Recovery, Sisters and the Greatest Gift

The last day in the hospital and transfer to the hotel after my discharge and instructions from the nurses and Dr. McGinn was a triumphant one for me and one of accomplishment for me in a very beautiful but difficult week. Kiddingly, Dr. McGinn referred to me by Thursday as her senior and three other girls underwent GCS or GCS and BA following my lead on Monday. Terry, the mid fifties lawyer from NJ had her procedures performed on Tuesday and she pretty much operated on her own without support. Barah the 29 year old local gal whose job is best described as “the female Homer Simpson with intelligence” had her surgeries on Wednesday and she had several friends with her for support. She unfortunately needed it as she had the biggest setback of all as she tore a stitch straining to expunge gas and had to have it repaired and the administration of two pints of blood. She cried a lot after it happened and she was depressed understandably. Barah gave me the best compliment on Thursday when I came to see her on my limited walks with a walker and held her hand and tried to comfort her ….she said “ Melissa your hand is so soft and feminine” Paula also visited her as well as Terry since she had no one with her. On Thursday, Marcy from Orlando Florida (the freshman) underwent her procedures and she had only visits from her previously estranged father of 15 years and of course our floor angel Paula as well as myself during my brief walks. We would be the class of the week of May 18th and the last of the month of May for Christine McGinn.
As I mentioned all of us struggled with the pressure of gas due to the fact we had purged for days and only slowly had regained appetites. I know I did not pass gas until the nurses stood me to stand on Wednesday morning and I was embarrassed as I did so in front of them but they said “Don’t worry Melissa…let her rip”. By Thursday night I was expunging the gas pressure buildup so frequently that when my physician asked about it I responded by saying that “ I have not passed so much gas since when I was in my college days and went to White Castle after a night of beer drinking at the clubs” . Dr. McGinn who always tries to maintain friendliness but decorum almost lost it with my reply and instead said on that note; she would see me in the morning.
Paula and I showed up at the hotel on Friday night and she got me to the room where I collapsed on the bed. I would be still wearing the catheter and have my packing in from the surgery. I was weak and had trouble bending, pulling myself out of bed or getting myself onto the toilet and walking or standing were only tolerable. Despite the pain and discomfort as I mentioned in the first part of this discussion last week I had made a conscious effort to wean myself from all the drug so I took my last pain pill on Friday night and never touched them again. The other girls including several twenty years my junior kept pounding them like candy for many more than the five days I took them and one took hers every four hours regularly. They did not understand how I tolerated the pain and discomfort without the pain medications. I am not sure how I did it myself except I am notorious for going down hard early and then coming back strong and dealing with the pain. Secondly, I pushed myself to walk everyday and many chose not to do so – choosing instead to stay in their hotel room because they did not look the best (like that was even possible after what we all had just undergone. Also many did not like getting out and about with all the packing in or catheter attached but I did not let these things stop me.
