Checkout of day at the hospital. Surgical TMI….
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First thing, nurse comes in at 6 a.m. to pinch off the catheter, and drink a bottle of water, to make sure I’ve got a full bladder, so that later on they can see whether I can pee without the catheter (otherwise it goes back in for a few more days). Apparently, I passed the test, but still feel like I constantly need to pee. Probably other swelling pressing on the bladder.

7:30 a.m. surgeon comes in a removes the packing from the neo-vagina (put there to keep the wound from closing). Surprising how much came out. Then he walks me through the cleaning routine, which is a bit involved, and I’m sure I’ll forget parts of it. Thankfully the nurses help you through it again at the hotel.

Then it’s dilation time. For the first two weeks it’s the easy “static” dilation where you just insert it and leave it in there for a half-hour. But they use the medium-sized dilator. OMG, it looks huge compared to seeing it in the box. Thankfully I laid back and thought of England, and it wasn’t too difficult to get it in. The dilators have depth markers on them, so I found out how much depth I’ve got — pleased with the results.

Then — finally — I’m able to take a real pee, and a shower. Actually feel sort of human again.

Got everything packed up and ready, and now just have to wait another two hours for the clinic shuttle (they seem to do a noon-time run every day, taking patients to checking, picking-up patients checking out, as well as those going in for pre-op tests).

Really looking forward to being back in the hotel, although I’m sure I’ll get cabin fever there soon enough.