your feelings of the "omigod" fear/stress not happening, and how you describe how your emotions were when living up to this moment.

As far as the rest goes, I'll have to wait a bit though... Winter is coming and I'm sure it'll go super fast with my Master's progressing and my job taking up what little time is left. I SO relate to how you describe the "management" of having something dangling that's not supposed to be there, and how the brain doesn't seem to compute this weird anomaly. Perhaps we're on the same page regarding body-dysphoria being a prime drive of our transitions, but I do feel alot better already now that I'm passable and I can at least partly live the life I've always wanted.

Long story short: keep posting! Stories like these are exactly what girls like me/us (pre-op but on the home stretch) NEED to read, I'm sure! I can't stop thinking about that moment I'll be waking up after my anesthesia-initiated nap, and the life that'll follow afterwards. Reading about your experiences only makes me want it more, and helps me put things in order here. Thank you so much :D

Quote from: elineq on October 10, 2016, 05:14:41 AM
Hi Carrie,

Sorry to post here like this (actually my first post), but I've been reading your story for a bit and feeling so happy for you!

Actually I think it's amazing you're taking so much time to describe the feelings you're having about undergoing SRS. You're right about not everybody delving that deep into describing their own personal feelings about SRS, and I think it's a bit sad but it's also understandable. perhaps people are just too happy and excited to want to stare at a display and type ;)

Not you though, and I'm deeply thankful for that! Me, I'm looking at my SRS happing next summer here in Germany, where I live. So no Chett for me, but the one I'll be going to has got a reputation as good as Chett/Suporn: Dr. Schaff (yes I know "schaff" is the german word for "sheep", but don't let that fool you ;) ). Perhaps I could get a loan or something and fly all the way there, but why spend 15K if I already got the go-ahead for this german surgeon (insurance is paying it)... How did you manage this? I keep reading so many stories from US girls like yourself struggling for years to get things paid for... Not to say the situation here in Europe is fantastic, but at least we've got some insurance coverage when taking the surgery in our own respective countries.

But really, your story made me fill up with joy for you, and what you're going through there! I can totally relate to your feelings of the "omigod" fear/stress not happening, and how you describe how your emotions were when living up to this moment.

As far as the rest goes, I'll have to wait a bit though... Winter is coming and I'm sure it'll go super fast with my Master's progressing and my job taking up what little time is left. I SO relate to how you describe the "management" of having something dangling that's not supposed to be there, and how the brain doesn't seem to compute this weird anomaly. Perhaps we're on the same page regarding body-dysphoria being a prime drive of our transitions, but I do feel alot better already now that I'm passable and I can at least partly live the life I've always wanted.

Long story short: keep posting! Stories like these are exactly what girls like me/us (pre-op but on the home stretch) NEED to read, I'm sure! I can't stop thinking about that moment I'll be waking up after my anesthesia-initiated nap, and the life that'll follow afterwards. Reading about your experiences only makes me want it more, and helps me put things in order here. Thank you so much :D

Hi elineq

Welcome and I hope you enjoy your time here at Susan's.

Sounds like you have things well planned and know exactly where you are heading. I hope you enjoy your time here. :)


Things to Live By are links we give to every new member......

• Site Terms of Service and rules to live by  (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,2.0.html)
  
• Standard Terms and Definitions (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,54369.0.html)
  
• Post Ranks (including when you can upload an avatar) (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,114.0.html.)
  
• Reputation rules (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,18960.0.html)
  
• News posting & quoting guidelines (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,174951.0.html)
  
• Photo, avatars, and signature images policy (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,59974.msg383866.html#msg383866)
  

Regards

Liz

Quote from: ElizabethK on October 10, 2016, 05:19:18 AM
Hi elineq

Welcome and I hope you enjoy your time here at Susan's.

Sounds like you have things well planned and know exactly where you are heading. I hope you enjoy your time here. :)

Regards

Liz

Story of my life... 30 years old now and I've been doing this transition thing for the last 7. I'll continue that in another (introcuctory) topic (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,215242.0.html (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,215242.0.html)) :)

Carrie I am so happy for you.  Thank you for being so honest and sharing with us.

I have the same concerns and have never really enjoyed sex. I always want to be the girl and be made love to as a woman with the correct equipment. Hopefully, my GCS will make me feel the way you feel now!!!   >:-)

Love Jools x

Sigh... So it's not all good news in the intimacy department.

I think I've mentioned that I started dating a trans guy. And, well, things continued to get more intimate this weekend.

Everything was fine for me back when it was just cuddling and some mild touching. Everything was right with the world because it was the first time I'd ever been able to cuddle and truly enjoy it and truly get into it. And everything was right with the world when it was just some mild touching, slight titillation, and I felt that sexual craving of want for the first time.

Before SRS, the problem was that no matter what I did, I could never "want," because what I would have wanted was fundamentally incompatible with how my body was actually shaped.

Well, unfortunately now I have another problem. Although now I very clearly do have a want, do have a craving for certain body parts to be touched a certain way and to feel a certain way, unfortunately I'm not yet healed enough for those things to become a reality. As things progressed past the mere explorative touching phase, I quickly started realizing that the things I was wanting weren't pleasurable yet, they were just painful. And unfortunately, I did cross that line, many times, where I was craving to feel pleasure and yet I ended up feeling nothing but pain instead. It was really hard on me, because my trans-guy boyfriend was in ecstacy, and I wanted so badly to feel the things that he was feeling when I touched him, and yet I couldn't. The same touches that drove him wild were nothing but painful when done back to me. I actually broke down and cried because it felt so unfair. And, well, it hurts emotionally to have come this far, yearned for this for so long, only to still not be there, to still be unable to feel the one thing I've always wished to feel.

I'm glad that cuddling is so much better now, I'm glad that FINALLY my desires are actually compatible with what my anatomy is shaped like, I just wish I could actually feel the things I've always wished I could feel, and feel the things that I've spent my entire life seeing other people with clitorises and vaginas being able to feel, and yet I still can't.

(I will admit that I'm terrified that it's never going to happen, that I'm basically never going to be able to do anything but feel pleasure by proxy just like I always have had to...)

HEAL FASTER, DAMN IT!!!! And I pray to God that my sensation comes back... because while the area surrounding the surgical site is as sensual as ever, (inner thighs, hips, etc,) and while I've orgasmed 3 times in my sleep since surgery so I know I'm still physically capable of it, the most important part still might as well not be there at all. Because for now, touching it still isn't pleasurable like it is for everyone else with that body part. It's just painful and sore.

Also, I've had a bit of a complication with work.

Basically, because Dr. Chettawut said on my Return to Work form "limited sitting and standing," I've had to get another form filled out by him detailing what exactly my restrictions are. They wanted specific times and details so that they'd be protected under the ADA.

So, seeing as how recently it's taken Dr. Chettawut's office a week or more to get back to me every single time I send them an email, (I sent the form on Monday and it still hasn't come back, I only got a "we're working on it" reply after calling them on the phone on Friday morning asking them to please hurry up,) my return to work was short-lived, I've been back out of work for the last 4 days. (And since now it's the weekend, make that another 2 days.)

Point of advice, get this stuff done before going on leave. Make absolutely sure you have EVERY form filled out. I completely wasn't aware that this form even needed to be done, I got a phone call about a week before going back to work asking me "are you still planning on returning to work on the 9th?" and assumed that meant that everything was good, only to have this sprung on me.

I've made a meeting with my American doctor for next Tuesday to get my FLMA extended to cover these waiting-for-Dr-Chettawut-to-fill-out-the-form days, (or just to get the "restrictions" form filled out if for some stupid reason Dr. Chettawut takes longer than that,) so I'll be back at work by Wednesday at least, but yeah, this was definitely an extra week out of work that I was not expecting to happen due to a form that NOBODY told me I needed to fill out until 2 days after I'd gone back to work and then suddenly HR told me "you can't be here."

This is a bit of a problem, because I only budgeted for 9 weeks of leave. So every additional week I'm off, I'm losing not only the revenue of $400+ in pay, but also losing $200+ in paid bills off of the limited money I do have. I'm down to $1500 now, I don't get my first paycheck until November 4th, and I owe about $800 in bills between now and then. So every single day I don't work is REALLY pushing it.

Carrie the delay gives you a few more days for recovery.  However, when you return to work be prepared to perform to full capacity with no further allowances for recovery.  Don't give them any opportunity to take action against you for lack of performance.  You have come a long way getting where you are and can't afford to compromise your job.

Carrie, I hope the paperwork gets straightened out.

This is a very important point in the USA.

1 week and 2 days after sending the forms to Dr. Chettawut, I still have no response other than "we're working on it." So I finally just gave up and got my American doctor to do it. And this is despite me saying "this is urgent, I'm not allowed to work at all until I get these forms back."

So basically, my assessment of Chett's surgical practice is...



Early communications: Great. 2-3 day response time, questions answered, forms back quickly, all good.

Surgery prep: Great. Chett is a nice guy, and a flexible surgeon who will do his best to work with what you want, answer questions honestly, etc.

Surgery results: Great. Everything looks and feels good, sensation's fantastic, depth achieved, minor aesthetic nitpicks (which are improving with time) are my only issue.

Aftercare in Thailand: Great. Nurses answer whatever questions you have, great response times, they definitely look after you while you're there.

Aftercare once home: Lacking. Getting an email response has taken over a week both times I've sent messages, and if you have paperwork to sign once you get home, you might as well forget it. If you have ANY major concerns, things that need addressed immediately, I'd just recommend getting a doctor in your home town to do it. Chett will answer questions when you ask, so it's not like he's ignoring you, it's just that it takes a LONG time to get replies. He definitely prioritizes those who are scheduling surgery and currently in care for surgery over those who are asking post-op questions.

Carrie you no longer owe him money so you are low on his priority list.

I suspect that may be true of most of the surgeons because as my date has gotten closer communication has increased and improved. Hugs
Mariah

Quote from: mac1 on October 19, 2016, 06:33:08 PM
Carrie you no longer owe him money so you are low on his priority list.

Quote from: mac1 on October 19, 2016, 06:33:08 PM
Carrie you no longer owe him money so you are low on his priority list.

Hmm, that's my feeling as well. Chett is a surgeon, for sure. But he's also a businessman, unfortunately, and GCS is BIG business in Thailand :(

All right, finally! I got my forms back, my American doctor filled out my leave extension to cover the 10 days of work I missed, and Chett just sent me back the details of my working restrictions (basically just no sitting or standing for more than 2 hours straight without at least a 15-minute break,) and I should be back to work this Saturday unless yet another unforeseen issue comes up.

