Hello there!

I am new to these forums, though it was one of several resources I used when deciding on Yeson for voice surgery, like many others here. I did notice the large community here and have meant to post a hello on this subforum in particular for some time, since my attention at the moment is heavily focused on my upcoming surgeries.

My Yeson VFS surgery is currently scheduled for late July (22-30) - I see a couple people scheduled for just before or after me, hello and best of luck. It's not 100% confirmed yet due to unresolved passport and itinerary issues. But very likely.

I had a few questions, one I see (risks of going alone) has already been covered recently, so I will be sure to check out the relevant thread/s.

Another question I had that I have not read about yet (but there are a lot of threads so I just may not have gotten to it yet) relates to the following - I talked to Jessie about doing a tracheal shave at the same time, and she said that:

QuoteUpon patient's request, we perform the trachea shave but we do not recommend it for the best outcome of VFS surgery. Trachea shave requires neck skin incision. The reason we do not recommend trachea shave is because the ressection on thyroid notch may affect the pitch-raising muscle which is a critical function for VFS surgery. Therefore, we will very preservatively perform trachea shave. Having it done by another doctor you will have to see the progress after surgery whether your pitch has dropped down or not.

My question is: Has anyone gotten a tracheal shave performed at the same time as the VFS in Yeson? How was your experience? Did you have to pay any extra for it? Did anyone ask and decide not to based on what they recommended? I've always thought tracheal shaves weren't supposed to affect the voice at all, hrm. Has anyone done it post-Yeson and have it adversely affect the voice? For me it sounds like it's going to be a day-before decision though once I actually go in for the pre-surgery consultation.

Also, would it be all right if I used this thread as a running travel diary/log of my surgery and experiences there, and maybe the prep period prior to going? I'll likely be going there alone and terrified out of my mind, so hopefully this will help alleviate it a little heh.

Thanks for reading.

My reply from Jessie in regards to the shave:

"We can decide whether or not to perform the trachea shave only after revewing the voice exmiantion result here.
Most of the cases, we do not recommend it for the best outcome of VFS surgery.


Thank you and warm regards,"

Dear Jessray,

I've not had (or needed) a tracheal shave, so I'm in no position to tell. However, I know that Jennygirl had VFS on top of a prior tracheal shave expertly performed by Dr. O and it wasn't a problem.

So I suppose this would be the way to do it, trach shave first, VFS second. I'm not sure. If Jessie says "you will have to see the progress after surgery whether your pitch has dropped down or not", I think this is a pretty good indication that the sequence I described is a working arrangement, for it happens very rarely that pitch drops after a trach shave.

And pretty much everybody here uses "their" thread as a running log of their VFS experiences, so go ahead and do likewise :-)

Amy

Congratulations on your upcoming surgery!

I had a lot taken off of my adam's apple three months before VFS at Yeson, but not too much that it affected my voice. Perhaps it did affect it slightly, and I did not notice. I consider my result from Yeson to be extremely satisfactory..

I would be very weary of tracheal shave before or after Yeson's VFS as a separate procedure. I think it would be smart to have them do it, or a very reputable surgeon beforehand. Not afterward, though. Consider VFS with Yeson as an investment in your voice, you do not want anything to interfere with that afterward.

And yes absolutely feel free to update. Everyone loves hearing reports of your experience and especially voice samples

Oops. Kind of forgot to check for replies here. Thanks for the replies and that sounds about right.. I'll see what they say during the consultation then. I wonder if it'll affect the price any, heh.

I was going to go to Dr. Thomas in Portland last year (I actually went.. and pulled out two days before the op) and they offered a 'free' tracheal shave as part of the package, but I guess since they were doing an incision anyway it wasn't much more different, plus it's a different procedure after all.

I will spam up this thread when my time comes, if all goes well (negotiating passport issues at the moment). Thanks to the three of you for the replies. My feet.. they're cold, cold!

Edit: According to this link, trachea shave would add $2500 or so to it. Hmm.

May I ask why did you pull back from Dr Thomas that closely to the surgery date?

Several reasons, mainly because it was a rushed decision on my part, and I realised that while weighing options "in the moment". I actually wanted to do it to coincide with the start of transition, ie do the voice op, then immediately begin my RLT right after (went March 2013, and was starting April 2013) since I figured I wouldn't be talking much anyway. But there was too much going on, especially because workplace politics became a little bit unstable around that time due to budget cuts (I survived though and am still working here now).

Another reason was that I had bad vibes about the whole thing, it started when Jody (Dr. Thomas' front desk person) gave me a completely borked itinerary (with wrong dates and all) post-payment, although she was super nice other than that. I don't remember what other things played into it. I do remember the last straw was having jitters but not being able to see Dr. Thomas and talk to him to allay various worries and nerves before the pre-op appointment, without having to pay $500 or so, since if I recall after the pre-op appointment it seals in the fee you paid and you can't get a refund. I did talk to him once over the phone many months before while researching the place, but I didn't get a particularly good or warm impression from him then, though it wasn't a bad one either.

