Hi everyone I've recently had GCS MTF vaginoplasty with Dr. Brassard and I want to air out some frustrations aswell as give my review on Dr Brassard and his team.

I was beyond excited that after 3 years of paper work and appointments with a ton of people I was finally able to get my ohip funding and eventually a surgery date from Dr.Brassard. My surgery date was April 9th 2018, I arrived at the b&b we had to rent out the bottom part of the red house since I had my boyfriend and 2 parents coming to stay for the week. The care and service I met from there was above and beyond.

It didn't hit me that I was going to get the surgery until I was in the dress with the slippers and hair net on walking down the hallway and speaking with the anesthesiologist. They put me into the operating room and put the "oxygen mask" on me and i was instantly out. I noticed however when I woke up above all the bandaging there was a large lump on my left side under my bladder area. Turns out I had internal bleeding resulting from a slipped stitch and I immediately needed to have another surgery to correct all the bleeding.

The next few days went fine except the fact I couldn't eat without vomiting so i basically lived off boost shakes until i felt better. Unfortunately everything went downhill when I saw my new vagina for the first time. I was absolutely horrified by what I saw I remember keeping it together until I got to my room and I bawled my eyes out. I felt absolutely butchered and disgusted with my body. This went away now since much of the swelling is now reduced and have no more bruising.

Dilation's were extremely painful especially with number 4, to this day they keep pushing me to introduce the number 4 but i refuse. I'm a very small framed woman I could feel number 4 pushing into my frame and it felt like it was pushing into my bones, its excruciating for me. Number 2 and 3 is what I've been using for now.

One thing that I'm most frustrated with especially seeing some of the other girls results that had the surgery within a few days of mine is the swelling.. their swelling is minimal but mine isn't bad but also looks puffy. I've spoken with Montreal about this and attached pictures in my emails to them and they assured me its normal. Its safe to say I'm over the healing process and beyond ready to be healed and get my life back to normal.

Fibrin is also another frustration for me as I keep my kitten exposed at all times but I still have an excess of fibrin inside my vagina. Guess its just now my body is healing.

But thanks for reading my long rant about my experience if you have any tips for swelling please let me know!!

Thanks so much
Anja

Sorry to hear that you had so much struggle in the early stages after surgery. Swelling can take many months to go down. I remember speaking with the nurses for the first few months about swelling. I am now over a year post op (Dr. Brassard). I think that each of us vary in how our bodies deal with swelling. As for dilations, it is important to keep trying to use #4. Even a little bit is better than not. Avoidance will just prolong recovery and development. I did not have any trouble for the first year. Now that we are at once a week, as per schedule, #4 is difficult. I am actually do dilations twice a week because it is difficult. It is Ok if I take the process very slowly and try to relax as much as possible. Lots of lube, more than you would think, and patience.

Hope that the next part of your recovery goes OK. Hugs, Kelly

I have been visiting several girls who have seen Dr Meltzer and after surgery they keep ice packs on the surgical site much of the day. The problem now is that your long past the point where you would benefit from chilling the surgical site.  At this point, it becomes a matter of waiting it out.

Different people externe different degrees of swelling. I badly sprained my left arm on Feb 24th and I still have some swelling in my hand because of the injury. This isn's a big surprise to me because for me, swelling is a fact of life after any injury or surgery. Plan on 6 months to see most of the swelling gone but it could take longer.

Dena and others from Susan's visited when I had GCS and reminded me to keep it iced as much as possible at first - also Dr. Ley's nurses said the same and also provided an ice pack in my follow-up kit after leaving Meltzer's facility.  I did that and swelling wasn't too bad. 

Once I was able to get out of bed I refreshed the ice pack every couple hours for the first week.  I found one thing that helps is only fill the ice pack half way - the point isn't to have something heavy on a very tender area, but just enough to reduce the temperature.  After the first week I did this less often but continued a few times every day and night for the first month.