I'm with my grandmother who
I lived with all my childhood. I'm about
seven years old, and she's in the bathroom
with me, a tub full of water. Me naked and
her clothed and smelling like her sweat in
the humid damp room. For some reason, I'm
talking to her about my body, and she's
telling me that real soon it will start to
change and I'll have those things called
breasts.
I remember feeling stunned; I don't know why,
up till then, I though breasts were optional!
That you could mail-order to have them or
not.
Once it dawned on me that it wasn't optional,
I then asked her if once they started growing,
whether they would stop growing straight away?
Hoping that she'd say yes, they grow for a day
and that's it! I think she probably thought it
was a normal kid thing I was going through. I
suppose I did too.
Except my thoughts on breasts never shifted
far from that day. When I was in my early teens,
I also remember that there was this fantastic
thing called "Breast Cancer" and if you had
that, you could have them taken off.
That's it! I want one of those! When I found
out one of my dad's sister's had it, I was
pretty hopeful for myself.
When mobile phones came out, I was radiating
my chest away, trying to cause some kind of
anomaly so that I'd gat that thing called breast
cancer that let you not have boobs anymore.
No such luck, I continued to grow up with the
unnerving distinction of being a butch dyke with
a great pair of playboy tits: a source of
constant amusement to friends, and secret
titillation to lovers. Needless to say, I wasn't
quite so amused.
But way before I thought I had Gender Issues,
I knew I wanted them gone gone gone. I always
was attracted to women with really small
breasts, I think in part because I couldn't face
what I had reflected back to me. I met one butch
from Taiwan who lived as a woman, but had gone
to San Francisco to get her chest done. That
spun me out, opening another door of
possibilities.
When I started transitioning, it turned an
already tenuous relationship I had with my chest
even harder. I'd still look in the mirror and
see something that wasn't quite right. Except it
was worse, because taking Testosterone was my
acknowledging something about myself, and by
doing that I couldn't continue not acknowledging
what I wanted since I was seven years old.
As the months went by, and I started using
men's bathrooms, I felt constantly paranoid that
I'd get busted and beaten up. I hated wearing
the same three t-shirts on high rotation,
thinking about which way the wind was blowing,
which shoulder to carry my bag on based on which
side of the street was more crowded, etc.
Fifteen months after I started T, I saw Megan
Hassall for my first consultation. I'd checked
out other guys' surgeries, especially on
Transster.com and wanted her to do the keyhole
technique, rather than the double incision
method on me. I psyched myself up, thinking I'd
have to talk her into it.
Fortunately for me, she looked at my skin and
the way it keloid scars quite heavily and
suggested it to me before I could get a word in.
Alright!
I was living on a student loan and not
working much, so I couldn't book myself in as
early as I'd have liked to. It was May 2003 and
I knew that I wanted to get "the chop" before
summer kicked in. We left it open and she packed
me off telling me it would make her job easier
if I started to exercise more (ok, ok, if I
started exercising!) Apparently, that gives her
a better idea of what is breast tissue as
opposed to body fat, and she can contour your
chest better too.
July and August 2003 were whirlwind months. I
needed to get a psychiatrist to clear me for GID
(Gender Identity Disorder) - Dr Hassell wouldn't
operate without it. Low on cash and not looking
forward to seeing a shrink, I wanted it to be as
quick and painless as possible.
At this stage I still found white Australian
masculinity a bit of a foreign concept, and
usually felt alienated and/or intimidated by it.
I wanted to find a psych who could "speak the
same language", so I found Dr Dong Tran, a
Vietnamese-Australian guy who practiced in
Paddington. Luckily for me, it was easy with
him, and I found that my expression of myself
flowed with his understanding of
masculinity.
There were a few occasions in our appointment
where I had to describe my childhood/growing up
in Singapore, and he just said, "yeah, it's our
culture". For me, not to have to explain the
subtexts of myself as well as my past, was
exactly what I wanted. He signed me off after
two enjoyable sessions.
October 10th, I arrived with my bags packed
at Hunter's Hill Private Hospital. I was excited
and nervous and really wired, and said dumb
things to the nurses every time I opened my
mouth. I was told to get there at 11am and that
I was third on Megan's list.
