Now that some distance has passed since the surgery I thought I would report on my experience. I have been keeping this updated as I have gone along. So here are my thoughts.
Nuffield Parkside at Wimbledon is a private hospital which the NHS uses for 'Gender Affirming Surgery'. It's one of the largest private hospitals with 82 beds and 4 theatres. The rooms are very pleasant with en-suite facilities and windows to the outside. These open part-way and, as the rooms are not air-conditioned, I requested a fan which was very useful.
The first thing you need to remember about a hospital like this is that, although they do have some emergency capabilities, it is not an Accident and Emergency hospital. Nor are any of the patients on permanent monitors: in other words, even after major surgery you are NOT rigged up to a nurse station. Your health and welfare is entirely reliant on your on-call button and nurses checking up on you, which they don't do unless you call them. So, to be frank about this, you could suffer a cardiac arrest and be left undetected until the following morning. Just saying.
Which leads into one essential fact that you must always bear in mind with a place like this. This is a hospital not a hotel. Its primary function is to care for you physically as you heal. All the other niceties are secondary to this one primary point of its existence: you are there to be cared for physically.
But the niceties are decent. The hospital is pretty clean: far more so than any NHS one I've seen, but not as spick and span as, say, Bumrungrad in Bangkok. There are a few signs of wear and tear such as a chipped and broken bed tray, which I mention as it's not hygienic. Being in over a bank holiday weekend also meant that my room and bathroom were not cleaned for 2 days which was pretty gross as soiled dressings and detritus built up and spilled out onto the floor. Poor.
There is free WIFI but it did pack up a LOT so I also had to tether through 5G a fair amount of the time.
The food is good, but less so on a Sunday when the kitchen shuts down and you get a tea time cold menu, something which then extends into a bank holiday Monday too. Portion sizes are small and noticeably low on carbs but that works fine for the circumstances. I doubt whether anyone would want a massive pasta meal following surgery. And you do need to keep fibre up for bowel movement. So I took in extras like red grapes and figs which proved very helpful.
Nursing care was variable. It wasn't so much about their manner: some were lovely, others the opposite. Nor was it the fact that 95% of them were born outside the UK and for many English wasn't their first language: I don't care where anyone is from as long as they are well trained and standards are high. It's that some of the actual nursing care varied. I was given, and continue to be given post-discharge, conflicting advice on wound treatment and post-operative care. Worse by far though was the slightly chaotic drug round situation. It seemed haphazard and twice I was given the wrong medication. Once the nurse handed me paracetamol only an hour after I had just taken the same thing, and when I challenged this she realised she was holding the wrong patient's drug chart. That's really not great. The second time, the same nurse administered me a drug which I wasn't supposed to have been given for another 24 hours. That necessitated an urgent call from her to the consultant who said it would be okay but it could have been a dangerous mistake because of drug interaction.
When I was discharged I had really nasty strafing to my backside: open cuts along my buttocks from the mesh pants which no-one had checked on during my stay. Having ascertained that these weren't bedsores I was given barrier cream and after a week or two they healed. But that's not good to be honest.
I also picked up a hospital-acquired infection and this is the one area I am most critical of. Infections of this nature are quite common, whether from the catheter or from theatre, or from a host of other risks including the wound site. But the hospital's approach to this was, I feel, rather cavalier. They knew I had an infection from the blood tests 48 hours prior to discharge but they didn't do any follow up and sent me home with one oral antibiotic (trimethoprim) which was evidentially inadequate. 5 days after discharge I was urgently ordered to attend A&E over the phone by a 111 doctor. The emergency doctors at A&E were pretty worried: my infection and inflammation markers were high, I had a horrible discharge, and the wound site was looking a mess. They were particularly concerned that I could now be prone to sepsis, which is a life-threatening condition. They called an immediate meeting of Consultants from A&E, Urology, Gynaecology, and raised Ms Tina Rashid and Parkside duty nurses for a plan of action. I was administered intravenous antibiotics (would have been I/v penicillin too but I'm allergic to it) and put on a course of two very strong antibiotics for 7 days. The infection resolved.
Laxatives were administered and I had no issue with bowel movements. Indeed, on day 2 out of bed when my bowels just opened uncontrollably (no feeling down there) I then fainted. A wonderful nurse: the best of them all, literally applied cold flannels to my forehead and reassured me.
I took a taxi back to my friend's as she wouldn't pick me up. The doughnut ring was brilliant (thanks for suggestion
@Devlyn) and actually it went okay. And I didn't mind paying £100 considering the surgery would have cost me over £20,000 if I had paid for it privately. But I will just mention that someone at the hospital previously said I would be okay to take a train home. No way, no way. I was feeling very rough and it would have been ridiculous to do that.
