I was so excited to reach the 6 week mark after my revision surgery so I could get in the hot tub and have sex again. But when I reached that point and did those things I started bleeding again. I went to the doctor to get it checked out and luckily it’s not an open wound but it is more granulation tissue.
That means that I need to treat it with silver nitrate weekly until it clears up and possibly wait another couple months before having sex or hot tubbing again. Ugh.
I’m back home safe and sound now and so happy to spend time with my pets and sleep in my own bed. One of my partners came down to join my spouse and I the last week and the two of them drove me back. We took two days and stopped often to stretch and keep my blood flowing.
Remarkably, the trip was pain free from a surgical site perspective which I didn’t expect. My back hurt by the end but that’s chronic pain life for you. Now that I’m home I’m going to be weaning off of the Gabapentin and hopefully feel less out of it.
I tried to take my normal 1 mile walk with the dogs this morning and realized halfway through that it was a bad idea. My body feels so weak and it was really hard to finish. Just because I’m not in pain doesn’t mean I’m fully healed. Now comes the hard part of letting people take care of me now that I’m home and feeling mostly better. I still can’t submerge in water, have sex, or lift anything heavy for another month.
I had my second and final post op appointment today and it was a bittersweet moment hopefully seeing my surgical team for the last time. Today’s big hurdle was the “bladder trial” where they pump me full of saline, take out the catheter and see if I can pee the full volume. Luckily this time I passed easily unlike after my first surgery. Everything else looked good other than my persistent yeast infection.
After that I hit the road and two of my partners drove me halfway back home. On Tuesday when I had a short outing in the car I was hurting a lot so I was worried but today was relatively pain free so I feel very thankful. I’m really lucky to have not one but two caretakers here with me. I wish everyone could have that privilege.
Just had my first revision surgery post op where I was really hoping to get the catheter out. Sadly they want me to keep it in a week longer to give the urethra more time to heal. I also have a yeast infection. Otherwise I seem to be healing well though I do have to stay on top of separating the wound at the base of my vagina to make sure it doesn’t heal together like last time. They also gave me tips on how to better manage my pain without opiates.
The team at Mozaic Care are all so wonderful. I hate that I had to have a revision because my original surgery healed weird but I am glad I get to see more of them. Right before surgery when I was waiting for my operating room to be ready I told them about my first orgasm and both surgeons were so excited. One even gave me a hug on the spot.
The surgery appears to have gone well though it was a little more extensive than originally planned. While they were in there they discovered a hole in my urethra which explains why I was dribbling after I peed. They stitched it up so now I have a catheter and a pee bag tied to my leg for the next week.
The pain hasn’t been as bad as the first surgery but it’s enough that I have to stay on top of pain meds. I haven’t been sleeping well because I keep waking up when they wear off. And it’s painful to sleep on my side right now because that puts pressure on the stitches.
I’m pretty out of it because of the meds so as I’m mostly zoning out and watching bad TV. Hopefully soon I’ll start improving.
Finally a year after my bottom surgery I’m starting to have mini orgasms! I had the first one about a week before my surgery anniversary but I wasn’t sure what it was and I just had three more last night.
They feel like small crests of pleasure but nothing compared to what I was used to before surgery where there is a Big Bang and I’m done. I do come away from sex feeling happy and satisfied though instead of the disappointment and frustration of the last 9 months.
I was hoping for a lot more out of my first orgasm but at this point I’ll take anything I can get. Hopefully my revision surgery will make it a little easier to achieve and they continue to grow in amplitude.
This week marks 9 months from my bottom surgery and I just had a post-op check in with the surgeons office. Overall healing has gone well other than the very notable exception of my clit falling off. Dilation is easy now and I can go down to every other day if I want. I’ve gone though all the sizes they gave me and even ordered one bigger. I managed to get all the granulation tissue (bleeding spots) to heal up and there hasn’t been any discharge for several months.
I do still have some urinary leakage after peeing which is annoying so I’ve started going to a pelvic floor physical therapist and I’m doing kegel exercises at home. Having a physician put their finger in your vagina every week certainly takes some getting used to! I’m hoping it also helps with sex because I can get up to the edge of orgasm but I still can’t crest that peak which is eternally frustrating. The doctor says that’s still within the realm of normal but I’m at the average time that it usually takes so I’m getting more anxious about ever being able to fully enjoy sex.
Now that me and my partners are fully vaccinated I get to start dating again. I’ve been seeing someone new I met online during the pandemic and after 8 long months we finally get to touch each other this weekend. I’m definitely nervous about having sex with someone new when I haven’t even figured out my own new body parts yet but they’re trans too so I’m sure they’ll understand. I’m just glad that the waiting is over.
I know this sounds dramatic but all this waiting in dread and frustration to find out if my greatest fear is being realized is terrifying. Before making the decision to have bottom surgery, I had to overcome a pretty significant fear that I could be in the rare group of people that can’t orgasm (anorgasmia) after surgery. I decided to go ahead anyway because my dysphoria was getting worse but that fear has still been in the back of my head the whole time. And now, here I am, 7 months after surgery and still unable to orgasm. I know it’s early and that the average healing time is 1 year but it is still absolutely scaring the shit out of me.
It honestly wouldn’t be so bad if I still had the libido that I did before surgery due to dysphoria. But now that I have the right body parts and my sex drive has returned, this waiting is absolute agony. And I don’t have the other outlets through kink that I would normally have since I’m limited to contact with one partner. I’ve tried pretty much everything I can think of including ordering way too many different vibrators but still no luck.
Honestly, right now, I kinda regret having surgery. I don’t say that so that cis people can justify denying trans people life saving treatments but rather to normalize being honest about that when you’ve had a disappointing experience. I hope that this feeling will pass but right now I would take the dysphoria over the frustration personally. And I honestly don’t know how I’m going to get through life if this keeps up.
Sorry to be depressing today. Thanks for listening to me vent.
Good news! I went to see the urologist today about what I was worried could be a urethralvaginal fistula and she was able to determine that there’s nothing wrong, I just have a harmless little cul-de-sac that splits horizontally from my vagina towards my clitoral area. Turns out my vagina is quirky in more than one way. I’m so relieved!
The only thing she recommended was that I go see pelvic floor physical therapist to help improve some of the minor incontinence issues I’ve been having. That should certainly be interesting!
Content warning: medical shit below
I’m so tired of having to worry about my new vagina and whether something is wrong. I really wish I had just been born with the right hardware in the first place so I didn’t have to think about it all the time and I had something I could rely on to work properly.
Yesterday I went to the doctor because I was worried that I had a vaginal tear. And while it turns out it probably isn’t a tear per se, it could potentially be a fistula to my bladder. I have to go to a urogynecology specialist to confirm. It’s also possible that it is just a harmless little pocket in my vagina that just healed weird but either way, it is likely something that will need yet another surgery to fix.
I also keep having bleeding from this granulation tissue right next to my vaginal opening that I am going to have to treat with silver nitrate for a few weeks until it clears up. But unfortunately, the treatment makes it bleed more, a lot more, in the short term while it heals. It is really scary to go to the bathroom and see blood literally dripping from your vulva after you pee. Luckily I have a whole set of homemade flannel pads that my partner made for me so I don’t have to use up a million disposables during this process.
I still haven’t been able to orgasm yet, though worrying about hurting your parts and whether you’re going to start bleeding isn’t exactly conducive to relaxing into it either. And the combined effect of all of this is incredibly frustrating. I just want things to work right! Is that too much to ask for?
Anyway, thanks for listening to me vent.
Finding Haven 