Hi everyone! Currently sitting in my hospital room after bottom surgery! Yay! My left hand is still completely numb so may be some typos.
I tried to get into the Suporn clinic for 3 different cycles but never got in, and my bottom dysphoria was starting to bother me more and more recently; so I started looking into different options.
A friend of mine told me about his sister getting her surgery done at The APS clinic, and she got her surgery done only 3 months after initial contact!!! (unheard of!)
So I reached out to the clinic on Sep 22. We went over my medical history and they sent me a huge document with all the info on the procedures they offer and everything. I was planning to do the penile inversion technique at the Suporn clinic, but looking through these options the colon vaginoplasty looked nicer. We scheduled an online consultation for that week, which we did over google meet. I talked to my surgeon, another doctor at APS, and the international 'liaison', adam, who is super nice and worked with me a lot more throughout the process. Affter the consulration i put down a 20% down payment by wire transfer and we scheduled my surgery for oct 17th.
I immediately quit my HRT cold turkey, quit nicotine cold turkey, and started tapering off my antidepressant and anxiety meds.You would always do this a month before your surgery but since mine was so close i did it immediately.
I talked with adam to get my accommodation package set up and wired the money for that (APS offers 3 different packages. I am alone in Thailand for the surgery so I bought the biggest package to make my trip easy as can be)
At this point it was basically just time to wait for the surgery. My flights were not included in the package so I waited for him to tell me what day I needed to get there and then scheduled my flights accordingly. I did the two thailand required psychiatric evaluations over google meets, APS set those meets up for me which was very stress-free.
I flew out to thailand, arrived oct 15 met a driver at the airport and got a SIM card for my phone, then the driver took me to the hotel. I signed into my room and because of my package my accommodation team delivered me some (delicious) pad thai and I spent the rest of the day at the hotel. Adam came to see me in person at about 4pm after I checked into the hotel and we talked about what to expect and he had a gift basket. the whole thing has been very nice and the team seems like they really care.
I hung out at the hotel, went to bed nice and early at 9PM and slept like a rock after all the traveling. The hotel room was very nice I am happy with the accommodation package so far. I couldn't eat or drink after midnight because I had a blood test on the 16th. I got picked up at 10AM on the 16th to do my final consultation with the surgeon, we went over all the details and she very quickly checked my genitals, then I signed a bunch of documents and went back to the hotel.
I was to get picked up from the hotel at 3pm for the blood tests, and since my surgery was early morning they had me stay the night at the hospital. So I packed all my stuff, showered, and they picked me up and took me to the hospital. I got an xray and got my blood drawn while I went over medical history and signed all the surgery releases. At this point it was 4pm and they let me order hospital food for my dinner. I got a thai omelette with rice and green eggplant+chicken curry which was super delicious, but I'd recommend not doing what I did because I threw most of it up when I had to do the bowel cleanse at 6PM. The bowel cleanse suckkkked, the hardest part was forcing myself to drink 2 litres of that saltwater and it was just nauseating, But I managed it.
I slept like a baby again and woke up while the nurses were coming in and out of the room to do the last preparations, got my blood pressure checked a bunch. A nurse gave me a bottle of special soap and I showered and then they put in my IV and rolled me to the OR. I got an injection in my spine that numbed my lower body and stopped me from moving it and then the anesthesologist pushed the stuff while I breathed in. The anesthesia hurt like hell, felt like lava in my hand but I was out real quick after.
I don't remember when I woke up but I was already back in my hospital room when I started to really be conscious, I slept off and on for many many hours. At around 4-6PM I started to decide to stop napping and asked the nurses for my bag and I've been hanging out on my laptop and the TV and msging people on my phone. My legs have been in this massage pump thing to keep the blood flowing and it feels ticklish but also really good, I can pretty much feel my legs and feet normally now. My left hand is still very asleep on the middle, index, and thumb but after all this typing it's definitely improving. My right hand has been similar but much better all day.
I'm super thirsty, I can't wait to drink a nice cold beverage, water or soda or whatever. The IV is hydrating but my throat is pretty parched. For a few hours after I really woke up, my stomach was cramped hard the way it feels when your bladder is super full and you have to pee NOW. I don't know if it had anything to do with pee because I have a catheter in and also couldn't really feel much down there. But things are feeling better now, like a dull 5 on the pain scale.
It's currently 10PM and im just chillaxing on my laptop now, things are pretty good.