Again, just to clarify, every single time I've asked Chett a question through email, I've gotten a thorough and satisfactory answer. It's just that it's taken a while.

Also, since I haven't officially written the whole spiel about the differences between Chett and Suporn, this right here is actually probably the biggest difference between them according to both Cindy Fox and my other Australian trans friend. Both of them said that Suporn's aftercare is VASTLY superior. You're in the recovery center for a week rather than 3 days, you get a VERY detailed information packet that addresses most (if not all) common concerns, and then after that there's a large active Facebook group containing 400+ post-op trans women who've all been through that same surgeon's procedure, so you can get answers to any questions basically immediately, without having to ask the clinic directly and therefore without having to wait for the doctor to find time out of his busy schedule. This post-op group is also why Suporn has almost no negative reviews, because the group simply does NOT let them happen. They guide people through recovery issues, and usually get anyone who's not satisfied to schedule a revision before they think of writing a negative review. Chett has no such group guarding his reputation. In case it's not obvious, the internet has dragged his name through the dirt. (Unfairly, if I personally say so.) But at the same time, lacking that group, and therefore lacking that same access to information, (which is only exacerbated because the aftercare instructions he gives are very summarized and bare-bones rather than detailed,) can make getting answers to questions/concerns in a timely fashion a very frustrating thing.

Also, and I'll talk about this more later, Cindy and I started our own Chett Facebook group, because we want Chett patients to have that same access to a pool of experience and knowledge that Suporn patients get. We started a group with the 12 people we met at the Vertical Suites and Dusit Princess while we were still in Thailand, and have asked those who were there longer than us to keep inviting new members to the group.

This group is ONLY for Chett patients and family/friends of those patients, it's a closed non-public group purely for support and information, we want to make absolute sure that no ->-bleeped-<-s or people who aren't serious get in to the group, but if anyone has surgery scheduled with Chett and would like to join the group, PM me and let me know. There aren't any members who've been post-op more than about 2 months, but it's better than nothing. We've been comparing recoveries back and forth to make sure everything is normal, so that's been nice to have.

Anyway, I don't know where I was going with this, it's just part of the big Chett vs. Suporn post I've been meaning to make for a while now.

So, physical sensations right now, it's basically still the same. The persistent minor-discomfort sensation hasn't left me yet, I can still feel low levels of pain almost constantly.

Comparing notes with the rest of the Chett girls who are 2 months post-op as well, not everyone is experiencing this same pain, but a couple are. My Australian friend described the sensation she feels as the following: "My bits just feel like they are tucked all the time, like a hand is pressing down on my labia and clitoris." And that's basically exactly what I'm currently feeling all the time.

I also asked if anyone had stopped feeling clitoral pain yet, but the best response so far was "light touching of the skin feels kind of good, but not climax-able," as well as the other two answers "It's still a healing wound for now. It will be a sexual organ again after 4 months or so," and finally "still pretty sore too. I was just starting to get concerned about it myself, but well, now it sounds like it's pretty normal."

So yeah, the 2-month healing mark, there's still low levels of pain across the board for everyone. And although good feelings are starting to return for most of us, explorative sexy-time seems to still be off the table.

As a final note, once again comparing to everyone else's recovery, I'm currently the furthest behind in terms of dilation.

Everyone else has moved up to the #3 by now, I'm still stuck having trouble getting the #2 in every time I use it. (Part of this is my fault, because I've had a really hard time keeping up with the prescribed schedule, I've ended up only doing 2 dilations way more often than 3 due to complications with work and life and dating making it really hard to find the time to do the afternoon session.) One thing that surprised me is that everyone else was going above and beyond their prescribed dilation times. The official chart says that you only need 10 minutes with the #2 dilator during the first week out of a total 40-minute session. Other people have been doing as much as 90 minutes per session. They say it helped stretch everything out much easier.

So yeah, right now I'm the only one lagging behind, I'm still a LONG way from getting the #3 dilator in (if it will ever go in at all. I have serious doubts, because I've been using the #2 dilator for almost a month now and it still hasn't gotten any easier,) while everyone else has long since moved up there.

Not a big deal, I'm maintaining depth, and I'm not exactly planning on having penetrative sex any time soon, the clitoris/labia area was really what this surgery was about for me, but whatever, just sharing for frame of reference.

Really great posts. I'm curious, did you get a chance to compare the results between Suporn and Chettawut?

The Suporn recovery center where you spend 7 days is Aikchol hospital, after which you go back to the hotel.

Quote from: AnonyMs on October 20, 2016, 05:06:45 AM
Really great posts. I'm curious, did you get a chance to compare the results between Suporn and Chettawut?

The Suporn recovery center where you spend 7 days is Aikchol hospital, after which you go back to the hotel.

I didn't get to personally compare, because neither Cindy nor the Australian girl actually got surgery from Suporn. Cindy was scheduled with Suporn and then got ejected from the clinic when she took some unprescribed pain-killers the day of her surgery which would have interfered with the anesthetic, and the Australian girl just knows a couple of Suporn patients personally.

I have, however, been comparing recovery photos. I've seen two Suporn patients who posted week-by-week recovery pictures, and two of the other Chett girls posted pictures for the sake of comparison. So I can say, there are definitely noticeable differences in technique, specifically with how the inner labia is constructed. Both Chett and Suporn use a scrotal skin mesh to create the vagina, so I'd say their vaginal-creation technique is functionally the same, with the only difference being that Suporn meshes and grafts the skin a bit more, so Suporn's technique tends to result in a little bit more average depth, but also a more difficult/painful recovery compared to Chett. The big difference, though, is in how both surgeons construct the inner labia. Chett's inner labia looks completely different. In Suporn, there is a VERY defined inner labia which stretches all the way from the clitoris down past the sides of the vagina, and every recovery picture I've seen from Suporn has a prominent inner labia like this with stitches running down the peak on both sides. With Chett, the inner labia is very tight at first, and there aren't stitches running down it, so it's clear that he uses a very different technique. There isn't as clear of a defined line separating inner labia from outer with Chett.

I really don't think one is necessarily superior to the other. It's a matter of personal preference. If someone wants more depth, Suporn is objectively better, he can get results as deep as 6.5-7.5 inches consistently, while every single one of Chett's patients that I know got 6". (I don't personally care, to me 6" is more than enough, I actually think anything beyond that is overkill since the average guy is only 5.5" and it's impossible to get it all in during sex anyway because pelvises don't fit perfectly together like that.) External appearance, it's just a preference thing. Suporn's inner labia is more prominent, Chett's is tighter. I personally like how Chett's completely-healed labia results look, and that's actually why I chose him, but other people have had problems with it, and I do think mine might maybe be a little bit tight, but again, just depends what you want.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 20, 2016, 04:54:12 AMEveryone else has moved up to the #3 by now, I'm still stuck having trouble getting the #2 in every time I use it. (Part of this is my fault, because I've had a really hard time keeping up with the prescribed schedule, I've ended up only doing 2 dilations way more often than 3 due to complications with work and life and dating making it really hard to find the time to do the afternoon session.) One thing that surprised me is that everyone else was going above and beyond their prescribed dilation times. The official chart says that you only need 10 minutes with the #2 dilator during the first week out of a total 40-minute session. Other people have been doing as much as 90 minutes per session. They say it helped stretch everything out much easier.

Carrie Liz, I don't know if it would have anything to do with it, but an unexpected effect from cycling my estradiol only (started progesterone cycling for the first time on Sunday in cycle 3) is that my foreskin stretches a lot now and I can pull it back a lot more easily, whereas before it was tight and took some effort to do so.  You may look into that.

Hi Carrie,

I've not seen enough Chettawut results to get a feel for his style, but I get what you're seeing about Suporn. There's a definite look to this work. It sounds like you're describing early post op, and Suporns's results do change significantly over time. What they look like after a year is very little like they do early on. I guess there must be heaps of swelling and its takes a while to go down.

From your description its sounds like Suporn leaves larger labia, which would make sense as he tries to keep as much as possible. Some people don't like that.

I think one reason Suporn has such a following is that his patients all stay in the same hotel and it fosters a strong community. Lots of people have a great time there because of it, and that follows on afterwards. By having several hotels Dr Chettawut weakens this effect. A happy accident for Suporn I suspect.

Quote from: Mohini on October 20, 2016, 01:37:01 PM
Carrie Liz, I don't know if it would have anything to do with it, but an unexpected effect from cycling my estradiol only (started progesterone cycling for the first time on Sunday in cycle 3) is that my foreskin stretches a lot now and I can pull it back a lot more easily, whereas before it was tight and took some effort to do so.  You may look into that.

I've never heard of anyone cycling estrogen. I think that would drive me crazy.

Quote from: AnonyMs on October 20, 2016, 01:57:16 PM
I think one reason Suporn has such a following is that his patients all stay in the same hotel and it fosters a strong community. Lots of people have a great time there because of it, and that follows on afterwards. By having several hotels Dr Chettawut weakens this effect. A happy accident for Suporn I suspect.

I definitely have something to say about this, but again, I need to take the time to sit down and transcribe everything that Cindy told me about her time at Suporn's clinic.

Basically, yes, Suporn has a community and the post-op experience is VASTLY superior in terms of socializing, comparing, and getting group support. You eat breakfast with everyone, you talk to everyone, and there's a large group to help you with concerns. Chett's recovery experience is largely being alone in a hotel all the time, and having no group to ask questions to. (And yeah, that large post-op recovery group is why Suporn's reviews are so much higher than Chett's. Suporn's group actively quells anyone with problems, while with Chett there's no such effort, people are basically free to post whatever negative things they want when something goes wrong.)

I feel like I'm finally starting to heal to the point where my normal daily routine isn't a grinding slog of constant pain.

I had a super-busy weekend. This weekend was Kaladesh Game Day, so I've been playing Magic tournaments every single day since Friday, which doesn't leave me a whole lot of time to rest between 6+ hour work shifts and 5-hour Magic tournaments, but honestly I've done pretty well. After 3 days of that, I was actually still able to work my full 8-hour shift today, plus still had the energy to play in yet another tournament tonight, and I'm not in much pain.

FINALLY.

Maybe my mom was right, maybe the key really was to push myself a little bit, to be up and out of bed and force my blood to get flowing, instead of the method that I've been using which was basically to stay in bed as much as possible and expend as little energy as possible.

Work still hurts a bit, there's no two ways around the fact that being in a dealer chair where you're constantly having reach and grab and shift positions while sitting for 1 hour at a time still hurts. I still tend to be in a bit of pain when I'm getting close to time for my breaks. But it hasn't been lasting as long, and doesn't have the same net super-energy-draining effect that it did the very first week that I was back.

