CW: Medical Discussion

Well I'm about 5 weeks post op with Dr Saran at Wansiri Hospital in Thailand.

I know when I was researching who to go to I struggled to find information on him and the hospital and I've been debating weather or not to post or talk about it.

I think I'll split this up into sections to make it easier.

1. Summary/TLDR. Overall my experience was good. Unfortunately through no fault of the surgeon I did suffer a major complication with a perforated bowel and I also had a infection inside my vagina. I spent almost 4 weeks in the hospital and they were very attentive and concerned for my well being. I felt well looked after.

2. Arrival. So first time at the hospital we did all the normal pre admission things you would expect and I then had a final consult with Dr Saran. The hospital was very modern and lovely. We discussed the options for surgery and he recommended either option, but I wanted the sigmoid colon and didn't want to make a last minute change. After this I got admitted and started my preperation. Due to the colon aspect this involved clearing my bowels and fasting quite a while before surgery.

3. Surgery. I'm not a nervous person when it comes to medical stuff so I was pretty chill. My bf and mother were not! But after some final prep including shaving the area i just had to wait until I got called. This made me anxious, just not knowing when I was going to be taken away. It was around 9pm when the nurses came in and wheeled me to the operating theater. Soon I was on the table and under and the operation began.

4. Immediately Post Surgery. Now obviously I was very drugged up when I came out. I didn't seem to remember being in the recovery ward but woke up back in my room. Pain was there but I expected that, unfortunately/fortunately (more on that later) I have quite a high pain tolerance.

In-between my legs was heavily packed and covered up. I could only lay on my back with my legs apart. This was horrible but I had no choice, it was roughly a week being like this.

At some point Dr Saran came in and let me know the surgery went really well and my results were great. He was about to get about 9" depth and there was no issues during surgery (that they knew of yet). I was very happy with this news obviously.

1. Week Post Opp. Over the next few days I was not aloud to eat or drink. I can't remember the exact timing but after a day or two I had some water then maybe a day later on to very simple food like broth and soups.

During this time I was in pain. I put this down to the fact I just had surgery. But I was getting now adominal pain than pain from my groin. Once again I didn't think much of this, I didn't know what to expect pain wise and thought this was normal.

The catheter took care of peeing but I still had to get up and use the toilet to poop when needed. This was always a mission.

Towards the end of the week I had my dressing and catheter removed and everything cleaned up. The catheter omg, it's quick but got it hurts. They handed me a mirror and got me to look as they showed off each part of my new vulva and how to clean it. In was still so drugged up this seemed a little pointless but luckily they also have me a printout of the instructions to do this and I did have a contact at the hospital I could ask at any time. As this was the day I was to return to the hotel.

1. Leaving Hospital for the First time. So I just had everything cleaned and I'm now free. I can very up and walk. The nurses want to see me able to pee and then I can go. Got that pee out and got handed a bag of medicine (mostly antibiotics and stuff) and unfortunately just paracetamol as pain relief which I was a bit disappointed and surprised with to be honest but maybe without complications this is enough.

We get a car back to the hotel. I'm wheelchair down but has to waddle to the lift at the hotel and to my room.

7.Hotel. Okay I was happy to be out, this is a step forward. The first night however was horrible. I took as much paracetamol as I could but I was up every 1/2hrs to pee even without drinking. I guess I was just recovering from the removal of the cathata. But each time I had to get up was painful and it was a mission.

The next morning I did my first clean. This involved flooding my vagina with saline solution and flushing it. I had quite a mucus/bloody discharge. Once again not knowing I just figured this was normal. Once clean I'd put on some panties with a pad. Those pads worked overtime as my vagina would not stop leaking, mostly a mucus colour. This was a 2 times a day process.

I barely ate in this time. I mostly ate yogurt my bf got from the 7/11 for me just so I had something to take my medication with.

Forward 3 days and I head back to the hospital for a checkup and to be shown how to dilate. At least that was the plan.

1. Checkup and Complications. So I arrive and sit in the waiting area. I'm actually in so much pain I ask the staff for pain relief. I get one tablet of paracetamol and they let me into one of the consultation rooms to lay down, sitting up was a combination of abdomen and back pain.

