Phil House has washing powder and also little racks to put up to dry your clothes. You can get them just like toilet paper and fresh towels by asking at the reception. Nothing of that costs anything extra.

Thanks, Anja.  All sorted.   Guess the air will be slightly more humid tonight as the clothes continue to dry. Had my first cough since surgery today.  Even though it was gentle for a cough, you can definitely sort of feel it afterwards!

My checkup is tomorrow, too.  I'll try and keep doing updates (although not much to say until a month after), I promise.  I have read through this thread and the other big Yeson thread and so many people basically stopped posting after they had their surgery. It's gotta be 1/2 or 2/3 that stopped!  I notice that vocoroo (sp?) links eventually expire anyway, so the chances of people hearing it that you don't want to, etc., should be rather low.

Quote from: Denjin on April 01, 2016, 10:32:19 PM
I would advise others to do this sort of thing on a weekday, though!  The Palace was totally heaving by lunch time... and, the restaurant needs reservations.  Well, perhaps it doesn't need them, but they are a good idea on a weekend at least.  So, get your hotel to phone up in advance would be my recommendation.

Despite the bad air quality, people come out to enjoy the spring, especially cherry blossoms. Yes. All restaurants are full of guests, and it is a good idea to make reservation. I guess there are English-speaking cashiers, as I see the menu in English.

A good news is the air quality becomes better. Here in my hometown (Jeju), it was restored to the pristine state. I am happy!

barbie~~

Yes, I noticed the issue with the vocaroo expiration date as well. Thats a bummer, because there were a lot of voice samples on there. But other services ask for a registration - like soundcloud - and not everyone wants to go through the trouble. Several people did youtube videos though...

Barbie, the air was great in Seoul today, too.  I guess the rain yesterday really helped.  It made for an amazing last full day here - 20C and sunny!

Anja - yeah some did, but I was looking through and there are quite a few who made a last post either the day of or day after surgery and then went poof.

Had my checkup and he said everything was fine, but botox pinched a bit.  Not sure if I got a normal or a big dose, though.  My vocal cords looked sort of weird to me, but I swear he said there was detritus in there, so maybe it's not as amazingly swollen as it looks.

See (top left is before):

Sadly often once people are "done" , they disappear. With SRS its the same - you hear about them going, maybe reporting shortly after that it all went fine and then poof. To my shame I did the same in the support group back then - I never went back there after I had my SRS done... but it had other reasons - I did not really want to go there anymore even in the time before the SRS...

There are a bit more longer lasting posts and videos in the Yeson facebook group though, I guess since it is a bit more private than this forum, people are more likely to do records there, plus facebook of course keeps the audio and video files foreeeever.

Anjaq,

I noticed praat gives different readings every day. On some days I can reach 245 hz as fundamental frequency, on others, I get 181? Have you experienced this?

Eesh, I didnt even recognize my vocal cords today until he pointed at them.
They're tiny now with some odd looking glob of glue covering the whole surgical site.

I guess just drowning the whole thing in glue is one way to make sure everything stays in place...

No pics sadly, but on a different note this silent cough method is great! Maybe I'm particularly drowning in phlegm because of that glue.  But it sure feels great to get a relief once in a while.

Yes, that glue that Remarcle uses seems to be uncomfortable for some. At some point it will come loose and come out with a cough. It is probably his way to ensure the suture stays tight even though it is a dissolving suture. Dr Kim uses permanent sutures to achieve this. Some patients of Dr Haben who apparently does not use either have reported thair stitches coming loose, I believe? (Correct me if I am wrong).

Ritana - the praat pitch reading depends on a lot of things first of all, if you measure "artefacts", it can distort the average pitch. So if you notive parts of the recording (let praat show the blue pitch line) that are below 120 Hz or above 500 Hz, most likely those are artefacts, unless they are really clearly part of that line. You should not mark that part then for pitch measurement, but choose a different part. You can also just check parts of the recording - just 5 second pieces and see if the pitch varies between them.
Another thing is that average pitch depends a LOT on voice melody and thus on your mood. If I am in a particularly good mood and use a lot of higher pitched parts as part of my voice melody, the average can be 40 or 50 Hz higher than if I am speaking rather monotonously. So if you want to compare, use the same voice melody and pitch range for recordings.
And lastly of course pitch is not stable from day to day or morning to evening. My pitch seems to be lower and more hoarse in the morning then get better over the day and then lower again in the evening with more vocal fry in it...
Speaking of vocal fry - using it (unintentionally mostly) can cause a much lower pitch reading.

