#surgery discussions

[euphoric-rambles]

I want to comment as someone who got a hysterectomy at 33 (and am now 35).

Why did I do it?

I was diagnosed at 26 with a rare form of uterine pre-cancer called Atypical Polyploid Adenoma (APA) and had recurrent tumors in my uterus with some transformation of the cells indicating a chance of high malignancy. Meaning there was a higher chance that I could develop an aggressive form of uterine cancer. Over the course of almost a decade, I visited my gynecologist, oncologist, and GP several times a year. I had annual transvaginal ultrasounds (where a wand is shoved inside your vagina to take pictures of your uterus and ovaries) along with several D/Cs. A D/C is where a doctor shaves a section of the impacted uterine tissue with a laser--think Darth Vader lasering out your uterus.

I also had several biopsies of my uterus taken. Uterine biopsies are some of the most targeted pain I have ever felt. The doctor has to open your cervix to get into the uterus. This is often completed while the patient is awake and without any pain relief. After my first one I was crying so hard my oncologist was concerned I might be having a panic attack.

Could you have just had D/Cs for the rest of your fertility?

I could have, but the stress, anxiety, and pain was getting to me. As any patient with cancer will tell you, the anxiety is excruciating. I also had serious conversations with my oncologist about the likelihood that I could get pregnant (many of my tumors grew on my fundus, where an egg would implant) and the chance that the hormonal changes could trigger that transformation into cancer. To me, it wasn't worth the risk. That may not be true of other patients.

What was the prep like?

I went through an oncology department so my prep was to fill in many, many legal documents that said I understood that my fertility would be gone and could not come back. Otherwise I faced no pushback from my surgical team.

The prep for the surgery was the same as is for any other same day procedure. No food after midnight, bath with unscented soap.

What does a hysterectomy feel like?

You're under general anesthesia so, at the time nothing. I elected to have laparoscopic surgery and my surgeon used a DaVinci robot. Which, is SO FUCKING COOL. They asked as they were wheeling me in if I had questions and I was like !!! YES I want to know more about the robot. There is an option to have a vaginal hysterectomy where the uterus is pulled through an incision in the vagina.

What's recovery like? Do you have scars?

I'm not going to lie, the first day or so was pretty awful. I had trouble walking and getting up and down off the toilet. My boyfriend had to help get me with a lot of basic functions. But after the first week, I was fine.

I was also pretty bloated following surgery as they inflate the area with air. Be open with anyone in your home, you're going to fart for a bit. Depending on which pain meds you receive (again, I went through oncology, I was given Percocet) you may be constipated which HURTS if you push after surgery.

I do have four tiny scars that are the length of my pinky nail. After two years, one has basically disappeared and one is in my belly button. I've explained the remaining scars away as falling as a child and people believe it.

Do you regret having a hysterectomy?

Again, my reasoning for doing this was not political but the answer is no. I categorically do not regret the surgery at all. When I woke up I sobbed that I was free and that it was over. I suffered for almost a decade and have never been happier.

Do you still get a period?

I do but not in the sense that I bleed. Again no uterus. But I do get a 'period' where I get cramps and moody. My hormones are still firing but often misfire, like I get bladder cramps (thanks Prostaglandins) because the hormones are looking for my uterus, thus I also get period diarrhea. There's a fun video from gross science that covers period poops. I do not have the period weight gain or acne that I had when I was menstruating. But that's my experience, I'm curious what others have experienced.

My hormones function normally because I still have my ovaries.

Do you have any other side effects?

I had my cervix removed as well and that is partially responsible for my ability to get wet during sex. I can still get wet but it is a little different. Climaxing also feels different, almost muted sometimes, which sucks. But I can still climax, I've just had to work differently with my partner.

I also did not have any post surgical complications but I know two other folks who had hystos and one had trouble urinating right after and needed a catheter for about a week.

What else do I want you to know?

I need you to understand that a full hysterectomy means you cannot and can never get pregnant. There is no way to take eggs from you and this cannot be reversed. Do not be mistaken--this IS permanent sterilization.

I am not stating this to scare you but to make sure you understand there is no going back. I think at this very political moment anxiety is SO high but please really assess whether or not you ever want biological children. If you do not that's ok, and a hysterectomy might be an option for you. Others have suggested other options which as also permanent sterilization techniques.