Three times a day I walked the floors of the hotel, I bought several long stretch cotton flowing peasant skirts which I use to conceal the catheter. As for the walk well it was not very lady like as they say and more resembled a cowboy after a long hard ride but you try walking with 12 feet of packing shoved up your cavity and we will see how you do indeed! Walking and resting and taking my vitamins and antibiotics began my daily course for several days. By Monday night I wanted to tear the packing out myself and remove the catheter and I could not wait for Tuesday morning and my first post op visit to Dr. McGinn’s office. The first thing I learned to do when arrived there was, even with some soreness and stiffness, to get into the stirrup chair. I will have to say that really does put one in a very open and vulnerable position for sure. Dr. McGinn then removed about twelve feet of packing from my new vagina and Paula counted the feet as they came out. Do you remember the old magic trick where the magician pulls out the scarf that never seems to end out of the hat? That trick pales in comparison to what my surgeon did in the removal of the packing. Then came the separation of my catheter which had been my restroom for eight days by my physician. After all the removals had been accomplished the moment of truth was upon us as she lowered a mirror down to reflect her work and my new anatomy – one that would finally reflect my true essence of a woman. I was stunned and overcome with emotion as she did this ….there it was …my vagina. She told me about all the swelling and scars and bruising but despite all those things it was the most beautiful reflection to ever come from that area of my body. I almost cried and Paula said I begin to glow radiantly. I could not believe the ugly parts that never felt right on my body were gone and they were replaced by a beautiful vagina. Dr. McGinn then conducted neew anatomy 101 and went through all the specs on my new correct genitalia. This was followed by first gift……....a package containing two dilators that I soon would become my new “best friends”. The smaller one was pinkish color and I later nicknamed it “The Pink Lady” and the larger powder blue one I nicknamed affectionately “Mistress Blue” I suspect Mistress Blue was going to hurt a bit ….LOL. Dr. McGinn demonstrated the process of dilating and then had me do it under her supervision. Everything went smoothly and I was now on her rigorous schedule of dilation as Dr. McGinn requires dilation six times a day for the for the first eight weeks before dropping to four and so forth over time. No other physician performing this surgery requires this level of frequency but she believes optimal results are obtained with a very rigorous dilation schedule and so my life over the initial 8 weeks will be spent largely in recovery and in cycle of regular and frequent dilations! After we left Dr. McGinn’s office I returned to the hotel and enjoyed the pleasures of a hot steamy shower- the first one in eight days. Oh My God did it feel so good…real body wash, hot water, shampoo and conditioner ….it was like heaven and I will admit I was not good with water conservation on that use but after eight long days I needed it badly!!! After freshening up I got comfortable on the bed and did my first dilation on my own. In time, I knew I would grow far more comfortable with the process.
On Wednesday, Paula and I went out to pick up some supplies after dining Tuesday evening with Terry the woman who had her surgery the day after mine. She is a practicing lawyer in New York and NJ. She immigrated from England and still carries the English accent. She is a delightful gal and hopes to find a nice gentleman to spend her time with after she recovers from all this we went through. Paula looked in on her a great deal during the week while she recovered at the hotel. Paula and I also decided on Wednesday to pick up some pies and a thank you card for the nursing staff who took such good care of me during my stay. It was good to see the ladies again and they were so surprised to see me and talked about how wonderful I looked and clearly appreciated the gesture of our gifts and cards. I truly could not believe how these people provided such outstanding care and each one of them before they left their last shift before I left came up to me and held my hand and wished me well in my future. I was deeply touched by their warmth and the outstanding care they provided! .
We ate dinner that night with the young friends of the girl who had her surgery two days after me named Barah. Barah had had a bit of a rough time and was now cautious and did not join us. She is a beautiful young girl who was the local gal living only thirty minutes away. She is a control operator at a nuclear power plant. Yes- she is the female Homer Simpson although with a wee bit more intelligence than that of the bumbling cartoon character. Her friends Kate and Lindsey were great company. Barah like Terry also is interested in finding a guy to date now that her physical transition is complete. She got her catheter and packing out on Thursday shortly after my second visit to Dr. McGinn. At this visit,Dr. McGinn did some revisions, rechecked the depth and approved my departure. She also gave me two wonderful gifts. The first was my affidavits that I would be able to use to change my gender marker on my legal documents. I loved reading it. The second gift was a butterfly necklace made from a wing of butterfly that had died naturally. It was beautiful and it represented my freedom to soar as my true self- Melissa. I had now emerged fully from the shell that trapped me for so long to soar as the beautiful butterfly I am and always have been in my life!