All i did was following jenny's tutorial. I noticed that my voice is usually hoarse in the morning then gets better throughout the day before it starts breaking in the evening.

Here is a demonstration of the artefacts, I mentioned:

Its the same audio clip but I set the pitch detection settings differently and thus different artefacts, marked in red, are detected and incorporated into the average pitch. Its only short moments, but they can change the average pitch significantly, in this case by 10 Hz. So I recommend picking a piece of the text in praat that has no such obvious artefacts but the blue line is more "connected", like in the right part of that section.

In this post, I demonstrated what difference intonation and voice melody can make:
https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,150142.msg1580699.html#msg1580699

Great post, Anjaq! Thank you!!!!

All back. Now comes the additional weeks of being silent at home.  Anja, you were right - much harder with others around.  It's hard to prevent laughter and other things.

Try not to mimic with your lips as -apparently- it makes the brain think yoy wanna speak. This results in the vocal folds moving which in turn may affect your recovery.

Thanks, Ritana.  It's all easier said than done, especially in the beginning.  First morning waking up back at home and the dog wakes me up at an ungodly hour... so I whisper lie down which is just doubleplusungood.  Doh.  Won't happen again anyway.  Also, the phlegm seems a lot worse once the pills you get are gone.   I have my own NAC I'll start from today and see if that helps.

I think the recommendation to basically not speak is because people tends towards extremes.  If you say a few words per day, lots of people will just lose track and speak far too much.  However, I'm definitely going to listen to his recommendations and hopefully not screw up too much more.

BTW, for those on the Facebook group.  I guess I'd need to be friends with someone there?  Also, Facebook itself would then know you're TS, right? Meh. Whose to say they don't do something stupid with privacy settings at some point, etc.

Well, after returning home one is in the "1-2 words a day" phase, so the occasional word is not too bad. But basically what I did in my mind after surgery was to switch somehow to pretend I am totally mute. Apparently this worked well since after 2 weeks people told me that my gestures and also my nonverbal expressions were very similar to that of mute people they know - lol. Basically I told myself to forget that I can speak for those 4 weeks somehow. But I did not go so far and learn proper sign language - no one but a few people could understand it anyways.

I also took something against the phlegm for the 4 weeks, it just helps not to cough too hard.

I made a Trans-profile on Facebook that is basically openly trans but has only a distored image of myself in the profile and not a real name. Maybe one day they will close it down, but its the only way I can be in those groups and not be "outed". OTOH Facebook probably still knows that me and "trans" are connected topics because they have their stupid button everywhere and track everything...
The facebook group itself is secret though, so it does not show up right away in your profile...

Thanks, Anja.  Starting on my own NAC has seemed to help with the phlegm at least.  I've still said a couple of words due to stupid things, but my brain will be used to this very soon. 

Guess I'll pass on Facebook, unless I want to make yet another account on another email address.

At least the NHS pulled through and gave me my sick note and also a referral to an ENT for June so I can get an exam as per Dr. Kim's request.

My four weeks is up, one week from next Tuesday.  However, I don't understand how I'm supposed to speak?  Dr. Kim said to just speak in a relaxed manner and not tighten up my throat, but you need to do that for proper resonance (at least keep the larynx high?).  Any ideas?

Also, I had a brain dead moment and tried to do a verbal response to someone today, and nothing even came out... So either I'm doing something wrong or I'm in no position to speak yet (still 9 days off anyway).

Thanks!

Sorry to say that, but it probably will be COMPLICATED. In a way the goal IS to speak relaxed, no tightening up the throat - just speak. If you did too much voice traininge before it may be that you need to unlearn a few things. Especially resonance is a weird thing. It seems one can get a female resonance in different ways and you need to find the one that does not involve too much tightening up muscles at the larynx. It will take time... - but just go with it, test what works and what hurts, the exercises kind of point in the right way but are not enough. Better allow yourself a lower than expected pitch rather than tightening up to elevate pitch, rather focus on speaking cleanly and well articulated...