My Sex Reassignment Surgery
On June 1, 2002 I flew to Neenah, Wisconsin for Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) with Dr. Schrang. I spent the weekend sightseeing around the area then checked into the hospital on Monday. I had SRS on Tuesday, June 4. That was one year to the day since I went full time! I think that's pretty cool. I was discharged from the hospital on June 11 and I went home on June 13. That's the executive summary. Here's the details on how things went: The town Neenah is a nice sleepy little midwestern town. It's on the shores of Lake Winnebago and is really pretty. It's the last place in the world I'd expect to find a world-class transsexual surgery center! I flew from Denver on Saturday so I'd have some time to sightsee and check out the area. I arrived at the Appleton airport, about ten miles from Neenah, around 2pm. I rented a car, drove down, and checked in to the Park Plaza Valley Inn. That's where everyone stays before and after surgery. It's a nice hotel, which is good because it's the only one in Neenah! I spent the afternoon wandering around town taking photos. That evening I felt like Thai food. In Neenah? "yeah right", I thought! But I found a great restaurant called Cy's Asian Bistro right in downtown Neenah! I walked over from the hotel and had their Green Curry. It was awesome! Sunday I drove up to Appleton for the Unitarian Church services. The regulars were friendly and it was a really nice service. It turned out to be their Flower Communion, which is a yearly thing where everyone brings in flowers and exchanges them. I didn't know about that so didn't bring any flowers but I still got to take one home. That was nice. After church I went shopping at the mall. Didn't buy much but I found a cool housewares store called World Market. If I lived in the area I'd be in there all the time! I'd been warned about the bowel cleansing procedures in store for me Monday afternoon so all I had for dinner was a bowl of soup at the hotel. Monday all I ate was applesauce and banannas. And of course my usual morning mocha. What goes in must all come out. After that I dropped my car off at the airport, got a ride back with the hotel shuttle, and before I knew it the time had come for my appointment with Dr. Schrang. In the hospital 
I had my pre-surgery appointment with Dr. Schrang at 1:30. His office is in a credit union building which seemed very odd to me. His office was also unusual, with his desk at one side and an examination table at the other. It was over before I knew it - he explained some things about the surgery, examined me, and took some photos. After that they sent me over to the hospital. It's just a few blocks away so I walked over, towing my suitcase behind me. At the hospital my first task was to drink four liters of GoLytely bowel cleansing solution. They want you totally cleaned out before surgery. I'd been warned this was the worst part of the entire hospital stay, but for me it wasn't that bad. My problems started after surgery. The stuff tasted like old stale Gatorade that had gone bad. I slammed down a glass every ten minutes and finished it off about three hours later. I was so glad I didn't have any big meals earlier! That was followed with three courses of antibiotics and magnesium sulfate. It was an evil-tasting liquid with an aftertaste like really bad vodka. Nasty stuff. After that I got shaved, took a shower, and got painted with Betadyne from belly button to mid-thigh. I took my sleeping pill and went to bed around 11:30. Tuesday morning they came for me at 7am. I got taken down to the OR, got onto the operating table, and the next thing I knew I was back in my room. Done! I was tired but didn't sleep much. My friend Janet was visiting and I was afraid that if I fell asleep she'd leave and I'd wake up all alone! Seems silly now, but that's how I felt at the time. Being all alone in the hospital sucks. Tuesday the anesthesia wore off and I got sick and threw up. It wrenched me pretty hard and I thought "uh oh." Sure enough, the next time they changed the dressings everything was drenched in blood. I was scared - I'd never seen so much blood before and it was all mine. The nurses said some blood clots came loose and it looked worse than it really was. I was ok after that - just normal amounts of bleeding. The next five days were pretty routine except I developed a fever that lasted four days. It hit 101 degrees before it broke. But the main problem I remember was being so sore from having to remain flat on my back the entire time. My butt was so sore! You can sit up but you can't roll over. I was so looking forward to Monday when I'd be allowed out of bed! The nursing staff was wonderful though, and made the experience much more bearable. I had a lot of different nurses and techs with all the shift changes, but everyone was very nice, very supportive, and very good. I felt a lot better knowing they were there for me. As Dr. Schrang had promised, Monday was my big day. I was allowed out of bed! He came in and removed the catheter, the retention sutures, and the labia drains. Before long I was up roaming the halls. Even better, I could roll over on my side in bed! And I was able to pee without trouble (other than spraying myself with urine). I was happy about that too, because the catheter had become painful and I really didn't want it to get put back in. The next day, one week after surgery, Dr. Schrang took out my vaginal packing. It didn't hurt but it was a very strange feeling, sort of a fluttering sensation inside me as he pulled out all the gauze. There must have been ten feet of it in there! Then he showed me how to dilate, I did it myself for the first time, and I was free to go. I had quite a bit of swelling on the right side but he didn't seem concerned. Back at the hotel I felt very tired and very sore. We went downstairs to the hotel restaurant for dinner. It felt great to be eating real food in the real world, but sitting in the booth was painful and I was exhausted when I got back to the room. We stayed over another day and I spent most of my time alternating between ice packs and dilating. I was still too tired and sore to go anywhere so we ate room service. Back home Thursday was my day to go home! We had a redeye flight back to Denver so we had to get up at 4:30am to get ready. Janet was with me so I didn't have to lug my baggage around. Good thing - I didn't have the energy and the post-op instructions said not to lift anything heavier than 5-10 lbs. I survived the travel ok, but was so tired when I got home I could barely move. I spent the rest of the day on the sofa. Janet did a grocery run for me then she had to leave. The travel made my swelling a lot worse and I developed a large hematoma above my right labia. It looked and felt bad so I called my doctor in Denver. She said the swelling was normal, just get some rest. It did get a lot better over the next couple of days. The hematoma started slowly improving but it took over a month to go away. For me, the worst period of the entire surgery was the first few weeks after I came home. I actually had more pain and discomfort than I did in the hospital. And I was all alone, so I felt very isolated and lonely. The difficulty of the recovery took me by surprise. I used to be a bicycle racer and I'm still pretty fit so I thought I'd bounce back quickly, just like all those other web page authors claim to have done :) Didn't happen! I basically felt like I'd been hit by a truck. I had no energy, no appetite, and a lot of bleeding and soreness. At first, just going upstairs to use the bathroom left me exhausted (no bathrooms downstairs). I didn't even go outside for the first week and it was three weeks before I was able to drive. I haven't had any major complications but I've had lots of minor problems - the hematoma, a vaginal infection, and some wounds that just don't want to heal. I'm five weeks postop now and still have bleeding and pain. But my energy levels have improved considerably and I have much less pain now, so I guess there's hope for the future. Advice for the Neenah-bound
[ Home Page ] |