Dilation has also finally gotten a bit easier again over the last few days. Inserting the #2 dilator is finally getting reasonably easy, and I've been doing 20 minutes consistently for the last week or so without the pain issues I had before. I might consider trying the #3 dilator some time in the next week-ish.


Right now in terms of my recovery, the only concern that I have is that there's a couple of strange little "fingers" of flesh around my urethral opening that have gotten a little bit more prominent over the last few weeks. I'm not sure what they are or where they came from, but basically they're just little protrusions of reddish skin, maybe 3-4 millimeters long, that stick out from around the urethral opening. I'm not sure how they got there, but I noticed the first ones about halfway through my recovery period in Tampa last month, and then about 2 weeks ago all of a sudden a couple more seemed to appear. (About the time that my boyfriend visited.) They almost look like the flesh around my urethra was somehow squeezed through the stitches on the inside, leaving raw tissue jutting out. So, I don't know, I'm actually kind of afraid that it's because I got aroused too early in recovery? Because I tell you, when my boyfriend was here, and I was experiencing all these desires that I've never felt for the first time, I was REALLY REALLY in to it. Neither of us touched anything, but I'm scared that somehow the internal pressure from being aroused for so long while we were snuggling caused some of the skin to be forced out. I don't know. It's a moderate concern, something that makes me worry a bit, but it's probably isn't a huge deal. It's not like it hurts or looks like an infection or anything, it's just an aesthetics/function worry.

I am not sure but from your description, it sounds like proud flesh or granulation. It's tissue that over healed and can be a problem if it doesn't clear up on it's own. It may be time for you to get a bottom inspection and if it's what I think it is, it will be treated in the office. If left untreated, it may become a problem when you dilate.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 24, 2016, 08:34:20 PM
Right now in terms of my recovery, the only concern that I have is that there's a couple of strange little "fingers" of flesh around my urethral opening that have gotten a little bit more prominent over the last few weeks. I'm not sure what they are or where they came from, but basically they're just little protrusions of reddish skin, maybe 3-4 millimeters long, that stick out from around the urethral opening. I'm not sure how they got there, but I noticed the first ones about halfway through my recovery period in Tampa last month, and then about 2 weeks ago all of a sudden a couple more seemed to appear. (About the time that my boyfriend visited.) They almost look like the flesh around my urethra was somehow squeezed through the stitches on the inside, leaving raw tissue jutting out.

I know someone who had what you describe, although worse than yours by the sounds of it. It wasn't granulation. They did slowly get smaller and were removed as part of a revision.

I finally tried the #3 dilator tonight, and I may be about a month late on it, but it worked!

It went all the way in on the very first try, to full depth, (I used the #2 for 30 minutes before trying it to make sure everything was thoroughly primed for maximal stretching,) and it feels about the same as the #2 did the first time I got it all the way in.

So hooray! I've made progress!

(And honestly I'm in no hurry to make it up to the #4 dilator. That thing is scary. :P )

*
Allow these two contributions to the post-op experience:

     -  Your post-op diet should continue your in-patient diet.  Limit foods to light fare such as soup, broth, fruits, and vegetables.  Constipation strains your new surgery area; consume nothing heavy such as meats and breads that cause constipation.  You have been on medication that stopt your bowel function.  Remain carefull of your food until you normally and naturally restore your function.

     -  Consider your dilation schedules are minimum times.  I will certainly not suggest from afar that anyone violate your program or your doctor's orders.  Unless you have a complication that otherwise prevents you, consider adding extra time if you so desire.  Use your time to explore your new anatomy.  Test your muscles; get to know that you likely have entry, mid, and deep muscles with different capabilities.  Tense; relax.  Flow in; flow out.  Take deep breaths, hold your breath, exhale.

Wherever one travels, know that your medical team is bound by confidentiality obligations.  They are prohibited from disclosing your presence to anyone and everyone without your express permission.  You must specifically authorize your medical team to release whatever information you wish they divulge to whom you choose.  Otherwise, you could be in the next room and not know the other person ever existed.

Dr. Chettawut patients who recover at Baan Siri Cottages have that bonding experience, too, among fellow patients, family, companions.  They all meet and socialise in the closeness of the accommodation along T Alley.

Forming patient companionship groups - whether during your pre-op or post-op days - is up to you the individual patient and for your benefit.  Dr. Chettawut held regular re-unions in the past.  You may consider resuming re-unions and include others from the 'Big 3'.  Lunar New Year is next January, Songron is next March, good times to overlap participating in culture that you missed with visiting friends now that your patient days are your past.

Best recovery to all.
*

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 29, 2016, 09:11:40 PM

(And honestly I'm in no hurry to make it up to the #4 dilator. That thing is scary. :P )

Not as scary as some things.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 29, 2016, 09:11:40 PM
I finally tried the #3 dilator tonight, and I may be about a month late on it, but it worked!

It went all the way in on the very first try, to full depth, (I used the #2 for 30 minutes before trying it to make sure everything was thoroughly primed for maximal stretching,) and it feels about the same as the #2 did the first time I got it all the way in.

So hooray! I've made progress!

(And honestly I'm in no hurry to make it up to the #4 dilator. That thing is scary. :P )

Congrats, CarrieLiz. Hope you continue on your progress. Keep up the schedule and positive attitude.

With warmth,

Joanna

Hey Carrie! I was just reading your posts and had a good laugh because I think we were at the suites at the same time. I believe I know the Australian girl you're referring to, and I spent a lot of time with Cindy while we were there. I'm not in the fb group because I don't use fb, but I'm wondering how I could have missed you?! I met a lot of other Chet patients. I wonder if our paths ever crossed at breakfast one of those days.

I am just passed two months, so if you want to compare anything in regards to recovery timeline, feel free to ask!

Quote from: Andromeda on November 02, 2016, 01:40:22 PM
Hey Carrie! I was just reading your posts and had a good laugh because I think we were at the suites at the same time. I believe I know the Australian girl you're referring to, and I spent a lot of time with Cindy while we were there. I'm not in the fb group because I don't use fb, but I'm wondering how I could have missed you?! I met a lot of other Chet patients. I wonder if our paths ever crossed at breakfast one of those days.

I am just passed two months, so if you want to compare anything in regards to recovery timeline, feel free to ask!

If you're 2 months post-op, then I was probably leaving Thailand right as you were getting there. I checked out of the hotel and flew home on September 3rd.

I got there on 8/26 so a little bit of an overlap! Oh well. How are you doing? I am also behind on my dilation schedule, I've only just got comfortable with #2. I'm supposed to have started #3 but it seems terrifying. :P Glad to see this experience isn't uncommon.

Hi Carrie,
I had ffs and ba with Chett in March and stayed in the Dusit hotel. I saw no other Dr Chett patients whilst there. Do they tend to go to the Verticle Suite more. I am flying over in March next year for srs and it would be nice if this time I at least had someone to talk to.
Kindest regards
Ann x

Ann, I think part of it is luck of the draw. There were varying amount of patients throughout my month stay, sometimes more than others, but there were always at least a few of us staying at the Suites at any given time. I think the Dusit and Suites can feel more secluded because there isn't the same outdoor space as the Rama, so you're less likely to cross paths. I would recommend spending some extra time at the breakfast buffet, maybe taking an hour or two to enjoy some coffee, and literally just introduce yourself to anyone who looks obviously western or has a donut pillow. I found that my stay was whatever I wanted to make of it. It would have been very easy to accidentally go about my own schedule and not interact with any other patients, but the connections were there when I was feeling extroverted.

Hi Carri Liz! I'm currently staying at the Dusit for initial recovery, 10 days post surgery. Unfortunately i can't write you a PN (don't know why), but i'm highly interested to be a member of your Chettawut FB aftercare group. You can pick me right up on FB, search for Kaya Küppers (Captain Q400).
I'm a german lady, 50 yo.
Thx to anybody here sharing her personal experience, it is still a very helpfull source. And meanwhile a huge knowledge base.

Welcome to Susan's Place Lucy. The reason you are unable to PM is because you need 15 quality posts before your profile unlocks and you are able to use most of the features of your account. You will find this described in more detail contained in the following greeting links.

• Site Terms of Service and rules to live by  (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,2.0.html)
  
• Standard Terms and Definitions (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,54369.0.html)
  
• Post Ranks (including when you can upload an avatar) (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,114.0.html.)
  
• Reputation rules (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,18960.0.html)
  
• News posting & quoting guidelines (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,174951.0.html)
  
• Photo, avatars, and signature images policy (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,59974.msg383866.html#msg383866)
  

Thx Dena! As usual didn't read the instructions carefully enough, sorry. And again thx to Carri Liz and her detailed report, until today (10 post)  it's in most parts copy and paste to what i experienced. Overall smooth operation, hope it will continue this way.

My gf who had surgery in October is having some issues would like to get her in the face book group can you post a link she can follow to it we were at the cottages at bangkok ramma and stayed 45 days was only boyfriend was with some one getting srs so group should be able verify we were there.

Carrie,

Please give us an update on your progress.

I apologize for disappearing for so long.

I honestly haven't been doing that great. Recovery is still wearing me down. Slowly, slowly, slowly sitting is becoming less painful, slowly I'm kind of getting my energy back, but GOD, it is taking so damned long.

I'm definitely dealing with post-op depression, because I'm just constantly worn down, and looking for space to heal and relax, but life isn't giving me any, it's just been go, go, go, go, while my body is telling me to chill.

This recovery sucks. I can't sugar-coat it.

Also, while the very first time being intimate with someone after surgery was amazing, it's gotten less and less amazing each time since then because frankly not being able to orgasm and still dealing with pain when any pressure is put on the clitoris is frustrating as hell, especially since the guy I've been dating has a high sex-drive and REALLY REALLY wants to get me off, but I can't, and I probably really shouldn't be getting intimate in the first place because I'm dealing with granulation tissue, but I feel bad if I don't, just.... ARGH!!!

Recovery is a freaking mess, I'm tired of it, and I want so badly to just be done with this crap, orgasmic again, not in pain again, not constantly feeling energy-drained again, and just back to being able to live life instead of constantly planning my entire day around my energy level, pain level, and constant need to dilate.

So sorry it is such a challenge.

Lack of rest can really mess with ones mental state. I hope you can get some good relaxation soon.

It's so easy to say don't feel bad and so hard to do. However, your partner might need to take your recovery in mind a little more.

Take care. You are in many of our thoughts.

With warmth,

Joanna

Carrie, I am sorry you are having a difficult time and dealing so many things at once. Do you have someone (therapist) you can talk to about all the stress you are under?

I was told by my doctor at about 1/5/2017 I will be experiencing post op depression and be fed up with dilating. Is there anything that can be done to reduce the depression?