We dined with Barah and Terry and Barah’s good friend Kate on Thursday and we all hugged one another and promised to stay in touch. On Friday Paula and I spent several hours visiting the girl who had her surgery four days after me and she was still in some pain. She was a young beautiful girl who does hard outdoor work despite her petite frame and stature. She spoke Spanish fluently and had immigrated to Florida from Uruguay. Marcy had only recently reconnected with her father who was obviously struggling with her child being transgendered. Marcy also would like to find a nice man to date. Yes- I was the only lesbian in the girls of week of May 18th. Sometimes I wonder why but more and more girls seem to seek men as their partner after transition either because of society’s pressures to fit in after an already stressful life or sometimes maybe the need to validate themselves as woman with the traditional fare of a man. I am glad they will find happiness in their partners following transition. The softness and sweetness and passion of another woman somehow escape these girls but I am not sure why this occurs. I hope each of my sisters who shared my time with as we went through the surgery and recovery together find peace and happiness in their journey. To each their own, of course and each must find their own path in this journey. I wish them nothing but sheer happiness for life is best filled with happiness than with misery for sure!
After packing few things and getting some dinner, Paula and I prepared for our return trip home where I would continue my recovery. I feel stronger each day and getting more strength back as I exercise by walking and resting in between the frequent dilations. Just about the time I get myself back to a good comfort level with my strength and recovery it will be time to do this all again – albeit with the roles reversed and Paula undergoing the process. She knows what to expect and I know what she will be feeling. I will need to find my strength to be her supportive loving partner and help her get through all of this surgery and recovery. It is her time to shine and the focus must be all on her and her needs! I hope I can be as good in this role as she was for me in mine. I wonder whether any other girls will be undergoing their surgery that week with her and if so I wonder whether any will have partners or even be lesbians. I know she will be happy to gaze down upon the work of Dr. McGinn and see the reflection she always felt should have been reflected back in the mirror. In the meantime …..I think it is either time for me to walk, take some vitamins and supplements or dilate again so I bid you all a farewell till next time …..Thanks again for all your loving support and kindness during my surgery and recovery! Hugs, Melissa
I hope you enjoy the slide show of my journey in New Hope and if you want to read the sptions for the pics you will need to keep the curser in play so the film strip shows on the side which pics advance…….

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New Hope and New Birth

My ole my……………… a whole lot has occurred in the past couple weeks since I last wrote just before my departure for my long- desired surgeries which took place in Pennsylvania. Not long after I last wrote and posted my closing thoughts and thanks to many who affected my journey to this point Paula and I loaded up my CRV and headed off for New Hope Pa. I truly love the name New Hope for the promise it offers and upon arriving there Friday evening we strolled the streets of one of the state’s most eclectic LGBT friendly cities where we found neat little shops, bistros, galleries and clubs nestled in a scenic community along the river. The rainbow flags flew everywhere for every little nook and cranny of this exceptionally friendly city. We also discovered something else upon our arrival – we had arrived during New Hope’s pride week celebration. We dined on the patio of a restaurant after site seeing a bit and purchasing some sundries. The weather was awesome and it would be my last real meal and night of fun for awhile so after our exceptionally delicious meal we strolled the streets looking for ice cream and then took in the sounds of a local all female band at local brew pub. We returned on Saturday for the Pride Parade and did some more shopping for clothes and Paula found the Holy Grail of clothes at a shop along the way and I did a little damage there myself. The parade was great fun and we ate out for lunch and dinner but by that time my diet was limited to “liquid diet” so all I could have is soups. The people of this community are fun loving and diverse and we took quite a liking to this community. It is defiantly a place to celebrate and enjoy life and frames the new beginning that I was about to undertake.
Sunday the diet got worse. It started with a breakfast of vegetable broth and a lunch of chicken broth followed by the administration of a disgusting substance known as Magnesium Citrate which was designed to clean my bowels out with repeated trips to the toilet and the early morning hours of Monday were topped off with the last purge induced by an enema. I knew these were sacrifices that would have to be made to get where I wanted to be in my journey. On the early dawn hours of Monday morning we left the hotel and traveled the three miles to the site of Lower Bucks Hospital where my surgeon Dr. Christine McGinn awaited my arrival, I checked in fairly easy and after undergoing some blood work it was off to a place they called “Short Surgery”. This area is not named for the length of the surgery or anything else but the area where preparation and meetings with doctors would take place and was only steps from final preparation. DR. McGinn marked my body with outlines of where she wanted the breasts to lie after surgery and the incisions to be made. The surgery would be about 5-6 hours since I was doing both the GCS as well as the breast augmentation. I met with the nurse and lab tech and more blood was drawn and finally the meetings with the physicians including the house physician as well as Dr. McGinn and her assistant.
