KarMel
Scholarship 2008
|
Personal
Story “Self
Construction” By Jordon
Leigh |
Desciption of Submission: “This is a detailed
first hand account of my personal experience undergoing a mastectomy, also
known as female to male "top surgery". - Jordon
|
We were supposed to be at the
hospital at 8:50am, so naturally we arrived in actuality about ten after
nine. I got up at 5ish in the am after a restless night's no sleep, but it
takes a while longer for two people to get ready, than for one. We were on
our way shortly after seven, but there was of course the morning rush hour to
contend with. And even with the designated parking garage, we barely managed
to find parking. We ended up on the roof. Happily, the hospital was in a great
location at the end of Divisidero and the beginning of the Castro.
Unknowingly, I had driven past it many a time. I was nervous about being late, but
the Asian girl at the registration desk had a genuine smile and the building
was comfortable and quiet. Favorably reminiscent of the She then led mom and I up to the first floor and my hospital room; which was
107. Mom decided the number was lucky, because she likes sevens. There were
two beds, but surprisingly no other occupants. So I presume she was right. The woman from registration
instructed me to change into the dreaded hospital gown and put my clothes in
the closet, then departed. Two nurses showed up shortly after to take my
weight and give me my hospital bracelet, etc. One of them was fairly
maternal, while the one with the (Scottish?) accent appeared to be all
business, but she warmed up to me after a time. For my part, I was in a
generously jovial mood, so they stood little chance against my charms. The one with the motherly air, Sally,
did a spectacular job of inserting the I.V. She got it in first try with no
bruising or entry wounds left at all. She did, however, maliciously put me in
tights. "To prevent bloodclotting" was her paltry excuse. The
liquid from the I.V. - which was some relatively benign saline filler for pre
surgery - caused a scent at the back of my nose and throat reminiscent of
rubbing alchohol, but was not unbearably strong. The nurses were soon supplanted by
the surgeon, who made some quip about leaving the ties on my gown undone
because they were coming right off. He briefed me on a few things which I was
already familiar with through my research. Unlike most professionals who
always assume to be more informed than the layman who's living the subject of
their studies, Dr. Brownstein acknowledged with no surprise my grasp of the
process. He asked if I was nervous, to which I responded, "a bit",
which he acknowledged was natural. He then asserted that he, on the
other hand, wasn't nervous at all. Which we concluded was good. Brownstein told mom she could wait
either there or the waiting room and he'd look for her to bring updates on my
condition. She asked how long the procedure was likely to be and he said
possibly three, but likely just two hours. He departed, and in the interim I
apologized to mom for putting her through this, because moreso than eagerness
and a small amount of anxiety I was feeling some guilt for the stress I was
causing her. She smiled and laughed though, and after a brief exchange of
words I felt exquisitely reassured. Which is good, because then a woman
showed up to take me to surgery. I was slightly annoyed to be wheeled into
surgery on the bed (as opposed to walking) but mom was able to come along and
there wasn't far to go. Down in the surgery center they
placed my bed between a couple of curtains and gave
mom a chair to sit on. The anesthesiologist - who introduced himself as
"Mr. Hom; h-o-m" - and a redhead named Mark appeared then to ask a
few more questions about my medical history. After which I said goodbye to mum and
they wheeled me into the operating room. The room was white, and had only one
other person present at the time; a woman with a good smile, named Jill. Who's name I inexplicably remember in spite of interacting
with her for the least amount of time. Mark was chatty, but not irritatingly
so, and when he heard I liked to draw he told some story about his cousin
once cataloguing the events of a camping trip through cartoons drawn on
bubble gum wrappers. I slid over to the narrow operating table and they placed
a few more blankets over me to compensate for the cold temperature. There was
a plastic extension to each side of the table on which they had me extend
each arm. Mark placed an abominable hair net on my head, but I forgive him
because he subjected himself to the same. Mr. H-o-m Hom also had an amicable
demeanor and did an excellent job of explaining everything that he was doing
before he did it, which I thanked him for. I told them all that I didn't
ordinarily let strangers see me sleeping, and I was putting a lot of trust in
them. H-o-m Hom told me when he was about to turn on the anesthetic, and that
it would take about 5 seconds to work. So I told them I'd see them later and
