First off, the elephant in the room. Like a lot of people stuck recovering during this time, it is scary. Many of us are still dependent on others for care, and helping with tasks like buying groceries, getting medication, cooking food, or just going to the bathroom.
Since I’ve been recovering, while I’ve essentially been doing the same thing (lying in bed in a room) for the past month, I’m not worried about contracting the virus, but I have had a LOT of caregivers cancel, who I had been counting on to help with meals, or just be there in case of an emergency.
On Tuesday March 10th, I did have another bleeding complication, this time much worse than the first time, and it required me calling an ambulance and taken to the emergency room. To be frank, I woke up bleeding, Iost a lot of blood in a short amount of time, and nearly blacked out. I am thankful that my caregiver at the time kept a steady head through the whole situation.
When I got to the emergency room at Beth Israel Mount Sinai (this is where Mount Sinai wants all of their trans surgery patients taken) I was put in a room for a good amount of time, until Bella arrived (since no one in an ER has any clue about treating trans women’s vaginas for complications.) She had just come out of surgery of another patient, and after clearing the site out of blood using suction and saline (I had been prepped for the operating room just in case), she found no active bleeding, with additional surgery unnecessary. It was another hematoma, old clotted blood that pushed its way through a part of the skin graft that lines my vagina. While I did lose a small portion of the graft that had to be removed, most of it is still intact, and will heal over.
She said while this isn’t common, it isn’t uncommon, and I otherwise looked great in my healing. I was discharged that afternoon. After that incident, I can comfortably say that there has been little to no blood since, have experienced no further complications, and am currently feeling great, and more independent in my care. Last Wednesday, because of the virus I had a virtual consultation with Dr. Avanessian. Mount Sinai is asking follow-up patients to send pictures to their surgeons and have conversations over the phone. She has cleared me to start upping my dilator size (still at purple 3x day) and has cleared me for external vibrator use 😸
Everything said, I feel incredibly happy about my surgery, feel like I am “whole” for the first time, and feel like I’m finally at the back end of my recovery!
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