My ask box is always open for questions on hysterectomies. Make an informed decision and surround yourself with folks who love you.

if you're looking for a sign to get the hysterectomy, get it. if you are wondering if you will feel freer, less burdened, more optimistic, lighter without your uterus, you will. if you simply want to never get periods again, get the hysterectomy. if you want to have sex with a different person every day forever and never worry about getting pregnant, get the hysterectomy. if you don't know whether or not you want to stay on hormones, get the hysterectomy anyway. if you're afraid you're too young, and that people will judge you, get it anyway. you don't have to live in a hostile body. you are the one who gets to decide what it will and will not do.

[theblackfemininesociety]

Girl Talk: Stop Comparing Yourself to Unrealistic Beauty Standards.

We just want all of our besties to see this video and take into account that 90% of the beauty standards and images you see that is pushed by the media isn’t real.

And this is with no shade: Jodie Joe, the face of fashion nova, has had surgery and it’s still photoshopped, altered and edited in realtime to make her look a certain way.

Stop comparing.

Stop consuming.

Stop trying to fit the mold when you were designed to break it.

Choose health and fitness over aesthetics. Prioritize your well-being, focusing on nourishing your body, staying active, and reprogram your mind to have a positive mindset.

Why?

Because true beauty radiates from within, and when you feel strong and healthy, it reflects in your confidence and energy.

Set realistic goals, celebrate your progress, and surround yourself with supportive communities that uplift and motivate you.

💌 A love letter to my BFS Ladies:

Here at BFS, while we adore sharing moodboards and celebrating outer beauty and fashion, we want to remind you that your journey in femininity and healed womanhood is about so much more. The true goal is healing, inner confidence and growth. Becoming the woman you aspire to be should transcend your outward appearance.

This journey is a mindset and a lifestyle that not only embodies the essence of a soft life but also breaks generational curses and defies stereotypes often placed upon Black women. It’s about nurturing yourself and starting a journey of self-discovery.

Your God-given superpower as a woman lies in this transformative work. Don’t just look the part—embrace the full, life-changing experience. Don’t cheat yourself from the profound growth and healing and real purpose that awaits you.

With love and inspiration,

The BFS Team 💋

Follow us on IG • Facebook • Join Our Groupchat !

[soup-mother]

"best LGBT tourist destinations"

"top 10 countries for LGBT destination weddings"

"where to book your next gaycation"

i think we are living very different lives 😐

[polling-sonic-fans]

I will not use an image for this poll, as there are none that would be Sega-owned or Official artwork. Feel free to drop your own illustrations.

Polling Sonic Fans for their opinions on all manner of things. Share good questions to indicate what you want asked. Submissions open.

[skunkes]

thjat one post about going thru your entire life trying to avoid being yelled at❗❗❗❗

[edwardallenpoe]

man I sure do hope people who say that trans people don't have to present hyper-binary or be passable are normal about masc/butch trans people, including trans women who don't want surgeries or hrt or use she/her pronouns. Man I sure do hope they don't just mean femme trans men and exclude trans women and nonbinary masculine people. Man I sure do hope that they aren't super fucking weird about masculinity, especially when performed by trans women.

[james-p-sullivan]

I really think we need to start talking about the stigma around hysterectomies and their place in the treatment for the symptoms of endometriosis.

Something I see often is the phrase 'hysterectomies don't cure endometriosis', which is very true, but do you know what a hysterectomy can cure?

Pain.

And you know the pain I'm talking about. The gnawing, all encompassing agony that surrounds our entire lives. The one that keeps you from going back to school, or uses up all of your sick days and vacation time from work combined, the one that leaves you dry heaving for hours until you pass out on the bathroom floor. That pain. There's truly no describing what it's like until you're living it.

And I cannot describe to you how free I feel knowing I will never have to suffer through that ever again.

If we continue to talk about our pain journeys we can end the stigma against hysterectomies. It will never be a cure-all, but remember that you are not a baby machine, you are a human being who deserves to live pain free. And I'm telling you, it's possible.

[babygirlwolverine]

YALL! I DID IT! I had my very first patient today! It was a golden retriever who came in for a recheck of an ear infection and I got to look at samples under the microscope and talk to the client and examine the dog and prescribe meds and make recommendations!! my first ever patient as a doctor and it went so so well!! what a perfect first day at work as Dr G!!

