KarenPayne

I never had any issues with anesthesia. Was under for about 5 to 6 hours. I've had major surgery before and did take naps on that one too several years ago now that I think about it. Everyday is better than the day before so I am thinking all should be well soon. The important thing here is they say six weeks for a full recovery.

You are most welcome, the main reason for me blogging is to alert others what to expect as before these blogs I never blogged before.

For 99% of the days since surgery I have bad mornings. Most of them I wake up way too early. Many of them I feel nausea to some extent and just down right crappy. Usually take a two hour nap within two hours of waking up. I have noticed the past few days that I am starting to feel better. What really makes me feel normal is right after morning dilation and a nice hot shower. Anyways thought others going down this path might be alerted to you too may experience this too.

So recently I moved from the smaller dilator to the medium dilator, first time was painful the whole time but got a little better each time yet was still painful. Tonight I just finished and very happy that there was almost no pain. If things progress as they have been I should be good by say Sunday. Any ways the purpose of this entry is too tell others who will go down this path is that in the beginning it is no picnic but does get better. eek not looking forward to the larger one :(

Don't know what got me started (Kevin Gallagher account) but I went into my albums and decimated most of my photos of my former self but could not bring myself to remove them all which where the one's I was teaching self-defense with. Think I will wait on those until I have pictures for my other (Karen Payne account) FB account. I did first save the photos off to my backup drive, you never know if for some strange reason I might want them but by all intense and purpose they are now buried in the past. I think what got me on this path was updating my work ID today.

Monica, I actually never thought about that, being seen in public together with them and they made me feel no different than before surgery.

If so desire, check out my entry at http://www.karenpayneblog.com where the first part is at work (which is duplicated from my prior blog here) and then about current dilation. I truly despise dilation but will never give up :)

I emailed a co-worker whom I told he could use my parking spot at work that I would be in for HR work. He said let's all go out for coffee, which I said sure thing. When I got to work about 10 or so co-workers came over to see how I was doing. I gave them a brief on how things were going and that I will be out for several more weeks (Robin at Marci's office emailed me today and said I can go back to work around March 2nd). So six of us took a walk over to the nearby Starbucks, got coffee, came back and chatted for a while followed by me visiting HR to get my name change going there. I was very happy that everyone came over to see me and had smiles on their faces which meant a great deal to me. There was way too much paper work to complete today so I will head back tomorrow and give them the filled out forms.

Being yourself and happy being yourself is healthy for the soul. Good to hear things are brightening up.

I believe over time you will see the little things as landmarks that can cause great happiness.

I texted her last week and said how about we get together? She said, next Sunday and why not come for dinner. When I arrived there was no mistaking that I had transitioned and this was the first they heard of it but she had figured it out from cryptic post I made on Facebook over the past six months. Her husband took it in stride but later confided in my he was very surprised. Her daughter and grand-son were there too who just heard from my daughter. We spent abound two hours chatting in their living room where the topics ranged from my transition to me teaching self-defense to politics. Then we went out to a nice Mexican restaurant, took our time and had a good time then back to their place for tea, chatted another hour or so then I said I needed to leave (needed time for dilating and they are one hour away from my place). Her daughter texted me this morning and said her son who had only met me many years ago told his mom that he was interested in learning self-defense from me and also not once referred to me other than female but did say he could not see anything else. So next Sunday I am heading back up in the afternoon to do some teaching and glad these people are still in my life. PS I actually have more contact with them then my ex-wife does LOL which must say something about me.

Went to the grocery store this morning and while heading down one of the aisles a co-worker was crossing the aisle, look right at me and did not notice me. That was indeed a good sign as you can not fake not recognizing someone I had worked with for 15 years verses the look that someone gives you that they are ignoring you, at least in my book. This happened two other times in the past year so guess I am on the right track.

