Acidentally Gay

by Lucky Bradley

  In the two minutes it took for me to roll him in the wheelchair to our car, I found he was soaked. He had so many drains sticking out of him from the liposuction that I hadn’t ever anticipated. The purpose is to drain the excess fluid, water, blood, etc., from the swelling and the saline water used to break down the fat for the liposuction. These are free floating drains which meant they didn’t go anywhere except outside of his body. They would leak liquid like a straw sticking out of your body with no receptacle to catch it.

  There was a single funny moment, when I opened the door to the car and Wolsey was coherent enough to notice the stuffed teddy bear in the seat. He broke into the biggest smile and kept asking me questions. Where did the bear come from? What was his name? Why was he there? I explained to him that the bear followed me back to the surgery because the bear wanted to go home with Wolsey. The smile on Wolsey’s face became huge and loving and super-drugged.

  On the drive home, his clothes were soaked, the seat was soaked and he kept mumbling about being wet. I wheeled Wolsey into the house, threw the chucks down on the bed, stacked pillows so he could sit up and then rolled him into bed. I thought I was prepared, but I had no idea what I was in for.

  Nothing the pre-surgery consultation had told me prepared me for what would happen. The first thing I learned was that drains don’t stop draining. That means within 10 minutes of Wolsey lying down, the chuck was totally soaked, the bedding got soaked and I was soaked lying beside him. The fluid is a combination of saline solution and blood, especially the first day or two when there appeared to be a lot of blood.

  The second thing no one told us was that all the saline that they use for liposuction comes out. Some of it through the drains, but the rest of it is absorbed by the body and then it needs to be peed out. This means Wolsey was up every 20-30 minutes to urinate.

  There was no way I was going to let him lay back down in a wet chuck or bedding. It was also at this time I realized the chucks they gave me weren’t going to last a full day, let alone his recovery. I ended up running to the store during one of those 30-minute down times and got several boxes of incontinence pads for the bed.

  I developed a pattern that I would use for the next several days. I would walk or carry Wolsey to the bathroom to pee and then I would clean the blood and fluid off the bed, throw down new chucks, put on clean dry bedding. Then I would escort Wolsey back to bed. Once Wolsey was in bed, I would have to toss the bedding into the wash. For the entire week, the washer and dryer did not stop running. Then I would get Wolsey’s pain medication ready, give it to him along with any liquid or anything else he could stomach.

  Sometime during the night, I would sleep for 15-25 minutes if I got caught up and ended up with only sleeping about a total of two hours a night. I did find a great DIY hack though: if you line the bed with trashcan liners under the chucks, you can save the mattress mostly. You have to then lay new liners with each new chuck, but definitely something that can be done.

  It might sound like a hard week, but this was just the beginning. I was fortunate that by mid-morning the next day Wolsey had gone down to only having to pee every hour or two. The water was finally leaving and he could sleep longer.

  This is when I got the phone call from my mother. My father had gone to the ER again the night before and his lungs were partially failing. They told him that he could no longer remove the positive pressure oxygen mask. He could take it off for short times to eat, or if he needed to talk, but just using the normal nose prongs for oxygen wouldn’t work anymore.

  Evidently he wasn’t having any of that. He told them no way, he wasn’t going to die with a mask. They explained to him that he would die fairly soon if he didn’t. Well, he did what anyone who knew him would expect. He told them to fuck themselves and went down and had a cigarette, then went home. Yes, this was almost a repeat of a few days before.

  The reason my mom was calling me then was because he had gone back into the hospital this morning and was unconscious. He was slowly suffocating due to the lung issues. There was a short debate if my mom would put him on a respirator, but she knew that he didn’t want that.

  Remarkably he had just woken again and scared the nurses. She had called first to tell me what was happening and then asked if I could come up. I looked over at Wolsey who was lying in bed and asked how long dad had? According to the doctors, he could have a week or two, but he may not be conscious after this morning due to lack of oxygen.

  I told her I couldn’t come up. Wolsey was still bleeding, draining and couldn’t even get to the bathroom himself. I couldn’t leave him to drive three hours each way. She said she understood. She then asked if Wolsey was awake and could take a call. I looked in and noticed that he was. He was being very quiet. He had undoubtedly heard me on the phone with my mom.