Paula got to stay with me here but soon we had to separate and we departed with our usual embrace and kiss and message of love and support and I was laying on a bed in final preparation. I did the opportunity at this point to take one last glance on the defective parts that had defined me for so many years and caused me so many problems over the years and which were the source of my conflict and struggle. Most of them would survive but in the reformed way – the way they should have been from the start to avoid all these problems. The ones that have caused me the most problems would however be gone and marked for destruction in and incineration in a medical waste bag! Good riddance! I was still conscious as the aestheticians asked me final questions and my IV was started and final arrangements made for surgical procedures to be performed. I remember being wheeled to the OR where they started strapping me down to the table all spread apart and I looked at the clock and saw it was about a few minutes after 8 AM. It would be the last thing I remember. Lights out ….time warp……..and what seemed like a few minutes later but was actually 6-7 hours later I again her nurses call my name from above me …”Melissa” …..I am groggy and sluggish but I am awake and saw the staff and nurses and my doctor. I immediately felt deep severe pain all over my body with some pockets of numbness. Dr. McGinn had gone down the hall earlier after the surgery to inform my loving partner Paula that I was fine and that it had gone well. Soon I would be moved to 4E on the building to begin my life of living in Room 469 for the week.
Paula came in minutes after I got there and she had bought me a little gift…...it was a cute, little cabbage patch doll that said “It’s a girl” on it and I held the adorable little doll and thanked Paula for the doll. In my mind I remembered my father denying me a request for a GI Joe Doll when I was a child on the grounds that “ boys don’t play with dolls”…….I liked my doll and named her Marie after my middle name and she stayed with me all week in my bed. Morphine is a great thing when it arrives self-dispensed and I was in great excessive pain – maybe the worst pain I had ever felt and that night the upper body bothered me far worse than below the belt as they say. I could not even move my arms. I calculated that the morphine came out ( it made a beep when it did ) every six minutes so I watched the clock…and squeezed it at 6:00 PM then 6:06 ….then 6:12, 6:18 and so on. Due to the severity of the pain the nurse called my doctor and I was administered supplemental morphine on the hour…MORE PLEASE…..I simply could not get enough….No food was allowed but I could have fluids so I drank water and fruit juice and Paula fed me ice chips and put balm on my parched lips caused by all the anesthesia. She also slept the night in my room on the chair and held my hand some throughout the night that is when it was not squeezing the morphine dispenser. I thought to myself …do I feel any different? Well I felt a sense of peace over what had transpired on the day of my rebirth but the full effects of the same would be forthcoming in the days ahead!
I remember also I was allowed a sleeping pill which I ingested and drifted in and out of consciousness throughout the night. Morning came and I was allowed juice and cream of wheat and I pumped in more morphine. By noon that day they finally pulled the drip and IV and I began a regime of Vycadon ingestion every four hours. By the time Christine came in that afternoon, I could barely keep my head up from all the drugs….I was floating so high it felt better than anything I had ever done in college. I barely recall eating my first decent meal in four days on Tuesday evening and sleep was so disrupted I woke up at 3AM and remained awake until the nurse came in at around 6 AM. I decided on Wednesday morning that I needed to stop hitting the drugs so hard and begin weaning myself off the pain meds. I reached that goal in days when I took my last pain pill on Friday night before going to bed. Other girls who had surgery that week were still pumping the pain pills well until the next week. The drugs were disrupting my sleep and I needed to get back to some sense of regular pattern again and get all this stuff out of my system. Beginning Wednesday and even over the objections of the nurses I began slowing down on the pain pills .Wednesday also meant removal of the tape and temporary sutures designed for two days which prevented me from moving my legs since I came out of surgery Monday. Unfortunately the heat and moisture caused by laying on one’s touché caused my skin to tear off when the tape was removed leaving bed sores which began bleeding even though the weekend. Unbelievably some people in the world out there actually think we “choose” to be transgendered. After all we go through emotionally and physically to correct the birth defects that plagued us all our lives I now must say these people are clearly incapable of intelligent thoughts in my opinion. Yes I did just call you a moron if you even believe this in the slightest.
