During this story I have agreat deal of very long, run-on sentences, with a lot of commas, sorry in advance, that's how I write, also I am sleep deprived. I really want to clean up this article at a later date, but I am a very lazy, bad person.
Disclaimer: Chet's practices and protocols change over time, just because I had a certain procedure to go through does not mean you will have the same procedure in the same manner, just because I hadWIFI in the hospital does not mean you will, just because I sipped the SWIFF laxative like a moron does not mean you will (hopefully), all Information provided is as-is, and your milage may vary.
Well this was a while ago, October 23rd 2550(2007) I had my sexual reassignment in Bangkok with Chettawut, I had thought of and planned on writing a journal during my trip, and if I had done such a thing, I could have added things like a time line. But I never really felt like keeping a journal during the ordeal, I imagine with my mindset at the time such a journal would be pretty awful, along the lines of "Today I saw chunks of bloody flesh in my catheter tube", "Today I saw air bubbles in My IV, so i flicked the IV tube periodically and looked up 'air bubbles in IV' on google on my Internet tablet and discovered that some air bubbles are normal and acceptable", not exactly something people want to hear, moving on then.
I arrived in Bangkok ~20th of October, I was lucky enough to make the trip with my SO, and realized how hard the ordeal would have been without him, not to say it was awful, Chettawut and his staff are truly excellent at what they do, and make every accommodation they can to make you comfortable. But with the going off the hormones, the traveling to a strange foreign country, the surgery, the sometimes painful recovery, the not speaking the local language, you really want to bring SOMEONE with you with 1. a familiar face, and 2. speaks the same language you do fluently, whatever your relation with them may be, friend, SO, whatever, as long as they are not squeamish and are willing to do a lot of errands for you, and don't mind seeing you naked sometimes. You really need a high fortitude modifier if you want to go it alone.
"Hey long-time acquaintance and/or friend, how would you like a free trip to Thailand! The only catch is that you will be doing a lot of errands while I have a sex change and providing morale support."
We checked into the hotel Baan Siri Rama place, I forget which floor it was (9th?), but most of Chet's patients are located on one floor, it's like the trans floor of the hotel, which turned out to be a good thing, you will at least have people to talk to at dinner and meals and such, people to answer your questions and such.
The hotel is cheap by American standards, 800 baht/day (about 24 dollars), the hotel was in my opinion very comfortable, naturally it's an aging building and snobs will find something to complain about, but they provide a great value, smoking is allowed in the rooms and on the outside stairwells but not in the hallways, you can open the windows with a key, we had to call the front desk to unlock our windows for us, be careful not to fall out, there is no screen or guard rail on the windows..
The hotel food is more expensive than what you can get on the streets generally, but they have a great restaurant environment, which usually has other Chet patients in it, and you can get a nice meal for about 100baht which was about 3 dollars at the exchange rate in 2007, Singha, my favorite beer, is available.
The hotel has computers in the lobby, you can go on the computers at the absurd price of 100baht an hour, I was content to pick up wifi from the (9th?) floor of the hotel, but the wifi reception was sketchy, so I sometimes broke down and used the computers in the lobby to email friends and family.
As noted on other reviews of chettawut, in the baan siri rama, if you are white, and you are female, you are 99.9% a chet patient, there is no stealth in this hotel, so relax, recover, you are Chet's patient, they know it, do not be embarrassed to bring your dough-nut butt pillow into the restaurant to sit on, I wasn't.
I had ONE full day to see the sights of Bangkok, We were able to go to the MBK mall and get my SO a cellphone and cellphone plan (pretty cheap too), we figured we'd only need one because I'd usually be in bed next to either a hospital phone or a hotel phone anyways. We also met up with a friend who lives in Thailand and teaches English to schoolchildren, he took us to the park and a Field where there was a kite festival going on.
