I guess this is sort of a venting post; as well as wanting  to hear if others have had the same feelings. So I have my surgery coming up in just over 3 months time and today I received the letters confirming my appointments; which has now made it feel more 'real'. I don't have doubts about the surgery; but I think I've watched too many trans phobic 'documentaries' about people who've had top surgery and regretted it. I know logically I won't regret it because I've wanted the lumps gone since they've appeared; but I still feel nervous. I guess because this is my first surgery and it's that fear of the unknown. I know I want the operation but then I think 'why take the risk'  . I'm definitely not looking forward to 3 months of the nerves building up.

Elis,
   I imagine your thought process was well thought out originally. When it is there in writing and seems real, maybe the brain plays devil's advocate for a while as like a self preservation kind of thing. If your original decision was right, I personally wouldn't stress over the getting close jitters. I am looking at surgery soon and am a little curious if I will experience this. So far, no. Good luck.
Moni

I've been in operating theaters before and came out fine so at this point I would say it's a phobia - a somewhat irrational fear that I still have. Being anesthetized takes 10 seconds and the rest is out of your knowledge, but of course the first couple of times this had happened I was not happy. The smell of hospitals doesn't help either - it tends to make me nervous.

It's not far off liposuction and not a particularly risky procedure. They are lumps of fat and superfluous tissue and the operation isn't an especially traumatic one. It's not going to penetrate to where your vital organs are, not even touching the ribcage. Skin and fat removal, with minimal blood loss. Thinking of it this way and I'm cool with it. It's "nothing major" to my mind, or highly invasive into the body. If it were heart surgery then yeah, I'd be having a hard time chilling out before going in wondering if I'm going to come out. In comparison, this kind of surgery is small fry.

Lucky for me I have an ability to completely forget all about a stressful upcoming event until about 5 minutes beforehand in which I then might quietly/internally start feeling like I'd like to walk out. Same with plane journeys, and I very much hate flying. I can relax right up until getting on board and then I wonder if I've killed myself. Thinking about it, I'd rather undergo surgery than get in a plane, hahah. But my advice would just be to try and forget it at least until nearer the time. Being put under is not nearly as exciting or terrifying as you imagine first time. If you tell the staff you're nervous about it they'll probably be reassuring. I remember they were with me because they noticed how tense I was when they were about to knock me out. I guess it helps for the first time.

I'm honestly more bothered about viewing the results for the first time, because it always looks pretty grim for a few months and I just hope it goes well without any swelling or infections etc.

Quote from: HappyMoni on June 10, 2017, 04:43:49 PM
Elis,
   I imagine your thought process was well thought out originally. When it is there in writing and seems real, maybe the brain plays devil's advocate for a while as like a self preservation kind of thing. If your original decision was right, I personally wouldn't stress over the getting close jitters. I am looking at surgery soon and am a little curious if I will experience this. So far, no. Good luck.
Moni

Thanks

Quote from: Viktor on June 10, 2017, 05:24:07 PM
I've been in operating theaters before and came out fine so at this point I would say it's a phobia - a somewhat irrational fear that I still have. Being anesthetized takes 10 seconds and the rest is out of your knowledge, but of course the first couple of times this had happened I was not happy. The smell of hospitals doesn't help either - it tends to make me nervous.

It's not far off liposuction and not a particularly risky procedure. They are lumps of fat and superfluous tissue and the operation isn't an especially traumatic one. It's not going to penetrate to where your vital organs are, not even touching the ribcage. Skin and fat removal, with minimal blood loss. Thinking of it this way and I'm cool with it. It's "nothing major" to my mind, or highly invasive into the body. If it were heart surgery then yeah, I'd be having a hard time chilling out before going in wondering if I'm going to come out. In comparison, this kind of surgery is small fry.

Lucky for me I have an ability to completely forget all about a stressful upcoming event until about 5 minutes beforehand in which I then might quietly/internally start feeling like I'd like to walk out. Same with plane journeys, and I very much hate flying. I can relax right up until getting on board and then I wonder if I've killed myself. Thinking about it, I'd rather undergo surgery than get in a plane, hahah. But my advice would just be to try and forget it at least until nearer the time. Being put under is not nearly as exciting or terrifying as you imagine first time. If you tell the staff you're nervous about it they'll probably be reassuring. I remember they were with me because they noticed how tense I was when they were about to knock me out. I guess it helps for the first time.