After waiting an hour or two Dr Saran comes in to see me. He is immediately concerned about how much pain I'm still in. He gets the nurses to start giving me a clean and he gets his colon specialist to come and look at me to.

They decide that they will send me to get a CT scan to investigate my abdominal pain. At this point it is almost 1am, I'm driven over to the local main hospital as they don't have a CT on site at Wansiri. CT gets taken and I head back to Wansiri.

Once back my timing is not great, I was either in a lot of pain or drugged up. But I'm told that I had fluid/air my abdomen and they need to do exploratory surgery to find out why. I'm told they will try to do this via endoscopic but they may need to cut me open.

At this point they did not let me leave the hospital due to their concern for me until I actually flew home.

1. Emergency Surgery. It was not long until I went back into surgery again. This time I was quite upset and scared before going in, I really didn't want a scar and I was just scared in general.

After I wake up back in my room I get told what had happened. I had a preferred bowel and they had to cut me open to locate and fix it. They also found an infection inside my vagina that they cleaned out as well. I'm glad it was fixed but I was just so overwhelmed I cried as soon as they left the room. This was not my perfect story and I was very much over surgery.

1. Second Recovery. I now had stitches up my belly top get cleaned and and drain just off to the right of it along with my new vulva. Lucky this time I had the nurses to do this all for me. Pain was still up there and caused me many sleepless nights. I in was been given fentanyl but I was only aloud it at certain points when the doctor deemed it necessary it appears? The nurses didn't have the best English so it was hard to understand exactly what/why they were doing things. I also had the joy of having another catheter removed.

During the recovering I also had 3 operations/procedures where they cleaned out the infection in my vagina. These I got told were done under heavy sedation not general. The first one I was sort of aware for a bit but the next two I was basically out.

So that's a total of 5 operations/procedures, each one involving fasting before. Even the CT scans required fasting. I ended up being 12kg lighter when I left. I spent a lot of time crying during this recovery, combination of no hormones and just being really really over it.

Towards the last week of my time there I had my belly stitches and drain removed. Was shown how to take care of them and also shown how to dilate.

I did get very painful stabbing pains in my right chest in that last week too. Breathing too deep, coughing, laughing or moving to much would set it off and would ossilate in pain. They sent me for another CT just to be sure it was not something to be concerned about, it wasn't and was probably just muscles.

1. Home! Last day in. I was feeling much better. I was able to walk a lot more than I could the entire time I was there and I was cleaning and dilated myself. Said my goodbyes, got my medication and headed to the airport. Once again only got paracetamol for pain. The flight was fine but I booked into see my GP as soon as possible when I got back.

GP got my blood work done, referred me to my colon specialist and have me some better pain medication in the form of tremidol. Much better! I also got weighed and had lost 12kg!!

Bloods came back pretty bad all over but not too a point that anything needed to be done, just everything was low.

My colon specialist told me that I had a major complication and I should not expect to feel back to normal for another month. I'm seeing him again this week just for a follow up.

1. Now (5 weeks post). I'm writing this at 2am sitting in my lounge. I've done my evening dilation and cleaning and taken my pain killers, in really should take one of those valiums too but I didn't feel like sleeping. I'm taking it once day at a time, I can't walk around to much and when I do I'm really slow and normal am in as bit of pain once I'm done.

I'm still only on the small dilator but I'm getting almost 8" of depth. I'll move up a size in about a week.

It's only been 5 weeks so as for the results I think they look good. I'm not sure if it's the ideal vulva I would of wanted but that's what everyone says. It does look way less bruised then most I have seen but very swallow. I do have as concern of the location of my vagina to my labia minora as it appears to be below the labia and not in it if that makes sense? I really only just noticed this as being a bit odd/off tonight and have messaged my contact at Wansiri to ask about it.

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I'm sorry if the above doesn't make sense. I'll probably come back and edit it as I see mistakes. I'm not really comforted sharing pictures at this point in time either. In hope this helps others make a decision. At this point I'd still recommend Saran despite the complications.