The Facial Feminization Journey - Part 2

I decided to wait a little bit of time before I wrote the part 2 of this blog. Even at 6 months recovery, as I am now, there’s still plenty more ahead of me. However, I think the majority of what is most eventful has already happened now. Physical and mental recovery continue, but at a minor level compared to how they were influencing me at the start.

Initial Recovery - The rest of my euro trip

When I ended my previous blog entry I was just waking up from the anesthesia and getting rolled back to my room for my first night of recovery. Because part of my procedure included rhinoplasty, I was not supposed to breathe through my nose for the first night. Luckly I didn’t find this particularly difficult, though I heard some people find it very uncomfortable.

The next day I lay in the hospital bed watching TV with ocassional visits from doctors and nurses. My parents also came by to say hello int he afternoon. I watched Will Ferrel’s documentary with his trans friend, Harper. It felt like an appropriate thing to watch given what I was going though. Then I tried Pilomena Cunk and started to laugh so hard that my lip-lift stitches felt tight, so I abadoned that. I had to actually be somewhat careful about humor. Little jokes were fine, but big laughs were borderline dangerous if they made me want to smile too widely. For many weeks after surgery I had to remain cautious of this. I worried at first that maybe the lip-lift procedure would tighten my ability to smile for good. It didn’t end up being the case, but there was a lot of this kind of worry to come in the weeks of recovery following surgery.

Including the first night, the recovery process actually had very little pain overall. It was mostly just discomfort. In fact, all they gave me for pain was ibuprofen and acetominophen the whole time. The trickiest part was just the uncomfortable sleeping due to needing to sit upright for the first week. I also noticed that initially I had a very large appetite, despite low activity. My body was clearly in a high alert recovery phase and consuming all the energy it could to get me mended. The first two days of recovery are foggy, not so much from the medicine, but rather the sleeping pills they gave us. I found they made me violently groggy all day, even after being awake for hours.

8 days after surgery the bandages and stitches were all removed. It was a new time of reckoning for seeing my own results. Until that point I didnt have much of a way to process what things looked like. Afterwards the levels of swelling and discoloration in my face really became clear to me. It’s not quite like in TV and film where they take off all the bandages for a big reveal and everything is pristine.

Depending on what you get done, your age and your genetics, recovery looks very different from patient to patient. However, that doesn’t necessarily feel apparent when you compare your recovery to that of others. Nor does the fact that we are much more sensitive about the details of our own face. It was very hard for me to see past the swelling and discoloration in my face. Others told me I was looking good already, but I couldn’t really see it for myself.

After 11 days I had my post-op consultation and photos taken at the clinic. I was very anxious and emotional leading up to the consultation because I still felt very unsettled about how I looked. They put a bit of makeup on me after taking photos without any on, but I felt like makeup made things look worse. The swelling made more sense when it was accompanied by visible bruising. I still was going through a lot of mental processing, even though I knew the healing process had only just begun.

We travelled to Lisbon for a short stay before returning home. I had a good time there but found myself exhausted easily by even short walks. My body was still recovering a lot even though it was becoming less apparent from my appearance.

Returning home

When I returned home it was nice to finally settle into my own space after 3 weeks away. The swelling and bruising in my face continued to be a persistent bother, even though I saw improvements day over day. I found my face looked swollen more in the mornings after I had been lying down for hours. Nonetheless I was getting a lot of positive reception from friends about how the results were starting to look.

It was hard for me to leave the house for a while. I didnt really like facing the public while I was feeling uncomfortable about my own appearance, but I learned bit by bit that most people couldn’t even tell. They don’t know my face as well as I do, afterall! I worked from home for the first 8 weeks and didn’t go go into the office on Fridays as I usually do, or even use my camera for a while. My workplace was understanding and supportive of this journey for me so it wasn’t a bother or surprise to anyone.

Reaching cruising altitude

I had my first formal outing at 5 weeks of recovery. I went to a Blue Jays game with some friends who were very kind and affirming of how things were looking. When I look back at the photos I notice there really was a lot of swelling still, compared to how I look now. Still, I’m glad that I pushed myself a little bit. I wasn’t benefitting emotionally from just staying home, even though it felt safe.

At 6 weeks I was able to start exercising again, which I started very lightly. It felt nice to move again, but it took a while to get back into a routine as strong as I had before surgery. At 8 weeks I was starting to get a lot more confidence to go out and start forgetting about my recovery.

The first week of Pride Month, when I returned to the office, I brought cookies for my coworkers to share. Noone at work has ever commented on my appearance since I returned. It was totally normal and back to business from day one, which is how I wanted it to be.

The 3 month recovery marker

As summer passed the recovery was less present on my mind. Discolouration was long gone and whatever swelling that remained was barely noticeable to me anymore. Recovery continued, however, nothing was getting in the way of living my life as normal. I was starting to enjoy the new level of correct gendering I was receiving in my day to day life. It’s not perfect, but it’s far more common for people to gender me correctly now.

As I began to stretch my legs I started to get back into dating as well. I hadn’t been dating much for 3 months in advance of my surgery, so it was about 5 months since I had been on a date by summertime. FFS had helped a lot with my confidence, but I think I was pushing myself pretty hard to find a relationship so soon afterward. I noticed I was letting myself get very emotional over connections as I had been doing before I took a hiatus in January. I found myself sinking an extraordinary amount of time into dating and social media sites. It came to a point I needed a detox break for a few weeks to decompress and break habits. I still have time limit warnings on my phone to help remind me to keep it cut down even though I have returned.

6 months recovery

As of writing this blog I am now 6 months recovered from surgery. I think in the last 3 months I’ve found a lot more emotional stability. I’ve also found a lot more confidence in not just my appearance, but my value as a person. I think in the past I was sort of grasping at straws trying to find a romantic partner. I was pouring too much energy into people that were playing avoidant games and not showing me sufficient respect. I’ve been seeing a lot of merit to not trying to read between lines or explain myself to folks that aren’t meeting my expectations. There is a peace that comes from focus on self-regulating mood and not getting into connections with others that will be bad for my nervous system.

I know this blog entry is about surgery recovery, so the dating talk might seem out of place. However this surgery’s contribution to my self confidence to attack the dating world has been a really big deal and the social implications of FFS are why we make this choice. I feel like I’ve grown a lot over this period in ways I couldn’t event predict.

Recovery today

I’m still not 100% recovered from surgery, but I’m getting there. I still have a bit of numbness around my head, brow, and my nose appears to be adjusting bit by bit. The endotines that were implanted (which are like internal staples) are mostly dissolved, but I still have a small bump on my head from one of them.

10/10 Would recommend 👍

The last thing I will say is that I see why people say FFS is a gamechanger operation. I was able to predict some of the ways it would impact my life, but in a big way it was a leap of faith. I was entirely unprepared for the emotional journey it would put me through, I must say. There is a lot of mental suffering before and immediately after the surgery. I think it’s important to be prepared for that. However on the other side it has been an experience that put me to the test and I feel like I’m coming out so much stronger.