The day I had my consultation (21st?) they did an examination, I got naked and sat on the medical table thing and they took pictures of the area to be worked on (the crotch), when they were finished they asked me to get dressed and I sat down to talk about the procedure with Dr. Chet, he will explain the procedure to you in more detail, and will give you a bag full of supplies among those supplies SWIFF LAXATIVE, this is the most horrid thing known to man, but it has to be done. (It was lost in translation that I was supposed to drink all the laxative at once, I ended up sipping it, DO NOT sip it, down it with some OJ or something, DO NOT taste it if you can help it, I can honestly say that Swiff was the worst thing I have ever tasted in my life, so drink it with something with a strong tangy flavor and a thick consistency like OJ, or maybe coat your mouth with olive oil or something because it's godawful.)
Now is also the time (in consultation with Dr. Chet) that you get your dilator set for 100USD if you choose to buy Dr. Chet's dilators (I would recommend it). He will also talk about your preferences with SRS, in that, he will try his best to provide the best in three areas; Appearance, Depth, and Sensation, but in some cases these may be mutually exclusive to a small degree, and in these rare situations he will use your preference. He will also answer any questions you may have.
I decided to pay in advance by wire transfer, so payment for the SRS was not something I had to worry about in Thailand.
After the consultation the driver takes you back to the hotel, and at this point, a check-in time for the hospital should be scheduled,I forgot to mention, that In all these cases, (Drive from airport to hotel, drive from hotel to Chet, drive back, drive from hotel to hospital, drive from hospital to hotel, drive to Chet's office again for final examination, drive back to hotel, drive from hotel to airport again) Chet's driver will take you, transportation is not something you need to worry about for the purposes of SRS, I don't know if the driver expects a tip, but I tipped the driver a few times and they do appreciate it, I would certainly recommend tipping if you are unsure, either way, expect to be treated like royalty, I was certainly capable of opening my own doors, but I did not really have a choice, the driver opened the doors and carried the baggage and was exceedingly polite.
At hotel after SIPPING the Swiff, I spent a great deal of time on the toilet, after you take the swiff, expect to spend a lot of time on the toilet, take your laptop or a book in there, expect explosive diarrhea.
I went in to check in at hospital 23rd of October, it was the King's father's birthday, the receptionists were talking to me about how it's a "lucky day", pretty cool. Now would be a good time to tell you that not only is the King well loved by the Thai people, and they would be deeply offended if you said anything disrespectful of the king or the royal family, it's also illegal, just don't do it! You should also not pay any disrespect to any images of the king (including on money! If you drop money in America, many people step on it to keep it from blowing away, do not do such a thing in Thailand, Our American friend in Thailand got scolded by an old lady for putting Thai money in his shoes when he was at the beach.)
Moving on, OK, I checked in, the hospital was a very good, modern hospital, much better than I could afford in the states, it has private hospital rooms, with bathroom, couch, TV, fridge (not that you'll be using any of those things during your stay, except for the TV of course!) we were able to check out of the hotel, and my SO was able to camp on the couch in the hotel room for a week. The room had it's own climate control which has a remote so you can keep a comfortable temperature, fan speed, and humidity, Very nice! YMMV, but I was able to get Unlocked WIFI in the hospital room, which I took full advantage of.
So I was checked in, went to get my blood-work done, and waited a while, and was then escorted up to my hospital room, where I waited some more, it was crazy, sitting on the hospital bed, in hospital clothes, staring at the clock, seeing that SRS would happen in 3 hours or less, a lot of emotions, like fear, excitement, panic, anxiety, happiness, etc, now is where your travel companion comes in handy, someone to talk to during this period.
The nurses came in to shave the area, (which was already shaved, but whatever) whenever the nurses came to do something, they came in a pack, there is anywhere between 3-9 nurses in your room at once, they work almost as a collective hive mind.
23rd 3-5pm'ish:
Was carted away to operating room.
Operating room is cold, I was shivering, the anesthesiologist is very nice guy, and has a soothing, sexy voice. I was given drugs and faded out, it was trippy.
24th 3am'ish:
I woke up in a room, if the surgery goes past a certain time it is standard practice to keep you in the operating room for observation, this was a little dark room off the operating room or something, not completely sure, I was really drugged up, my memories of this time are hazy, I vomited a lot, some people have reactions to the anesthetic. Apparently I called for my SO, and I saw him, but I forgot and waited the time till I could go back to my room, I think I stayed in this room until the late morning or early noon.