Wednesday morning I actually put in my contacts laying face up and did my makeup by a small mirror held lovingly by Paula. I was a bit more awake and ate better and even got to stand up for the first time which took every ounce of strength and energy just to get on my feet and stay there for a minute of two with assistance before I collapsed back into my bed exhausted. That afternoon I was visited by my dear friend Alice who just four weeks earlier had been undergoing her rebirth at the same hospital. She brought a friend with her named Jackie and we chatted for hours. Paula had been angel to me all week and in every way possible. She also took it upon herself to visit the other girls that week as Dr. McGinn had one new arrival to our wing each day through Thursday. I was so proud of her and her heart is so big and so full of love. On Thursday I took my first steps in the morning and again a longer run in the evening actually visiting each of the other girls I shared my rebirth week with and chatted briefly. Friday I grew stronger and walked twice more again visiting with the others and hugging them and walking without assistance and making laps around the halls as the nurses encouraged me on.
The nurses at Lower Bucks Hospital were incredible and I received some of the best care I had ever received anywhere anytime by these beautiful angels. Each one before they left their last shift before I was to be discharged came in and took my hand and said they wished me well. It touched me deeply that these people actually cared more for me than my own family members who had tossed me away into nonexistence. I intend to write a letter to the facility telling that what a great job their nurses did during my stay and how caring these ladies were in their work and attention to the level of care! Friday night meant I was cleared by my physician to be released. I remember Paula helping me dress and get makeup on and I popped up and walked behind the wheelchair with a nurse by my side as I proudly existed the building and Paula had the car waiting there all cooled down and helped me get in the vehicle. We were driving about ten miles away to a town called Bensalem where we stay another week in a hotel only a few minutes from Dr. McGinn’s office. My follow up care and exams would take place there. Living for a week there reminded me of the base camp Paula and I established following my facial surgery in January. A whole new set of challenges, awakenings, experiences and friendships awaited me upon our transfer………………………………….

The Early Years- Dicovery, Fear and Guilt

It is now just over four weeks before I undergo a procedure that only a few years ago I thought I would never be undergoing in my life as I continued to live my life inside a shell I had created to hide my true essence of who I am and always have been- Melissa. I thought that in the few weeks that remain before I undergo my Gender Confirmation Surgery (GCS) at the skilled hands and vision of my surgeon, Dr. Christine McGinn, I would take this opportunity to reflect back on the various periods of my life, asses my final thoughts as I enter these last stages of my physical transition although I fully realize that my spiritual and emotional journey is far from over and will continue for a great part of the remainder of my life long after the GCS which will also be performed along with my breast augmentation ( BA) by Dr. McGinn.
These procedures will not make me a woman…I already am a woman and have been one my whole life. I just received the wrong indoctrination by those who raised me as well as society based upon my physical appearance. I don’t blame anyone for the wrong indoctrination – they were doing what they believed was right Becoming a woman is not as simple as one day you are a male and then you wake up and you are female. I will finally have the body physically that will correspond with my true essence. However, the surgical procedures to be performed by my surgeon will not simply make me a woman. I have always been one but the journey will go on long afterward for me to relearn all that I did not learn in my previous life inside the shell and a journey to grow as a woman and a person! The surgery will assist society in recognizing me as a woman since it is stuck in its binary thinking so documents such as birth certificate, driver’s license and many others will now reflect me as a woman. These procedures merely correct, along with my previous FFS in January the incorrect body parts and put my body in tune with my spirit.
