|
| FFS Journal |
FFS Journal
Facial Feminization Surgery with Dr. Ousterhout
Excerpts from my Livejournal Consultation, July 2004:
Ok, so here I am. I went out to a park. I went to Pride (does that even count as out? Well we're going to count it). Say a total of 7 hours in public in girlmode. Oh yeah, I get maam'd when I'm gender ambiguous and sometimes when I'm not even trying. So two flights and six days in SF. Plus my last chance to back out before spending an ungodly sum of money. It's sink or swim time. I take a big leap of faith and pack absolutely zero boy clothes.
First I have to thank Tril so so much. The week before she went absolutely crazy shopping for me, returning items, and shopping more. I ended up with a decent selection of outfits ranging from very to dressy casual. Sink or swim.
I guess somewhat being completely and utterly exhausted helped a little. Way too tired to be nervous. I'm wearing jeans, a lime green tee, and sandals. I borrow some jewelry. We found out way to the American terminal. And there it is, terminal B, hallway between central parking at the American checkin area. There's the sign staring at me "Women" and after morning coffee and a 2 hour drive, I very much need to visit. I babysit our luggage and Tril runs in. Not surprisingly she has no issues. Probably because she's a natal woman, but who can tell. She comes out and gives me an encouraging smile. I take a deep breath and in I go. This may seem like the most ludicrous observation, but there are women in the women's restroom. I don't know why that struck me so, but it did. Fortunately for me, only two, and no line. They glance up, they glance backdown. And I use the bathroom. It's empty when I come out, I wash my hands and exit. I have not been arrested. Nobody has screamed. Nobody has stared. Nobody cares. Tril jokes everything must be ok since nobody ran out the door screaming there was a guy inside.
We go to check in. It's a disaster. Hundreds of people in line. Nobody stares. Nobody second glances. Nobody screams "Oh my God! Look at the tranny." Someone asks "you ladies" how we booked our flight. And we are pointed at the self-serve. It's almost as crowded but it moves fast. Someone bumps me with their luggage and says "excuse me sir..." but before my heart can skip the beat, their voice changes to abject embarrassment and they say maam, stare me dead in the face, and apologize. From the tone it was obvious they didn't clock me at all. I try really really really hard not to laugh. I wait to check luggage, the guy looks out and calls Tril's name. He looks out, looks at the slip with my name on it, looks out then looks at me and asks name. I tell him (legal boy name) and he looks confused, I hand my ID and bag and that's that. We had a fairly long wait because we left early worried about Logan airport traffic and I'm beginning to get comfortable. There's a few hundred people. They aren't staring. They aren't giving me curious glances. They aren't giving me approving but patronizing smiles. They're gendering me correctly. I need to use the bathroom again. This time it's very busy, but thankfully no line. I come out and there's a line. I excuse myself to walk through the line to the sink, I wash my hands in front of the line, and nobody notices. Nobody cares. This is starting to get easy! I guess I equalled my entire time out prior to this somewhere over the great lakes.
That was pretty much how it went the entire trip. I had sort of expected at least a few mistakes. Or a few "knowing but patronizing" wink sort of things. I just didn't get any of it. We got a totally crappy table at one restaurant, but no weird looks. We did get seated at the Rose in a smaller room that had at least 1 other table with a group of very good looking, but I'm almost certain transwomen. Maybe it was the restaurant's trans ghetto. On the other hand, it had parties that as far as I could tell had no transpeople at them and I didn't exactly see any open tables between the door and our table. The only real incidents were a few weird looks one morning (Tril didn't think so, I might have been oversensitive) and then a real solid "hit" the last day there, but I was tired, my facial lines were coming out, my makeup was very fresh and a bit heavy for daytime, and honestly, I looked like total butt. This was the full on double take, whisper to the friend, then both of them stare. Unfortunately they turned away before I could give a little wave. Actually having that was a real confidence builder because of all the times it didn't happen. Some of it probably was SF, the fact that there was hardly a look when I was checking into the hotel with a boy name. But we spent so much time in tourist areas and I'm not inclined to think visiting SF suddenly made Billy Joe Ray Bob comfortable and familiar enough with gender variance to not even give me a second glance. There were no secondary issues. My bags were carried (god that's just great). Checks were presented neutrally by the waitron, not shoved at me. And certainly the SF natives visiting the other doctor Dr. O shares space with had no compunctions about showing distaste at some of the people in the waiting room.
On the other hand, Tril and I were clocked 100% as a couple. I'm not sure if we should bother to work on that or not. I think probably being thought of as not just a lesbian, but a bit of a dyke probably helps me in blending a lot. It's confirmed my thought that the less feminine you try to look, the more feminine you do look.
But we didn't go to SF for a vacation, we went there to book surgery.
First down the yellow brick road is you go get xrays. San Francisco Dental Imaging is in the middle of nowhere in a residential part of the city. It wasn't that terrible to find. We took the F train, which is a cool above ground running from the Castro to Fisherman's warf. The trains are pre-1950s vintage, but it's a viable form of transport, not just a tourist thing. The subway runs under it and is faster, but we had the time. That was good, got to see market street in the Castro. I'm ready to sign up right now. From there we needed to switch to a muni subway which eventually left us above ground a few blocks. SF Dental is really wonderful to work with. Very professional and good at making you feel comfortable. Also inexpensive. We met Lisa from GP there. I knew she was going to be doing a consult but we hadn't connected in email for a few weeks. We weren't sure at first if we were who we were, but once we did, we got along great. She gave us a ride back to the hospital and we wandered down to market street and got a very pleasant lunch at a little spot on the corner. Lunch turned to refills on the coffee and coke and then more refills. And we left about three hours later. I really was nervous about meeting Lisa because other than being on the same message board we didn't know each other at all. That can be really awkward. But we got along great. Lisa was just great fun to talk to. A great conversationalist. If you were to look at a picture, she has some pretty hard physical challenges with hair loss and such. But in person, there is just no way to look or speak with her and not read her as a woman. She's just 100% girl.
