Becoming Kenna

[OzGirl]

Kenna, it is so good your children have realised they love you enough to make an effort to adjust to your new circumstances, and I hope it continues! To be honest, I do worry about your surgey schedule. You will be spending around a year in recovery, which can be tough for an athlete, as it is both physically and psychologically draining, and I hope you can get through the cumulative effects ok. Full recovery from each of these ops can take months, so to have up to 9 ops in one year is a big challenge. I hope you can do it!

Hugs (and concern)

Allie

 

[Kenna]

Full recovery from each of these ops can take months, so to have up to 9 ops in one year is a big challenge. I hope you can do it!

The rhinoplasty is the one that would bother me the most. Good luck with that, I've had two!

Allie, It'll probably be closer to 2 years and some of the ops have pretty trivial recovery, especially the hair transplant and the likely second toe op. Some will be more of a challenge. I suspect that the butt-lift I'm still recovering from may be among the hardest recoveries, but that's just the consequence of the behavioural requirements, not the surgery itself. I've been surprised at the dominance of positive recovery stories over difficult ones that I've seen and read from FFS and BA's. Nonetheless I've the luxury of not having to worry too much about the pressure of work. Regardless of surgeries, one of my goals for next year is better diet and exercise with, I hope, a gradual weight reduction that has nothing to do with any possible surgical requirements. Further genital surgery is still only a possibility rather than a plan, but I'd have to be in a strong place physically before I'd embark upon that.

Moni, I've read and watched reports of rhinoplasty with wildly varying recovery stories, ranging from hideous to trivial; I hope that I'm not toward the hideous end. My surgeon has a pretty good reputation so I'm hopeful. At some stage I'll PM you with a string of questions about BA which I hope won't be too onerous for you. From the bits I've read in your various posts, I'm hoping that your experience of facial surgeries is not typical.
BTW, the road to 'rona has almost disappeared here. Guess who and what are responsible for it still being there. The "who" is bad but at times I wonder if the political system might be worse!

While I'll never deny being trans and don't plan to be fully stealth, being pretty binary for myself in terms of gender, my goal is to be able to go about my day-to-day life generally accepted as a woman. Estrogen hasn't done a lot for me physically, hence my more significant reliance on surgery. If I was younger, I'd probably need less surgery and take longer over the process, but at 65 I'm keen to not waste time.

Cheers!
-Kenna

 

[Kenna]

I had my combined consultation follow-up for my Butt-lift and FFS pre-op this afternoon. All the signs are looking good and he took some photos to match the pre-op ones. I'll get copies of those eventually but my belly is definitely smaller and my butt and hips are a bit bigger, but for me the most telling change was that a couple of days ago I tried on the jeans I'm wearing in my current avatar; instead of being comfortably loose around my butt they now cling tightly to my butt in a much more feminine way.

We went through all the elements of my facial surgery and decided that a hairline incision rather than a coronal incision would be best for the work on my forehead. Part of the reasoning was to maximise the separation from the big incision I had for the hair transplant last May. I'll be admitted at noon on 12 January for 2 nights. I understand Allie is being discharged that morning so I may even end up in her bed! He said that after the surgery I'll have extensive bandaging which will all be removed on the second morning, after which I'll be sent home. I'll even be allowed to shower and wash my hair! Although, I'll probably wait another day or so before going that far. I wasn't allowed to shower for a week after my butt-lift. I anticipate that I'll have plenty of bruising and look a fright for a good while after. He's also not bothered by me having minor toe surgery a week beforehand, so that will be going ahead on 5 January.

I was also allocated the date for my subsequent rhinoplasty, the 9th March, which is the first session he has available at the hospital after the 6-week recovery period, which will actually make it 8 weeks after my FFS.

-Kenna

 

[Monica]

Kenna, the deviated septum repair on my second nose job contributed to the difficulty of recovery. It was just uncomfortable as hell. And yes painful! The phrase no pain, no gain was appropriate here though. The first nose surgery did little to affect anything visually. My nose was still crooked and actually functioned worse after the first surgery. The second was by a doctor who did noses for a living and he affected function and look. I'll never have a nose like @Katie but it is much better.
As for boobs, yes, consult me, but look for other people to ask also. I know the positives and negatives of what I had done. Each way to proceed has its own pluses and minuses.

 

[Katie]

Lol, I actually don't like my nose.

 

[NicoleT]

@OzGirl and @Kenna ...... is it better there, is it brighter, does it seem like there’s positivity in the air....
. i’m just curious of 2021 is all it should be... .........I mean since you didn’t get there first.

 

[Monica]

The clouds will part on January 20th at 12:01PM.

 

[NicoleT]

@Moni ....... is that the day we get universal healthcare?......Oh.....wait you mean...oh Ok...out with the .
Well that is something....wait....(shhhh.) ...I can hear all the Aussies laughing at us.

 

[Kenna]

@NicoleT The 20th will be a huge relief for most of the world! After the US has spent the last 4 years abandoning it's responsibilities throughout the world we can look to it for some at least moderately positive global leadership.