  I handed the phone to Wolsey and he talked with my dad. My father told Wolsey he knew he was dying, that he loved Wolsey and was proud of him. Wolsey handed me the phone when they were done and my dad talked with me in a similar manner. His voice was still rock solid as he recounted that he would be gone soon.

  I hung up and took care of Wolsey that afternoon. Wolsey was recovering enough that we talked and the next day I would try and take some time to go up and see my dad. Unfortunately, Wolsey wasn’t able to make that kind of trip and it seemed to really bother him. It was as if the worst possible timing for everything was happening right then.

  I got a call a little later from my mother. She explained that she had signed him up for hospice and they sent him back to the apartment with morphine and anxiety drugs to help my Dad’s passing. He was expected to die within the next week.

  It was weird when this happened. I had always assumed I would feel something. My father and mother were always very close with me. I had the most unusual (and in some people’s words brutal) childhood I knew of. My father was the toughest person I had ever met and he was going to die. I just felt numb.

  It was decided I could go up starting the next day. I couldn’t leave Wolsey alone for more than a few hours, so I would go up, check on my mom and get her fed, hold my dad’s hand for two or three hours, then come home. However, even with only spending two to three hours up there, it meant I would be gone for at least six to eight hours.

  I honestly don’t remember much of the drive back and forth between my parents and home. It was cloudy, rainy and a bit cold. The whole thing is still a blur.

  However, one of the few clear things happened the first day I drove up. I got there and it turned out that my dad had been unconscious since the day before. I leaned over him in bed, kissed him on the forehead, and told him that Wolsey and I loved him and were proud of him.

  I held his hand for a moment when all of a sudden his eyes opened up and he stared at me for a second. He grabbed me around the shoulders and lifted himself up to hug me. He repeated twice that he loved me, that he loved Wolsey, and that he was proud of both of us. He was very clear in using the male pronouns for Wolsey and he said he couldn’t have been prouder of the two of us. He wanted me to watch out over Wolsey because surgery was always hard on people and that I needed to keep Wolsey safe. I held my father for a few minutes and he drifted back off. I was stunned my Dad had referred to Wolsey only as a male and was worried about his safety. Those were his final words to me, and while painful, the closure couldn’t have been better.

  Every day for the next eight days I went up to visit my father, but he never woke for me again. I just remember the days blurring together.

  By the time my father passed away, Wolsey was getting better. He was able to help me make arrangements for my father. The drains were done for the most part. He was moving around and taking care of himself. Life was starting to return to normal. I couldn’t stop reassuring Wolsey that he was wonderful and I was proud of him, because it was true. He was super worried he had been down during a time he felt I needed him.

  By the time eight weeks of post-surgery had occurred, Wolsey was doing great, looking fantas
tic and physically moving on. The biggest difference I noticed was his self-esteem. Ever since he had started transition, he was conscious of his body. This was the first time I could remember that he was happy about his looks. He was a gorgeous man and I let him know every chance I could. I was proud not just of his surgery but of the will power it took for him to make it through three years of hormones, denials by insurance, denials by employer and unexpected surgery complications.

  I couldn’t imagine being with anyone else. I was ecstatic that he had picked me and still wanted to be with me. I didn’t realize it, but I had some fear that he would have woken up after the surgery and realized he didn’t want to be here with me. I was happy my fears were unfounded.

  However, with all the things that happened with Wolsey’s surgery, it was the toughest thing I have ever done in my life. Wolsey was worth all of it.

  Wolsey’s Perspective Now:

  It felt like I suddenly found myself over the edge of the year, and into 2016. I had started the process for top surgery with the insurance company early on in 2015 and even though it had felt like forever at the time, I was shocked at how fast it actually went.

  I was anxious to get top surgery because I had large full double D breasts. Not all transgender men like to refer to that part of their body as breasts, but for me, I couldn’t imagine it any other way. They were big and hard to hide.

  Because of this, I had to wear what’s called a binder. It’s basically a super tight garment made of super tight fabric that compresses breast tissue as flat as possible. Binders also compress your ribs and make it hard to breath.

  Before I decided to transition, I hated corsets. After I started my medical transition, I hated binders. I think there is some sort of parallel in how women’s bodies, even when transitioning to male, end up pinched and bound into the right shape.

  I had purchased every kind of binder you could buy and found they were all crap. Underworks was the company that had the best options, and they still stretched out to little more than sports bra tight in six months. I even tried making my own, because I have some experience with making costumes and corsets.