So we found Dr. O's office and started to fill out our forms. I finished up first and went to hand it in and was immediately wisked off to a consultation room. Then a minute later He comes in. Ok, I don't really need to capitalize the H. He's not God. Then since God apparently didn't quite manage to get things right with me and he's going to do some major repair work, maybe I should capitalize His name rather than god's? Anyway, he looks pretty much like he does in all the pictures. We talked a minute about where I was from and how I was enjoying the city. Then he starts measuring and comparing and drawing lines on the xrays. He's really good at explaining what he does. I've heard horror stories about him, but I found him to be not at all pushy and very personable. He suggested everything, which is what I expected. And I agreed with that. Maybe that's why he was so easy to deal with. I was a little surprised to have a tracheal shave suggested, but I'm willing to go with his suggestion and it is more prominent (tho still normal looking for a woman) now that I'm losing weight.
Weight. Oh. My. God. Ok, this is the the Guy. The one that has all the secrets to feminization. Gotta take what He says seriously. But 130s and maybe even into the 120s?! Whew. That's going to bring me down to absolutely nothing. Then, it will take care of the extra bulk on my arms and legs. Even if I go back and add a bit back. I suppose I'll lose some weight with surgery, not eating solids for a while will probably do that. That's going to be hard though.
The funniest comment was with my teeth. He looks at the xray and starts going on about in his whole career he's probably not seen more than a dozen sets of perfect full sets of teeth including wisdom teeth, "functional" he called it still in and not impacted. I'm amused because a dentist in search of a boat payment suggested ten years ago that they would get absessed and I would surely die of the complications.
He gave me complements on having an overall feminine look and was very encouraging. I'm sure he does that with everyone. He said my cheek bones were great and he wouldn't touch them. I'm glad I had something that was ok:-) Mira told me I'd probably be pretty. I'm sure she does the same with everyone. But she made me believe it. They both gave me complements on how I used my hair to cover defects in the face. Yeah, right. My "style" consists of not cutting it for two years and having the SF wind blow it all over the place for several hours. I think it's a disaster. On the other hand, it did seem to work. So the fun of what I'm having done. For the trans readers, the breakdown on costs. For the non-trans a description of what's going on.
Scalp Advancement ($3500). This one is just him grabbing the scalp and bringing it forward, takes a few cm off the hair line. He said he could get me a normal female hairline, but after a year I might want to see how it looked and get it touched up and/or get a face lift.
Forehead III . ($7500). This is the big one that only he does. The front of the sinus cavity is actually removed, recountoured with titanium wire, and stuck back on. The bossing above the orbital rims of the eyes disappears at the same time. You're left without that and with a flat forehead. I guess mine projects 15mm. He thinks he can bring it down to 7mm. He said around 10mm was standard for women, but if it goes lower it's more feminine and prettier.
Rhinoplasty ($6000). One standard order Dr. O perky upturned feminine nose. People hate his noses, I love them.
Upper Lip Reduction ($2500). This one is to allow more of my teeth to show when I'm not smiling. It will be a blessing since i spent most of the weekend smiling like a circus clown when I got gender nervous because it really did have a real feminizing affect. I know everyone I've seen seems to have their lips plumped out a bit, so I think that maybe a side effect or something.
Jaw Tapering/Chin Feminization ($9500). Ouch. That's a big one. He'll take a few mm off of my chin and make the jaw a bit narrower so it has more of an angle. Then round off some of the little bump at the sort of hinge at the jaw, to make it less square. I think he's gotten arguments over this one because he went into a lot of detail about how yes models often have very squared jaws, but that generally guys never have strongly tapered ones so the affect is very convincing. I didn't need to be convinced much.
Trachea Shave ($2500). Reducing the "adam's apple." This one is the only thing I'd consider living without. I've never heard of a vocal problem with one of Dr. O's trach shaves, but I have heard of people having issues with other doctors and it really makes me nervous. He suggested that as I age and lose more weight, it's just prominent enough now that it probably will be more in contrast. I tend to agree since it's already doing that. If it was any more money, I'd drop it. But since I'm already on the table, I'm thinking it's worth the piece of mind and getting all the pain and misery over at once.
Cocoon House ($1125). There's a dedicated recovery house for the time between discharge and the hospital called Cocoon House. It's all Dr. O patients and the people who run it are nurses, so they're familiar with what you need. They stock food (liquid) and such. And Tril can stay there with me ($50/night more).
Anesthesia ($3245), Operating Room ($3425), Nursing Care in hospital ($850), Materials/titanium wire he said ($700). Total $40,845 and 10 and 1/2 hours of surgery.
Tril's going to fly out the 3rd and that adds $250 to the tab. So $41,095. She has limited ability to get away from work, so I suggested that I'd rather have her there when I'm conscious and at cocoon house then when I'm in the hospital waking up only long enough to hit the pain med button.