[yuridovewing]

i understand the frustration with “i made this gay pairing cis x trans so they can still have biological babies” with no thought to other methods and how ppl assume thats the case when it comes to mothpool aus where mothwing is also the mother of the three, but also…. idk i kinda dont give a shit if someone wants to do that and i dont really think its inherently transphobic as long as its handled with care and respect.

what really concerns me about this debate is how some people are adamant that you cannot portray trans people having biological children in media or youre being disrespectful. and im gonna say as a nonbinary person who doesnt want children for themself- thats kinda fucking weird? like i understand that for some people, theyre trans themselves and theyre speaking from a place of dysphoria, and i absolutely get that, which is why i think the topic should be handled with nuance and diversity in trans characters, but like…. guys. pregnant trans men exist irl. trans women get people pregnant irl. trans ppl’s ability and right to parent and have biological children are being debated irl. we get denied the opportunity to adopt as well.

in a climate like this, are we SURE we want the stance on rewrites and headcanons in the silly cat books to be “if you portray trans characters having children, especially with a gay couple, youre a transphobic freak no matter what!” does it really matter? especially if its being done by a trans person handling the topic with nuance who has a lot of trans characters with varying perspectives?

obviously yes, remember that thats not the only way certain gay couples can have kids, remember that not every trans person is fully comfortable with it and keep that in mind, remember that surrogacy and adoption are also perfectly valid ways to give fan babies- but remember that there are OPTIONS. not that you need to condemn the idea of transgender parents in the first place unless they fit the very specific criteria of “proper transgender representation” and anything that dares deviate from that is proof the op is a transphobic monster (bonus points if theyre a trans creator bc i mostly see trans people getting shit for this and it kinda pisses me off. although idm if cis people do it either as long as theyre handling it with respect)

[mokutone]

your art makes me wanna start testosterone

i can't read tone well, so this is either an incredibly touching ask, or an extremely funny one, and in the absence of confirmation: both!

i'm in a chatty mood, so i'll share some thoughts about testosterone and my art.

i liked being on testosterone a lot. i had an IM injection every two weeks (on tuesdays!) and because that's a sizeable dose every 14 days that slowly disperses, it can cause some mood fluctuations (every other friday i would have a crisis about not feeling like the world had a place for me in it) but even those were far more manageable than the ones that would come with my previous and current monthly hormone cycle (every month i spend a solid week thinking the world will never have a place for me in it)

It gave me a patchy little bit of scruff on my chin and a whispy mustache under my nose that still struggles on, despite adversity!

It redistributed my fat a little bit, but that's long since gone back to pre-T shape.

it lowered my voice! that hasn't changed :^)! even if i never go back on t, that won't change. it was the thing i most wanted, and its the one i'm most grateful for. Pre-T, I didn't speak much. I'm getting better and better at talking and getting more and more comfortable communicating with people because of it.

having been off t now for 3 years, i don't pass anymore—not as a cis man, or a cis woman, certainly not as anything approximating straight. if people look at me and see anything, i'd hazard a guess that they see me as A Queer (the noun—for all it's complicated connotations).

i'm not surprised that my art might make somebody want to start testosterone! a lot of my art was made out of the aching grief that came with being kicked off of testosterone, and how neatly that loss of autonomy over my own body knits in with yamato's loss of autonomy over his own.

how my body started doing things i disliked, how i didn't have the support necessary to access the healthcare i needed—how my inability to give myself what i needed made me feel as though i were trapped inside of myself and abandoned (by both myself and the world at large)

when i write comics about yamato as a trans man, i don't take away his testosterone, because that hits a little too close to home for me. for Ninja War Town Reasons, he has plenty of access to all the HRT he could ever need and nobody questions his need for it—instead, i project my own horrors onto the way Danzō defined his identity for him as a child, the way that Kabuto and Obito dehumanize him as an adult in their war efforts, and reduce him to the thing his body holds (the Mokuton). I give him a kneejerk compulsion to dehumanize himself (out of a feeling that he has a duty to his community to do so) and I give him a slow-growing resistance to that impulse (which comes out of a feeling that the people he loves would frown upon seeing him reduce himself like that)

it's dysphoria! it's not gender dysphoria, but it's a loss of self, and a need to reclaim it. it's a war between the hollow shell of a thing he thinks he has to be, and the vibrant and messy person beneath it that he is. it's a desperate need to say "this is who i am—only i can say it"

I enjoyed HRT a lot. it was a really useful tool in helping me feel like my body was my own, that i didn't have to fight it, that we were the same entity. It's not the only tool, but it was a really good one, and one day I hope to use it again.

(as for the being off of it—it's unpleasant, but i'm enduring! being somebody who now doesn't really pass as anything has put me in a weird and interesting position, where I'm constantly having to declare myself to people, because nobody knows what to make of me on any front. they don't know if i'm a man, a woman, nonbinary, nor even what age i am (Augh!!!!) it forces me to be brave and vulnerable more than I'm comfortable with—if I tell somebody I'm a man, there's no way that they will believe I'm cis, but I'm not about to recloset myself—and I don't think I could at this point anyway.)