Lastly I had my dad with me and let's just say he was a bad support person. This time I plan to go alone (sadly), mostly because I don't want my parents there (they are supportive but not really understanding) and none of my friends can make it. I am definitely worried I may have same sort of panic attack while over in S. Korea that may force me to pull out again though, but the testimonials on here, ->-bleeped-<-, Youtube and elsewhere certain help a lot (Dr. Thomas' did not really have those, just a small number on his site and one online friend's friend).

At any rate they refunded all but $500 of the $9k or so fee.

Ok - I understand. I had the impression Dr Thomas is quite good for some people but its bigger surgery than Yeson.
So there are more reports on Dr Kim than on susans and his own youtube channel? Do you care to share some links? i would like to see some more info besides our little group here THX

Yeah I'm sure he's pretty good. I still was planning to return someday until I heard about Yeson a couple months ago, what a relief.

It's mostly ->-bleeped-<- threads outside of those two, I started with Google, which led to a few ->-bleeped-<- links - it actually led to another thread with voice samples but which doesn't show on searches because the author had deleted her account, so oh well. That subsequently linked to his Youtube channel, then to his site, and then subsequent searches for testimonials turned up this site right away. There doesn't seem to be any mention of Yeson around my local area's trans community, but I wasn't too surprised at that.

Oh, another reason I pulled out was that at that time, I had only been doing voice training for about 3 months. My voice has changed a lot even since then, so I am generally passable now, it just takes a lot of effort to do so. At that time I was also sort of thinking of it as a quick fix, which may have worked regardless, but now I just want to remove the bottom of my vocal range so I don't have that option anymore, and bump my top range up a little, which is probably a better philosophy to go in with.

Quote from: Jessray on May 21, 2014, 12:39:32 AM
Oops. Kind of forgot to check for replies here. Thanks for the replies and that sounds about right.. I'll see what they say during the consultation then. I wonder if it'll affect the price any, heh.

I was going to go to Dr. Thomas in Portland last year (I actually went.. and pulled out two days before the op) and they offered a 'free' tracheal shave as part of the package, but I guess since they were doing an incision anyway it wasn't much more different, plus it's a different procedure after all.

I will spam up this thread when my time comes, if all goes well (negotiating passport issues at the moment). Thanks to the three of you for the replies. My feet.. they're cold, cold!

Edit: According to this link, trachea shave would add $2500 or so to it. Hmm.

Absolutely agree with what Jenny says about being careful about getting a trach shave. I had mine in 2000 but fortunately it doesn't seem to have altered my voice (touch wood). We'll find out in a couple of weeks when I have VFS if that's true. What a lot of girls who have very prominent throats find, myself included, is that you can still see what's left of the Adam's Apple after surgery. The prominence is gone but it does look odd. However, I think even if I'd not had testosterone poisoning I would still have had something visible; my anatomy is just that way. 

Yeah some women do have a pronounced larynx. I still wonder how it correlates to voice, pitch, vocal chord length etc.

Yeah my larynx is still super visible, I was a tad upset by it for about a month after wondering if it was just swelling.. but you just learn to live with what you have and move on. Big wup! Just as long as it's not a "notch" it's not necessarily a tell.. Or maybe people are just being nice to me?

Yeah I don't know heh. To me, mine is quite visible.. especially when I'm tired. I'd like to get some of it done, especially since I think my voice is already decently high, so I probably don't need a full range pitch raise, buuut then again. $2500 on top of it (if that is the price) is fairly expensive, for something that I've never been outed for before -- or maybe everyone's just been nice to me too.

It just was a bit of a surprise since all the literature I've ever read said it wouldn't affect the voice one bit, and both Dr. Thomas and Dr. Brassard (GRS surgeon here in Canada) seem to toe that line of thought. It'll probably be a pre-op day decision though. But ugh the surgery is freaking me out.

Silly question.. what is a notch in this context?

I am just curious. My voice is super deep but as much as I am searching, cannot find an adams apple. But of course there is the larynx - every person has that, men and women, so I doubt that that would be an issue.

Still in prep mode here, my time off from work has already started because there are a bazillion things to do before I leave this weekend. I'm hoping to make this thread into somewhat of a travel log as well, because I will be sending the link to several people to follow along (pre-emptive hi folks!) so I don't have to repeat everything many times and leave out different details in each one. So hopefully I don't become the most annoying member on the forum before it's all over! And for all I know I'll be super exhausted when I get there and after surgery so I won't do anything.

But let's hope not.

Life here has been interesting while waiting, since I booked the date about 3 months ago. I had actually sent in my citizenship card to get the name and gender replaced before I had heard of/booked a date with Yeson, but had to retract that due to the process taking months, and the gender flag not actually being able to be replaced until I go through SRS and have a letter for that. I had to contact my MP for them to expedite my case and then finally get it withdrawn, and the MP office was really nice and fairly helpful but also did drop the ball for nearly a month (my contact went on emergency leave and the people that were supposed to take over the case in her stead, did not) which caused me some mild panic, but everything seems to have come together since then. I've gotten the yucky card back and used that to apply for my passport last week.