At this point Mira puts it in an envelope so you can leave and think about it. I took all the time necessary, put the envelope on the desk, and asked for dates. She looked pleased and a bit surprised and got the surgery book. Right now they are booked until September 22nd. I thought late November would be best. She wrote down two dates. I told her one and that was that. We decided on the 30th. Arrive the 29th, leave the 8th. She asked for a deposit, I took out a credit card and handed it to her and put a $6000 deposit down. The phone rang from the credit card security office before she even got back with the receipt. I was amused. Charge went through without issue. Thankfully I have ludicrous credit and it's almost entirely empty. The numbers do scare me. About a quarter will be borrowed. Hopefully within a year we can pay that off. Or keep it as debt and save enough for srs. I have this real desire to be done before I'm 40 and i have a chance now of just barely sneaking in under the wire.
And that's that. That's the first week after Thanksgiving, so I'll disappear the 24th from work and that will be that for boymode. Hopefully I'll be able to go back the 22nd. That would give me a 2 or 3 day week the 22nd and a 4 day week the following, which should help a lot. The two days will probably be freakish with everyone coming to look. Might as well get that out of the way. Then the week after that should be quiet as well. It will be immediately after town meeting so by the time the spring one comes around, hopefully I won't be the main thing on people's minds.
Thanks to the conspiring of Trilobyte and Kayla, I'm definitely Kathleen. I mentioned my waffling and Tril started to chant "Kathy! Kathy!" and Kayla announced that the partner gets to choose. Well, I have surgery booked in the name so I guess that's pretty final. I'm still a little in shock. This is really going to happen. And geez, flying cross country and living for a week. I guess it already is really happening or happened. Other than a few nervous moments, it all just felt so normal. It was very very affirming of my choices. A few notes. First, to all the EQ Women readers. My apologies. Six months or so ago there was a poll about who's bathrooms were more disgusting. I voted guy. After the women's bathroom at Pier 39, congrats for feminism. It was as bad as anything I've seen at RFK stadium. I'll call it a tie. On the other hand, all the others seemed overall a lot cleaner.
One observation. I do not know how I will live without a purse for the next four months. 6 days and I'm so sold on this idea. I know so many women that just loathe them. But having everything you need in life in a nice little functional attractive bag? OMG please, you have to be kidding. I am so willing to trade this for pockets. A special thanks to Lush's Mask of Magnaminty which in addition to being wonderful like every other lush product, also made all the shadowy sheddings from laser disappear in a ten minute period.
Thanks to everyone who was so encouraging in my first post after I got back. It means a tremendous amount to me. I just can't say.
Surgery: December 2004
11/30/04
Ok we started out at some really ungodly hour in order to make it for our 9am flight out of Logan. This is the one flight we absolutely cannot miss so we left an hour before we had to. I wore a new long sleeve v-neck forest green tee with a cute red-orange sweater hoodie and a new pair of tan cords. (This is obviously very important, what I'm wearing.)
Well, everything is the usual fast post-big dig drive and then suddenly dead stop. And more dead stop and more dead stop and more dead stop. I don't mean 10mph or 5mph or stop and I. I mean turn the engine off. Finally I turn on the radio and they have closed the highway due to an accident. All four lanes. Nothing nada. I see my FFS disappearing in a puff of traffic stupidity and do the normal thing. Freak out. Janna calms me down, a bit, but she's clearly freaking out too. And let's be real, 2nd weekday after thanksgiving weekend, we aren't just going to pick up the next flight, if we miss this we are screwed. Finally finally finally they open the road and like good Boston drivers (sorry Bostonians, your self-image of bad driving aside, compared to DC the average Bostonian driver is a Formula 1 champion) everyone begins the slow acceleration back up to maniac speed. We breathe a huge sigh of relief and get there with an hour left to spare. Which is, of course, when you're supposed to get there. But since we left an extra hour early, oi. And this wasn't a case of just making it through. It was some state police guy deciding if the road opened or not. Thank goodness we weren't in DC, they can take a week to investigate a traffic fatality and we'd just have sat there.
Checkin is easy. We get sent off to the special new security screening area. This isn't us, it's just our flight. We're screened and get in just in time to use the ladies room quickly and get on board. The flight is uneventful and pleasant enough, not quite on time, but close enough. For me the flight was when I did most of my last pre-op soul searching and thinking. There were no second thoughts really. It was all more just the wonder of it all. It got started when I thought of how I was enjoying myself and would hate it when I had to go back to work in guy mode and realized a split second later that this part of my life was over. Then I looked down at the midwest farmland plots and just thought about everything. I have a handwritten entry to transcribe about this. But it was more the wonder of living in a time like we are. I'm what? 6 miles in the air flying to the other side of the continent so I can have a surgeon rearrange me so I look totally like a woman? It's just incredible. Just where I've come from and the journey across the country became a metaphor for the entire journey of transition.
Well. It killed 6 hours. We landed and our luggage popped up quickly. Thankfully since the flight was packed to the last seat. We grab a super shuttle to Davies medical and detour to drop off the single bitchiest woman in all of San Francisco (possibly in all of California) who starts the shuttle ride whining about her evil tenants who have the audacity to want heat in their apartments and ends it in a passive aggressive contest with the driver, where she mutters where her house is and then when he doesn't hear her bitches a storm that he's gone past it. She decides to take luggage inside before paying the guy. The driver is clearly relieved to be rid of her and we're at Davies a few minutes later.
So I sign a few surgical consent forms. And then Mira does her best "there's just one more thing..." and polite smiles. I know what she means and take out the check marking almost every penny I've saved in my entire life and the VISA card to cover the rest. Goddess, this is a lot of money. It's more than my parents sold their house for when I was a kid. Almost my entire income for a year. Big smile though. Easy come easy go. Sometimes Buddhist non-attachment is a good thing. And then a round of pictures. (They're absolutely hideous.) Tatianna takes these and is very worried she's not doing a good enough job. They're perfect, for what they are. Just hideous. Never in my life did I ever look THAT bad. Mira orders us a cab to get to cocoon and then a second to pick us up in the morning for the hospital.
