Apologies if this comes out as a wall of text garbled and incoherent. I’m still pretty drugged up!

I consulted with Bella in September 2022 after calling in November 2021 and I was given a date of 5/23/23 which was bumped up to 4/3/23. I consulted with both Dr Avanessian and Dr Rachel Bluebond-Langner and ultimately chose Dr Avanessian from a combination of the earlier time (10 months sooner), bedside manner, and just having this feeling that Bella was the surgeon for me.

Day -1: bowel prep. Oh boy. This stuff is awful. While the taste was bad I think it was a bit over hyped for how bad it was. It kind of tasted like drinking a thick ocean water. It did get old quickly. The worst part was the wiping after going to the bathroom every 5 minutes. That pain was horrible. So far I think bowel prep was the the worst part about the process.

Day 0: arrived at NYEE at 5:30am and was quickly checked in and led up to a stall to get changed by 6am. Weighed in, stashed my belongings. Bella saw me by 7am and explained how things were going to go and had me sign more paperwork saying I understood risks. By 7:30 I stashed my phone and glasses and was walked back to the OR by a nurse. They had me get up on the table and as this was my first surgery I started having a panic crisis in the table. Started getting shivers and shaking. The anesthesiologist gave me an anti-anxiety IV (I think she said Valium) which mellowed me out VERY quickly. I’m honestly super thankful that she did that. I don’t remember much after the anti-anxiety IV and was out quickly after that I think. I had a dream while out but I don’t remember it. I do remember waking up in the OR and being carted to recovery though. I was pretty alert from the get go but definitely groggy. Made some phone calls I don’t really remember to tell people I was awake and passed out shortly after that. I found out later that I was under anesthesia longer than intended because they put me on the wrong bed after surgery and had to swap me off it and that took some time. I was woke up around 4pm which was 3ish hours after surgery was completed. I’m shocked at how little pain there is. For the first day I was at a 0/10. I had absolutely no feeling in that area and was actually pretty comfortable and able to sleep easily. I was in and out of sleep all night as I kept getting woken up for meds.

Day 1: Bella visited me in the morning to tell me surgery went well. She told me my skin wasn’t elastic at all and my attempts at tucking ultimately failed and she had to use clever techniques to make it work. She lined the entire canal with tunica Vaganalis to help relive some stress on the very tight skin. I ended up with 6 inches of depth which is on the low end of what she can usually get. She said my anatomy wasn’t very compatible with her new technique but she ultimately made it work and I’ll be happy with the results and that it’ll look like the picture I showed her of my goal results (an example of her own work) so I’m pretty pleased about that. Pain has been a 1/10 today as feeling starts to come back to things. My back is pretty sore from laying down so much and my legs are sore as well. The pain in my back and legs is worse than the surgical site which I find pretty interesting. Having the occasional gas pains but they pass quickly on their own and I haven’t needed anything for them.

If anyone has any questions feel free to ask! I have nothing but time on my hands between sleeping! Also if you’re a Mount Sinai patient you should come join our support discord server! DM me for the url!