Post-Surgery Update!

I survived!

Dearest friends and family! I’ve survived my latest surgery. For those who missed it, I’ve now had “Gender Confirmation Surgery” aka “bottom surgery”, or, more technically, “vaginoplasty.”¹ This will just be a quick post to let you all know how I’m doing.

I was accompanied to the hospital by my wonderful partners, Kat and Toni. Of course, as always, Blåhaj (Ikea shark) was in attendance as well. I was so glad to have both Toni and Kat with me that morning since I was quite nervous. They also both helped me so much with getting ready the night before and the morning of surgery.

In the waiting room at the hospital, with Toni, Kat, and Chompy (who actually got her name that morning, thanks to a brilliant recommendation from Toni).

After checking in at the hospital around 5:30 AM, The surgery, from what I’m told, started around 7:30 AM lasted around 9 hours. I first kind of woke up a little around 5:30 PM, very confused, before falling back asleep for another hour and half and finally really coming around at about 7 PM.

That night, the nurses made me stand up, and… wow. I needed help getting my legs swung over the edge of the bed, and then moving somehow from a reclined position to a standing position in one motion (with help from my amazing nurse). I stood for a few seconds with aid of a walker, and then laid back down, where I stayed until morning.

Sleep was hard to come by, and there was actually a fire alarm at like 4am or something, but everything was fine.

Thursday brought some vitals checks² and some walking around the room, which went quite well, as I was able to do it without assistance. It was very slow, though - literally pretty much heal-to-toe step distance. Eventually I worked up to walking through the hallways of the hospital, always accompanied by one of the (very kind) nurses due to fall risk.

On Thursday I also enjoyed lovely visits from Kat, then Anna, and then Toni and Whitney, so pretty much always had someone around, which made me feel loved and supported, and helped the day go by quickly.

Friday they did some final checks and then discharged me in the afternoon. Kat drove while Toni accompanied me in the back row of the car as we made the ~3 hour trek home. That drive was honestly one of the hardest parts of the whole experience, and I simply collapsed onto my bed once we got me inside. Once again, I was so thankful for both Toni and Kat caring for me.

The next several days were just mostly me sleeping, watching TV, and trying to stay comfortable. Fortunately pain stayed moderate and relatively easy to manage without the prescription meds, which I only took overnight the first few nights. There were two incidents where I had to go to the ER to get something checked, but both times it turned out to be totally fine, no worries.

On Tuesday, May 6th, I went back to the hospital for my planned post-op appointment. They removed all the remaining medical stuff, and taught me how to do dilation (look it up if you’d like to know what it is and why those with this surgery need to do it). The kind folx at the surgical said everything was looking good, but it was still very early.

The next week and a half was mostly just being at home, playing video games, watching Doctor Who, and hanging out with others who came to visit.

Around 3 weeks in, I was able to drive myself to the hospital for my second post-op, at which the surgeons took a look and said everything was looking amazing. They also confirmed nerve sensation was working as expected. They were so happy that I don’t have to go back until July 21st, which will be 10 total weeks post-op.

Since then, I’ve been doing more and more. I was able to go to multiple pride events in June, and am mostly back to normal life other than restrictions like not lifting too much or doing strenuous workouts.

I’m feeling incredibly fortunate that my recovery has gone this easily. We’re not past all of the potentials for complications or need for revision surgeries, but for now, everything is going very, very well.

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported me in a variety of ways. Whether that’s visits, food, phone calls, kind messages, or anything else, I’m just so lucky to have so many people in my life. Thank you!

Next blog post will be back to my usual research pieces - thanks again for following along with my journey here!

Love y’all,

Celeste

1. Well, actually that and several more “plasty” operations.

2. With a brief concern about low blood pressure, but non-critical. Just raised a question of whether or not I’d be able to leave Friday as planned. They also wouldn’t give me the stronger pain meds until my BP got back to normal.