Back to cocoon on the cab. Its empty as we're the first residents, but it's beautiful. We do a bit of unpacking and then look to the map to go get my prescriptions filled. They give me the evil eye over the male name on my ID and prescriptions (geez woman, it's SF?!) and tell me 45 minutes. We noticed a Pasta Pomodoro across the street, so we head over there. It's a nice little place. I guess a local SF or is it Cali chain? It's good though. So for my last meal I have pasta with a seafood red sauce. The squid includes the little guys with full tentacles, yummy. I love those things. I think it's the little burst of ink inside that makes them so good. The mussels, clams, and shrimp aren't bad either and the pasta is fine as well. We pick up the meds and head back to cocoon. Still nobody around and no sign of Tricia or MaryLou. Well, that's ok. I notice the light is blinking on the phone and we get the message, it's Jillian from work wishing me luck. I feel good about that. So time for bed, I open the meds and snap a valium in half and we each take a half. Janna clearly needs it more than I do, but they want me to be relaxed and sleep. I've never taken any sort of thing like that before and for some reason about 15 minutes after taking it I start to smirk and giggle. That's when the phone rings. I can't even remember who called, but it was in quick succession. Robin, Rach, and I think Aimee?
We go to bed. Geez those day beds aren't very big when there are two people in them.
12/1/04
The alarm goes off about the same time I'm waking up, I guess 4:30? I take my traditional shower and leave the conditioner in. It all is soaked up by my hair within 10 minutes. Geez, healthy hair. I goop more in. Rah. Janna and I have a little spat about how much she's bringing. It's only two nights in the hospital and it's not far. I have one set of clothes and my ugly doll. She's got enough luggage to go to Bangladesh. Finally I whine enough that she drops down to her tote, stuffed like it was a basketball. And the cab is here and we're off.
The hospital is open, but there seem to be a lot of security people and they seem... worried. We're there at 5:15, before admissions opens. I'm their first victim. The guy doing admissions is super nice. Takes my info, I sign some forms, and hand over my medical directive so Janna can pull the plug if I turn into a vegetable. (I'm going to spoil it for you, I didn't.) And I get my bracelet. It says Kathleen Lambert on it. That's a big one for me. Four or five more people check in and then he brings us all up to another floor where we're each given a room and we change into a gown and turn over all our personal possessions. The nurse tells me that my anaesthesiologist is a perfectionist and wants to do the IV himself, so I won't get one until the OR. She comes back a few minutes later with some sedative tablets (valium I'd guess) even tho she says my BP is quite low anyway. I lay down and Janna snaps a few pictures. The last picture of my old self ever I guess. Good riddance.
The chanting at this point was really getting on my nerves. Oh yes. The chanting. The protestors. I haven't mentioned the strike have I? Well remember that "lot of security people" I mentioned? Apparently the chain of hospitals was being struck. In Davies it was the non-nursing support staff, in other facilities it was the full nursing staff. So this is apparently a one day walkout, which got followed by a two day lockout. But there are a hundred or so people being led in rounds of "NO JUSTICE! NO PEACE!" below the window of my prep room. Quite restful I must say. Given that I was on a surgical gurney, completely healthy, and had protestors outside the one thing that came to mind was "OMG I'm not here for FFS! They're going to execute me by lethal injection!" Ok, just for a moment. But really it added that surreal touch. Usually I'm one of the ones chanting, not on the inside of the building.
At this point Tricia from Cocoon breezes in still in her civies and makes me dizzy telling me this that and the other thing and apologizing for not giving us the grand tour but saying we'd been so quiet they didn't know we had gotten there and asking if we need anything and Goddess knows what else. She cracked me up even in that atmosphere and then she said she had to go get to work and poofed. So a few minutes later, the nurse comes and they wheel me down to the basement where the morgue operating rooms are. Everyone for all the morning surgeries is milling about and I see Tricia, now in scrubs, which was very very reassuring, waiting. (I have no idea if she worked on me or not.) I get wheeled into another waiting area. This time there's no Janna so it's rather boring and eventually they collect me and bring me into the OR. Dr. O is off at a computer fiddling with something, I had the amusing thought maybe he was checking his email. I saw my xrays, easily identifiable because of the horrible ancient style gold cap on one of my front teeth. Mostly I noticed OMG it's freezing. How can anyone do delicate work in that cold! The anesthesiologist puts in the IV. This I was absolutely dreading. Absolutely DREADING. I hate the concept of this needle being in me, but he was professional, painless and quick. I close my eyes so I don't have to look at it.
Really the morning was not a real difficult time for me. I didn't think much about the operation or the implications. There wasn't enough time and I was more than ready. Back in my room afterwards, I was too out of it. I have a great amount of recall, I actually remember these things, not just people telling me they happened. But I was still dopey.
Anyway, next he tells me that this might sting a little bit. It doesn't, it hurts like bloody hell and now I'm really getting that lethal injection vibe. I take a deep breath and turn to bitch him out and tell him "hey guy, it's a lot more than a sting" and I realize my head isn't moving right when I turn because I now have a giant full head bandage. It's over. I open my eyes and I'm in the recovery room with a few other gurneys. Someone notices I'm conscious and does a few "are you really there" questions which I answer. They tell me in a very apologetic way that it'll be a few minutes and I was really not doing that bad and was very much in the "hey no problem, I'm fine don't worry about it" mode. I have no pain and no nausea. I feel fine other than a slightly more than mild headache. This is the weird part though. For all the incisions, bone chopping, and everything else. It's a plain old "bad day at work" style headache. Nothing more or less.