I'm honestly more bothered about viewing the results for the first time, because it always looks pretty grim for a few months and I just hope it goes well without any swelling or infections etc.

The biggest thing that worries me is them giving me the anesthetic but it not knocking me out and it just making me woozy before they start. I should have asked my surgeon if he was going to use muscle parylising drugs during the procedure; but I didn't want to seem 'odd' as I bet others haven't asked him that before. My problem for reading an article on accidental awareness during surgery. And I'm not sure if I want to take some medication for my anxiety just before surgery just in case they make me feel woozy which they will mistake for the anesthetic working. Which I know sounds completely absurd

Yeah thinking of it that way has helped me from becoming a total nervous wreck. It's just simply a cosmic procedure and will only take 4 hrs to complete. And I know I've chosen a good surgeon. He's also very well known in the UK so I know if one of his procedures had gone wrong for whatever reason I would have heard about it.

I've looked at the before and after pictures on the surgeon's website and tbh I find the thought of my chest looking like that off putting. But I suppose when it's your own chest scarred and bruised you don't care and simply glad the lumps have been removed. And when you have to massage your chest to help the scars settle down it'll make you feel a bit more connected to it even though it'll still look 'messy'.

Thanks Viktor

I read a couple of stories of that kind as well but it's extremely rare for that to ever happen. They'll get your weight and work out how much anesthetic required for your body size to keep you under. You shouldn't need muscle relaxing drugs or anything. I remember I did have to question the med staff and they had to question me because as a kid I had a bad recovery reaction to general anesthesia. As it turns out it wasn't a problem as an adult at all, but I remember asking them similar questions and the answers being it's a very low probability of anything going wrong and they have an anesthetist there anyway on hand.

No danger of mistaking the anesthetic for something else - they typically feed it into an arm and ask you to count to 10 while they watch your reaction closely. You probably won't even reach 10. Just so you know, it feels like ice water going up your arm and into your neck through your arteries. It's not unpleasant. But once it's up there going into your neck you'll be asleep. I never took anxiety medication last time, so I don't know if they encourage it or discourage it before surgery, definitely let them know about it at your next consultation etc. 

Yeah, I figure it takes a year about for the chest to settle down and look right after, the initial couple of weeks and it always looks pretty brutal to my mind, but I've seen far more reports of straightforward recoveries than issues, so I'm confident in it just being a waiting game and taking care of it.

I have been under general several times and I don't like it anymore than you do. I also experiences the same set of nerves and it's a battle to make it into the operating room. That said, from when the drugs take effect until I wake up seems like about 2-5 seconds passed with no memory of the surgery.

Depending on the where you have your surgery, they now have a medication that they can inject you with before they take you to surgery. It prevents the short term memories from becoming long term memories so you don't even recall being wheeled into the operation room. They used it for the last surgery I had and I didn't remember the guy coming in to inject me with the drug. It was only after the fact that I figured out what they had done. You might ask your surgeon about this as it takes away all memories of the surgery.

Hi Ellis,

I share some of your fears and I totally agree with you, the anticipation sucks. Major surgery is daunting, for sure.  I remember going for FFS, and the sleepless night before, getting up at 5 AM to sit out in front of the hotel for the limo service to pick me up, sitting in the exam room where they go over all the paperwork one more time before the anesthesiologist comes in and starts your IV.

Even though I was fairly naive abut FFS recovery, I knew it wasn't going to be easy, and waiting in the exam room before going to the OR felt like waiting for my execution. It took every bit of willpower I had to keep my mind blank and not succumb to overwhelming anxiety.

So now I have SRS coming up in a couple of months, and the surgeon herself told me that recovery is worse for SRS than FFS, in her opinion.  Great. Just peachy. So now I don't even have that level of blessed ignorance to keep my mind at ease.  And once again, I will be flying solo. The logistics are such I have to get myself to the hotel in Pennsylvania the day before the surgery, do my bowel prep, and "get some sleep" before driving myself to the hospital at 6 AM.

I have no real fear of the surgery, or the anesthetic induction.  The drugs are so good now. I had surgery as a child, in the 1960s, and it was an absolutely horrible experience being put under. It has taken me years to get over that gut-level fear of hospitals.

In fact, I will be looking for that IV to be hooked up as soon as possible to I can get that pop of Versed and whatever narcotic they pick (as a former drug addict and occasional heroin user I can tell it's some kind of opioid).  It's after the surgery that scares the hell out of me.  Hopefully the first couple of days I will be in a narcotic haze, but after that it will be time to pay the piper.