Quote from: Carrie Liz on December 07, 2016, 11:41:09 PM
I apologize for disappearing for so long.

I honestly haven't been doing that great. Recovery is still wearing me down. Slowly, slowly, slowly sitting is becoming less painful, slowly I'm kind of getting my energy back, but GOD, it is taking so damned long.

I'm definitely dealing with post-op depression, because I'm just constantly worn down, and looking for space to heal and relax, but life isn't giving me any, it's just been go, go, go, go, while my body is telling me to chill.

This recovery sucks. I can't sugar-coat it.

Also, while the very first time being intimate with someone after surgery was amazing, it's gotten less and less amazing each time since then because frankly not being able to orgasm and still dealing with pain when any pressure is put on the clitoris is frustrating as hell, especially since the guy I've been dating has a high sex-drive and REALLY REALLY wants to get me off, but I can't, and I probably really shouldn't be getting intimate in the first place because I'm dealing with granulation tissue, but I feel bad if I don't, just.... ARGH!!!

Recovery is a freaking mess, I'm tired of it, and I want so badly to just be done with this crap, orgasmic again, not in pain again, not constantly feeling energy-drained again, and just back to being able to live life instead of constantly planning my entire day around my energy level, pain level, and constant need to dilate.

Wow still in pain?? I'm sorry to hear... I'm 3 months post op and I'm awesome!!! Hope you feel better:)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote from: Carrie Liz on December 07, 2016, 11:41:09 PM
I apologize for disappearing for so long.

I honestly haven't been doing that great. Recovery is still wearing me down. Slowly, slowly, slowly sitting is becoming less painful, slowly I'm kind of getting my energy back, but GOD, it is taking so damned long.

I'm definitely dealing with post-op depression, because I'm just constantly worn down, and looking for space to heal and relax, but life isn't giving me any, it's just been go, go, go, go, while my body is telling me to chill.

This recovery sucks. I can't sugar-coat it.

Also, while the very first time being intimate with someone after surgery was amazing, it's gotten less and less amazing each time since then because frankly not being able to orgasm and still dealing with pain when any pressure is put on the clitoris is frustrating as hell, especially since the guy I've been dating has a high sex-drive and REALLY REALLY wants to get me off, but I can't, and I probably really shouldn't be getting intimate in the first place because I'm dealing with granulation tissue, but I feel bad if I don't, just.... ARGH!!!

Recovery is a freaking mess, I'm tired of it, and I want so badly to just be done with this crap, orgasmic again, not in pain again, not constantly feeling energy-drained again, and just back to being able to live life instead of constantly planning my entire day around my energy level, pain level, and constant need to dilate.

Be patient this is not a chin augmentation or a nose job..... Even those take months to heal what more a sex reassignment surgery wherein your parts has been reassembled...what is 3 months to forever... You've waited for this moment for so long take care of it and be patient... sex will always be there after you fully heal....take it easy...

Carrie,

Sorry to hear that you are having such a difficult time.

Carrie please give us another update.

Quick update, things finally started getting significantly better around the middle of December. (Around the 4.5 month mark.) Sitting stopped hurting as much, I was finally starting to get back to being around my full energy level, and I've been able to scale back on dilation.

I'm ALMOST finally ready to ditch the doughnut cushion. I've tested going to work without it, and seem to be able to do so around once a week now. I don't need it at all anymore when I'm going out to dinner or the movies or any other activity that involves sitting without moving around. Work is the only place that I still need it, just because my job involves sitting on a chair and actively moving around on that chair ALL day, which puts extra pressure on everything that normal relaxed sitting doesn't.

Dilation-wise, back in early December I still had to dilate twice a day with no question. There were many times when my BF would come over where I'd only end up doing it once a day because of time constraints, and I'd almost always end up paying for it afterward with increased levels of pain and tightness, and quite often had to step down dilators from 3 back to only 2 because it had tightened back up too much. Now, though, only a few days away from the 6-month mark, this is no longer a problem. If I skip my second dilation of the day, there's almost no difference in tightness now, and I've finally moved up, after 3 straight months of being stuck, to the point where I'm no longer using the #0 dilator at all and am doing the #3 dilator for 20 minutes. Next step is 30 minutes with the #3, then finally #4, which I've yet to try because I had such a hard time keeping up with the twice-per-day dilation schedule consistently. I'm SO relieved that dilation is finally becoming less of a chore.

My energy level is definitely back up, I'm not completely drained after a day of work anymore, the post-op depression fog that was hanging over me for the first 4 months after has completely lifted now, I really am starting to feel back to being myself life-wise and energy-wise. It was a LONG recovery, and I'm still not completely there yet, I'm still dealing with very slight levels of discomfort that come and go, but I'm at the point where the pain has dipped down to a 1. Most of the time I never even think about it.

CarrieLiz,

That is great! I am so glad to hear things are looking up and brighter.

Thanks for sharing that with us.

With warmth,

Joanna

Thank you for that update. I was starting to worry after the difficulties and then the long absence.
I'm very happy to hear things have gone so well.

Congratulations

Carrie,
I forgot to mention that the pain u might be experiencing could be sciatica from the surgery and from the epidural or anesthesia they stuck in your spine .... I had that too for monthsssss but the vagina itself was not painful.... Stretching excercises and Ibuprofen helps.... Look up sciatica stretching excercises it would really help... Take care....

So pleased things are finally on track for you. Fingers crossed it's all plain sailing for now xx

How does it look? I wanna compare!!! Brassard vs chet:)


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hi I'm about to go in for my SRS with Chettawut tomorrow and I just wanted to give you a big THANK YOU for posting here and detailing your journey, particularly your struggles, because honestly you probably saved me from making several missteps that I know I would also have made if it weren't for following your story . Thank you so much .

Hi, i'm about to scheduling with chettawut in July and i'm interested in enjoying the facebook group, contact me in private if you can, i dont know to do Ahahah  ;D

FINALLY had my first actual real-life orgasm yesterday, pretty much exactly 8 months after surgery. I was getting scared that it was never going to happen, but finally it did.

In other news, recovery has been fine, my only issue is that I've been having a really hard time keeping up with the dilation schedule because my level of personal motivation has gone to complete crap recently.

I've had a rough couple of months at work and in my personal life, I've been making a LOT of mistakes at work recently, and also had a player tell me that I had "the most screwed up hair I've ever seen, can't you like buy some de-frizzing shampoo or something?" So I've been feeling awful because of that, I had one night where I had a straight-up breakdown during a difficult table where a couple of guys yelled at me to control my table, plus I've been unable to lose weight and still dealing with a large body shape that I hate, so I've been feeling like garbage about my appearance, all of that feeling-like-garbage has made me feel like I'm acting less feminine and acting less nice to people, my social life still sucks, basically it's just been a really bad couple of months for me.

Recovery is going all right, my only real gripe with my surgery is that the inner labia isn't very well defined, that dilation takes effort, and that my urethra is a little bit askew to the right side compared to the centerline between my clit and my vaginal opening, but it's not a huge deal. The issue that I had right after surgery with the outer labia being loose has long since corrected itself, things look generally very nice now, they're starting to feel more and more nice, I'd probably rate Dr. Chett's work at around a 7/10 on the scale of where it is compared to the absolute ideals of appearance and function that I was hoping for. Can't complain.

My recent mental issues are unrelated to the outcomes of surgery, although post-op depression might be a part of it. I don't know exactly why I'm suddenly down. Mostly I think it's just because I don't handle mistakes very well, and I've made a LOT of them recently, in addition to my usual amount of appearance-hating and guilt for past failures thrown on top of it. Don't know.

Carrie you have gone through a lot over the past few years.  Don't blow it all now. Get hold of yourself and don't mess up your job.

Remember what it was like fore when you started back on EA.  You don't want to be back at that point.

I just finished reading your entire story on this thread. What an amazing account, and very well written, Carrie. You have a talent for writing and sharing. Have you considered writing a book?

Something else occurs to me, and maybe it's a dumb question, but now that you've removed your primary source of T, have you adjusted your medications appropriately? I was just wondering if the hormone mix could be causing difficulties with your concentration (resulting in you making mistakes at work) and weight gain...

Thanks for the updates and I hope that things get better for you in your day to day life.  Weight loss is super tough, especially on E.  When I was on T, it dropped off and I could eat whatever I wanted.  On E, totally different story.  i have learned so many things since I started E.

So, haven't updated in forever, but I thought I'd at least share what's been going on.

It's been 11 months now.

For the most part I barely even notice a difference physically. After getting settled back into your normal life routine and going about it for a few months, things just slide back into being normal, and there you go, you go about your life again as if nothing happened, and you can barely even remember your body having ever been different.

Physically, this is basically exactly what I hoped for. All of my genital-related anxieties that I used to deal with on a constant basis, the constant low-level anxiety that I felt like I was hiding something, the nightmares that I had about being in a women's room and being spied upon and "caught" somehow have long since stopped, and I don't feel physically uncomfortable in my own body anymore. Things feel right.

Unfortunately, I haven't been happy in general. I'm not sure exactly what it was that triggered me to start feeling depressed, but around February I started on a downward spiral mentally where I started feeling worse and worse about myself. It didn't have anything to do with surgery, it was just my life in general that I started feeling down about. I think it's possible that my failed relationship with Jae might have been the thing that triggered it. He said some really hurtful things to me that made me start feeling worthless and feeling broken. I already had a lot of persistant anxiety about noticing that I didn't make friends as easily as other people, so I was always constantly worried that I was doing something wrong, or was fundamentally socially broken. My relationship with Jae turned those fears into reality, when I failed to return texts, failed to return calls, he constantly told me that I was the only person he'd ever met who was this socially withdrawn, I had my dysphoria triggered like hell because he was acting more like the stereotypical "girl" of the relationship than I was, so I started feeling fundamentally broken and unfixable, like there was some sort of female socialization that I missed and therefore lack and will never be able to get, my mom didn't help at all because she constantly laughed about how even though Jae was the guy and I was the girl, I was acting like the guy and he was acting like the girl.

Jae snapped at me at the end of our relationship, and it ended in emotional distraught for both of us. Basically, I wasn't happy in it for a very long time and yet let it keep going on, and he felt betrayed when I so casually agreed when he suggested breaking up, wondering if I ever cared about him in the first place or if I was just dragging him along because he was so into me and I didn't want to hurt him.

