Hi Everyone!  It's Xmas, 2001. I had a really great Christmas morning with my ex and the kids all staying Christmas Eve night and all being here Xmas AM to open presents.  It was great! But that is not what this section is going to be all about! But, regardless, Happy Holiday's to each and every one of you.

This Section is all about what I did BEFORE  Christmas this year. And that was to head on up to San Francisco, California. Yes, Baghdad By the Bay, San Fran, "The City."  (Do NOT call it Frisco. Them's fightin' words!)  Oh! And how about those Niners!

On December 13th I had a 10 hour operation on my face performed by Doctor Douglas K. Ousterhout, M.D.. D.D.S.   The good Dr. Ousterhout is a leading specialist in what is call Facial Feminizing Surgery (FFS).  In those 10 hours Dr. O did the following:

Shave down my adam's apple;
Reshaped my forehead, taking about 7 MM of bone off of it;
Shortened my upper lip by 5 mm;
Took 3 mm off the right side and 5 mm off the left side of my chin;
Shaved down my jaw on both sides of my face to sharpen the angle and make it less square;
Performed a rhinoplasty to narrow the tip of my nose and move my nose farther back into my face.

Dr. O's own brochure can be found at:  http://www.drbecky.com/dko.html .

For anyone wanting to know more on Dr. Ousterhout and FFS please check out the following link to Dr. Becky
Allison's page or to Madeleine William's surgery pages.

What follows below is some of the pictures from my own experience.  These pictures are NOT pretty. This section is not yet totally  complete as I only finished my surgery 15 days ago.  As of writing this I still have some discomfort, lot's of swelling. And more than that some of the pictures show me in less than a glowing light.  I am  well, follicle-ly challenged and have to wear a hairpiece. And no amount of hair transplants will help so what you see is who I am. Just be aware.

PRE SURGERY - Here are some of the pics from the night  before and just going into surgery. 12/12/01 and early 12/13/01.

And this one is of Mandi and I after dinner!
 

This one is me at 5:30 AM waiting for the elevator at the SF Marriott. I guess I thought I was going to read the paper during surgery.
 
 

Here I am all brave and waving!  They are just about to wheel me into the prep room to have the IV's put in. I told Dr. Ousterhout and the anesthesiologist a joke before the put me under. (It's tradition! See my Bio section called "the Rain Song")

Post Surgery - 12/13/01 -

Here I am just waking up after surgery. I think the earrings are a real fashion statement don't you?  The earrings you see are part of the drainage system from my jaw area.  I had a tube in each side of my jaw, under the tissue, which drained out fluids.  This was taken about 7:30 PM on the 15th.  I had probably been out of surgery about, oh, and hour or two here.   Mandi was waiting, bear in hand for me to be brought to my room and to wake up. The first thing I made her do was to take this picture!

12/14/01

Here I am the morning of the 14th. I am looking much more awake.  The pain wasn't bad courtesy of the little plunger that the good Doctor gave me for whenever I didn't feel quite right. ;-)  Notice the really cute and cuddly bear that Amanda gave me. It was so special and it helped me rest many a night. (XOXO Mandi!)

12/15/01

In this picture you can see me getting ready to head out of the hospital to the Cocoon House. My earrings are gone! Yeah!  You can see the swelling more fully here.  And at the top of my head you can see a nice red line.  That is where the stitches and staples were for my forehead.
 

As I was trying to leave the hospital we realized that Amanda, bless her heart, had  accidentally taken my purse back to So Cal and my clothes that I was to wear out of the hospital were waiting for me. Unfortunately they were at the Cocoon House! So Mira, Dr. Ousterhout's Gal Friday, had to take me in robes and a blanket to the Cocoon House .  (Thanks Mira!) Mandi Fed Ex'ed my purse up later in the week BTW.

My bed at the Cocoon House. This was late in the week I was there just before going home so the inclined rest has been removed since I didn't have to sleep at an angle anymore.

Rather than reinvent the wheel I am attaching a link to Lynn Conway's page where she describes the Cocoon House. This is a GREAT place to stay and recuperate after having surgery with Dr. O.  I highly recommend it.  Tricia and Mary-Lou are two extra special people and I think the world of them.  Please do stay there . I know I will be again if I have my face lift with Dr. Ousterhout in April. And I am really looking forward to being there again.

12/15/01 -  Afternoon

Here I am resting comfortably in the warmth of the Cocoon House. Mandi had left my clothes before she headed back to Huntington Beach and our place down there.  It was heaven to get out of the hospital gown and into my flannel PJs. I lived in them. more or less, for a couple of days.  You can really see the remaining bandages on my chin and nose here.  And I really feel naked without my hair. Sigh. I could wear my glasses because of the cast on my nose. Later on after the cast is removed you can't wear your glasses without this weird device that keeps them off your nose.  Your cartilage is so soft that even wearing glasses could mess up the good Doctor's work.  My face still looks plenty swollen doesn't it?  And worst of all I still had all this packing up my nose. No fun what-so-ever.  Try holding your nose closed with your fingers and swallowing. No fun is it? Well that is what my nose was like for 6 days.

12/18/01 - Good-bye Nose Packing!

Here I am at Dr. Ousterhout's office waiting to have my packing taken out.  You can see the bruising in my trachea area in this picture. Eventually my skin turned that sickly yellow green color all the way down to between my breasts.

