FFS and the Cocoon House

So, where was I...oh yeah...being transported over to the Cocoon House. Shannon and I were up in the front room for Friday night, my first night out of the hospital and without that little machine that kept me happy.

Brooke, Michelle, and Marina all visited that Friday night (the 20th) and kept me company. I think I booted them when I started getting tired. I was popping pain pills about every 4-6 hours, especially those first few nights, and you have to sleep upright after having FFS because of the swelling in the face, which makes sleeping, uhh...., fun.

Most of Friday and Saturday I spent eating the stock of apple sauce, chocolate pudding, and yogurt. That’s about all I could handle. Mary-Lou also washed my hair on Friday. That felt pretty good since it hadn’t been washed since early Wednesday morning, and there was....well...a lot of schtuff in my hair.

On Saturday, Hin arrived, and Shannon shipped out. Hin had another reduction of her cheek bone, which she found too wide. I saw her before/after picture of FFS, and she turned out incredible...wow. Did she need the second cheek bone reduction? Probably not, but it made her feel comfortable to have it done. Hin stayed in the back room and was pretty quiet. Marina visited again that night to keep me company for a while, especially since I was alone in the front room. Tricia and Mary-Lou were also picked up fairly early that morning by a fancy black car carrying Dr. O, Mira, plus at least one other. They were all headed to V-Day.

Someone told me that Dr. O had donated enough money to put on the V-Day activities all by himself, but others had donated as well so they made it a grand production. Since I handed him a check for over $27,000 on Wednesday on top of the hospital fees and the down payment back in October, I figure I was the one who actually paid for all of it. Just kidding...that’s just what I told the people who went there while I was in Cocoon since I was just jealous.

On Sunday, I tried eggs. Scrambled. They rocked, but of course, that’s about the limit of consistency I was able to manage. Mom scrambled them up for me. Afterward, I found I liked apple sauce just to cool the mouth down a bit. Tricia and Mary-Lou also were dropped back off that afternoon by the Dr. O crew after visiting LA the day before. They even brought back a souvenir program for me.

Sunday was also a big day for visitors. /Amber/, Brooke, Michelle, Susan, Julie, Diana, Minka, Susan from Helsinki, and Tyler all visited. Actually, Tyler stayed. She was having surgery on Monday. There was also the bunch that drove back from V-Day: Claire, Sarah, Rachel, and Renee. I hadn’t seen Renee in quite a while since she’s never lived in the area, only visited. We chat online here and there, and we’ve known each other since like December 2001...quite a while it seems.

On Monday, I moved into having tomatoes in the scrambled eggs. Yes, tomatoes! I still continued with the apple sauce, pudding, and yogurt. Brooke, Claire, Robi, Ro, and Y visited. Yep, three coworkers visited that night. I answered the door when they rang the buzzer, and had I not said hello to them, they wouldn’t have recognized me. Ro lives just around the corner from the Cocoon House, so they didn’t have far to go, except Y whose commute has always been pretty long. Anyway, wow...they visited. They said that “sensitivity training” was this upcoming week, and that Pete was in jury duty, so it was just Robi by herself. The good news, though, was that the problems that occurred that last week at work were finally resolved. I was right on one of the problems...whoo hoo!!!! The other one worked itself out as well, I think. It was funny, when Robi started talking work, I moved my fingers to my ears and started going “la la la la la la” as though I didn’t want to hear anything about it. I was on “vacation”. No stress. But Robi did drop off some very femme fashionable magazines that I will have to read after my mom leaves. My mom, though, was definitely making it quite easy during my recovery, as well as Tricia and Mary-Lou. Wilma Jean also arrived on Monday, and although of a different generation, she was still one of those along the same journey. She was an Irish music fan. Luckily for me, I couldn’t hear it Monday night.

I’d been changing the nose dressing, and could see all the little stuff kinda right at the base of my nostrils. Fun stuff. I enjoyed showing it to those that stopped by...and were interested in seeing it, but I never took a picture of it. That’s probably a good thing.

Monday also came with some good and bad news. The good news was that my nose packing came out, along with removal of the chin dressing and the forehead sutures. Mira pulled this nasty stuff out of my nose and I was finally able to breathe. Yes, it felt weird having all of it pulled out and was slightly uncomfortable, but I was finally able to breathe. Some say they find religion when the nose packing comes out. I found I could breathe, but I couldn’t smell. I still had the nose cast on and there were two splints up there somewhere. I also started using Saline Spray to try to keep the inside of my nose slightly moist and fresh. (Does that sound like a commercial?)

The bad news on Monday came after the nose packing came out. It seems my mom had an accident in San Francisco the day after my surgery. Although she was ok, she damaged the front end of my car. Tricia and Mary-Lou thought it was best if I wasn’t told until the packing was out of my nose since they didn’t want me going through any further stress. Although I didn’t care about the condition of my car, it was probably best that they waited. I told Mom that it’s just a car, and that as long as she was ok, it didn’t really matter. It was also the reason why I didn’t remember her being around when Survivor was on TV while I was in the hospital. But like I said, I didn’t actually remember much about my hospital stay.