I didn't have a good answer to that. That was the relationship. He was the one who cared. I was the one who was selfish and distant and pretty much didn't care. I knew the relationship was draining me and was more than I could handle a few months in, but I just couldn't hurt him, so I let it keep going. And so what ended up happening is that I lost all of my social confidence. I didn't have much in the first place, but that was the breaking point. After that relationship, I felt fundamentally broken... as well as fundamentally unlovable and unlikable. I started questioning if I really cared about anyone, and therefore wondered why anyone should care about me. All of my life I had believed that I was one of the "nice" people because I put so much effort into not hurting others and trying to be nice to others. But after being in a relationship where I never called, I never took initiative, and I seemed to not care, it was really hard to still believe that I was nice. I just started feeling selfish and like a horrible person.

We broke up months ago, but those horrible feelings just lingered and lingered and I couldn't shake them. I'd lost my sense of self-worth and my sense of what made me a valuable human being.

Long story short, I spiraled into depression. I've been stuck there for the last few months since I last posted. I almost always felt bad. I had no sense of self-worth. The quality of my work continued to decline. My sleep patterns were awful. I gained another 10 lbs and despite trying to go on a diet made absolutely zero progress. My apartment got more and more messy with Magic cards splayed all over the floor, dishes and clothes piled everywhere. And I started being overwhelmed by a feeling of brain fog. I couldn't think clearly. I was having a hard time remembering even the most simple of things. I actually got in trouble at work for hitting myself in the head after making mistakes because I was so mad at myself. Also my dilation practices were falling apart, I was only managing to do it about once every 2-3 days.

I've always been on the borderline of depression, but my therapist had always thought that if I just worked hard enough I could work through it through cognitive behavioral therapy, but I'd reached a point where I had ZERO effort left in me, all I wanted to do was lay in bed all day. Finally he said that I needed to see a psychiatrist.

About 2 weeks ago I went on anti-depressants, and have been feeling better. But that's basically the story of the last few months. Things haven't been good. Physically things are great, I feel great about my body even though I still hate on myself for my face and shoulders, but it's just been a battle mentally. It was bad timing to have my first ever bad relationship, and I'm still working on regaining my sense of self-worth.

I'll update as time goes on, again, things have been better for the past couple of weeks. But for those who have been following me since the very beginning of my transition, this should probably not come as a surprise. I've always been on the borderline of depression, with every single small setback pushing me back over that line into breakdown territory. In the past I could usually just cry it out and feel mostly better, but it was still always there lurking. Since starting treatment, my focus has instantly come back to where I feel alert and awake, my urge to emotionally eat has declined to almost 0, (I used to regularly eat entire pizzas and entire bags of chips on days where I was feeling bad, where now I can't eat that much even if I want to,) and I've actually for the first time been able to talk myself out of negative moods rather than them feeling like an unstoppable wave that just washes me away and I have no choice but to swim with it because I had no hope of fighting it.

So, tentatively things are looking up, I apologize for disappearing for so long, and hopefully things will be better from now on.

I'm so sorry Carrie.. I can totally understand tour anxiety about sociality and gender roles, but it's not that simple and everyone knows! You don't have to feel wrong, everyone sometimes go through moment where they don't care at all and that s not a male prerogative, and it's normal  to fine out that you're not that interested in a person  with whom you though you wanted to built something! You have to take your life back bit to bit, focus on living and on what you like about that, don't feel like you're missing something and just feel focus on feel yourself..
Sorry for my bad english but wanted to say something because it's so sad you're going through all this, I felt this way to one time and it was really really bad I also had to take antidepressand but little by little i got my life back.. These months depression  seemed to be returning and I was so scared but then again I didn't want to take antidepressant anymore so I fight it myself and got it :)
Hope everything get better for you too

Quote from: Carrie Liz on July 12, 2017, 12:32:39 AM
My relationship with Jae turned those fears into reality, when I failed to return texts, failed to return calls, he constantly told me that I was the only person he'd ever met who was this socially withdrawn, I had my dysphoria triggered like hell because he was acting more like the stereotypical "girl" of the relationship than I was, so I started feeling fundamentally broken and unfixable, like there was some sort of female socialization that I missed and therefore lack and will never be able to get, my mom didn't help at all because she constantly laughed about how even though Jae was the guy and I was the girl, I was acting like the guy and he was acting like the girl.

[...]

We broke up months ago, but those horrible feelings just lingered and lingered and I couldn't shake them. I'd lost my sense of self-worth and my sense of what made me a valuable human being.

[...]

Since starting treatment, my focus has instantly come back to where I feel alert and awake, my urge to emotionally eat has declined to almost 0, (I used to regularly eat entire pizzas and entire bags of chips on days where I was feeling bad, where now I can't eat that much even if I want to,) and I've actually for the first time been able to talk myself out of negative moods rather than them feeling like an unstoppable wave that just washes me away and I have no choice but to swim with it because I had no hope of fighting it.

First of all, let me give you a big hug! Across the Atlantic :)

As far as a proper reply goes... I have no idea where to start... Me, I lost the love of my life too, a couple of months ago. We had been together for 5 years, wanting babies, living together, the works. She's a cis-girl, but I can relate a bit to your story. When I was around her, she also made me feel like 'the guy', even though I had been on hormones for quite a while and the people around us didn't even see or know I was trans. I think it comes down to experience, especially in the beginning I relaly noticed my lacking female socialization, which got better though. But it was and sometimes still is a really big trigger for  my dysphoria too.

I'm sorry about your mum not supporting you the way you would have wanted in those moments, especially when dyshporia-depression hits you, all the help you can get is welcome. She should have known better, I think. I know it doesn't help to tell you that you're really strong and that you've got to keep your chin up in in those situations, but still. Perhaps time will help you to turn things around, because the dysphoria WILL diminish now that your surgery is behind you! I guess you're as old as me (about thirty), so with a bit of luck, we both have a life ahead of us to help us heal. The fruits of SRS are not plucked within the first year, it's something that will keep giving you strength and hope througout the years to come. (Little disclaimer, that's not my wisdom, I'm actually one week post-op and writing you from the hospital bed now).

One thing I do know though, is about how life changes affect our coping mechanisms. When we're young, we're faced with a very different kind of stress than now, which reflects on how we deal with ourselves. This is true for everybody, trans or cis. For me, binge-eating never was that big of a deal, but alcohol and drugs were. It all fitted when I was younger, since my body had the capacity of dealing with the ->-bleeped-<- I put into it and I was looking for quick reliefs anywayz. The stress I had was very strongly related to immediate social impulses, ranging from my own lacking socialization (male OR female) and my inability to stay stable. So, I took the things that could bring me down onto my feet.

As I got a bit ahead, I slowly learned how to deal with those immediate stressors in a more effective way, but the coping mechanism of grabbing a beer didn't evolve with. This led to me developing a drinkig habit just because of it. That's bad in its own right, but with me growing 'away' from alcohol being able to effectively calm me down, my own growth actually started to lead to problems: I needed a new coping mechanism. And I can tell you: this was HARD to find, especially in the beginning.

I started out experimenting with binge-eating (yea I know..), which also didn't work. Then came some other weird things, and in the end I settled on trying to work myself to death. This went quite well for a while, focusing on my thesis and job at the same time, working night hours every day and thus making sure ther wasn't any energy left for my emotions anyway. But this, too, led to a big crash. I actually started to get all kinds of physical issues, which led to the point that they put me in an MRI scanner last January to scan for Multiple Sclerosis. Which I didn't have, but you get the gist of it.

This is where I broke down... There point of no return had been reached, my depressions were soaring and with my mind slowly attacking my body, a u-turn had to be taken. The precursor to this u-turn had come a couple of months before, when a rather annoying acqaintance of mine took the chance of misgendering me for the umptieth time in the middle of the bar, shouting my former name across the place when I walked in. Basically I snapped, within a second my eyes went red and I lunged towards him. In my sprint, the only decision left to me was either to hit him in the face, or in the belly. I went for the belly, after which he ended up gasping for air on the floor. When he got up, I was still bloodthirsty as hell, holding my fist a centimeter from his face and telling him the next time would indeed involve a broken nose or jaw.

Boah... Did I feel good after that!! Sure, the friendship took a while to recover, but this whole situation made me realize I actually really LIKED to force all of my anger into that punch. So, 3 months after that in January, I decided to go thai-boxing. There was a women's only club not far from where I lived, and their brutal trainings offered me a way out for my emotions. Within two weeks, the stress was gone and all of my neurological symptoms had vanished like the snow on a warm day in April.

So where does this all lead me.. Basically what I mean to tell you, is that you migth have outgrown your ways of dealing with your stress. Sure, binging and pills (whether anti-depressants or illegal ones) will relieve the feelings for a while, but it doesn't solve the underlying issue of you having become bigger than the tricks you have to deal with life's stresses. Finding what works isn't an easy task, so perhaps you should take a bit of time and use the meds to clear your mind a bit. But do keep in mind that they will also cloud your intuition, so it's never a real way out. Perhaps you can start with walks in the forest, or just being outside and letting your body take you someplace. Get in touch with your body again, and your mind will follow suit :)

Love from Germany!

:)

Hi Carrie,

I spent a while with antidepressants which with group and my therapist saved my life. With the antidepressants I was able to sleep which made a world of difference. Also the highs and lows were closer together and things did not penetrate as deep. It allowed me to deflate something and not ruminate.

After GCS, perhaps 2 months, I no longer needed the SSRI and was able to eventually get off of them. It got to the point that when I was able to cope that the SSRI started to be too effective and I no longer needed them.

You have been through a lot in a short period of time and need a little help. That means you are human. We are here for you and want only the best for you.

Girl get over that up and down cycle. It has been a long road for you and you have to start enjoying what you have accomplished.

So, very quick update... (also possibly a TMI bodily-fluids thing, so you've been warned...)

One of the last persistent annoyances of my surgery that I was hoping would eventually correct itself was the issue of still needing to wear pantyliner pads. Basically, the vag was still consistently a bit leaky. Overnight when I slept, if I didn't have a pad in, my underwear would have a large wet spot by the morning. And work was an even bigger problem... earlier in surgery recovery I would get this awful sticky yellowish-white liquid all over, to the point where I often had to change pads multiple times per night. As I progressed further in recovery, the issue cleared up a little bit, I was getting to the point where I only had to change it every other day instead of every single day, but it was still annoying. Pads are a pain. The sticky lining has an obnoxious issue of clinging on my inner thighs a bit, and trust me, it is MUCH MUCH more comfortable to sit in just underwear as compared to underwear with a pantyliner attached. The things are not breathable.

I noticed a few months ago that I leaked less on days that I was skipping dilation (I'm at the point where I can finally skip 1 day of dilation per week and not have any problems,) but obviously since skipping dilation wasn't a possibility, I accepted the leakage as a normal (albeit annoying) thing that I'd just have to live with.