After surgery my mother called hearing I was in California for surgery and inquired to what the surgery was. I told her it was not life threatening on three different times days after surgery, not to worry mom. Well this morning she called and asked about my surgery again and I said, don't you remember, I told you it was nothing to worry about. She said, I think I know what it was for. I said, what you do think, she said gender change? Well I am surely not going to deny it as my only reason for not telling her was that she is 94 and thought it would upset her, guess I got it wrong. She said I still love you and always will no matter what. She told me when I was young that there was just something about me and that she could see me as a female and actually would had loved to had another daughter but did not know what to do and simply treated me as her child. She never pushed me in either direction from my memories at any point. So now I have fully disclosure with my family :)

I went to bed around 10PM and woke up at 2:30AM which is not enough sleep, tinkered around until 5AM and then got another hour sleep. When I woke up still did not feel well but knew I had to do my dilation and was the worst dilation since the first one. I glided the tool in and knew immediately that it was going to be a painful time but kept on going. Usually immediately afterwards I take a shower which tends to make me feel normal again but it has been one hour since the shower and just beginning to feel better. Just goes to show there are good days and there are bad days, we need to push ourselves when in this position else suffer the consequences which in this case is lost of width and depth.

I will start off by saying that in the past 15 years there has been just one time I truly cried for something real. Today I was watching Chicago Fire television show where there was a very emotional scene. I could feel my body reacting to what I was watching and figured my eyes would become watery but not the case today, I completely broke down, cried, body shook and I actually made sounds. This has to be the hormones as I have noticed in recent months more joy in various aspects of my life, people say I smile a good deal more and I am noticing this myself. I did consider not posting this but decided it might be helpful to know that it took about 9 months to feel undeniable changes in inside of me and 14 months to where there was no controlling what happened today. Since this happened just 10 minutes ago, think I will curl up in my easy chair with a warm cup of black tea.

I agree Mike, it was a day to forget and have moved on to a better day :-)

The morning was not so hot which I believe was from yesterday's experience. Once I did my morning dilation, had breakfast and shower things where looking up. My neighbor left me my mail from the two weeks I was gone and happy to find my new social security card, new American Express card and Utah concealed handgun license. Now I need to get out and shop as my place is bare bones empty on food and essentials. And I am so happy to be back at home, feels fantastic :-)

Yesterday started out good but ended up as a very frustrating day overall. Got up, took a shower then ate breakfast followed by checking email. One of the messages was from Alaska airlines indicating there were congestion issues forecasted at the San Francisco airport (which is ten minutes from my hotel) and that my flight was moved to San Jose which is just over one hour away. Called the limo service right away and said no problem. Wait for two hours, limo driver comes to pick me up and advised me to call Alaska to make sure of the change. Well the automated help for Alaska was no help at all and got a live person who verified the change so off we went. Got there about 1.5 hours early, checked in and had some difficulties going through TSA and almost left without my wallet. Waited around, 15 minutes before boarding they changed the flight time two times then announced they had a lot of people at San Francisco airport being shuttled over. That took sometime and finally boarded 45 minutes late. When doing the pre-flight thing on the plane prior to taking off the pilot indicated he was doing a special take off called a slingshot which gets the plane in the air really fast and let me tell you it was very cool. I've never timed how long it took to get to the final height but this time was much much faster. At one point he said we were ahead of schedule and got there and out of the plane fast. Now I don't know when my shuttle leaves but do know it is 24-7 service. Wait at the place designated for a while and then call the service asking were the shuttle was and that I was late. They said about 10 minutes ago and the next one would be in about two hours (eeks). So I needed to wait there with nothing to do. When the shuttle arrives it takes time to get people aboard. One thing nice is if you have a reservation you get boarded first. Did not time this either but there were several that had to pay and believe me that it takes time for that. Get on the road and of course it is rush hour, more time sitting down which after GRS surgery really is not great. Was supposed to be home by 4PM but did not get home until 7:30PM. At this point I needed to unpack, get something to eat and dilate. The important thing is I must dilate especially since I had only dilated first thing in the morning and it really has not been that long since surgery so I see it as do not mess dilation unless unavoidable. Screw cooking so off to McDonalds and they get my order wrong, back home, eat, setup for dilation and then do it. Starting the process was painful and have to wonder if it was stress or from missing the second dilation session. Oh, neighbor came over at one point and chatted with me. When all was done it's about 10PM and have been up for a very long time and had zero issues falling asleep. Hoping to get some rest this morning as friends are stopping by this afternoon and tomorrow I am driving from Salem Oregon to Portland Oregon for a visit with relatives. Oh, I wake up this morning and my best female friend says her son is travelling past my town and wants to take me out to lunch. Her children all call me Anty LOL and are great kids ranging in age from 16 to 22. I can not even imagine today being anything be great other than the fact my bottom is a tad sore.

