I'm bad at updates :) Been feeling very good and masc the last few months, learning how to like my body bc even though I've gained a lot of weight this year I'm a totally different shape now and I love it
It's still not much, but this is a couple weeks without shaving (passover is tomorrow so I'll probably shave tonight lol). But yeah! For some reason it's growing in more on the left side of my face than the right, but that should sort itself out - I have good beard genes from both sides of the family, so I'm hopeful.
I call this 'oh jeez I sure have a neckbeard huh'. Considered doing No Shave November because đđđ, but it's very uneven and scraggly (it's growing out more on the left side of my face than the right for some reason?) so I'm probably going to shave soon.
Not a lot of other changes, just more and more hair. I am getting gendered correctly in public much more often when I go out; weight gain doesn't help, but the mask + voice seems to do a lot.
I need to actually go in for my lab work when I get my shit together, but I'm interested in seeing what it shows as well.
Missed a few weeks in there, whoops. Mental health has been Bad the last few weeks, which explains how tired I look and how badly I need a haircut. I haven't shaved my face in a few weeks, partly out of laziness and partly to see how much facial hair I could grow. The answer, obviously, is not much, but it's exciting nonetheless.
I'm overdue for a check-in with my doctor, so when I finally get that set up I'll probably get my levels checked for the first time (even though it's been 7 months lol). Should be interesting.
Only other thing to mention is I now have a modicum of sympathy for cis dudes who are babies about ripping off band-aids. They hurt a lot more now that I have exponentially more hair, especially because I use really sticky ones so I don't sweat them off instantly.
Voice comparison video! I havenât been doing voice check-in videos so I had to dig a little to find videos of me speaking (which is why the pre-t one is like a year old lol). Itâs changed a lot and itâs still not done, probably, but Iâm really happy with how it sounds.
Trying to stay sane and cool - it hit mid-90s yesterday, but we're supposed to have some rain tomorrow, so hopefully it'll cool off a little. Between the heat and playing Death Stranding this week, I haven't gotten much good sleep recently.
My voice has dropped even more the last few weeks - since my six months on T is coming up (!!!), I'll probably do a comparison video then. Other than that, it's mostly more hair. Still slowly getting more on my arms, torso, and face (I shaved a few days ago so there's not much in this picture), and noticing it for the first time on my fingers and toes. It still feels a little strange to be this excited about all the gross places I'm growing hair, but ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻ whatcha gonna do
(CW discussion of needles, blood in next paragraph)
Hit a vein/artery during my T shot yesterday for the first time, so I'm not sure how much of a dose I really got. I did the injection, and when I pulled the needle out I started bleeding a lot - got some tissues to apply pressure and it stopped in a minute or so. Honestly it was good for my anxiety to know that's what happens - it actually wasn't something the nurses went over with me when I was learning.
This post has been sitting in my drafts for... almost two years now. But today (June 29, 2020) is my two-year anniversary of my top surgery, so I wanted to finally share the photos and descriptions of the immediate recovery and the results two years out.
First off, about me: I had surgery on June 29, 2018 with Dr. Adam Tobias in Boston. I was not and had never been on testosterone at the time. Dr. Tobias does have a BMI limit, which I was on the cusp of - since I had no other health problems, they were able to go ahead, but I have heard other people had problems with it.
I was generally very happy with my experience with Dr. Tobias. His staff of nurses were all fantastic (friendly and responsive), and I had a good experience at the hospital overall. My preferred name was on all of my paperwork, including my hospital ID bracelet; my pronouns (they/them) were on some of the paperwork, but the other people I came in contact with tended to use he/him by default when they saw what procedure I had, which was fine by me. Not being misgendered made the whole process so much more bearable.
July 3 - 4 days post op. The drains were definitely the worst part - they werenât too painful on their own but I couldnât really put my arms down comfortably and I had to sleep on my back, propped up. I was still in a fair amount of pain in general - I couldnât use my arms for much at all that first week, including pushing myself out of bed. I was on extra strength tylenol and oxycodone both at first, but was able to stop the oxy after 3 days or so.
July 6 - 1 week post op. Last picture before the drains came out! You can see the swellingâs gone down a bit.
July 8 - 9 days post op. The drains came out at one week, and so did the hard nipple dressings. For the next two weeks I kept xeroform dressings on the nipples, gauze dressings on the drain sites, and I had to wear a compression band 24 hours a day (except for showers). I didnât get a picture of the compression band, but that wasnât fun either. I was able to wean off the tylenol as well after about a week and a half. After day 10, I could shower with my back to the water spray - best shower of my life.
July 14 - 15 days post op. Starting to look a little more human - the incision was pretty healed at this point so I could start washing off the skin glue and marker along it. The yellow haze over the nipples is buildup from the xeroform, which is just gauze soaked in a sticky yellow antibiotic ointment. The bruising below the incision is from the drains, and the rest of the redness and bruising is from the compression. My skin also got very dry and itchy below the incision, being sort of newly exposed.
July 22 - 23 days post-op. This week made a big difference. I was able to stop using the compression at my âthree weeksâ appointment on the 17th, although I continued all the dressings. Most of the bruising had healed, I could take real showers, the nipple grafts were finishing scabbing and I was gaining more and more arm movement range and strength every day.
July 29 - 30 days post op. I got a cool shirt in Provincetown and had to show it off with my new chest. The nipple grafts were pretty much healed here and I had stopped using the dressings on them.