Finally they bring me up. I remember the little trip. Elevator to ward to my room and a fairly irritating and hurried transfer between the surgical gurney and hospital bed. Geez girls, I'm getting it, I'm getting it, give me time. I don't think they realized how lucid I was, so they were just trying to do the transfer while I was trying to move myself. I notice at this point that my butt hurts. I think they dropped me in surgery or something. It never did bruise, but it did swell a bit over time. Anyway, they're hooking up all the machines that go bing and I hear Lisa's voice "Wow! You look like a cat now!" I smirk a little, which hurts and, answer back "meow!" Now you get the explanation. Lisa came up to spend the day keeping Janna company while I was in surgery. This was no small thing as the surgery was 11.5 hours. Doctor O is getting older, old enough that I wanted to rush into FFS because I was afraid he would retire. And I'd been joking that some day he'd just go out in a blaze of glory and turn his last patient into a cat instead of a girl. I was a bit confused at this point because I still hadn't seen or heard Janna. Apparently she was afraid of how bad I'd look and was hiding outside. After hearing me meow she came in. At this point I'm all hooked up and the nurse is explaining the morphine pump while Im already clicking on it. Wow, minor headache disappears awful quickly on morphine. I had a few minutes with Janna and she fed me ice chips and then we took some photos and I zonked out. I don't remember much else of that night. I would wake up, talk a bit, eat some ice chips, and then usually hit the morphine and go back to sleep. At some point Janna got some sleep as well, I remember the night nurse coming in and being very careful not to wake her. At some point in the night I was together enough to wonder exactly what they'd done to me. I could only find one feature uncovered, which was the rear edge of my mandible, where I'd had quite the squared jaw. I wanted to know how much he'd reduced it and how. Was it smaller now? More curved? Different angle? Nope, he didn't do any of that. It simply wasn't there. No angle at all. To say the least I was pleased, but I was also shocked. I think it was only then, even after two years of dreaming about getting this surgery, that I realized exactly how much he'd done.
12/2-12/3
The next day I had my three real hospital irritations. First is the dryness. Your nose is packed so you have to breath through your mouth. Hospital air is dry as a bone anyway and your mouth becomes dried out, completely and utterly. I would wake up, spend a half hour sucking ice chips and sipping (best I could) water to rehydrate my tissues, then I'd hit the morphine to go to sleep. This was sort of a waste because I didn't really need any pain relief, it was just as a tranquilizer. That morning they took off the compression system and yanked the catheter. I was expected to pee and was able to, but only with huge effort and clearly it wasn't working right. This was a chance to get to see what I looked like though and yes, it was a fright. But sort of fascinating as well. Shame I couldn't have saved it all for halloween. (On the pee, finally next morning I finished another excruciating push it out one cc at a time session when I sort of poofed out a bunch of gas and was able to pee normally, at which point I was ringing the nurses every 15 minutes.) I didn't really follow night and day much. TV sucked, no SF channel, no FOOD channel; what kind of hell hole is Davies anyway!! So I turned it to the NPR radio station and that was good because I could keep my eyes closed and they were mostly swollen shut anyway. Janna and Lisa wandered back to cocoon and went shopping for some additional PJs for me and visited sporadically, which was perfect. She didn't spend the second night, thank goodness for her she was able to get a decent sleep. It was the second night that the third and most annoying complication arose. I couldn't eat much so my stomach started to get acid. And everything they feed you is fruit based. It's jello, juice, and that sort of thing, which made it worse. By the 2nd morning I couldn't even eat an ice chip without horrible acid reflux and the nurse wouldn't give me anything for it, though she offered an anti-nausea thing in my IV which I declined. Finally on the 3rd Janna got in and went out to the nurses station and got them to give me some maalox. Solved the problem right off and I was able to eat some jello and juice (first day all I had were two teaspoons of jello). There was also some cake of something or other but the person that brought it to me couldn't identify it, so I declined. (Janna thinks they were annoyed at my lack of appetite.) Then Doctor O came and cut off the "crash helmet" which made me infinitely more comfortable. That left the nose cast and x bandage, the sutures and staples, the nose packing, and a chin strap. Finally, about 38 hours after waking up and 50 or so hours from getting there, I was brought downstairs and wisked off in a Jaguar to Cocoon House. Unfortunately, this was also saying goodbye to Lisa who had to run home. (If you read this I'm infinitely thankful for you being around. You helped both Janna and I incredibly.) Mira took uncrowded streets and i doubt if she went over 25 mph the entire ride back. I remember she was trying to help me get in and out of the car and up the steps and I was totally capable on my own, which I took as a good sign.
12/3
Cocoon was a huge relief. I was still unfortunately alone there. Kendra and Jenny had checked in while I was in the hospital but had been taken on the 2nd and 3rd respectively for their surgeries. There was far far better food at cocoon. I was still having a lot of trouble getting my mouth open. I also couldn't close my lips on a straw and that made drinking a very very slow process. I did lament, ironically, the lack of an IV because I knew I needed liquid and taking it orally was a major pain. The food at cocoon was such a relief after the hospital. Chocolate pudding, organic vegetarian broth (I saw that and joked "oh then Tricia and Mary-Lou are a couple!"), and Boost drinks. It was also the weekend so the TV was pretty acceptable. The Princess Bride was even on! God how tired and worn out are you that you get to the "I am Iago Montoya..." scene and you fall asleep! Mostly the third is a blur. All I remember was it was so so so so so much more comfortable than the hospital and that all the PJs janna and Lisa found for me were super cute.