shut my eyes. And opened them, and shut them again. Blinked a few times, and then
woke up back between the curtains to a blurry woman telling me it was all
over. I felt a wave of euphoria. I also
felt very groggy and wanted to go back to sleep, but I remembered someone
saying earlier that they'd keep me in this place for monitoring until I was
fairly alert, so I forced myself to keep my eyes open. Which was a pain in
the ass but worked like a charm, and after a few minutes they were wheeling
me back up to my room which was mercilessly still otherwise unoccupied,
albeit for the unapproved lack of mom. She had gone to the cafeteria for a
bite to eat while I was stuck in after surgery observation, and apparently
wasn't expecting me back so soon. I tried to rest, but by that point I'd
successfully shaken off the grogginess and found it impossible to go back to
sleep. The maternal Sally came in to let me
know she was going off shift and passing me off to Susanne, who was
(impressively) equally pleasant. Susanne brought me crackers, water, and some
very good apple juice (I'm ordinarily not a big fan of juice). I ate a couple
of crackers and drank the water and juice, and noted that I didn't have even
a hint of nausea, which is said to be a common side effect of anesthetic. The
pain was also fairly imperceptible, though definitely increasing as the drugs
wore off. When it got up to "4 out of 10" they gave me a low dose
of morphine to tide me over until my prescription was filled. I couldn't sleep but I rested. Nurses
kept coming in for one reason or another. One introduced herself as the person
in charge and asked me to evaluate my stay and the quality of my service.
After a while I used the restroom, which is something they like to see after
surgery because it confirms that all systems are functioning. I was a little dizzy/wobbly at that point, but not much. At 15:00hr they
gave me an antibiotic through the I.V. It wasn't at all long before Susanne
came back and helped me put my clothes back on and invited mom to fetch the
car while she wheeled me to the front. I hated to be wheeled around, but
Susanne drove the wheelchair at a quick clip and it was actually kind of fun. I asked Susanne how long she'd lived
in I directed mom out of the city, but
unfortunately we were leaving exactly at rush hour again so we stopped for
coffee and bagels and decided to take our time. Of course it doesn't take
that long to eat a bagel, so within a half hour we were back in the deadlock.
I was experiencing moderate pain and discomfort because the morphine had worn
off and I didn't want to take the pill Susanne gave me for the road so I
could stay alert in case mom needed help. So when my sister rang my phone I
answered it, and she served a very effective distraction. Around 6pm the traffic picked up a
bit, and then we plunged head first into an unidentified debacle that shut
down the freeway for miles. We sat at a dead stop watching
motorists picnic and play kickball on the freeway. Some of them wormed their
way out of the lanes and backed up to preceding offramps. The vacated spaces
allowed for us to move forward fractionally, which in an hour brought us
along side an onramp upon which traffic was exiting. We
couldn't see where they were turning around, as the traffic still extended in
front of us well into the distance, but there was room to pull out of line
where the onramp merged with adjoining lanes. Mom is not ordinarily an
aggressive driver and doesn’t want to break laws, but I coached her that if
anyone gave her trouble she could tell them that her kid just got out of surgery and really needed to get off the
road and into bed. If ever there was a
time when we were validated for bending rules, it was then. That gave her confidence, and we finally got
out of there. Of course, then we were lost. So we
stopped at a shopping center and called dad for an alternate route. I also
had to check my drains. During surgery, they left two tubes under my
skin which connected to pouches pinned to my bandaging. The pouches are
deflated and then stoppered to create a gentle suction which collects blood
and other fluids from the wound site. I was supposed to empty them
periodically and make sure that I wasn't bleeding excessively, so the delay
caused some concern. Remarkably, though, I bled so little that instead of
emptying them every few hours (as advised) I ended up doing it just once a
day. Another concern was that the surgeon
was scheduled to call me at 20:00hr to check on my status, and I wasn't sure
I'd have reception when he did. This proved to be a valid concern because I
did lose the connection once, but mom found a spot to pull over and I was
able to complete the call. When he asked how I was doing and I said,
"surprisingly well" he feigned offense at surprisingly.
"Your surgery went swell," were his exact words on the
subject. He tends to use very positive adjectives in regard to my procedure,
so he's either an optimist, or I was an especially excellent case. We finally made it |