Almost exactly a week ago, I finally used up my last tube of QC Lube from Thailand. (I bought 6 cases of the stuff while I was there based on the recommendation of other Thailand surgery-goers who said that it's the best lube you can get, and much cheaper than American brands to boot.) So, I finally was forced to switch to a generic American brand which was much less thick and much less sticky (but also with a bit less lubrication power.) And much to my surprise, a few days later, there was no discharge. I went 2 days with the same pantyliner and there wasn't the typical brownish-yellow spot even then. And then one more pad change and another 2 days later, the same thing happened. So finally, I decided to take the plunge on my drive back from Richmond 2 days ago and try ditching the pantyliners all together, and voila! No spotting after a 4-hour sleep, a 10-hour drive, an 8-hour sleep, and a whole day at home.

So I think the problem is finally over, which finally makes me a 100% satisfied customer with my shiny new 2016 Chett vag. And surprisingly, I think the problem was the Thailand QC lube. I think maybe it's too thick or something, and thus while it's great for early-surgery recovery because it's slicker than other brands and thus less likely to create friction, the vagina can't clean it out as easily, and thus it leads to ongoing spotting. The American brands are more water-based, which means they clean out easier.

All of the problems I had before have been corrected now. Orgasms are back and better than ever now, and actually easier for me to achieve than they were pre-surgery because the dysphoria mental block is gone, and hell, having a vagina in and of itself is often enough to get me excited still. Spotting is done, or at least it's resided to a level where I can finally wear normal underwear again. The appearance isn't perfect, it's about a 7/10 in my estimation, I was hoping for more of an inner labia and the vag itself being less prominent, but now everything is 100% functional, so I am totally fine in calling it a complete success. And I can say that the work which was done with retaining sensation was astoundingly good. I genuinely think Chett is in the top tier of the entire world for retaining sensation. I have full sensation back everywhere, and again, now that it's been a full year and things have finally healed and settled, I think the arousal/orgasm trigger actually works better than it did before. People going to Suporn often say that the work he does to recreate the internal "bulbs" of the clitoris leads to a unique bonus arousal, and I was scared that I was going to feel like that was "missing" because Chett tends to remove more erectile tissue, but nope, definitely not. I absolutely 100% feel being aroused as soon as it happens, and trust me, there's no sense of lack with the internal plumbing. Solid 10/10 on sensation.

Mentally, antidepressants have been a big help, no major crises to speak of since the middle of the summer or so.

great news Carrie Liz, I know how one feels with any pad between their legs and then need one all the time.  You can know consider the whole srs process to be a success like you wanted.  Being able to skip a day of dilating is great too and to be able to have great orgasms is good to hear. 

Hi Carrie,

I am glad you are pad free. Ever since I went from 3 to 1 dilations a day (at night) I am pad free. I really do not like pads.

How did you determine you can reduce dilations to less the 1/day. I will be 1 year in less than a month but orange takes a few minutes to get in slowly. It is a bit painful. I see my doctor on the 20th of Nov. and plan to ask her.

Is the orange dilator always going to be tight and a bit painful?

Thanks,
Rachel

Ok Carrie girl it sounds like you finally got what you wanted.  How is the job going?

Quote from: Carrie Liz on October 20, 2016, 04:36:10 AM
All right, finally! I got my forms back, my American doctor filled out my leave extension to cover the 10 days of work I missed, and Chett just sent me back the details of my working restrictions (basically just no sitting or standing for more than 2 hours straight without at least a 15-minute break,) and I should be back to work this Saturday unless yet another unforeseen issue comes up.

Again, just to clarify, every single time I've asked Chett a question through email, I've gotten a thorough and satisfactory answer. It's just that it's taken a while.

Also, since I haven't officially written the whole spiel about the differences between Chett and Suporn, this right here is actually probably the biggest difference between them according to both Cindy Fox and my other Australian trans friend. Both of them said that Suporn's aftercare is VASTLY superior. You're in the recovery center for a week rather than 3 days, you get a VERY detailed information packet that addresses most (if not all) common concerns, and then after that there's a large active Facebook group containing 400+ post-op trans women who've all been through that same surgeon's procedure, so you can get answers to any questions basically immediately, without having to ask the clinic directly and therefore without having to wait for the doctor to find time out of his busy schedule. This post-op group is also why Suporn has almost no negative reviews, because the group simply does NOT let them happen. They guide people through recovery issues, and usually get anyone who's not satisfied to schedule a revision before they think of writing a negative review. Chett has no such group guarding his reputation. In case it's not obvious, the internet has dragged his name through the dirt. (Unfairly, if I personally say so.) But at the same time, lacking that group, and therefore lacking that same access to information, (which is only exacerbated because the aftercare instructions he gives are very summarized and bare-bones rather than detailed,) can make getting answers to questions/concerns in a timely fashion a very frustrating thing.

Also, and I'll talk about this more later, Cindy and I started our own Chett Facebook group, because we want Chett patients to have that same access to a pool of experience and knowledge that Suporn patients get. We started a group with the 12 people we met at the Vertical Suites and Dusit Princess while we were still in Thailand, and have asked those who were there longer than us to keep inviting new members to the group.

This group is ONLY for Chett patients and family/friends of those patients, it's a closed non-public group purely for support and information, we want to make absolute sure that no ->-bleeped-<-s or people who aren't serious get in to the group, but if anyone has surgery scheduled with Chett and would like to join the group, PM me and let me know. There aren't any members who've been post-op more than about 2 months, but it's better than nothing. We've been comparing recoveries back and forth to make sure everything is normal, so that's been nice to have.

Anyway, I don't know where I was going with this, it's just part of the big Chett vs. Suporn post I've been meaning to make for a while now.

I have no idea how to dm on here but I just had srs with chett a few weeks ago and would love to be added to the group if it still exists.

Quote from: alliehugs on January 05, 2018, 12:13:35 PM
I have no idea how to dm on here but I just had srs with chett a few weeks ago and would love to be added to the group if it still exists.

Welcome to Susan's Place. The OP hasn't been on the site for about a month so don't expect a response soon. As for PMs, you will require 15 quality posts before that feature will work. It's all explained in the following links.

Site Terms of Service & Rules to Live By (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,2.0.html)	Standard Terms & Definitions (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,54369.0.html)	Post Ranks (including when you can upload an avatar) (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,114.0.html.)	Cautionary Note (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,82221.0.html)
Reputation rules (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,18960.0.html)	News posting & quoting guidelines (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,174951.0.html)	Photo, avatars, & signature images policy (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,59974.msg383866.html#msg383866)	Membership Agreement (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,216851.0.html)

Just got done watching your YouTube return video. I was actually worried bout u


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Quote from: alliehugs on January 05, 2018, 12:13:35 PM
I have no idea how to dm on here but I just had srs with chett a few weeks ago and would love to be added to the group if it still exists.

The group honestly never got off the ground. We got an initial group of 15 or so, but it fizzled out quickly. Nobody's posted in it for almost 4 months.

Hi Carrie,

it's great to spot you are still actively posting here. So sincerely I just want to tell you that, I am so thankful to your post. Basically what you wrote here helped me in a great way to prepare everything during my own journey. You are a great writer to say the least.

I have a trivial question. While your applying for the change of your gender marker on your federal level documents, did you have any problems using Dr. Chettawut's medical certificate?

Thanks!
Julia

Quote from: Carrie Liz on January 08, 2018, 12:09:15 PM
The group honestly never got off the ground. We got an initial group of 15 or so, but it fizzled out quickly. Nobody's posted in it for almost 4 months.

Quote from: Julia007 on January 15, 2018, 03:36:31 PM
Hi Carrie,

it's great to spot you are still actively posting here. So sincerely I just want to tell you that, I am so thankful to your post. Basically what you wrote here helped me in a great way to prepare everything during my own journey. You are a great writer to say the least.

I have a trivial question. While your applying for the change of your gender marker on your federal level documents, did you have any problems using Dr. Chettawut's medical certificate?

Thanks!
Julia

I actually haven't changed my birth certificate yet. I lost the certification letter somewhere between Florida and Ohio after I finished recovering at my mom's house, so I never got the chance, and now I have no clue where it is.

I'd already changed my passport, driver's license, and social security information, so I didn't really worry about it too much.

I too would just like to thank you for your posts. I plan on having SRS a year from now and it helps my spirits to hear stories of people happy with their results. Sometimes it feels like I only read about the drawbacks which I take seriously but try not to let temper my nerve.

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

Quote from: Julia007 on January 15, 2018, 03:36:31 PM
I have a trivial question. While your applying for the change of your gender marker on your federal level documents, did you have any problems using Dr. Chettawut's medical certificate?

You can find this information in the FAQ page of Dr Chettawut's website (http://www.chet-plasticsurgery.com/frequent-asked-questions-of-sex-reassignment-surgery/), under question #3: "Do I need Notarization of my SRS Certification?"

Thank you Carrie for the kind reply. Have not seen you posting here for a while. Nonetheless, I wish now you are having a very happy life. Your fantastic writing has given me a lot of motivation and awareness while my getting through all the difficulties along the way.

Since you are here, do you mind me asking you one more question? You are almost one and half year post the surgery. So do you feel any significant breast tissue growth since then? I'm very tempted to do the BA, but honestly I'm fairly worried about the potential complications too. I'm feeling, if I can get an extra half to one cup in one year or so, I may not have to do it. I know this really depends on individuals, but your reply would greatly help me to decide if I should schedule one sometime later in this year.

Warm regards,
Julia

Quote from: Carrie Liz on January 17, 2018, 04:51:47 AM
I actually haven't changed my birth certificate yet. I lost the certification letter somewhere between Florida and Ohio after I finished recovering at my mom's house, so I never got the chance, and now I have no clue where it is.

I'd already changed my passport, driver's license, and social security information, so I didn't really worry about it too much.

Thank you!

Actually, per Som's advice, mine was notarized. So I think I should be fine. I asked Carrie this question because Dr. Chettawut is not a registered surgeon in the US. I'm just wondering if some extra thing was needed when she was applying for her own changes.

Julia

Quote from: echo7 on January 17, 2018, 02:20:51 PM
You can find this information in the FAQ page of Dr Chettawut's website (http://www.chet-plasticsurgery.com/frequent-asked-questions-of-sex-reassignment-surgery/), under question #3: "Do I need Notarization of my SRS Certification?"

Quote from: Julia007 on January 17, 2018, 02:48:47 PM
Thank you!

Actually, per Som's advice, mine was notarized. So I think I should be fine. I asked Carrie this question because Dr. Chettawut is not a registered surgeon in the US. I'm just wondering if some extra thing was needed when she was applying for her own changes.

