Jen’s Post Op Day One at Greenbaum

Jen’s Post Op Day One at Greenbaum
October 13, 2005

I was semi awake when the nurse came into Jen’s room to take her vitals, remove the catheter. When I asked Jen about this later in the morning, she told me it was rather uneventful. I finally got up at a bit past 8:00 AM and did my usual morning routine. I slept amazingly well that night. Jen’s Breakfast arrived and we sat together to chat while during breakfast. Jen was still tired from yesterday’s events. It was shortly after Breakfast the I got a look at Jen’s revised vag, it looked like raw hamburger on the edges of the labia, the clitoris is coved by hooding and sill quite swollen. Pretty similar to just about every other newly post-op Dr. Meltzer labiaplasty I have ever seen. Jen also told me there is a lot more pain involved than the vag which is consistent with the others who have had this procedure. Jen was still tired from the stress of surgery and went back to sleep shortly after our morning events.

I started to think about my conversation with Debbie and all the events that has happened to her over the past few months. She nearly died from being shot with a gun in the hand of her ex, Charles. Today, she is thankful for each morning she awakes and has another chance to enjoy life, spend time with those who she loves and loves her. There are many mornings I wake up thinking and feeling the same way. We are lucky to be where we are today and have the ability to enjoy what life has to offer for another day. I think about how lucky Jen and I to be able to share life the way we do and how much our lives can change with a few fleeting moments of our lives. Yes, something could have gone wrong during Jen’s surgery and I’m thankful that all went well.

Today is also check out day for Jen and I spent some of the time when Jen as sleeping to get things packed and ready for us to leave. Every time we do this serves as a reminder to pack as little as possible and anything extra makes the process more difficult. Once the packing was done, I went off to visit a few of the other Meltzer patients to see how they are doing. One of Dr. Meltzer’s patients I met yesterday night told me that she came to Scottsdale with her friend who became Jealous of how well her surgery went after suffering from various problems during her surgical recovery in Thailand.

She told me that what happened has been very stressful on their friendship as she felt abandoned by her friend who said show would be there for her during her surgery with Dr. Meltzer. We chatted for a while about our lives today and in the past. I was surprised to learn that she read my blog before her surgery date and it helped her anticipate her days of recovery. The other Meltzer patient I met on that day was post-op day 6 and just had her grand opening. All went well so far. She told me that due to the lack of pre-op material, Dr. Meltzer had to build the vaginal lining from skin grafts. Every other surgeon she consulted with told her that she did not have adequate material to create a functional vagina except Dr. Meltzer. She was surprised to fine adequate vaginal size during dilation. We also shared our life experiences during our time together. All these visits with other patients reminded me of many memories from my time at Greenbaum back in February 2005. There were a number of questions my newly post-op friends asked me and I tried to answer them based on my experience. There is comfort in knowing what might happen based on another’s experience. It was rewarding for me to share what being newly post op has been like. I headed back to room# 11 where Jen is staying. By this time, she was a bit more alert and was chatting with Debbie. We all shared memories of those times we had a Greenbaum and more on what’s been going on in her life since that nearly fatal day at home.

Dr. Meltzer strolled in about this time to check on Jen around noon to see how she was doing.
He did a post op exam and all appears well and got Jen scrip for some pain meds. I asked Dr. Meltzer if we are going to be able to spend any time cycling, he told me he has not been feeling well and has not been running or pedaling on the since last week. Not good, the last thing I would like to see is him being sick and needing to cancel any scheduled surgeries. I did take the opportunity to finish asking him about the remaining questions I had regarding my scheduled BA. When we were done, he headed off to visit his next patient. I asked Jen about how being post labiaplasty was like. She told me it’s the usual post op feeling of being tired, slight bleeding and discharge from the surgical area and pretty much what we expected. She told me her urine stream now goes straight down and is no longer at an angle towards the rim.

I finished packing our stuff and moved it all down to the car. Jen rang for the nurse to tell them we were ready to check out and Charlotte returned with a wheel chair as we waited in the hall way. The ride back to Holiday Inn was short, but we had to change room due to the noise from the construction going on at the back of the hotel. We moved from room# 245 to room# 323. With keys in hand, we opened the door and got Jen in bed where she took a nap and got some more rest. I told Jen I’m going to head off to Walgreen’s pick up her pain meds and a few other items we needed. It was already 4 PM when we got back to our room and I was hoping that there would be time for me to take a short bike ride since I got the bike assembled on Wednesday night before going out for bike rides with our friend in Scottsdale.

I drove over to Walgreen’s, dropped of the scrip and asked the pharmacist how long it would take for the meds to be ready. The pharmacist told me it should ready in 20 minutes and they would cal me when it’s ready. I headed off to the magazine section to spend the time. 20 minutes passed and the meds were not ready after I asked the pharmacist. She told me the dosage was missing and they had to call Dr. Meltzer’s office to find out the dosage information. How much longer I asked? Dr. Meltzer’s office returned the call quickly and the pharmacist told me the meds should be ready in another 10 to 15 minutes. Jen called me on the cell phone to see if they had a sitz bottle at Walgreen’s and to pick one up if they do. It was one of the little items that was forgotten when check out from Greenbaum. I looked around and did not find one, so I decided to take a short walk over to Greenbaum to get one. Charlotte was still there I arrived and asked her for a sitz bottle. She went to get a sitz bottle, ice bag, spare post op panties and a pad that was service with a smile. One more trip down the elevator and back over to Walgreen’s to see if Jen’s meds were ready.

When I arrived at the pharmacy the meds were still not ready and much to my shock and amazement the folks working in the pharmacy were spending more time chatting among themselves and carrying on than getting the scripts filled. I stood there steaming over this as I have been waiting for over an hour for Jen’s meds. If they simply told me that filling the scripts would take more like an hour rather than 20 minutes or so, I would not have been so pissed off.
Eventually, I did get the meds, but after all that, I called the store manager to complain. Even more surprising was hearing the store manager defending the workers at the pharmacy. This made me more pissed off as I left the store and headed back to our hotel room. I was planning to head out for a short bike ride before the sunset on that day to check out how well the bicycle is working, but it was too late when I finally returned. We spent the evening together with Jen sleeping in bed most of the time.