In this week’s blog I will discuss my early years of life, which for me, was one of discovery, feeling alone and living in fear of this deeply held secret I carried inside of me. Next week I will discuss the middle years of my life in my denial, repression, anger and refinement of the shell that hid my true essence of my soul. Needless to say, that will not be a pretty one but I would not be where I am today without that dark period. I will take a week off the following week to discuss my travels to Washington D.C. with Paula and my friends to lobby for our rights and dignity as transgendered people as part of the NCTE’s Transgendered Lobby Days. However, I will then discuss the more recent periods of my life in the subsequent blog where I evolved from the shell and finally emerged to live my life fulltime as Melissa – my true essence. The last few days before I depart for my surgery I will give my final thoughts as the big day in my life approaches which will change my body radically to what it should have always been in my life as well as discuss and give thanks to many wonderful people who helped me in my journey and who have helped me reach this point in my life.
I was born in 1960 and I grew up in a house my parents moved to when my mother was three months from bringing me into this world. Mom always wanted a girl. Especially after my older brother’s birth I was told that my mother prayed everyday for God to grant her wish to have a little girl she had desired so much in her life. Maybe my soul and brain received the messages and prayers but my genetic code obviously did not and I was born and classified in our binary system of thinking of society as “male”. As far back as I can remember I never fully felt that my body fit my image of how I saw myself and felt I was a girl. I recall an episode when I was about age 6 or 7 years old when I received the wonderful but only occasional delight of getting to play dolls with the neighbor girls. I loved those times so dearly and my father would have died if he knew what I was doing. One afternoon, I found myself alone in the basement of my neighbor Diane who let me occasionally play dolls and house with her. Her clothes were sitting folded on the dryer and it was not long before this uncontrollable urge to remove my boy clothes and to put her’s on instead overcame me. I stood there trembling in her clothes and clutching one of her dolls and while the feelings of guilt and shame overcame me for those few brief moments I had a clarity of who I truly was but did not understand why I was like that at all.
The episodes repeated themselves again and again. I felt so ashamed and so full of fear, anguish and guilt. I hid the feelings very tightly. There was a kid in my school who was picked on mercifully because he was gay but I lacked the courage to stand up and defnd him for fear of having the scorn turned on me.The indoctrination as a male worked against my inner feelings but still I knew I was “different”. Since I knew nothing of this and knew no one else who talked about anything like this I feared I was so alone! Why was I like this? Did I do something wrong? When opportunities were no longer available from my classmates and neighbors I sought out to emulate my mother by dressing in her clothes – a process which occurred at least a few times a month –pretty much from the time I was about eleven or so until late in my high school years. I was so sacred I would be caught but I could not stop myself from doing this ritual over and over. I dearly loved expressing my femininity and often wondered what girls my age would be doing in their lives. I still lived in shame and fear and still felt I must be alone or one of the few who were afflicted by these feelings. My parents continued to raise me as their “son” and not their daughter. As the years went on, more and more indoctrination occurred against my true soul and essence.
It only caused me more guilt and shame but as hard as I fought to fight off the feelings that kept pouring out. When I was twelve I discovered the terms cross dresser, transvestite and transsexual from a psychology book I found in our library. When I was 13 I dressed from head to toe as a girl with all the accessories and I discovered my name was Melissa ( It just sort of came to me as I looked at myself in the mirror that afternoon as I stood before it and seeing a reflection that seemed so right.) When I was fourteen I almost told my parents who sensed something was eating at me but I could not find the right words to express what I felt or even how to begin and I thought they would not love me anymore when I told them. So I lied to them. I made up another story of what was bothering me .The lies came so easy and freely and soon my life would be filled with them…..the early years of my life gave way to a period of denial, lies and deceit to myself and others as well as emersion into typical “masculine” things that I believed would rid me of these feelings that I was a girl. The lies and denials and deep repression of Melissa would leave me imbedded in a tightly wound shell that would take decades to erode…………...

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