Post-Surgery Update

Does this shirt make me look flat? hee hee hee hee hee

 

I’m back home post-surgery. What an amazing adventure that was, and will probably continue to be.

 

The doctor told me the numbing agent that she used during surgery would start to wear off in a day or two, at which time I’ll be very sore, probably, so she gave me some Tylenol and something stronger just in case I need it. I highly doubt I will.

 

The numbing agent is wearing off tonight. That’s a good thing, because it reminds me to keep my arms at my side as much as possible so I don’t risk ripping out stitches or causing more scarring than necessary.

 

I’m supposed to behave like a T-Rex with very short front limbs, but a lifetime of having longer arms isn’t easy to unlearn.  (It’s hard to remember, when nothing hurts. Lisa had to keep reminding me today not to reach above my head or behind my back.)

 

I’m wearing button-down shirts since I can’t pull on my usual t-shirts right now. (Which is a pity because I just got a new one in the mail today that I LOVE !)

 

The team at UW Northwest Hospital was FABULOUS! I got a “Passport” when I left, listing the names of everyone on my care team (which I nicknamed my itty bitty titty committee):

 

Admitting Rep: Amanda

Pre-Admit RN: Ruth

Pre-Surgery Admit RN: Hannah

Pre-Surgery Admit CNA: Lidya

Surgeon: Sarah Goldsberry-Long

Anesthesiologist: Jeff Marchant, MD

Operating Room RN: Mason/Annabelle/Flo

Operating Room Tech: Tennessee/Gerald

Anesthesia Tech: Araciel

Recovery Room RN: Colleen

Post-Op Care Nurses: Tenzin, RN, Laura, RN

Other Care Providers: Rhodona, CNA

 

All respected my preferred pronouns and my journey. (It’s always HUGE to me when that happens.) They came here to America from a cross section of the globe and they’re all delightful people.

 

I can’t say enough about Dr. Goldsberry-Long. She is soooo cool.

 

She took a half hour longer than the usual four hours to make sure my chest looked aesthetically pleasing and indubitably male, which drove Lisa a little nuts, because she was in the waiting room pacing, wondering why it was taking longer than they told her it would. But when the doctor explained it to her, she was glad they took the extra time to get it just right for me.

 

Because I’m in good shape physically active, riding bikes (now that I’m not presently playing pickle ball or wally ball because of COVID), my heart rate was very low most of the night and kept setting off alarms, until someone finally came in and adjusted the settings to under 45 beats per minute so I could get some sleep without wondering what the heck was wrong with me.  As soon as I told him my exercise regimen, he realized my lower heart rate (when sleeping or near sleep) is lower than the usual patient because I’m very athletic.

 

My blood pressure was also low, at times 93 over 63. It’s usually 110 or 120 over 70, so that was a slight concern. They told me to drink more water when I got back home to bring that up to normal.

 

I wasn’t even remotely dizzy when I got up several times to pee, so I knew it wasn’t a big deal. I was just super relaxed in the hospital, which they usually don’t see in patients. They said I was a dream patient! (That’s always my plan!)

 

I’m trying to remember everything that happened in the hospital but I’m afraid I was probably pretty loopy, so my memories are sporadic. I’ll recall something one moment and forget it the next!

 

On the way home from the hospital (Lisa drove me to and from there) we ordered some food from Homestead Restaurant (Lisa wanted to celebrate my “man-iversay”) and got super silly. We laughed our butts off for hours when we got back here to my home. I can’t recall much of what we laughed about, but it was all uproarious.

 

Oh! I remember one of them. Dr. Goldsberry-Long told us that sometimes nipple grafts don’t take, but if that happened, I could get tattooed tits.

 

Oh my God!

 

We laughed about that repeatedly. We laughed about me getting unwrapped next week and my nipples falling to the floor. Lisa suggested, “Just get a stapler, and staple them back on!’

 

I know, I know… you had to be there… It was hysterical! I began to think we’d both been given laughing gas in the hospital without our knowledge!

 

Dr Goldsberry-Long drew on my breasts to get the lay of the land as to how she would sculpt them during surgery. I asked Lisa to take photos. (No, I won’t show you those, but I wanted before and after photos!). When I got home this afternoon, we noticed that she hadn’t erased the lines when I opened my shirt to have the picture taken that you see here. Lisa chortled, “You look like you’re about to be autopsied!”

 

And that set us off. “Dead Man Walking!”

 

Again, you had to be there. I think we were both just so relieved that I didn’t come out of there feeling like hell that we just went bonkers in the humor field for a while. I haven’t laughed that long in a very long time–I think since Trump was elected!

 

Oh, that reminds me. When my blood pressure was so low, I said to the nurse, “Let’s talk about Donald Trump–that will bring it right up into Red Alert territory!”

 

And it did! Raised it up into the normal range.

 

That’s a sad way to end this reminiscence, isn’t it? She said to me, “Don’t think about Trump. You are too happy a person to waste your time on him.”

 

Good advice! Until that moment, I hadn’t thought about him in at least two days, and it was paradise!

 

She told me another patient came in all bent out of shape about Trump, and she advised him to “Go to sleep and dream you wake up 1000 years from now. No more Trump!”

 

He laughed and said, “He’d better be gone a helluva lot sooner than that!”

 

I second that emotion!