My nose was still packed and it was getting bad. As my mouth would get more and more dehydrated, it would take longer and longer to rehydrate. I'd just sit with a mouthful of water and let it soak in. But that was hard because with the nose packing, you can only breath through your mouth, so I'd have to hold my breath. It would take somewhere between 15 minutes and an hour to get it back to normal, at which point I'd spend an hour or two in "live" mode, talking or watching tv, and then take a half a percocet and zonk again. (Just like the morphine pump this was 90% tranquilizer and 10% pain med). Still as the day went on, I started to feel a bit more human. I got to meet Mary-Lou, which was a really truly disorienting experience. Goddess that woman moves fast! She made me dizzy. But she and Tricia are just amazing. They got me some maalox and saw my lips were turning into shoe leather and picked up some vaseline lip stuff, which got the job done better than the blixtick i was using.
Mostly this day was just the sleep, rehydrate, eat watch tv, sleep cycle. But really as it went on I felt more and more myself.
12/4
Let's see. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep the night of the 3rd. It was just the wake up and rehydrate thing. And I was conscious enough to be more aware of how miserable the whole thing was.
Kendra and Jenny got brought back to Cocoon in the morning and both zonked into bed. Mira looked in on me and complemented me on my recovery (ironic now since it's almost two weeks later and I feel like butt). I can't really remember much of what we did that morning. It was starting to get a bit routine. I know I finally started to get some calories into me that day. I had some broth and a couple of boosts and I can't remember if it was Mary Lou or Tricia who came in and nagged me until I finally had some yogurt, to get the cultures back in my digestive track.
In the afternoon half the universe descended upon us :) It was really marvelous. I think first it was Wendy, Kelli, and their wonderful daughter. Then Tina showed up. Now I've known Tina for years and years at this point, but we'd never met before. I think it's the longest I've ever known anyone online and not met them. I recognized her right away, but she didn't look at all like I expected either. I gather at this point, the front room girls at cocoon were starting to wonder exactly who I was :) And then a bit later the bell rings again and it's Kara from GP. I was so glad to finally meet her as well. Also, it was nice to see someone who was well and truly Doctor O and turned out so attractive for some encouragement about why exactly it was that I'd done this to myself. But wait, there were more! The bell rings again and it's a random visitor and Dr. O grad who comes by cocoon. So she joined us.
I think it was Tricia that came in at that point and looked around in shock. I gather that many visitors isn't quite the normal.
I actually found it a bit much, but I was having too much fun to really care. And I just can't express how good it made me feel that so many people came to visit. And I was starting to actually feel like something alive, which I think had as much to do with getting some calories into me as it did with actually healing. Still, I zonked pretty quickly after they left. That night was the hardest. I knew Janna was leaving in the morning. And the packing had just reached a point of complete hell. I was down to two to three hours between wake up and hydrate. And the early morning alarm came way way way too early and Janna was spirited off to the airport...
12/5
Well Janna left. And that wasn't great. Mostly we all were still out of it and stuck by ourselves. Kendra spent a little bit of time in the room though and we whined about our packing together and got to know each other. I got a vibe right away that we'd get along, which is great because I honestly don't do that well with most transpeople. They're too girly or too over the top or just plain strike me as guys. Kendra's an attractive successful engineer and a geek worse than I am and probably smarter than I am as well, which is something I don't often feel like. I had a spare bed in the back room and Jenny was still zonked completely in the front room, plus the rear also now has the only working VCR. I was watching Silence of the Lambs and Kendra came in and joined me. That's become a bit of a joke between us "how do we first learn to covet?" I got my first hair washing as well. That was an experience. But I won't spoil it for anyone who's going to be at Cocoon themselves. You get helped a lot by ML or Tric. In this case, it was Mary-Lou. And let's just say they've come up with a unique approach. Tina came over, which was nice. After all the visitors, it was kind of a rest day. The packing was still there, but for some reason, it was actually easier sunday night to get some sleep. I was still eating boost, but I also made some broth. (Organic veggie broth, it was actually very good.)
12/6
I guess it was about 10 when I finally got the call from Mira to go have my packing pulled. Kendra and I had been watching Sex and the City, which I was surprised to find out I quite enjoyed. It was at its height when I was first transitioning and was super popular among the trans crowd. A bit too popular I thought. I had heard good things about it from friends, but there were just so many transwoman watching it in a sort of wish fulfillment way that just bothered me on some level. Yes I know, the natal women watching it had the same wish fulfillment going on. The super loyal girlfriends. The lifestyle. And so on. But they don't have to prove their authenticity to themselves. Well I really liked the show so maybe I don't anymore either. On the other hand, just what I need more DVDs to buy. We're already getting the L-Word first set so we can catch up before the second season starts.
At this point, getting the nose unpacked was just an obsession. When will she call? How much longer? Oh please, call? Please. I went in with Jenny who was having some fluid drained from her face. Wow, Dr. O's is a busy busy spot. He was balancing the two of us. A non-trans patient. And a trans patient who was in on a consult.