August 1 - 33 days post op. The nipple grafts were healing well and starting to re-pigment around the edges. I started doing scar massage on the incision (a little later than recommended). Everything was still a little tender - I wasn't leaning on things or holding anything heavy against my chest, and although I recovered a lot of my range of motion, I still couldn't really reach straight above my head. I didnât drive again until about 3.5 weeks post op - having my arms in front of me for that long was uncomfortable, I wasnât able to twist my upper body in the seat to look around, and the seatbelt chafed against the incision. The drain sites were slow to close (I still had band-aids under my arms in this picture), but they weren't infected - just taking a little more time.
August was the last recovery photo I took - it took another month or so for me to be able to reach my arms straight up over my head comfortably, but I did start going to the gym during that time (I just modified exercises like lat pulldowns so I didn't have to reach all the way up). I also did pretty minimal scar care because I don't have strong feelings about my scars being visible, so I can't speak to the effectiveness of any of those methods.
Here I am today: two years post-op, just under 5 months on testosterone. I've regained a little sensation around the scars, though of course the actual scar tissue and nipple grafts are still completely numb. I'm overall really happy with the results! When I'm not flexing, I have noticeable man-boobs because of my weight, and the scars run right across them instead of under them, which I don't love aesthetically. But you can't tell when I have a shirt on, and being confident enough to stand up straight (I'm still unlearning my pre-op slouch lol) and show off my flat chest is amazing. Can't wait to see what testosterone does after a few more months - I do have more hair than before on my chest and stomach, but it's still not enough to be actually noticeable on camera.
FULLY forgot to post a picture last time, whoops. My mental health has been less good for the last few weeks, which means I get to play the fun game of "is it stress or is it hormones?" most days. But next week I will have been on T for 5 months (!!!) as well as 2 years post-top surgery (!!!!!!), both of which are absolutely wild to me.
I shaved my face last weekend so I'm back to extreme baby-face, but my skin has also cleared up a little - it seems to come in waves, which I can handle. I also need a haircut again, which I'm grumpy about because my last haircut was also under quarantine, and I don't like the reminder of how much time has actually passed, but ÂŻ\_(ă)_/ÂŻ. Not much else to report except that I am extremely warm alllllll the time now that summer's really starting up.
EDIT: can't believe I forgot to mention!! This is the second month I haven't had my period and I could get used to this đ
Behold the wispy mustache! My face started breaking out badly again this week, after a couple weeks of calm. Now that it's warm enough to wear shorts (unlikely though I am to do so), I've noticed that I have more leg hair, which still isn't saying much - I stopped shaving my legs for good when I was still in college, and never had more than a few patches that grew out appreciably.
My voice has dropped pretty significantly in the last few weeks, and I notice it when I try to sing. I've spent several years at this point training myself to speak/sing from my chest, and now I need to go back to my head voice to hit any of the notes I could before.
I walked two miles each way in the rain to pick up my testosterone this week and got absolutely drenched and that was just Monday lol. This week has been hellish for work but. I made it through. Not an awful lot to report but since I forgot to post a video last week I have a bonus picture of my scraggly mustache and three (3) chin hairs:
Time is fake, y'all. I kept thinking, 'oh, I only did my shot the other day, plenty of time to post a picture!' But that was Monday and somehow it's Friday now. Oof.
But as of this week (May 2, to be exact), I'll be three months on T! The most notable change recently has been my voice; I've been sort of hoarse for several weeks now but in the last 1 or 2 my comfortable speaking voice has been distinctly lower and more prone to cracking when I start speaking. I'll try to remember to post a comparison video this weekend maybe đ
Some of the earlier effects I was having seem to be settling (or I'm just getting used to them), namely being smelly, being sweaty, and being horny. (The testosterone greatest hits, I guess.) Those were all extremely noticeable to me in the first few months but have diminished in the last couple of weeks.
My skin has calmed a little the past two weeks, but the biggest thing is really just more hair. It's slow but it's becoming more noticeable on my arms, torso, and (most exciting) face. I shaved my face a couple days ago just.... because (I've done it once or twice before just to shave off peach fuzz, but I figure practicing can't hurt and it makes me feel good) and now I have little scraggly dark hairs on my chin and upper lip. Again, not really noticeable to anyone but me, but still exciting!
With hat because I got up too late to shower this morning (oops), tired of quarantining but happy I'm able to work from home. I've been eating a lot healthier since living on my own and it's been helping my mental state a fair bit, especially because I have not been good about exercising the past few weeks. (To be fair, my exercise plan included walking 2 miles each way to work every day so... that's not happening.)
But anyway, the fun stuff! I definitely have some little baby moustache hairs (which I'm not going to zoom in on because my face is acne-y and gross), and I'm very hopeful that the period I'm on is going to be my last! My acne has calmed a little this week, although I suspect it might flare up again just after the injection yesterday, and I am SO. WARM. ALL THE TIME. I knew this would happen, but I was usually warm pre-T, and now I'm just. So sweaty.
Second self-injection yesterday in my ~NeW aPaRtMeNt~!! I've FINALLY moved out of my parents' house and freedom is delightful. Of course, today is also day 3 of working from home so... not too much freedom.
My acne has started to worsen in these last two weeks - I had bad acne in my first round of puberty, and it never fully died down, so I'm expecting this time to be at least as bad. But I think my voice is deepening somewhat (no dramatic cracks, but it's been a little hoarse for a while), and even caught some stray hairs on my face. Exciting times.
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