I know, I know - lots of girls come through this with flying colors. One of my best friends from this site, Moni, will have run the gauntlet a few weeks before me, and will give me tips and moral support, so there is that.  My BFF from Florida, who has known me and supported me from Day One of my transition (and in fact was the person who gave me the strength to transition) will pick me up from the hospital and get me to the B&B for recovery.

Sorry to hijack your thread, and go off on my own rant, Ellis.  I guess I should have stuck to "I hear you, bro", 'cause that's the way guys do it .

With kindness,

Terri

Viktor- Thank you. I'm just not sure if accidental awareness is as rare as everyone thinks. Many people probably think they dreamed the surgeon being ready to start; when really they were slipping in and out of consciousness for a few secs

Yeah I've heard being put under anesthesia is as easy as that; but I'm not really liking the thought of not being in control of my own body.

And yeah; you don't really hear of any trans men going for revision surgeries so that helps put my mind at ease somewhat. But I'm still worried I'll start obsessing that my chest doesn't look 'right' because I'm not used to having a male looking chest on my body.

Dena- I think I don't like the fault of not remembering being wheeled into the operating room more than being extremely nervous about being wheeled in. Thanks for the suggestion anyway though.

Terri- Thanks for the rant  . It's good to hear other people have the same fears I do. As for surgery in the past, my dad was telling me about a procedure he had to get years ago and how he still remembers how extremely uncomfortable he was when having to put the rubber mask on to give him the anesthetic and how uncomfortable that was. So glad that's has now changed.

Good luck for your surgery

Here's a really good blog post by a women who nearly cancelled her GCS at the last moment.

My fear and anxiety around SRS. Why did it happen, how did I cope, and what are my thoughts now?
https://lifesexperimentblog.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/my-fear-and-anxiety-around-srs-why-did-it-happen-how-did-i-cope-and-what-are-my-thoughts-now/

Quote from: AnonyMs on June 12, 2017, 04:43:43 AM
Here's a really good blog post by a women who nearly cancelled her GCS at the last moment.

My fear and anxiety around SRS. Why did it happen, how did I cope, and what are my thoughts now?
https://lifesexperimentblog.wordpress.com/2016/11/27/my-fear-and-anxiety-around-srs-why-did-it-happen-how-did-i-cope-and-what-are-my-thoughts-now/

Thanks; the article afterward about how she could have prepared better put things into perspective too.

Until the beginning of this year I thought that me getting surgery was just a pipe dream; something that only other people are lucky enough to attain. But then I again I thought that before starting T but I don't regret taking it; so logically top surgery should be no different. Even though it's frustrating that even paying for surgery myself the waiting list is relatively long and that my nerves will build up; I'm sort of grateful in a way that I have 3 months to mentally prepare and before that I had 2 months to mentally prepare for my initial consultation.

I think the people they interview in the trans phobic 'documentaries' I mentioned earlier probably regretted top surgery due to them being talked into it and rushing things. I've been thinking about top surgery seriously for the last 3 years so there's no chance that'll happen to me.

Hi Ellis - congrats on your surgery! Writing to you almost 3 weeks post-op now, and so wanted to chime in on a few points.

I actually shared many of your concerns approaching surgery, including that I might 'regret' the surgery, or at the very least, hate it at first. I hate all changes at first, regardless of how good they end up being - I have literally never walked away from a haircut being like "looks good!" I hate new things for the very fact that they are new. So I actually mentally prepared myself to have a period of transition where I didn't like the way my new chest looked. I know a lot of folks have a "wow" moment at their reveal, but I also know a couple folks who really... didn't. And, not only did they not fall head over heels in love with their chest at the reveal (understandably, since you're still bruised, marked up, and all squished from the binder) but the fact that they were prepared to have this stunning moment of "oh my god it looks so fantastic everything feels right PROBLEMS SOLVED" and then DIDN'T made them feel even worse. Couple that with post-surgery depression (it's a thing) and the situation was bad. So, mentally, I prepared myself to probably hate it, and committed to give it some time. I also thought that, as much as I hated my chest, I might still miss it in some weird way - not the look or feel of it but just, that's a part of my body, and now it's in biohazard somewhere, and that's sad.