I had to wait a bit, which had me itching and worse feeling guilty for itching to get it done. Finally finally, I got in with Mira. She is really great. She let me hold a mirror so I could see her cutting the sutures and pulling them. She was amazingly gentle and patient. I couldn't watch the nose packing coming out. That was just the oddest sensation, almost like your nose blowing itself but without any air going through it or effort. It made me woozy so I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it, but it wasn't at all painful. And then there was this wonderful beautiful cool sensation. Not the sense of breathing, but the presence of cooling air. I never realized exactly how much your head cools itself through the nasal passages. The other came out similarly easily. The only bleeding were a few of the upper lip reduction sutures that were a bit trapped in swelling and she had to poke at. At this point, Mira started to I think get a little more comfortable with me and it felt far more friendly than just a professional service. I've heard a lot of comments about Mira and they seem to run either hot or cold and I wonder if it's just who she hits it off with. Within the limits of how much time and how busy they are, we just talked and talked about this that and the other. In fact, that reminds me I need to get a picture of Beast's triple paws to send to her. She's certainly polite in a professional way, but I felt like we made a connection and that she changed a lot. I wonder sometimes if the people who are less thrilled just never sync with her that way. One of the key wonderful things to hear was instructions that I could eat soft but solid food. I hadn't really wanted to before then, but when I was told this, a little light bulb lit up.
Tina came over that afternoon. I have no real memory of what we got up to with ourselves. Just chatting. We made plans to go out the following day for lunch. Especially since it would be her last day.
Getting back to that solid food thing, that night I had my first fun experiences with solid food, which was a frozen Indian dinner I'd been eyeing before surgery. That was an experience. It was wonderful of course. Not just the solid food aspects of it, but just that it was plain and simple pretty good for a "tv dinner" sort of thing. If I remember Kendra joined me. And I swear someone else was there for part of this. (Can you tell I was on pain meds?) I did get my first taste of not being able to eat though. Not in the sense that I couldn't get it down, but that with the muscles shaved from my jaw I literally had trouble eating. I'm still relearning, but at least I don't smack my lips (much) or have food fall out of my mouth. If it's something like rice even now over two weeks later, I'll end up with hamster cheeks with food caught between my gums and cheeks.
12/7
Having had that experience with the solid food thing, I was a little reluctant to go out to lunch in public until I had a bit more skill in eating. So when Tina called, I suggested she stop on the way and get some takeout noodles. Now that wasn't a random comment, a few days earlier we'd been chatting and one of us had mentioned a noodle place that we just absolutely loved. That was met with the other one of us describing the noodle place we loved. After about ten minute of describing the menus to each other, we figured out that it was the same place! I don't know the name (Later edit: Bangkok Noodle on Powell St), but if my memory serves me it's in the section between Lush and The Body Shop. I got the noodles with duck, which are just amazing. Tina got the spicy beef. And I popped over and asked Kendra and I think she got the regular beef? They were really amazingly good. They packed the noodles separately, so nothing was soggy and they were still hot when Tina got down to Cocoon.
Right in the middle of waiting though, Mary-Lou comes in with some soup. I could have died I felt so bad! It looked wonderful, but here we are waiting for soup already! Jenny actually woke up and had some then crawled back into bed. I had some later, it was quite good. I couldn't tell you in the world what was in it, but a nice vegetable taste with a real solid brothy feel that didn't give you that "veggies aren't quite doing it" feeling.
After our soup we Tina and I wandered up to 24th street and did a little wandering and a little shopping. I found a lovely gift for Janna for Yule. The clerk took one look at my male ID'd Mastercard and wanted to see my license. I was amused and complemented. Then we found a little fair trade import shop and I made my find of the trip. Janna had bought a little lipstick case at one of these sort of funky foreign imports type of places back in college and I thought it was just perfect. Plus it just just just fit the slightly longer type of lipstick we both use. And there's a stack of them! I snatched it up! $5.50, can't beat that!
It was wandering around up here with Tina that I had my first two smells. One good. One bad. the first was the good and that was a pizza place, looked like gourmet pizza of some kind. Smelled wonderful. I can't imagine what it must have been like if you could actually smell. The other was some guys horrible aftershave. I guess that cuts through anything. Goddess, how bad do you have to smell before this becomes a good idea?
Oh! That night we got to hang around a bit with Kate and Melanie. Kate was here for surgery and Melanie was her partner. They're both great fun friendly women.
12/8
Let's see. I remember I woke up and I think I was bumbling around watching something on the television. I was being pretty much lazy and thinking that I should get in the shower and then call Melanie. Her girlfriend Kate was in surgery and I knew she'd be freaking. I think it was Tricia that came in and suggested we do exactly that because she definitely was freaking, so I hopped in the shower and gave her a ring. You could hear how grateful she was.
So we hung out for most of the rest of the morning and early afternoon. During this time Allison from England arrived at cocoon. This was sort of funny, the NY Yankees have a marketing agreement with Manchester United, so she had this Yankees baseball cap on. Immediately on seeing that, Kendra leaps up and runs to her room and comes back with a red sox cap. (Both in pink btw. Way cute actually.). The Americans were highly amused. The Brits were sort of oblivious.
Eventually we set out to Davies to see Kate. The trip on Muni was even easier than described. Which was great. The weather was absolutely miserable. Wet chilly, but the rain was mostly holding off. When we got to the hospital, Mira said she'd still be in for a few more hours. So we decided to wander down and find something to eat on Castro street. Everyone was being kind of "um I dunno" so I pointed at our beloved Little Orphan Andy's and dragged them there. Now this is a little sort of diner-ish place at the corner of Castro and Market. I'd been there before in July when we had lunch with Lisa. I took a bet that it would be good and got the meatloaf dinner special. Wonderful minestrone soup and the meatloaf was absolutely ungodly good. After we finished dinner, it was, well, beyond pouring outside.