(there's something fascinating about the position i find myself in, and while i'd leap back on t the moment that an opportunity presented itself to do so, i do feel like i'm experiencing something interesting and important in this weird zone i find myself in)

[apricotbuncakes]

Before we start, here is my GoFundMe to help me afford Top Surgery. I have several posts on the subject on my blog but if need be you can ask questions in my ask box.

CW: Discussion of Suicidality. No explicit actions thoughts or ideas depicting the act of suicide are written, but suicidality is discussed.

It's very difficult to explain that "I can't afford my gender affirming care" = passive suicidality.

Cuz like, I'm not gonna do anything. I've learned to not make plans at this point. (<- A joke you may laugh at). But seriously, how do I tell people "I am suicidal because I cannot get top surgery" and then ask them to donate to my GoFundMe?

I don't want to be manipulative, or even potentially be accused of it. I don't want people to pity me or say "things will get better". I know they will. I know that it's just a matter of time. I know I'm not alone. I'm not clueless. At the same time, posting the same "here's my GoFundMe so you can help me reach my goal!!! 😁😁🫰❤️❤️❤️" when my reality and thoughts are much darker is killing me. I feel fake. I feel dishonest. It's not just a casual thing to ask for money, especially $10,000 but it's what I need.

That's the key word. Need.

Top Surgery isn't something I decided on a whim. It's not something I can live without. My dysphoria is so bad. I need top surgery more than I can possibly explain. Even in this post I'm making sure to keep several things to myself because even this admission is very difficult for me. But it's safer to scream into the Tumblr void and hope my echos bounce to people who can help me than to just keep everything bottled up.

Because I cannot afford to tell my therapist and risk getting out in a hospital. Literally cannot afford it. I need to put whatever is left of each paycheck towards top surgery in order to inch closer to my top surgery goal. Sitting in a hospital won't help me in this case.

So once again here's my GoFundMe in case you can spare something.

[barmecidebiohazard]

It's so interesting how I could get my ears pierced at a Claire's in under ten minutes, at age 8, without being harassed by adults who cry "what if you regret it???"

I did regret it, mind you. Hated getting the piercings, hated caring for them, hated wearing them- almost never did. I got an infection, my piercing holes closed but there's always be a little scar there, I still have pain in my ears intermittently. Suffering the long term ramifications of body mods at age 8 because my mom thought it'd be cute.

Nobody was there to explain the possible risks and benefits, I didn't have to go to three therapists and I didn't have to wait until I was 16 or 18 or 20 or whatever. Just walked into a mall and had my body permanently altered. But somehow that was fine.

[pup-void]

Recently got a comment on one of my new pics about my top surgery scars that makes me want to talk about this. IT'S OK TO NOT LOVE YOUR CHEST WHILE YOUR WOUNDS ARE FRESH!!! Feeling freaked out at the sight of your chest with all the bruising, still healing incisions, and scabbed over/discolored nipple grafts is totally normal. It's perfectly natural to feel a bit grossed out the first time you see your chest fully. It doesn't mean you made a mistake. You might not get your crying happy tears chest reveal moment. That's ok. For me it's been slowly feeling more at peace in my body as it heals. It just feels right, and I'm happy. I can tell I made the best decision for myself, and I've made it possible to do things I haven't been able to in years. I no longer feel stressed about how I look to other people, and I feel free. At the same time, the first thing I said when I saw myself without the nipple bolsters for the first time was "ew" because I had big scabs over the entirety of both my nipples so they looked gross, I had a ton of bruising covering my right side, I had a fair bit of swelling, and I still had one drain in. Sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles, and you shouldn't feel bad or worry you made the wrong choice if it happens to you. Give yourself time to fully heal. This goes double for anyone that experiences a complication during/ while recovering from surgery.

[shalpilot]

[uncanny-tranny]

You don't become less trans the more you transition. No matter how long you've been on hormones, no matter if you've gotten every surgery you want, no matter if you appear to be cis - none of that negates your belonging to the trans community.

I've seen some trans people worried that they would almost stop being trans or belonging because they've gotten bottom surgery, or top surgery, or start appearing cis, and let me tell you... none of that, ultimately, changes you on an ontological level. Yes, all these things are affirming, and it's safe to say that if you got it, you life can be so much better for it. But it doesn't change the fact that you belong, that if you're trans, you're trans.

Do what makes you most at peace. You still belong no matter what, people aren't going to love you less.

[skunkes]

are u getting top surgery?? what is it /gen curious

not top surgery, sterilization! ^_^