This is part of my series of posts documenting my penile inversion vaginoplasty with Dr. Hyer. I will try to answer comments and DMs, but this is a throwaway and I do not check it often.

This post is a continuation of my text wall describing the night before and day of surgery . The accompanying photos for these days can be found here . These first 2 days (counting the day of as Day 0, because I'm a programmer) are all while I was in the Denver Health hospital room.

Note on the times - I have a habit of marking out things with detail to time; these times are as accurate as I can recall and are based on notes I wrote into my phone during initial recovery.

tl;dr

The Sodexo catered hospital food sucks, and I barely got any sleep, but otherwise I felt quite fine during recovery.

Day 1 (Wednesday)

At 00:00, the nurse came in (and interrupted my sleep) to give me ibuprofen for pain and take vitals. This was done based on their schedule.

At 02:50, the nurses came in again and checked on my pressure dressing and chux pad. The nurses gave me a new chux pad and added more pads to reinforcement my pressure dressing. The charge nurse did specifically note to the regular nurse that all of the blood they saw was older dried blood. They also drew some blood at this time to get cell counts.

I was definitely starting to feel either catheter or vaginal packing - or both. It wasn't particularly painful, just uncomfortable. I would have described the feeling as if I had something shoved into my (former) penis that was being pulled around - which strongly suggested it was just the catheter.

At 04:30, they did another vitals check. My BP came in pretty low - 101/50. Lab results from the 02:50 blood draw also came back in and showed WBC and low RBC. I later learned these values were expected for surgery patients.

At 05:05, I was woken up again from my snoozing yet again; the nurses checked my dressing, gave me pain meds (ibuprofen and Tylenol simultaneously), and emptied my catheter.

Shift change occurred at 07:15, when the new nurse on duty introduced themselves to me. I personally could have done without being woken up, especially given how little I interacted with the nurses.

At 08:45, Dr. Hyer came by to switch out the dressing and I got a decent view of my new vagina for first time, though some of the view was obstructed by hemostatic gauze on the clit. I certainly wouldn't call it pretty, but it felt nicer than having a penis. Dr. Hyer also very specifically noted that the farting I was having was a good sign because it meant there was no recto-vaginal fistula.

I ordered lunch around 13:00, though fortunately my partner visited around 13:45 with more food. The Sodexo food, as previously mentioned, is subpar, and I was pretty happy for the actual food.

I managed to take a nap from around 15:30 to 17:00, at which point my partner went back to the Airbnb. I was able to sleep a little more again until 20:00 when they did vitals and gave me more pain meds.

At 20:35, I was also given a dose of antibiotics.

Day 2 - Discharge Day! (Thursday)

Right around 00:00, I was offered pain meds but declined due to no pain whatsoever. I told nurse I'd likely take it in the morning, but wanted to avoid a dependence on them.

At 00:25, they took more vitals. My BP was still low (97/52 or thereabouts). The nursing assistant noted that they sometimes don't discharge if BP is too low.

A few hours later, at 04:45, yet another vitals check, indicating a fairly low BP (92/52).

At 06:30, the nurse came in and I asked about low BP. I was specifically told that, absent other symptoms, it wasn't anything they were concerned about.

At 07:25, the nurse came in again and indicated that we would attempt to stand me up around 13:00. If all was good, then I'd be discharged.

At 08:35, the nurse came in again to give antibiotics. I was also disconnected from the IV fluids, as I was drinking plenty of fluids on my own and outputting clear urine. This nurse (shift change at 07:00 ish) indicated that low BP isn't uncommon after long periods of bedrest, especially if patients were active to begin with. I likely would be classified as "previously active," given that I skied at least once a week the entire winter.

At 08:55, Carly came in to remove the pressure dressing and JP drain . She indicated that bleeding is to be expected, with the only concerns being if "too much" bleeding happens. "Too much" was defined as soaking one maxi pad per hour for two consecutive hours.

At 10:30 (a few hours ahead of schedule), the nurse came in to set up discharge stuff. I was initially told to sit up on the edge of the bed but instead jumped right off the bed and stood up; it was quite nice getting to stand after two days in bed. After a quick walk around the hospital ward, I took a shower, replaced the stat lock on the catheter tube, and got a good look at things.

I was given the following medications:

• Ibuprofen
• Acetaminophen
• Stool softener (Docusate)
• Antibiotics (Cephalexin)
• Oxy for breakthrough pain

I finally left the hospital room at 11:30 and reached the Airbnb at 11:50 after much babying from my partner.

Post op care instructions were to take ibuprofen and acetaminophen on a staggered 6 hour cycle (ibuprofen at 09:00/15:00/21:00, acetaminophen at 06:00/12:00/18:00), antibiotics three times a day until I ran out (total 9 doses), and stool softener twice a day as needed for constipation. Oxy was only to be used for breakthrough pain (I never touched it at all).

The rest of the day at the Airbnb was fairly uneventful, except that I noticed at 22:00 that I had an incredibly swollen mons pubis because I had been sitting upright for several hours (on a donut pillow) doing a puzzle. It very much looked like there was fluid inside the mons pubis and that it would be redistributed based on how I sat.