Now Kendra and I are still sporting our nose casts. Our plaster nose casts which we're supposed to not get wet. And I don't want my nose to fall off! So we dash from overhang to overhang trying to find a place with umbrellas which we finally do. At the same time, Melanie shopped for a card and we picked up flowers somewhere. Finally we got back and Kate still wasn't out of surgery. So we sat in the waiting room and eventually Dr. O comes in, still in scrubs.
This was a really different Dr. O, very professional. He was mad at himself because the surgery went something like 12 minutes late. I thought that was a real mark of his perfectionism. But the one thing that really came across was his vitality. He was like a morning person who'd just woken up and had their first cup of coffee. And this is after a full "works" FFS of almost 12 hours!
Well Kate did well. There was a bit of bleeding (this turned out to be a major understatement apparently). But it had gone well. We went upstairs and ended up waiting more there for her to be brought up. She looked, well, like we all do. Poor Melanie. I think that's when I really appreciated how good it was that Janna had Lisa to keep her company. It's hard to see someone that beaten up.
Well we spent a little while there and then Kendra and I headed back to Cocoon House. I'm not really sure what to write about that night. We talked and played with her laptop and hung out. We scored some ice cream. And I think it was three am or so before we got to sleep.
12/9
The next morning was my last. I ran around trying to figure out how to get everything into my luggage. Amazingly, it all fit. And then Mira was showing up to drag me off to get my cast off and my staples out. That went surprisingly well. It was all very easy. And I finally got to see myself. Well, I was pleased. After that I went upstairs to see Kate. She wasn't in good shape. Like usual, the nursing staff at Davies wasn't answering her pages. She had bled a lot, it was obvious from the dressings which were soaked around the edges, and she was nauseous from the blood that got past the throat blocking. I sort of surprised myself here by holding the basin for her. Usually "sick up" makes me really really ill. And at that I went out to find a nurse to deal with all this plus arrange a bathroom trip for Kate and find her something to drink to replace what she'd just lost.
Almost immediately I ran into the chaplain. She had visited me and was super nice. I smell Unitarian or UCC. I introduced myself and she was shocked to find out how far I'd healed in about a week. And I told her about Kate and she went off to find a nurse. That didn't take long and Kate got her trip to the bathroom with both of our help. And at that point, I was running out of time so I had to say goodbye and went back down and found Mira. We drove back and ended up in a long talk about Cape Cod and different places to eat in Provincetown.
Once I was back Kendra and I popped out for some shopping and lunch. We went up to 24th and hit a few shops and then went to Pasta Pomodoro. She got an eggplant sandwich that looked absolutely wonderful. I wasn't so sure of my eating potential, so I got a bowl of the minestrone soup, which turned out to be very different from the usual stuff and absolutely incredible.
After that we did a bit more shopping and wandered back to cocoon. Mary-Lou was there again and took a few pictures of us and we took pictures of each other standing on the steps of Cocoon. I mentioned Kate to Mary-Lou and she really looked grim when I mentioned the blood. I'm guessing it was a bit worse than we'd be let believe. But she was ok.
I was feeling really sad about leaving Kendra. Amazing how close you can get in only a few days. We hugged goodbye and all too soon the stupid shuttle van arrived. I felt bad for the driver, he wanted to make small talk, but I was already feeling lonely.
I was right on time for my flight, which was a shuttle to LA. Kevin Bacon was in first class. I thought that was amusing. I had a long layover in LA so I bought the latest Cooking Light and finished up Ringworld. I got some chicken nuggets at Burger King, which I made a passably polite attempt at eating. I guess a little after that when I got well and truly bored Lisa called. Oh, that was just so wonderful. She had perfect timing! We talked for a bit and then I started to look at the battery indicator on my cell and had to hang up. I wanted enough to get in touch with Janna when I got into Boston.
Soon enough I got my flight. Nobody was chatty thank goodness. I had a hard time sleeping because of the surgery, couldn't really lean my face against the wall like I usually do. I tried to watch the movie, but it was beyond horrible. (The Thunderbirds) I survived.
I can't say Logan was fun. Janna forgot her cell phone and was waiting at the wrong baggage pickup area. So it took almost an hour for me to find her, when she finally called me from a pay phone. I was SO worried about her. But all was ok.
Actually, here we had an amusing moment. One of the things I have written about my FFS was that it changed me more inside my mind than it did on the outside. Even with how much it changed me on the outside. And a lot of this was finally being completely comfortable with myself. Janna had to use a bathroom and while before FFS it wasn't like I was avoiding the ladies room, I wasn't volunteering if it wasn't necessary either. I thought she'd faint when I wandered in with her just to wash my hands and check my makeup.
I guess that's it. We drove home and Kathy lived happily ever after I guess. FFS for me was a real life changing event. More life changing that probably anything else that's ever happened to me.
The recovery from FFS is both fast and slow. I was back at work within a week, but now almost a year later, I'm still noticing changes in my face as the swelling over the months has gone down and the reorganized bone structure has populated with further changes from hormones. About two months after FFS much of the heavy swelling had gone down, but the skin hadn't been able to keep up and for a month or so I had a rather unpleasant tired "baggy" look, but that passed. I remain unbelievably pleased with the results and I can't speak highly enough about how I was treated by Dr. Ousterhout, Mira, Tatianna, and Mary Lou and Tricia.
Created on 02/14/2006 12:34 PM by admin
Updated on 02/14/2006 12:45 PM by admin
|
|
|
|
