Before I really start documenting my vulvoplasty, it's important to the story to note that I have POTS and autism.
So, let's start with day 0, the morning before the surgery. I went in with my parents to help me with my wheelchair, some paperwork, my memory issues and my communication issues (also I'm very lucky they're quite supportive of my transition, so it makes sense they accompanied me). Once in the building, everything was as to be expected. I gave all of the paperwork the hospital asked me to fill up before coming, I got changed with the clothes they gave me and waited a lot. While giving out the paperwork there seemed to have been a slight miscommunication where the person asking me for the paperwork asked me for an "ETT" while they meant "ECG" (electrocardiogram, because they had worries with my pots). Apart from that everything went smooth, and the workers were all really nice to me even though it was a public institution (one that's way underfunded in my country). I ended up on a seemingly old and worn out operation table, which was a bit worrying, but understandable given the underfunding situation. They put all of the medical stuff on my body once in the operation room (IV, ecg, blood pressure and oxygen monitoring devices), and then the anesthesist came in, and a few minutes later I was asleep. I didn't get to see the surgeon. When I woke up I had a perfusion of painkillers, and was really really sleepy. Given my operation supposedly ended at around 12pm (4 hours of surgery), and I got out of the wake up room at around 3 pm, it took me a really long time to wake up, but it was to be expected. My head was fusy, my vision blurry, and even with the painkillers I still was in pain. I had a very hard time controlling my jaw (it can be because of multiple reasons, including the drugs they gave me for the anesthesia, the tubing they used to keep me breathing during the operation, and/or the fact that because of the pain I might have been gritting on my teeth). When I got in the room I would be staying it for a few days my mom was there and the nurses tested my constants. My blood pressure (BP) was very low. This apparently isn't because of my pots (even though it might have had an impact), but mostly because of the drugs for the anesthesia and the fact that I'm young. That's what the surgeon and his intern told me. They also told me that the surgery went really well and that I only had a small hematoma. Because of the low BP, a lot of times it felt like I was about to go unconscious. Once in my room they stopped the perfusion of painkillers. I realized I had a urinary catheter. One of the nurse while setting down the barriers around my bed used to keep me from falling off pulled by mistake onto my catheter and it hurt so bad. But the pain quickly vanished away as she stopped and made sure it couldn't happen again. And as the time went by the night came and even though I was so tired, the pain and the fact that I was stuck lying on my back and couldn't move much kept me up through the whole night. All the pain killers they would give me weren't really effective, and every time I would close my eyes my brain would flash horror images to me - probably because of the pain and the drugs). I ended up sleeping small sections of 30 minutes, woken up by pain or because of nightmares (they happen to me often when I don't take appropriate sleep medication, which they didn't give me for some reason, but the pain was definitely making things worse). And that's day 0 ! Tomorrow I'll write about day 1 post-surgery.