At the same time, I also reassured myself that it couldn't possibly be worse than the life I was living before surgery, in which I hated the way I looked naked, I hated the way I looked in clothes, and I could never escape my own oppressing myself with hatred. I figured, even if I still hate the way I look naked, at least I won't hate the way I look in clothes anymore, and decided that if that was all it ever gave me, that would be enough.

I don't know what your process will be like, but I can say for me, 100% none of those fears have actualized. I don't miss anything about my old chest (I don't feel like it's gone actually, it's just grown up into what it should be), I feel completely fantastic about how I look now, and I feel better in ways that I couldn't have even imagined before surgery. I just smile like an idiot walking down the street now when I realize how straight I can stand, when I feel the buttons of my shirt against my skin, and when I realize again and again that this is my real body now. I literally can't describe it, and am sort of tearing up just writing this. It took me no time to adjust, and from the moment I saw the result, everything felt worth it. Maybe it won't be like that for you, but I've actually been surprised at how easy it was for me, and how incredibly happy I am now.

Regarding your fears about anesthesia, I shared these as well - I had never been under general before (they will give you a muscle paralyzing drug) and was all freaked out that somehow I would be aware during surgery and not be able to tell anyone (doesn't help that you have to sign off on that as a risk). To be blunt: it's not as rare as everyone thinks it, it is EVEN RARER. I shared my concerns with my anesthesiologist, who clearly gets this question a lot, andgave me the numbers: every year (in the U.S.) there are 14 million cases of general anesthesia administered, and of these cases OVER ALL OF TIME, there are 24 documented cases of patients being aware during surgery. Ever. Like, ever ever. And, of those cases, 12 of them were trauma cases (bad car accidents, shootings, etc) where the surgeries were emergency and they had no prior knowledge of the patient and their substance use or other factors that can interfere with anesthesia. Only the remaining 12 were legitimate cases where they don't know why, but something went wrong. Of millions. Don't know if you're a numbers person, but that completely set my mind at ease, and I hope it does yours as well. Not to be morbid, but you have a MUCH higher risk of getting in a car wreck on your way home today, incurring injuries from that wreck, and dying from those injuries than you ever have of being aware during surgery. It really doesn't happen, but it plays on a fundamental and primal fear (helplessness in the face of suffering) so it's a fun plot line for Nip/Tuck, Grey's Anatomy, horror films etc to poke at.... THAT'S why we have this irrational fear, NOT because it actually really happens.

I hope this is helpful, Elis and congrats again - I suspect you are going to love it, just try to get through these next few months! 

Effervescent_elegy- Thank you! We're very similar; each time I get a haircut; even a good one; it takes me a while to become used to it.  And yeah I heard that the 'reveal' can be quite underwhelming. I was reading this one trans man's blog about how when he first saw his chest he thought it looked the chest of a cadaver .  And he didn't even like looking at it for a few days afterward. So I'm trying atm to mentally prepare myself for that moment.

I was thinking earlier how I can cope with how my chest looks now (as long as I don't spend too much time looking at it) so why get life altering surgery. I don't like how my chest looks but it's familiar. But I think I'd rather have my chest looking flat but messed up rather than it having lumps and looking blemish free.

You make a good point of the clothes thing; I hadn't quite thought of it that way before. One of the main things I look forward to after surgery is to be able to wear any type of clothes I want; but atm I can't due to the lumps getting in the way. If my chest looks good enough to show off that would of course be a bonus but the clothes thing has always bothered me the most.

Good hearing how well you've taken to your new body . All those things you've mentioned are what I'm looking forward too.

And thanks for the statistics; that has helped to put me at ease somewhat .

The wait seems to be going quicker than I thought so  I can't wait

Hey Elis,

I´m getting surgery in about six to eight months but I think I will have the same nerves/anxiety.
Can you get back to us after your surgery to tell us how it went? I think all will go better than expected for you, and it might help other people (such as me) to hear about it Good luck!

Quote from: November Fox on June 21, 2017, 09:11:33 AM
Hey Elis,

I´m getting surgery in about six to eight months but I think I will have the same nerves/anxiety.
Can you get back to us after your surgery to tell us how it went? I think all will go better than expected for you, and it might help other people (such as me) to hear about it Good luck!

Hey,

I have another post which I've made to describe my experience of seeing my particular surgeon (Andrew Yelland); so I'll let you guys know on that one . I'll also be posting pics of my chest as it's healing in case that helps anyone