Today I decided to start a new career as a surgeon so I put on lots of makeup, selected a suitable wig - an untidy red one - got my loud pink polka dot dress with the wide collar on, my extra big, long shoes and, most importantly, I put my big red nose on.
I turned up for work at the hospital and immediately they put me on the wards.
"Mr Stump needs his left leg amputating, Mr Aicheson-Paines has water on the brain that needs to be sorted, and Mrs Boggis needs a colonoscopy," the Head of Surgery told me.
So I got to work and at the end of the day I reported back to him.
"I took Mr Stump's arm off, Mr Aicheson-Paines got a direct hit from my squirty flower right on his head and Mrs Boggis got the custard pie you ordered. I also had time to pull an endless line of handkerchiefs out of Mr Sniffer's nose, tripped up several nurses and put Mrs Tumble in the collapsing bed."
"Ha ha ha, the collapsing bed is always a good one!" he chortled, big red lips agape and nose flashing. Well, done Dr Richmond, you've qualified. At this rate you'll be head of surgery when I retire at the end of the year. Put it there."
I shook his hand ... and watched him convulse. Ah, the good old palm buzzer! It gets them every time.
"Aargh, my pacemaker," he gurgled as he expired from the literal shock.
Hey, at this rate I'll be head of surgery by tomorrow.
I write this because I have had a very stressful week dealing not so much with medical matters but with financial ones for a relative of mine who went to have supposedly straightforward hernia surgery in May ... and is still in hospital. I did his tax return with the help of a tax accountant but you can imagine that it's not easy compiling details from someone else's unfamiliar paperwork that I had to hunt for, using forms that I don't use myself and that I've never seen before because my tax affairs are very different, for a tax system that I have only be party to in very recent years. That and dealing with his bank have left me pretty strung out. I'll be glad to get home tomorrow ... after the rail strike is over.
I'm pleased to say that he himself has made a lot of progress in the last couple of weeks and is now able to get out of bed and even walk a bit - he was told he might never walk again. In fact, we went together down the hospital corridor for tea from the hot drinks machine which, rather like the Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser in the Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, gave me a cup of liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
I will be up-front and straightforward with my own experience of other people's surgery (I've never stayed in a hospital in my life and I intend to keep things that way), but the large majority of people that I have known to go and have surgery have not come out that much better off for it. Your mileage will vary and you and yours may be delighted with your surgeons' efforts. As I say, though, just about everyone else I know has had botched jobs, from my father and the ten operations on one eye to repair a common problem, to my mother and sister whose surgery wounds opened, soaking their beds in blood and requiring transfusions, to this relative of mine whose botched hernia job has resulted in his living for four months with an open belly and several more interventions to go, and this from the same comedians whose routine endoscopy perforated the gullet of the patient in the bed next to him and who then spent 15 days in intensive care as a result. I knew only one person who had worthwhile cancer surgery; the others all died anyway. And in all cases we're talking about hospitals that are deemed high quality or specialist, not some medical tent in a refugee camp in a war zone.
I have professional indemnity insurance in my line of work in case I mess up. But I would lose my professional status altogether if I messed up this often. Why do surgeons get away with it? It's complicated work, sure, but then so's my work and that can have serious consequences for people, too.
For the girls who have vaginoplasties, I have always been sceptical. In my experience, about three quarters of the ops do not go properly to plan. Someone who has had GRS, and who had complications herself, says she thinks 95% of GRS is imperfect. That is a horrifying figure.
I have written on GRS before: So you still want that surgery? and witnessed yet another disaster first hand in 2013. These are two of the most read posts on my blog.
You do what is right for you. This is just my view and my choice. I have no spouse or family, no-one I feel I should be around for and therefore I am not prepared to go through the aggravation of serious surgery. I joined the Dignitas organisation some years ago, have a 'living will' (as well as a legal one) and relevant documentation for doctors and lawyers so that if or when they diagnose me with cancer or tell me I have a life-threatening problem or I get squashed by a tram, I am very unlikely to go through with surgery as it's not worth it. Your situation is different and you make the choices that are right for you in your circumstances. If being undead is important to you and your only way out of the alternative is surgery, then go for surgery; but you may have to live with a greatly reduced quality of life. Similarly, I'll not go in for gender surgery as I don't trust it to work. If your dysphoria is so severe that GRS is the option you feel you need most to help you, then I will fully support you in that choice. You choose for you, and I will choose for me. I'm not trying to sway you, just telling you why I won't do it for my part. Virtually all the trans people who have GRS say they are glad to have had the surgery, and that's the important bit; it's a pity, though, that few of them get the promised part in full. Of course I'd love to be fully female in every possible way, but life is so often about weighing the odds, about pain management, about avoiding trouble and my scales therefore tip differently from others.
Thanks for reading. Stay well and look after yourself.
Sue x