Canada only grants a one time, 2 year passport in your preferred gender, until you go through SRS. I am due to pick up that passport on Friday afternoon, one day before I leave. That's not worrying at all, nope. *sweats* But I supposedly have confirmation that it will be there, so hopefully they stick to that.

Have had lots of anxiety/crying/panic attacks in the last couple months, although less so in the last month as the date has drawn closer and things have started becoming incredibly busy. Had one last Friday or Saturday though. While there have been very many testimonials and actual people to speak to on the forum here, as well as a few online friends, and those have helped a ton, I am still very frightened in general about the concept of undergoing surgery and being alone and all that. I am nothing if not headstrong though and so I will be trying to power through that. Everything feels really surreal at the moment though. It was very tough leaving work for the last time (for 3 months) last week, especially since I know there will be changes while I'm gone in terms of personnel, and I just couldn't face my teammates - I had to sneak off because I was already hovering on the edge of tears saying goodbye to my supervisor and office partner. I think it took a good 30 minutes to compose myself.

My flight itinerary is Edmonton > Vancouver on Saturday, July 19th, on AC241, and Vancouver > Seoul on AC63. I fly off at 11:35 am, and arrive in Seoul on 4:50 pm on Sunday, July 20th, total of 13 hours flight time with a 1h 20m layover in Vancouver.

My pre-op is at 2pm on Tue, July 22nd, surgery is at 8am on Wed, July 23rd, and followup at 1:30 pm on Wed, July 30th. I fly back on the evening of the 31st.

I have not decided on a place to stay yet, and will have to do so right away. First time travelling on my own, never mind outside of the continent, and never mind yet for something as monumental as surgery. So hopefully I will avoid most of the pitfalls. I am definitely worried about the airports and flights, and a bit about being alone in foreign lands.

Have a couple things to look forward to, though. I booked tickets for a couple League of Legends games (I don't play it much, but I enjoy watching it) at the Yongsan e-Sports Stadium on the 25th and 30th at 7pm, hopefully I am well enough to catch those.

I also forgot to add, I did have a few tangles with Yeson during the last couple months.

The first was Jessie casually mentioning that,
"For the best outcome and safe recovery process, we do not perform the trachea shave along with VFS surgery. Please understand our decision. This can be discussed more in detail during the consultation."

Which shocked me, and I had to quote our original conversation back to her to get her to agree that we would talk about it before deciding, although they were advising against it. I am not sure currently if I will go for it but I want to make an informed decision based on the options given and the availability of the option was an important factor for me in the first place when booking it. So be wary of this if this is something you are looking to do with them too.

I also had some issues wiring the money for the VFS over to them, as my local branch could not find the wire transfer code for their branch that I was given. We eventually used the code for the main bank and sent it over on a bit of a leap of faith and they confirmed they had received it. $7390 was the final cost, and if we do go for a tracheal shave on top of that, then it will be another $2500 or so that I will have to pay the day before the surgery (credit card).

Have my passport in hand, busy packing for the trip. Somewhat nerve wracking only being able to get my passport the day before I fly off, but hey. I wonder what items I will wish I had brought along, the first evening in Seoul.

Still lots of nerves, but at this point there's a fair amount of adrenaline too. I don't think I'll be sleeping tonight.

I think I will be staying in the Gangnam Artnouveau Hotel that MeganChristine suggested in the other thread, would have preferred that other Sheraton that was also linked but at the price (almost double this one!) it was a non-starter. I say I think not because it isn't confirmed yet, as it is, but because there are apparently 2-3 hotels with a similar or nearly identical name, and this one has two different addresses that I've seen, and.. yeah.

4.5 star hotel for $137 or so a night - the main attractions for me were a good, safe place, near lots of amenities and attractions and fairly near the subway, and the in-suite kitchenette, and washer and dryer. There were other cheaper options on the table I looked at too, but in the end I didn't feel enough confidence in them, travelling alone.

Lots of things to visit in Seoul, hopefully I'm physically up to visiting a number of them! Assuming I survive!

Edit: Also, Yeson apparently no longer offers the guided tour that they mention on both their website and the info package that they send.

I hope it all goes well for you - I will be checking back to see updates

I know the feeling of being alone in a foreign country. Living in Australia, I took a leap of faith and visited my (then) girlfriend in America for two months all alone. It was exciting and scary at the same time!

@Jessray: If you go for the Gangnam Artnouveau, make sure you get a room situated no the same side as room 604, or even get room 604 :p It's on the west side of the hotel. Quiet, and no food smell from the restaurants around there

Btw, if you're looking for some quick take away late at night, I can recommend a small dumpling store between exit 5 on the station and the block the hotel is located. You see the steam pouring out of those big steamers outside It's like 4000won for 5 big dumplings impossible to miss )

Thanks for the well wishes Echelon! And thanks for the tip Megan! Hmm.. I am not sure if I'm allowed to choose my own hotel room, but we shall see! I will check out those dumplings, yummy.

I also did sign up for that DMZ tour you recommended. Added a note that I wouldn't be able to speak etc due to voice surgery and they said no problem. What else did you do while here? I should borrow your entire trip's itinerary at this rate! Hehe