Wednesday, May 14, 2008

I’m back

That’s right; I was gone a little more than 24 hours and am now back home posting on our blog. I signed into the hospital at 1:34 yesterday and was taken back to be prepped for my surgery. There were two very warn hearted nurses taking down all my particular information. The three of us were laughing and joking together, Marsha who was typing the information with just two finders and was making jokes about her ‘two peckers’ flying over the keyboard. The other nurse Leona asked me if I had had my Adam’s apple shaved, and I went on to explain what I had had done and she showed me her mastectomy scar from her breast cancer. She did my IV and by 4:30 I was being taken to surgery. I remember sliding onto the table and was given my “margarita cocktail” as Leona called it; then being awakened in the recovery area. And I was being wheeled to my room by 6:20.

Waking up after surgery with cotton mouth is yucky. You can’t get enough to drink and your mouth still feels dry and crusty. My only task was to urinate at least by 2 am or they were going put in a catheter; and I wasn’t looking forward to that. By 10 pm I was able to go to the bathroom by myself.

The pain was intense at first but after I was able to get up and go by myself it seemed to subside somewhat; and I didn’t use the morphine drip very much after that to control the level of pain. Actually I was able to get some sleep last night, and of course; getting IV fluids, I had to use the bathroom several times. Which involved unhooking my leg wraps, oxygen and wrestling with the IV’s.

But the pain and discomfort of the breast expander has been tolerable with the morphine drip. Where there was an indentation at the old surgery site; now there is somewhat of a filled area at the site, a good beginning. I return to my Doctor Office to have the drain removed by next Monday at the latest and the plan was to wait three week before I return again to start the expanding process.

My surgeon has a great reputation for doing breast augmentations and reconstruction, but I believe that I am his first transgender patient. I am very pleased with his work so far and am looking forward to finally getting the breasts I have wished for, for so many years. OK, so they maybe bigger than what I would have had if I could have completed my HRT, but I’m looking on the bright side to all of this breast cancer business.

1 comment:

Allyson Dylan Robinson said...

Welcome home! I'm glad to hear it went so well. Continued prayers for continued recovery...