 

[Kenna]

The last week has been relatively quiet. I had Christmas in a park on a beautiful summer's day with Stephanie Louisiana and 8 other trans women (and one adult daughter). New Year's Eve was very quiet though. There's a small outbreak of Covid in Melbourne at the moment and big crowd events like the city fireworks were cancelled. I binged some Netflix and then at midnight watched 3 surprisingly impressive, but probably illegal, firework displays simultaneously from my balcony.

Today was another trip to the hospital for some more surgery to hopefully finally get my little toe to be level with the others. I managed to persuade the doctors to use a local anaesthetic instead of a general, although they added a bit of sedation, so superficially it felt a bit like a general anaesthetic except that I woke up feeling as though I'd just had a 15 minute nap and was ready to go. Eleven hours later there's still no pain, although there is a bit of a warm feeling there. It doesn't even hurt to walk on it, which I need to be careful about as I don't want to disrupt the healing. The surgeon said that I should take it easy for a week and keep my foot elevated as much as possible; he elaborated by saying 95% of the time! So much for resuming walks in a couple of days! That week of taking it easy will continue up until my FFS next Tuesday, after which I'll also have to take it easy! So much for getting enough exercise!

All up though, things are pretty good. A friend from work picked me up from the hospital and cooked a huge "bolognese" for me which can't be called original as it has lots of veggies added as well. After having some and watching Rocketman together, I'm still going to be eating bolognese for the better part of this week.
Cheers,
-Kenna

 

[TonyaJanelle]

More surgery? Holy moly. Well, get it all out of the way so you can get on with life. Happy healing to you.

 

[NicoleT]

I was just going to say the same thing. All of the surgery it’s unreal. @Kenna ..... did they give you a punchcard when going into the hospital. I mean after your first 10 surgeries can you get a free one or at least a discount on one ............hell maybe just a free drink to help you read the bills.

 

[Donica]

@Kenna, did you get any pictures of your Christmas party in the park with your trans friends. Oh! Ya! I'm with Nicole Kenna. I'd check to see if you get anything free after your 10th surgery. You know how much they hate to give those freebies up. I mean at least a gift bag with a Thank You note lol.

Hugs!

 

[Kenna]

did they give you a punchcard when going into the hospital. I mean after your first 10 surgeries can you get a free one or at least a discount on one ............hell maybe just a free drink to help you read the bills.

Nicole & Donica, I did have a chuckle at the idea of a loyalty card! We have a system for frequent flyers. The way the system works here if we have private insurance we pay a once-per-year "excess" on our insurance for hospital admissions - even day surgery like this. Once this is paid, all future hospital admissions costs in that year are meant to be totally covered. But here's the catch - only for non-"cosmetic" admissions. I paid my $500 excess for this admission and I expect that might be all as the surgeon is revising his previous work, so I hope he'll just take what he get from Medicare and private insurance and not charge me anything. I don't know about the anaesthetist, hopefully he'll do similarly to the surgeon.

My FFS is estimated to be only 30% "cosmetic" so 70% of the hospital bill should be covered as well as all the screws & etc and a bit towards the surgeon and anaesthetist, but there'll still be a lot left to pay.

My Rhinoplasty should have only a small amount, if any, "cosmetic" portion to it so I expect the cost of that to be modest.

As for anything that might happen later this year, if I get a BA, I'll have to pay for all of that as it'd be all "cosmetic". In contrast, my scheduled colonoscopy in September should be mostly covered. I haven't investigated in any detail as yet and haven't made any decisions either, but genital surgery is likely to be a mix like the FFS but I don't know the proportions. Any surgeries in 2022 will start off with another $500 excess.

In the meantime I'm working out how to do all the things I was planning on for this week yet still keeping my foot up most of the time.
Cheers,
-Kenna

 

[NicoleT]

In the meantime I'm working out how to do all the things I was planning on for this week yet still keeping my foot up most of the time.
Cheers,
-Kenna

@Kenna ...not sure, what you can do.....but you better get “Hopping to it”

 

[Kenna]

not sure, what you can do.....but you better get “Hopping to it”

Fortunately no hopping this time! Cupboard doors can be dangerous!

Because there's no pain, just some warmth on the side of my foot, I can stand quite easily, I've just got to make sure it's only on my heel, and be very careful not to bend my toes. If I go outside I'll take a crutch or walking stick as a reminder. I might even get out the old "slipper" from last time as well.
Cheers,
-Kenna

 

[OzGirl]

KENNA!! BEST WISHES FOR YOUR FFS TODAY!!

YOU ARE TRULY BECOMING KENNA!!!

LOVE,

ALLIE

 

[Kenna]

Thanks Allie!
Are you feeling a bit better with some estrogen on board?
Hugs!
-Kenna

 

[NicoleT]

I’m sending positive vibes towards you. Thinking about your surgery today and the success it’s going to be. I just hope everything goes perfect including your recovery. Cheers to waking up One step closer to your truth.

Hugs
Nicole.

 

[Madrhode]

You go girl!