On Tuesday, we moved into having green peppers in my eggs. Yes, green peppers! You can kinda see a common theme here. Chris and Line (pronounced Lee-nah) from Denmark came by to visit. They gave me a bear, which I added to the bunny Claire gave me, a bear that came from a mysterious person with the initials T. C. (who I later found to be an internet friend, not an internet person who chased me down), another bunny from my coworkers, and my own bear, Stuffed, which I brought along. Chris and Line had also attended V-Day, and Chris was up to have a consult with Dr. O as well that week. She was making the West Coast rounds.

Wednesday was Wilma Jean’s FFS, and although she tried to give a cold exterior appearance, she was a scared little girl inside. She tossed and turned all night, and she had her music going a little loud such that I could hear it. I took my pain pills and got a few hours of sleep, and figured it was better for her to try to be comfortable than have me worry about losing that much sleep. I had all of Wednesday to catch up. The alarm went off at 4 something, and we had her on her way by 5:10am to the hospital. I think she said that she slept about 20 minutes during the whole night.

On Wednesday, guess what? I had eggs with green peppers again! They rocked. Seriously. I was also supposed to go home that day, but, earlier, when I found that the nose cast wouldn’t come off until Thursday, I asked if there was room for me to stay an extra night so I could just travel from the Cocoon House up to the hospital instead of having to go all the way home. Yep, they squeezed me in, but I moved beds to the back room with Tyler who came in Tuesday.

Claire, Chris, and Line visited again on Wednesday, and we spent an hour that night watching the 48 Hours Investigates program on CBS. 48 Hours had actually called Mira/Dr. O about doing a segment in early December, and they’d asked Claire since she fell in that time period if she was interested in being on the show. Claire turned them down, but that entire night I kept telling Claire, “Hey, you could’ve been on the show this very night.” They never found someone for that segment, but they had 3 segments total. One was on Jennifer Boylan with her book “She’s Not There”. I still don’t understand why she came up with that title, because if “she” isn’t there, then who is? I guess I’d have to read the book to understand the title, but Susan says it’s just like any other sappy TS/wife transition story.

The second segment was the best, as they followed a young female to male transsexual. He was 11, and oh so brave. So was his mom. Wow. To come to realize who you are at such an early age, and to have supportive family, is just incredible. The reporter asked him, “Why do you want to be a man?” God, I hate it when they do that. ‘Straights’ just don’t understand that it’s not that we want to be a man or a woman, it’s that our brain says that it is. I’d turn the question on them and ask them why they want to be a man or a woman and have them respond with, “I am,” then have them ask me again. How would I answer? “I am,” just like they did.

The third segment had a wacky fast tracker. They had her doing all of the girlie things, with one etiquette lady telling her, “This is how women eat.” Oh bull shit. You can eat any way you want. Yeah, it’s polite to eat that way, but it doesn’t make you a woman. We laughed a lot during the last segment, making rash comments along the way. It hurt to laugh though, and even Tyler had to walk out of the room because she was hurting so much from the laughter. Chris and Line said we could have had our own commentary show on the program, which would have been a riot.

There was also a question asked during the program that went something like, “Are you/is she different from the person 5 years ago?” Well, duh! I think we all change over 5 years, don’t we? I mean, are you the same person you were 5 years ago? Sure, TS can change physically quite a bit, but we all grow over time.

On Thursday, I had an appointment with Mira to have my nose cast and splints removed, along with the staples that were in the incision through my hair on the sides of my head. That incision ran about an inch above my ears all the way across my forehead. Yes, the staples hurt being pulled out. Yes, the nose cast hurt when she was taking it off. Yes, the removal of the splints inside my nose hurt. But hey, they had to come off at some point...and they didn’t hurt that bad. After that, I went back over to the Cocoon House and had lunch. This time I had eggs with green peppers again!

Wilma Jean and Michelle were both discharged after my appointment, and I saw them at the house later. Unfortunately, Thursday was my last day at the Cocoon House. After lunch and a power nap, I cried as I said my good bye’s, especially to Tricia (but Mary-Lou was at work). I had really interesting conversations with both Mary-Lou and Tricia during my stay at Cocoon. They made me feel overwhelmingly comfortable there. I respected them incredibly for their energy and essence. I had finished up my entry in ‘da book’, started nearly 2 years ago at the Cocoon House. I also wrote a poem, entitled “I Forgot I Had A Nose”, in the book, and will leave to only those that take their journey along the same footsteps I took. So, with hugs and tears, I said good-bye to my stay at the Cocoon House.

OK, I’m tired...off to bed again.