Hello Everyone,
I made a thread for my FFS on the board dedicated to that topic but now it's time for my GRS. It's been a long time in the making! I'll start this thread now but I will update it as the healing comes along, up to perhaps 6 months or so. In my FFS thread I posted lots of before/afters and obviously that's not gonna happen here - too R-rated for you folks
I'll just use as much descriptive language as possible and talk about the whole process.
The first thing I wanted to say is that it should stand for genital reassignment surgery, not
gender reassignment. In my personal opinion, you don't need a vagina to be a female. Not everyone agrees with that, but I believe it's true and I completely 100% respect any trans woman who doesn't want the surgery. And if you ask me, FFS is the more important surgery since few people walk around in public without pants or a skirt. So if you're a girl with penis, you're a girl no less beautiful!
For me however, I have intense dysphoria about my nether-regions. It never felt like it was a part of me from as early as I can remember. I would describe it almost like a sharp mental pain, with pangs of extreme discomfort everytime I see, feel, or use "it." To me, forgoing GRS is not an option. I'm thankful that this amazing medical advancement exists, otherwise I don't know what I would do
My road to GRS (or GCS) began about 7 months after I started taking hormones, just as I was beginning to live part time as a female. My amazing doctor at Lyon-Martin Clinic was able to put through a referral for a consultation with Dr. Marci Bowers. I waited 3 months before I was able to actually call up her office and schedule the consultation. I was taken aback to learn that there was a 5 month waitlist to see her. Having my heart set on going to her, I waited. The consultation came; we met. She was very nice! However, when she told me the waitlist was 2 and 1/2 years, I was in shock. It hurt so bad to hear that. I remember walking to the front desk after feeling beaten down and then I asked when they would call to schedule the surgery. They told me 4-6 months until they would schedule me! That's 3 1/2 years total! I felt so hopeless after that. My career/insurance was too unstable to depend on waiting that long. My dysphoria was nearly unbearable. I didn't know what to do.
One day I was talking to my electrologist who routinely does pre- and post-op trans girls and trans guys. She knew my situation. She told me that she had worked on a few girls who had gone to a Dr. Thomas Satterwhite here in the Bay Area and she had also seen GRS results from all the main surgeons: Dr. Suporn, Dr. Meltzer, Dr. Bowers, Dr. Crane, Dr. Brassard - all the "big" hitters. To my surprise, she said Dr. Satterwhite's results looked just as good. And as it turned out, his office was very flexible with taking insurance. So I decided to send an email to his office.
They responded to me within a few days, I filled out paperwork and sent everything to them, and then finally talked to them over the phone. I only had to wait 2 1/2 months for a consultation and then 6 months after that for the surgery. It was like a ray of sunshine, forgive the cliche
I remember meeting him for the first time and thinking that he was so cool! Not only was he completely down to earth and to the brim with compassion, but he also gave me all the answers I needed to choose him. His technique is a combination of many different surgeons. He first began his career doing FFS in Miami but ended up training for GRS with Dr. Harold Reed. He took some techniques from Dr. Reed. He came to the Bay Area and trained with Dr. Crane, whose practice he works in, who had traveled around the world doing fellowships with Dr. Miroslav Djordjevick in Belgrade and Dr. Preecha in Thailand. He was also friends with Dr. Bowers and had been in the operating room with her during her surgeries, borrowing aspects of her technique. He also knew Dr. Brassard and used aspects of his technique. He even traded notes with Dr. McGinn! Suffice to say, he's developed his own technique with what he thinks are the best technical aspects of all these surgeons.
Most importantly though were the photographic results he showed me that weren't on the website (some are now). I was very impressed. Actually, I thought some were the best I had ever seen, in my opinion because they had really nice labia minora and lots of nice pink urethral mucosal tissue in between them. And there was an interesting detail to his technique that sounded awesome which was that he would actually do fat transfers to the labia majora/minora - something I had never heard of. He's proof that we shouldn't play into the Thai technique vs penile inversion, east vs west dichotomy. Dr. Satterwhite uses a hybrid technique, using both scrotal grafts for the inside of the vagina, along with inverted penis, but also uses skin from the penis to create labia minora. Check out his results. The best ones on there website are from Dr. Satterwhite (no offense to Dr. Crane who is more a FTM surgery guy).
After I got final approval from Kaiser, and after waiting about a month, I was finally scheduled for surgery in 9 months, September 6th. However, I kept calling the office every so often to see if they had cancellations and sure enough I was able to take one for May 17th. So here I am waiting in anticipation. Super excited
Thanks for reading all this, if you even got through it. Lots of detail but I like thick, qualitative descriptions
The last thing I'll say is that lately there has been too much an emphasis on the "big hitters" of GRS, the famous doctors. This is just not sustainable in my opinion. No wonder the wait times are horrendous. Everyone is lining up around the block (metaphorically lol) trying to go to the best of the best of the best, the most experienced, and I don't blame them. But don't forget that these doctors share techniques and that we're going to be seeing a lot of new names. As more people come out as transgender, the community should welcome these new doctors and trust that they can do fantastic work, that they've learned from the pioneering and experience of all the doctors who have come before. These aren't "new" surgeons - they've been trained and are worthy of our trust and respect as a community. I'm thankful to them because they give so many what we humbly want - to have the body that was always meant to be.
http://brownsteincrane.com/vaginoplasty-photos/P.S. I finally got a call, 8 months after my consultation with Dr. Bowers to schedule surgery haha I was like thank you but I got mine coming in a few months, not a few years!
- Ruby