And here I am with my packing taken out and my chin bandage gone.  What a trial that was. Getting the packing out that is.  When it was removed it seemed like my nose would never ever stop bleeding. Mira had to repack it about 5 times and at one point waited for about 30 minutes with this packing treated with some substance to stop the bleeding sit in my nose. After I got back to the Cocoon House and Mira had headed back to the office the bleeding started again.  Mira had me just try and get some rest with my head tilted back and a ice pack underneath my neck and the bleeding eventually stopped and I even got some sleep.

You can really see how 'chubby' my cheeks seem. Most of this, but not all unfortunately, was swelling from my surgery.  It will slowly go down over time.

12/19/01

You can see in this picture how discolored the area is around my eyes and how swollen under my jaw I was.  My lips were very chapped and feeling rough despite all the lip treatment I could get on them.  That really red area under my nose is where the tissue was taken from my upper lip.  The incision actually went into my nose. Very weird feeling.  I'm not sure you can really detect the change to my forehead in this picture but it really looks different from the pre surgery look.  You can also see where Dr. Ousterhout  made the incision for my trachea. It looks like I have two chins here. Can't wait for the face lift and getting rid of all that.
 
 

Well, this isn't a very flattering set of four pictures but you can see how my face looked from several different perspectives. Both straight on,  the sides and above..  You can see how much smaller my chin is now despite the swelling to the jaw. And look how raw the area under my nose appears.  In the last one without my hair you can see how well the incision on my scalp for my forehead work was healing.  There were still staples closing the incision on the sides but no longer on top. They were removed when my packing came out.

12/20/01

In these three pictures you see me just before the final staples were removed and the nose cast was taken off on the left. I have my contacts in in the second picture which is with Mira.  I actually think looked better with the nose cast because you can really see how swollen and bruised I was in the right hand picture.  And really see the blood in the outer corner of my right eye in the bottom picture.  I had my "Going Home Soon" makeup on in the bottom one. Even still I look really swollen.  Enough to scare small children.  <lol>  But doesn't my face look feminine and different here? Except for the swollen, chin, lips, nose, eyes, sigh......

12/21/01 - Time to go home!
 

Well, now it is time to bid a fond farewell to Mary-Lou and Tricia. Gracious hosts they were and someone I plan to keep in touch with and see again even if just for dinner sometime soon. If you are going to do surgery with Dr. Ousterhout I highly recommend staying at the Cocoon House!

This a picture from two weeks after surgery.  The swelling is slowly going away.  You can still see some bruising under my eyes, my trachea scar still looks red and my poor nose. Sigh. But my face is undeniably feminine don't you think? Even if still a bit scary. It is strange how unsymetrical the swelling isn't it.  Note the way one eyebrow is slightly higher than the other.  Eventually they both will settle down and I will be able to get them properly shaped for my face. I sure am going to need that face lift though.
 

01/01/02 - New Year's Eve -  Just after midnight

Here I am on New Year's Eve. Mandi and I had gone out to a late dinner and they had handed out party favors hence the weird glow thinly on my head.  You can see the swelling and bruising that are still in my eye area and my chin and jaw area.  Forehead is looking pretty good now and the scar under my nose is much less raw and red than it was. Still this is going to be a long healing process, no doubt about it!   That one bruise under my left eye just never seems like it is going to go away. And I still have blood in my eyes.

As far as pain and discomfort goes I am doing pretty well. I have had a couple of sleepless nights but Tylenol seems to help. I am planning on picking up some Tylenol PM to try and help with the sleeplessness.

The pain seems to be worse when I try to go do to much. OR do a lot of talking or chewing. Any discomfort seems to be only in my temple area (It is sort of like I am wearing someone else's head sometimes. Weird.), the bridge of my nose, and along my jaw. Once in a while I get some discomfort in the area right under my nose where Dr. O made the incision to pull my nose up.

Still the absolutely worse thing is not being able to blow my nose for at least another month. That  is really no fun. I am going through about 30 Q-tips a day keeping my nose clean. (Carefully mind you!)

It has now been a little over 5 weeks since the surgery.  I wish I could say that all the swelling is gone, I have lost 30 pounds and I also won the California State Lottery.  butt can't. <lol>  But what I can do is give you a picture from January 19th, 2002 that Amanda took.

The swelling around my jaw and chin is going down a little bit at a time.  And my teeth hurt like you wouldn't believe.  Especially at night.  You can still see the scar on my throat from the trachea shave.  But look how nice my  forehead and nose look. Sure wish I could blow my nose and wear my glasses but that is still another couple weeks away.  Sigh.  But at least I have gotten the go ahead to start exercising a little bit. That will help!

One thing that I have to keep remembering is what Dr. Ousterhout told me. And that is "You are going to look a lot worse before you look better.  It will take a face lift to finish the job."  Bumper.

Well, here on am the day before Valentine's Day 2002.  You can see from his picture that a lot of the swelling is gone but there is still some in my jaw area.  Also, notice how you can see my chin now.  Before I was way too swollen!

10/16/02

This was taken on board the cruise ship during our cruise to Mexico!   As you can see my face has shaped up nicely. All that is left for me to do is get the facelift that Dr Ousterhout said I would need.  This is because of all the bone he took out of my face.  That will be coming sometime in 2003!