It is finally that time when I can leave California and so happy. There was one glitch, about an hour ago Alaska airlines diverted my flight from one airport which is ten minutes away to another one which is 1.5 hours away. Called the limo service and they said they would take me to the other airport.

Just received my confirmation for a limo which will pick me up at my hotel and drive me to the airport in style. Have been here for 12 days that mark the beginning of my new life and even though I have missed home I have to say all those who have helped me do the transition here I am very grateful too. As I have mention several times that this is simply a stepping stone in my journey that by no means complete it is simply the most expensive aspect of this journey. One of the promises I made to myself was to get a new tattoo after surgery but never made a decision on the artwork. So far have narrowed it down to either a small butterfly or single small rose in the pelvic region. I already have four tats where on average I contemplate for a few weeks followed by seeking our a design over several weeks then submit to my artist whom I ask to adjust to my thoughts. My next thing to work on is losing 20LB which I could not do in the past few months because of an issue with my leg and have physical therapy lined up in March. I had the same problem 25 years ago and had it fixed until two months ago. Something I have been thinking about too (the decision has been made a while back) is restructuring my self defense classes and adding focused classes for LGBT and woman only classes. The only thing holding me back is having a place to do the classes so more likely than not will take these classes on the road. I am going to work off a sliding scale in regards to cost of classes where cost will be greatly reduced for those who can not even afford my classes so the goal is to train anyone who wants training no matter their ability to pay.

I truly believe that both of you would greatly benefit from reading the following book. Enter the title into Amazon True Selves: Understanding Transsexualism--For Families, Friends, Coworkers, and Helping Professionals I purchased a copy for work and during a meeting where I announced my transition I said that this book will be on my desk if anyone wanted answers and of course said feel free to chat with me too. Both have happened and from feedback the book helped many come to terms with my transition that were unsure.

It has been nine days post surgery noticed the following which I really should had mention two days ago. Date of surgery, no black and blue at the site, near end of day two, ugly black and blue. Two days ago, zero black and blue, two tiny areas that are medium red under the site and each day are getting smaller and smaller. Pain, I was out all day where we were sitting 95% of the time, after about six hours or so one side of the public area was bothering me and had to readjust how I was sitting which lead to no pain. That reminds me, need to take a selfie down there which I have been doing every three or four days. On a side note, was chatting with Monica and she truly has good things to point out to me, this time something I knew already but somewhat took it for granted and these people should never be taken for granted which are the registered nurses that go above and beyond what we believe they are there for. Then of course there is my surgeon who I elected to use with much research as this is a huge things to do. In the end my choices were super sound and so happy about this.

Performed my first dilation of the day, zero issues. I did learn that the mirror used to see my vagina could be used for keeping the tool from sliding so I tried this out and worked like a charm. Spent the day with an old female friend whom I have not seen in 30 years. We did a whole lot of exploring and lost track where we went to but some were not tourist attractions as she has been living out here for 25 years. She was very surprised at how I looked and said I looked great and complimented me on my slim profile. Returned home and we chatted for about an hour after we had just spent the day together then her husband called and we said our good byes for now. I really enjoyed being out with her and she did boost my confidence more. After she left I did my second dilation of the day, used the mirror again. I think when I return to Oregon I will move up one size of the tool and hopefully can manage the last size before week's end. My evening is to finish watching a movie on Amazon Prime while eating dinner followed by the last session for dilation of the day then off to bed. Once home I am going to do some research, see if I can find an examination table with stirrups which will give me a constant position and more comfortable session for dilation. I did some research here and the average price is $1000 to $2000. If anyone has seen them for less please let me know.

Check out my No picnic entry, perhaps one of my most important entries where I write about being overwhelmed when thinking back on yesterday. I will state I am fine, just wanted others to see what I went through which in many ways more then the day of surgery. http://karenpayneblog.com/2015/02/03/no-picnic/

The following link is my blog entry for post surgery with Marci which includes dilation. http://karenpayneblog.com/2015/02/02/post-operation-appointment/ What I did not post there is peeing after the pee bag was removed. First thing, did a decent spray (not really something to be proud of) both times. I was told this may happen so I was well positioned for this event.