I got my menu and ticked off every single
option for dinner and all my meals the next day:
I was tarting to get really hungry from fasting
the night before.
At about 1.15pm, Dr Goodie (my anaesthetist)
came in and had a quick consultation with me and
told me I was going in to surgery in about 10
minutes! So there I was in my white hospital
gown with my girlfriend jumping up and down on
the creaky hospital bed, smacking and punching
each other, we were that excited.
I got wheeled upstairs and this little lady
in blue came up to me. It was Megan! She drew
her markings on my chest and left to the
theatre. Then Dr Goodie came up and stuck the IV
in my arm and started chatting to me about
Argentinean rugby.
I was too excited and could have talked about
anything, even the (yawn) rugby world cup. The
next thing I knew, I was awake in another room,
and said to someone "Has it started yet?" The
nurses told me I was in recovery and that it was
5.30pm. I said something like "No shit!" and
brought my hand to my chest straight away.
They were gone!
I had this tight binder on and definitely no
tits. I was so excited I started chatting away
to all the poor nurses and mainly told them how
hungry I was.
Pretty soon, I got wheeled down to my room
and proceeded to eat everything in sight. But
the world was really far away still and I just
felt tight and sore and stiff. But boy was I
hungry.
Megan came in at about 8pm and said she was
really happy with how it turned out and that
she'd pop in the next morning. At about 10.30pm
five hours or so after I came out of surgery, I
went to the bathroom and thought I was alright
to brush my teeth.
Stupid idea. Once I started, I felt hot and
nauseous and I knew I was going to pass out. I
woke up on the floor and checked to see I didn't
rip my drains out. They seemed ok and I got
myself back to my bed and buzzed the nurses.
When Megan came in the next day, she checked
the wounds I was pleased the fall didn't damage
them, which I was pleased about. I left hospital
after two nights, and my drains came out five
days after surgery.
With the keyhole technique though, there is a
lot of blood and fluid that continues to collect
in the wound cavities, something quite different
to the bilateral incision technique and which I
didn't know about beforehand.
In my case, because of the fall on the left
side, it caused excess fluid to build up in the
cavity. When Megan dressed the wounds, she used
non-porous "second-skin" dressing so that I
could shower and not worry about getting it wet.
What happened was that too much excess fluid sat
in the cavity sealed away and 11 days after
surgery I was back in hospital with an
infection.
I was on IV antibiotics and in hospital for
four days. The point was to dry the infected
fluid out and the strong whack of antibiotics I
could get through IV instead of orally was
needed to get the nasty infection out. Also, my
heath fund had asked me to fax them after
surgery to discontinue my cover, which I hadn't
done.
It turned out to be a good thing or I would
have had to fork out for the four nights in
hospital plus pathology tests. Megan came into
see me every day in hospital both times and I've
been to see her in her rooms over 15 times since
surgery and it's all been included in her
initial fee.
In February or March 2004 she is going to
re-operate to do some scar revision and a little
liposuction. My left side is still really puffy
while my right side is healing quickly and about
half the size of the left. Good thing for me,
Megan thinks that the fall and infection won't
affect the cosmetic result in the long run, it's
just going to take longer than we thought.
All in all, I feel really lucky that Megan
works in Sydney because I fee like I got a level
of care and skill I'm really happy with. For a
fraction of the price of what I think her skills
are really worth.
What was crucial too was that she felt the
same way I did about the type of surgery I
wanted. I'd say to anyone thinking about seeing
her: to trust in her assessment of you and what
would work best for you.
If she says, "give me a year and at the end
of it you'll like what you get", then that's
probably best for you. Also really important is
to listen to her as to how long she wants you to
wear the binder and follow any after care
instructions she gives you.
And finally, the staff at Hunter's Hill are
absolutely tops. They all called me "he" and
"sir" and "young man" from the word go. My
documents all said "male" even though my health
fund and Medicare card don't.
They seem like a really happy bunch who like
their work and get treated well by the hospital,
something that makes a difference and comes back
to the patient.