24th sometime, I was carted back to my room,
For the next 7 days I spent entirely in bed, as immobile as possible, there were drain tubes coming out of my crotch which was bandaged up, also catheter, IV, a needle in my back, etc, standard stuff.
Those 7 days are tough, I have chronic back pain and to spend 7 days on my back in bed with a needle in my spine was pretty awful, but it can't be helped, and the nurses were very attentive, and came at the touch of the call button (usually within 30 seconds), and there was an ample supply of free drugs to keep things interesting.
I bonded with the television, my Nokia Internet Tablet, and the power to change the weather in my room like a god.
Every 1-2 hours a nurse came in to change my ice pack, the hilarity at the number of nurses that do this led to a joke that was shared among friends.
How many Thai nurses does it take to change an Ice pack?
Seven;
One to remove the old ice pack from the sleeve
One to put the old icepack in the freezer
One to take the new icepack out of the freezer
One to put the new icepack into the sleeve, and place it down.
Three to stand in the corner and smile at you
All with a hive mind-like grace.
Every day I was offered the chance to get a sponge bath, these were not fun at all, many Thai nurses(5-7) come and strip you naked, scrub you with sponges, turn you on your side (Painful!), and make you cold. But without sponge bath you will get itchy and life will be miserable, also the nurses do it quick, like taking of a band-aid, so you can get all the pain over with, it will aeso get easier as you heal more and learn the routine.
You will be on an all liquids diet the days prior to, and several days after SRS, your diet will gradually contain more and more solid-ish food, they do not want to give you too many solids because that means you have to poop, and you are supposed to remain as immobile as possible for 6-7 days.
I was eventually checked out of the hospital, Chet had visited me once before, and again when I was checked out, they removed the bandages, packing, and drain tubes (weird feeling), most people would have their catheter removed now, but I was to keep it in for another week. Chet explained that my skin was especially thin (e.g. I was on HRT since age 15) and removing the catheter too early could cause complications.
I was taken back to hotel, driver was especially smooth driving.
I recovered the rest of the way in hotel for two weeks, after the first week I got catheter removed, it was awesome, but I had to use bathroom a lot at first. We ordered a lot of room service at first, but eventually I started going downstairs with my SO for meals, it was great to chat with other Chet patients over meals, I met many interesting people, it was certainly a sad day to leave!
For two weeks I was visited in the hotel every day by a nurse (excluding Sundays), I began dilating, the first several dilating sessions the nurse supervised the dilation and/or took part in it, after the nurse is comfortable you won't impale yourself or dilate poorly (it's a delicate balance) you will begin dilating unsupervised. They will also keep you hooked up with the drugs if you need them.
I had no working laptop for the trip so I packed my desktop computer, keyboard, mouse, and LCD monitor, as well as 200GB of movies and anime and music and shows to stay sane. I also watched Takeshi's castle translated to Thai on television, and a lot of cartoon network (also available in the hotel, oddly).
I was driven to final checkup about three days before I left Thailand, I was driven to Chet's office, was given all the documents I would need (Medical Certificate, Letter to airlines to give me good bulkhead seats and wheelchair), Receipt, other papers), I was also taken up to examination room where Chet examined the vagina and douched, he said that I must have heeded his advice well (about not walking around unnecessarily and getting plenty of bed rest) as all but a couple stitches were still in place.
My last night in Bangkok I opened the hotel windows and let the smoggy air in, the smog gets pretty bad in the early night/late afternoon time, it snowed,... ash, it was actually quite pretty. It was very odd thought to leave this place after I had lived there for three weeks.
I was very pleased with my experience with Dr. Chet and his staff, he is probably one of the best SRS surgeons for MTFs in the world, it's generally accepted that American SRS is generally inferior to some of the Thai surgeons around, it was also a lower price than in the states, at 7500$. Even with airfare for two, food, hotel, and other expenses, it was less than half the price I would have paid in the states, and far better level of care too, the level of care was excellent, I was completely confident in Chet's and his staff's level of knowledge and experience. I ended up with a vagina that has about 5 inches of depth, looks good, and is orgasmic, I am very pleased with this result. I would recommend Dr. Chet to anyone seeking MTF SRS.
