Finally after a lot of back and forth the GIC agreed to speak to my advocate and look at some photos of my chest.
They have now agreed with me that my chest has a feminine “breast-like” appearance and are willing to ask the commissioners to pay for my revision.
The down side is I have to wait until next summer until I see the doc before anything practical can be done but this is the first clear progress I’ve had in years. Now I just have to hope the commissioners will approve my procedure.
So, after the big bloodbath I went to A&E (The ER for my american friends) and they put a huge pressure dressing over my whole chest which basically functioned as a binder to keep everything protected until today.
I then hobbled up to Manchester to get everything looked at. When I was around 5 minutes away from the hospital my Surgeon called me to make sure I was almost there and that I was okay. As soon as I arrived she bustled in and looked very maternal! She made me feel very safe and looked after. whipped off the dressings and had a good look.
She said that after seeing the photos of how much blood there was she was worried, but that actually things looked really great in person! (huge sigh of relief). She concluded that I have a hematoma, possibly as a result of the amount of scar tissue they had to scrape out, that suddenly decided to start draining manky old blood everywhere. The drainage has now almost totally stopped. My nipples are healthy and pink with excellent blood supply apart from one small patch on the left one where its blood supply was restricted a little due to the hematoma but she’s confident that it will recover just fine.
(more info & pics below the cut)
It honestly looks better that I ever imagined and my nipples are so small!!! Which is such a joy after having 1.5 inch wide nips for the past 4 years. I have a feeling that I’m going to have pretty thin scars, I am very lucky in that I heal well, my previous scars were barely visible after 6 months. I have a very small flap of excess skin on the left side around half an inch long right near my armpit that might need a small revision but in the grand scheme of things that’s nothing to worry about.
I’ve been given a course of anti-biotics and some absorbant dressings to catch any remaining drainage. Overall. I’m pretty chuffed!
Pics below:
(Pics taken immediately after dressing removal, before the wounds were cleaned. you can see the dark spot on my nipple closest to the tattoo, the hematoma bruising and the little overflap of skin right by my armpit. Overall I’m very pleased)
(Aquacel foam dressing to absorb goop, two small gauze dressings to continue protecting grafts and one other small gauze where the cleaning causes a little bleeder to show up on my incision but I’ve take that one off now.
I recently posted all of my artwork online for sale. I am currently trying to raise funds to have my top surgery revision done. I'm selling paintings and accepting donations for tarot readings. If you have a minute to check out my site and share, I'd appreciate it. www.egstrangehart.com/donate #transhealth #topsurgery #dogears #transgender #nonbinary #nonipplesnomasters #topsurgeryrevision #bodydysphoria #tarot