Julia

It really all depends on where you live and where you were born.  A couple of states refuse to allow changes to your birth certificate.  On the federal level, you do not need to have surgery to change your documents.  I was born in Colorado and I was able to get a new birth certificate prior to GCS because they do not specify what surgery is required to change your record.  Most states that require only state that your gender was changed via surgical procedure.  In my case, my plastic surgeon provided me with a letter indicating that he had preformed multiple surgical procedures as part of my transition from male to female.  That letter along with my California court order changing my name and gender was all that was required to get a new birth certificate.

Quote from: Julia007 on January 17, 2018, 02:37:51 PM

Since you are here, do you mind me asking you one more question? You are almost one and half year post the surgery. So do you feel any significant breast tissue growth since then? I'm very tempted to do the BA, but honestly I'm fairly worried about the potential complications too. I'm feeling, if I can get an extra half to one cup in one year or so, I may not have to do it. I know this really depends on individuals, but your reply would greatly help me to decide if I should schedule one sometime later in this year.

Warm regards,
Julia

While I'm not Carrie, I am about a year and a half post op.  I have seen some additional development since my surgery.  I am coming up on my 3 year anniversary of starting HRT and my 2 1/2 year anniversary of getting BA.  I had 500 cc implants put in after 6 months of HRT and I am so glad I didn't wait the two years so many people recommend.  I was a 38A when I had my BA and was a large B small C after the surgery.  I'm now a large 38C small D and the shape is continuing to develop.  There was a bit of a growth spurt post GCS but now it's more or less just a filling in and rounding out going on.  I expect that by the time I'm don developing I will be a full 38 D and maybe a small DD.  You need to do what makes you feel comfortable with your body.

Thank you so much Jess for the very informative message. Mine is 34A to maybe 34A+ now, but I am not satisfied with the fullness of the upper portion. My goal is actually a natural full B. My own breast growth was very significant during the early stage of HRT, but it slowed down (or maybe stopped) after showing the nice shape. 

Quote from: I Am Jess on January 17, 2018, 03:32:01 PM
It really all depends on where you live and where you were born.  A couple of states refuse to allow changes to your birth certificate.  On the federal level, you do not need to have surgery to change your documents.  I was born in Colorado and I was able to get a new birth certificate prior to GCS because they do not specify what surgery is required to change your record.  Most states that require only state that your gender was changed via surgical procedure.  In my case, my plastic surgeon provided me with a letter indicating that he had preformed multiple surgical procedures as part of my transition from male to female.  That letter along with my California court order changing my name and gender was all that was required to get a new birth certificate.
   

While I'm not Carrie, I am about a year and a half post op.  I have seen some additional development since my surgery.  I am coming up on my 3 year anniversary of starting HRT and my 2 1/2 year anniversary of getting BA.  I had 500 cc implants put in after 6 months of HRT and I am so glad I didn't wait the two years so many people recommend.  I was a 38A when I had my BA and was a large B small C after the surgery.  I'm now a large 38C small D and the shape is continuing to develop.  There was a bit of a growth spurt post GCS but now it's more or less just a filling in and rounding out going on.  I expect that by the time I'm don developing I will be a full 38 D and maybe a small DD.  You need to do what makes you feel comfortable with your body.

Quote from: Julia007 on January 17, 2018, 02:37:51 PM
Since you are here, do you mind me asking you one more question? You are almost one and half year post the surgery. So do you feel any significant breast tissue growth since then? I'm very tempted to do the BA, but honestly I'm fairly worried about the potential complications too. I'm feeling, if I can get an extra half to one cup in one year or so, I may not have to do it. I know this really depends on individuals, but your reply would greatly help me to decide if I should schedule one sometime later in this year.

Warm regards,
Julia

Unfortunately, no. I did have some breast soreness intermittently in the first year or so after I got back, and I thought they might be growing some more, but there was no visible difference. So if they did grow, it's been such a small difference that I can't even notice it. The only gains in size that I got were mainly due to weight gain.

I think it varies from person to person, but for me I'm still a member of the itty bitty titty committee. (At least relative to my height/frame-size.) Possibly still looking at BA in the future. (Although it's not high on my list of priorities, FFS would be next if I were to pick.)

Thank you very much Carrie! If you happen to have a trip to Hawaii in future, please feel free send me a private message here and I'm more than happy to be your sister, friend, and tour guide here.

By the way, you are very beautiful!

Julia

Quote from: Carrie Liz on January 19, 2018, 01:38:51 PM
Unfortunately, no. I did have some breast soreness intermittently in the first year or so after I got back, and I thought they might be growing some more, but there was no visible difference. So if they did grow, it's been such a small difference that I can't even notice it. The only gains in size that I got were mainly due to weight gain.

I think it varies from person to person, but for me I'm still a member of the itty bitty titty committee. (At least relative to my height/frame-size.) Possibly still looking at BA in the future. (Although it's not high on my list of priorities, FFS would be next if I were to pick.)

Carrie,

I have been off the site due to work for several months. I wanted to congratulate you on how far you have come. Thanks for all of the posts.

Warmly,

Jacqui

Hey,

first of all, thank you so much! This thread is so incredibly helpful.  :-* :-* :-* It took me a couple of days to get through all 20 pages, but it was definetely worth it. Times you made me cry so badly thinking about what's still there and needs to be changed. Times you really comforted me. Wow. :) Huge thank you.

I am currently trying to find the right surgeon. Chett is currently the most attractive option, despite some things that make me nervous. I don't want to have a complication and he won't help me. That kinda stuff. What do you think? Have you heard anything bad, resultwise, from the chett girls you are in contact with?

In general, would you recommend him?

Also, I'd love to hear your full Suporn/Chett comparison. Are still planning to do it?

Once again, thank you so much. You must have invested so much time. That is just incredible. You have done such an amazing job, documenting your SRS journey! :)

Quote from: Tiu on September 03, 2018, 01:23:58 PM
Hey,

first of all, thank you so much! This thread is so incredibly helpful.  :-* :-* :-* It took me a couple of days to get through all 20 pages, but it was definetely worth it. Times you made me cry so badly thinking about what's still there and needs to be changed. Times you really comforted me. Wow. :) Huge thank you.

I am currently trying to find the right surgeon. Chett is currently the most attractive option, despite some things that make me nervous. I don't want to have a complication and he won't help me. That kinda stuff. What do you think? Have you heard anything bad, resultwise, from the chett girls you are in contact with?

In general, would you recommend him?

Also, I'd love to hear your full Suporn/Chett comparison. Are still planning to do it?

Once again, thank you so much. You must have invested so much time. That is just incredible. You have done such an amazing job, documenting your SRS journey! :)

@Tiu


Hi Tiu 🙋‍♀️ Welcome to Susan's Place!  I'm Jessica.

I see your new here, so I'll post some links that may help you get better acquainted with the site. Pay attention to the site rules they can be of great help and don't forget the link highlighted red.  It has answers to questions that are commonly asked.  Then join in on a topic you find interesting and learn and share.

Please feel free to stop by the Introductions (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/board,8.0.html) Forum to tell the members about yourself!

Site Terms of Service & Rules to Live By (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,2.0.html)	Standard Terms & Definitions (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,54369.0.html)	Post Ranks (including when you can upload an avatar) (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,114.0.html.)	Cautionary Note (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,82221.0.html)
Reputation rules (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,18960.0.html)	News posting & quoting guidelines (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,174951.0.html)	Photo, avatars, & signature images policy (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,59974.msg383866.html#msg383866)	Membership Agreement (https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,216851.0.html)

Quote from: Tiu on September 03, 2018, 01:23:58 PM
I am currently trying to find the right surgeon. Chett is currently the most attractive option, despite some things that make me nervous. I don't want to have a complication and he won't help me. That kinda stuff. What do you think? Have you heard anything bad, resultwise, from the chett girls you are in contact with?

In general, would you recommend him?

Also, I'd love to hear your full Suporn/Chett comparison. Are still planning to do it?

My final ratings on my surgery with Dr. Chettawut are as follows:

Depth: 9/10. Not really an issue that I was personally concerned about, but I know that many are indeed concerned about it, so just including that I got and have easily maintained 6 inches of depth, as has EVERY other of the Chett girls I'm still in contact with. (Like, literally EVERY single one. Non-inversion means that basically you get 6 inches, you get 6 inches, EVERYONE gets exactly 6 inches, no more no less.)

Appearance: 7/10. This is the one area that, despite still being generally good, didn't quite meet my expectations. (I was expecting an 8-9/10 here.) Like, for a one-stage procedure this is more than satisfactory (I'd consider below a 5 to be unsatisfactory) and looks fine. Everything is in the right place, the structure is completely correct, nobody's going to notice any differences unless they're really looking for them, but I was expecting a bit more definition in the inner labia area. I'd have to go in for a secondary labiaplasty before down there would really start looking cisnormative to my eyes. Also my urethra's a little bit crooked. (Which isn't noticeable to anyone but me, and is purely a cosmetic issue because it functions 100% fine, but could have been done better.) Most people who had surgery with Chett are very happy with it, but if you REALLY REALLY REALLY care about looking completely cisnormative I can see where there could be issues here. On the whole he does a good job, but this is definitely not where he excels. (And to be fair, I've heard just as many [similar] complaints from other SRS surgeons, so this might just be that the practice of SRS hasn't really developed a 1-stage procedure that can accurately replicate a cisnormative vulva yet. I'm admittedly kind of flying in the dark here since I only really have results from Chett, Suporn, and Brassard to directly compare to. Suporn's SRS looks on average slightly better, Brassard is either better or worse depending on who you ask.)

Sensation: 10/10. I lost ZERO sensation, while eliminating absolutely everything that I used to hate about how things "felt" downstairs. Basically what I have now is every bit as pleasurable as my old anatomy, still retaining that "pleasantly flushed" feeling, while not at all feeling like an erection and not feeling like a penis. Chett is an absolute wizard when it comes to preserving sensation, and I could not recommend him more highly for that part of it. The "analogous" part of this surgery, where almost nothing is moved around and everything is made of the same material that it would have been made of had I been cis, which is why I went to him in the first place, met and even exceeded my expectations in every way. My phantom sensations were cured, and my genitals are no longer something that I even think about that much because they "feel" exactly right. Chett is equal to Suporn and I believe better than Brassard and almost every inversion surgeon in this regard. Non-inversion is worth it IMO. A lot of my friends who went the inversion route reported a moderate loss of sensation, and things which feel a little bit "moved around" where it took time to get used to where some parts had moved to.