Post-operative care back at base has been at times challenging but I've been fortunate that my friend has looked after me very well. I would personally not recommend going home alone. You need someone to do the basics: wash and change your towels, buy food and cook your meals etc. I have been very, very, gradually building up exercise by walking around her garden but I am being very careful about this. Often I feel sore and crap and it's very important to listen to one's body. Do not overdo it too soon. And that's hard for me: right up to the day before surgery I was hiking 10kms a day. Load up your laptop with things to watch and take it easy.
I received quite a lot of conflicting post-operative advice e.g. do take a bath, don't take a bath. One nurse told me water only down there, another said to rub gently on the sloughing skin. By trial and error I settled into a routine of 4 x washes a day: shower, lukewarm bath (no soaps), shower, lukewarm bath. In the bath I use a mirror to very very gently clean inside and remove any gunk: it works well.
I totally agree about maternity pads: they are the thing to use. Having said that, 3 weeks post surgery my discharge has ceased for the time being.
I have had no problem peeing, from the word go but then I've peed sitting down all my life which probably helps. I discovered that after peeing it really helped to pour clean warm water over the vagina and then after pat drying with a clean towel to use a hair dryer (lowest setting and cold setting) to dry the area.
I have found sitting on a puppy pad, naked from the waist down, to be extremely helpful for healing. I've had a distant fan blowing onto the area. If you can be in an environment where you can do this then I recommend it.
At night I apply Advancis medical grade manuka honey which is definitely helping the healing process. It really does work, as scientifically proven.
But ... to the main thing. The actual surgery itself. I was taken down to theatre and put to sleep, easy peasy. The Anaesthetist administered both General Anaesthetic and a Spinal Block with Fentanyl (this because I'm allergic to morphine). Recovery post-surgery went smoothly enough. I had a Fentanyl PCP (patient pump) which I only used 6 times through the night: that's micro-dosing considering one can pump 12x per hour. This seemed to surprise them but I've been told many times that I have a high pain threshold. Hmmm. I had a lot of bruising and swelling and the switch to just Paracetamol (4 x 1mg per 24 hours and Ibuprofen 3 x 400mg per 24 hours) was not really adequate. I can't take co-codamol but something in between a strong opioid and those over-the-counter pain killers would have been helpful. This was particularly the case back at home when I have developed dehiscence and granulation. With instructions to continue dilation, the pain was through the roof. Nothing touched it and it was, simply, excruciating for many days. I was totally unprepared for this.
I would also mention one other thing. I have referred to the physical aspects of healing but I did also find this a very lonely experience. I was unable to post on this forum and I had no visitors. My room, whilst lovely, did not have a view to the corridor. And being a bank holiday weekend there were only 4 patients on the ward. So the days were long and lonely. I didn't feel like watching anything very much so audio books and a little light reading helped. As did the funny parakeets flying past the window with their high-pitched chirrups. But, yes, I took FAR too many things into the hospital! Another patient, same surgery, in an adjoining room came to visit me which was so special and we have stayed in touch.
When all is said and done, when you distil down the above, what really matters about this? As long as you make it through relatively unscathed, that's the main question. And here's the answer:
Mr Bellringer looks to have done a superb job. He performed it as a penile inversion. There was 'a lot of skin to work with' ... It is aesthetically fantastic, with superb depth and I can already feel sensate in all areas, including the clitoris. It looks and feels outstanding. A friend of mine sneaked a peek and said, 'You would just never know that wasn't the cis-female vagina you were always born with. It's incredible.'
And so that leads me to the most surprising and unexpected outcome. At this point I want to invite anyone who is non-op or who does not want to have the op to turn away. This final paragraph feels very important to me and I have to state it because it is now my truth but I don't want to deny the truth of other people's journeys or the validities of their expressions of selfhood and womanhood. So this bit is what now feels true for me:
It feels absolutely fantastic to have a vagina. I was never one to hate my penis. But I loved the idea of having a vagina, to align my whole being and to complete myself in soul, spirit, mind, and body. But OMG I did not realise just how significant this was going to be. I feel that I have crossed the Rubicon. Everything I was doing until this point, hormones, orchidectomy, facial surgery, passport and driving licence changes, Gender Recognition Certificate ... were not completion. This, and this alone, finally enters me into the sisterhood. I am now a woman. Complete and whole. Sorry JKR but whether you like it or not I'm now one of you: one of us. I found myself watching Ariana Grande's video God is a Woman, full of vulvic symbolism, and knowing that I am now one in the sisterhood. As I say, that's how it feels for me and I want to acknowledge and respect the full validity of other women's expressions and experiences. But for me?
I am now a woman, complete and whole.
@Devlyn @SoupSarah @Stottie Girl @Charlotte Kitty