Function: 8/10. A big part of this is on me because I still haven't actually maintained the dilation schedule, I'm still stuck on the #2 dilator 2 years after my surgery because I'm too lazy to dilate every single day, but I've had troubles being able to actually use the vag for penetrative purposes. It bleeds very easily when I go sticking things down there. Clitoral function is an A+, but also as I mentioned earlier my urethra came out a bit crooked, so it angles slightly forward and to the right. Also there's some very slight fluid discharge, enough to leave most pairs of underwear with little moist spots at the end of the day (which I honestly have no idea if it's normal or not, it might just be a normal-vagina thing for all I know.) None of these are big enough problems to be considered actual issues, they're not things that affect my daily life, but they are things that I notice. (And again, a lot of the vaginal issues are my own fault for being lazy, so anyone else who does follow the dilation schedule should be fine.)

Recovery: 7/10. Chett's recovery is not quite as closely-monitored as other SRS surgeons because he operates out of such a small clinic which only has room for 3 people. The nurse visits in the hotel were welcome and needed, but because they were only once per day I was largely left alone with my own anxieties free to run amok with only one chance per day to have questions answered, and it led to a few scares during recovery (which ended up being nothing, but emotions can be a roller coaster after surgery, so I would have liked to have a better discourse.) A couple of my friends took issue with the recovery protocol, so even though I personally would give it an 8/10 the consensus seems to be that the recovery protocols he uses are one of the detriments to picking him as a surgeon. Not having a week in the hospital with immediate access to nurses and therefore prescriptions and advice was an issue. However, this still gets easily above a 5 in my books because the recovery from non-inversion SRS compared with inversion SRS which I saw from a couple of my friends was an absolute breeze. There was almost no blood, and only a few days of intense pain, where several of my friends who went to inversion surgeons had very bloody messy painful recoveries. Chett, Suporn, and any other non-inversion surgeon is a breeze to recover from compared to the recovery from inversion where much more is moved around. Suporn, by comparison, has you recovering in a hospital with access to a huge network of other post-op women who can answer every single question you might have at a moment's notice. Chett doesn't have that. It's just you and whoever you came with or whoever else happens to be there for SRS at the same time who is probably just as clueless as you are about what's normal or not.

Price: 10/10. I maintain that Chett and Preecha are probably the best bargains in the world. My entire surgery cost, including flight, hotel, food, and 2 months of time off from work, came to a grand total of $13,000, for a surgery that I feel is just barely below or equal to the level of quality of the absolute best surgeons in the world. Plus you get to stay right in Bangkok, right next to Seacon Square, so you get much more ability to tourist it up and enjoy Thailand, where Chonburi is pretty far away from almost everything. (Again, based on what my Brazilian friend told me, a lot of Suporn's reputation is mainly due to better communication and follow-up with his patients and a closely-knit network of post-op girls who largely keep any potentially-negative experiences from becoming issues before they'd go to the public stage, where when someone has an issue with Chett the communication is lackluster, so there's less help and nothing to stop them from letting everyone hear about it.) Ultimately I feel like the quality is comparable or slightly below the same level, with a pricetag that is $5000 less. If you're like me and you cannot wait, your genitals are a detriment to your everyday quality of life and you can't imagine waiting a whole extra year to save up the extra $5000 to go somewhere else, Chett is a fantastic option.

Cultural Experience: 10/10. Thailand was an AMAZING experience. The temples, the food, the culture, I would not trade the cultural experience of visiting Thailand for anything. Surgery plus a wonderful vacation in an amazing country was a match made in heaven. Both me and my mom really want to go back because we had such an amazing visit.

OVERALL: 8.3/10



Group consensus on SRS in our little 18-person Chett group 2 years later is still 17 happy satisfied customers, 1 very unhappy customer.

Thank you so much for sharing this journey with all of us. I've followed from the beginning and I'm so glad to hear you are happy.
I had considered doing what you did, but it looks like my insurance will cover me. Now I just need to get things happening.
Again though, thank you for letting us know how things turned out. I am so happy for you. So much of your story was relatable to me and I've been waiting patiently for the verdict.
Hugs and congratulations

Kitty

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Hey,

thank you for your summary. It is a great help. I would like to hear more about when things go wrong with him though. Would you be so kind and go a little more into detail about that? I am referring to some hints you already gave that imply that he tries to escape responsibility.

Why is this one person out of 18 unhappy? I think I remember a story about a tear because of problems with the bowel movement. Was it that girl?

Thank you, Carrie. :)

Quote from: Carrie Liz on November 04, 2018, 04:22:05 PM
My final ratings on my surgery with Dr. Chettawut are as follows:

Dear Carrie Liz,

First of all, I would like to thank you very much for sharing your GRS experience with Dr. Chettawut. Your story and your comments were invaluable to me at the time I had to choose a surgeon and then during my recovery.

My GRS took place one year ago. I too would have liked to share the story of my adventure, but for some reasons I have not done it so far. I take advantage today of your update to give some elements about the outcome of my GRS as today, knowing that I still feel a slight swelling at the mons venus and the perineum and thus that the healing is still not totally finished.

Depth: I am completely satisfied with the depth I have. It was initially 7 inches (measured by nurse Sri on the day of package removal) and I was able to maintain it at 7 inches until today. I confirm that the people I know who had their GRS with Dr. Chettawut have all a depth of 6 inches or more.

Appearance: I am also very satisfied on this point. Before the operation, especially after looking at the Great Wall of Vagina, I could not ignore the extreme diversity of cis women vulva. My only expectation was thus that my potential partners can not realize that my vulva was the result of a surgery. I think that this goal has been achieved.
I too would have liked that my inner labia be defined better than they are but it does not bother me at all.

Sensations: Quite satisfying. My clitoris is very sensitive, but not excessively. What I feel when it is stimulated and during vaginal penetration is very different from what I knew before the operation but is exactly what I expected. The labia and the entrance of the vagina are also very sensitive. I had my first orgasm at 5.5 months post-op (the day of Ascension!). The only downside is that the perineum and peri-clitoral area are still slightly painful to the touch. I think I will have to wait another 3 months or so to fully enjoy my new anatomy.

Urinary function: The urethra is in the right place and when I pee the jet is oriented correctly. I already mentioned that I had two urinary infections including one with multi-resistant bacteria that required that I had to be hospitalized. In both cases they were not directly related to the operation, the infectiologist who followed me at the hospital said.

Dilation: The first three months were trying and demanding. 3 daily dilation sessions of 1.5 hour each (counting the initial preparation and the final cleaning and toilet), this is a total of 4.5 hours per day which is enormous. However I wanted to strictly respect the dilation program provided by Dr. Chettawut so as not to risk jeopardizing the excellent work he had done. Starting D+4 months I began to gradually reduce the number of dilations per day, then per week. Today, at D+12 months I am at 3 sessions per week and I intend to go soon to 2 sessions per week. I still use the 4 dilators #1 to #4. The dilation itself was painful during the second and third months post-op, but it was still bearable. At present I do not feel any more pain but the dilators being very rigid it is not particularly pleasant.

Healing: I first want to express my admiration for the quality of the sutures made by Dr. Chettawut. In the first days after the vaginal package had been removed, the external sutures were clearly visible (no hair had yet grown back) and their appearance was such that one would have thought they had been made with a sewing machine ! : very fine and very regular points. It was very different from what I had seen before my surgery on pictures taken after GRS performed by other surgeons. Note that as soon as I could see my vulva it had the appearance of a normal vulva, instead of a Dr. Frankenstein's creation (as I have seen in many pictures). This is probably the reason why a GRS performed by the best Thai surgeons lasts about 6 hours (6:30 in my case) while it only lasts 2 hours when performed by any Western surgeon.
I never had any bleeding or suspicious vaginal discharge. Past D+3 months the minimal leaks I had previously after each dilation session have gone and I did not need to wear pads any more.
Today, there is still some slight inflammation in the perineum (fourchette) but it is gradually diminishing and I'm sure it will disappear in the next few months.

On-site aftercare: I am very satisfied with the way my convalescence took place at the clinic and then at the hotel (Bangkok Rama Hotel).
During my stay at the clinic I only slept, ate and took medicine. A nurse passed regularly to pick up the constants and empty the urinary pocket. Another nurse slept in my room for 3 nights out of the 4 that I spent at the clinic. The return to the hotel by car was a bit difficult but it was due to the state of the roads.
Once back at the hotel I had the visit of at least one nurse, most often two (Sri and Tair), every day, Sunday included. During the 23 days of my recovery at the hotel there was only one day (a public holiday) when they did not visit me.
These two nurses were very professional and very concerned to avoid unnecessary pain. They have done everything to bring me comfort the rare times I really suffered.

Follow-up after returning home: The return travel by plane, train and then taxi was very painful and tiring (25 hours of travel overall). Once arrived at home I felt lost and having no medical support available in case of problems.
As I said above, I had a multi-resistant bacterial urinary tract infection for which I had to be hospitalized 3 weeks (1 week in hospital and 2 weeks at home). When this infection broke out, at 1.5 months post-op, I immediately contacted Dr. Chettawut's clinic by e-mail for guidance on what to do, especially about dilation. I could not have a direct answer from a member of the medical team, I had to go through the administrative manager which lengthened the time for accurate answers, answers that I received only after I had been hospitalized.
Regardless of this problem, I find it unfortunate that it is not possible to easily contact the medical team especially during the first 3 months post-op, the most critical period for healing.
Similarly, I find it really a pity that the clinic is doing nothing to maintain a community of women operated by Dr. Chettawut (for example, through a dedicated website or a Facebook group). He would benefit as much as his patients from the existence of such a community.
The post-op follow-up after the departure from Bangkok therefore deserves greatly to be improved in my opinion.

Price: My GRS cost me a total of just over 16,000 euros (about 18,000 USD). This cost included vaginoplasty and complementary grafting (10,000 euros), shaving of Adam's apple (1,500 euros), travel, hotel and food for two people (3,500 euros), and all ancillary costs: fees of an English-French translator for the pre-op consultation, purchase of suitcases, laptop, tablet, lubricant stock, etc. (about 1000 euros). That's a lot, but the value for money offered by Dr. Chettawut is unbeatable.
Overall I am very satisfied to have entrusted my GRS to Dr. Chettawut, and if it were to do it again I would choose him anew for sure despite the small criticisms I have expressed.

PS: English is not my native langage, I hope it is anyway understandable and I thank everyone for your indulgence.

Quote from: Carrie Liz on November 04, 2018, 04:22:05 PM
Group consensus on SRS in our little 18-person Chett group 2 years later is still 17 happy satisfied customers, 1 very unhappy customer.

Could you tell me how to join the group in question?

Quote from: Lucie on November 11, 2018, 12:39:48 PM
Could you tell me how to join the group in question?

I'd find this group useful too!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

ccv