  The truth is, you will never be comfortable if you have to bind 10 pounds of flesh flat to your ribcage. Every time I lifted my arms up, it would rearrange just enough to make me run to the bathroom to pull it back down. Every time I tried to work out, I’d be short of breath because it’s like working out in a corset.

  However, not wearing it was worse because it put me in this space where I got outed as transgender. It was bad enough that every trip through the airport sent TSA agents scurrying to feel me up because of it. Special security concerns found me in spare rooms with scared agents shaking at the thought of checking me.

  When I got my surgery approval letter, I went straight to Dr. Mangubat in the greater Seattle area. I had already researched doctors and I liked what I had read about him. He works actively with the transgender community and does a lot of these masculinizing surgeries.

  What I found shocking was that my insurance company would cover my top surgery almost completely. This meant I had a bit extra money set aside. I decided to get some masculinizing liposuction as well. My hourglass figure wasn’t going to go away no matter how much weight I lost and the doc thought he could do something about it.

  I planned it all out in extreme detail. How many days I had off and when I’d come back to work depended on my planning. My husband had the time off prepared. It was all set to happen.

  What I didn’t count on was my husband’s father going into the ICU the day before surgery. He was a frequent flyer there and this happened several times a year. We had no indication that this was going to be any different than it had ever been.

  We drove up and saw him and he was doing well enough that he walked out of the ICU to get a cigarette and go home.

  So, thinking everything was fine, I showed up for surgery at the appointed time. I wore my zombie boxers for good luck and was nervous, but in good spirits. This would solve a lot of my problems. This, for the first time in my life, would hopefully make me hate my body less.

  The surgery went well, and I have no recollection of going home. I was a nurse for ten years and I’m not sure I would have released a patient as rough as I was. I over-reacted to the anesthetic, and was sick as hell, and so drugged up I could barely complete sentences.

  Even worse, we had not prepared for the aftermath of the liposuction.

  I had worked as a licensed practical nurse before my transition and was fairly well versed in what to expect from my top surgery. The removal of breast tissue, with some shaping and cosmetic artistry to build a masculine chest was well-documented.

  Liposuction? I could not seem to find anything on the healing process and what to expect. I looked, and asked around, but nobody I know does that kind of thing or works in that sector.

  During my pre-op appointment, I tried to ask after the young MA doing my pre-surgical walkthrough mentioned six months of healing time. Six months? I had to be back to work in two weeks!! I was trying to make a decision on whether or not I should go ahead with the lipo, but I felt on some level there were factors pushing me to get it instead of cancelling it. I went from nice patient to “that patient” in five minutes of hard questions asking for concrete answers I never got.

  The surgeon came in and kind of poo poo’d my reticence after the MA went to get him and said there was no problem. I’m kind of masculine and thought if he was saying politely but firmly I was a wuss, then I was probably a wuss. He said he’d had lipo and was back at work in three days.

  As it turns out, our instructions from the MA never prepared us for what to expect. I was so out of it when I came home. I should have probably stayed in recovery overnight. All I know is I had half a dozen open drains leaking out saline and blood from the lipo all over my body. I could barely walk or stand up straight. The handful of waterproof chucks and adult diapers the MA gave me was not enough to deal with the aftermath of becoming a human bloody sprinkler.

  They leave open drains for you to prevent post-surgical complications. This is all under a super tight post-surgical binder. My post-surgical binder was too tight and literally created welts and extra bruising around its edges. I was given a girl’s version with a girl’s body shape. I ended up, when I was more with it, buying a more appropriate garment that wasn’t creating bruises and welts.

  Your body is also trying to get rid of all the saline used to break up your fatty tissue so you have to pee every 15 to 20 minutes, all the while your open drains are constantly draining.

  My husband conferred with my drugged up self and immediately went into crisis mode and hit a store for incontinence pads. Every 20 minutes I needed help standing to get to the bathroom and the entire bed needed changing. Lucky’s brilliances had him working a system where he would get me into the bathroom, on the toilet to pee, then he’d mop up the blood I leaked all the way there, then he’d lay down multiple layers of incontinence pads, then towels. Twenty minutes later we’d start all over.

  The surgery for my chest? Child’s play. It didn’t hurt at all. It was one of the smoothest, best done operations I’d ever had.

  I don’t want you to think I didn’t get good results for the lipo, either. My body no longer has its hourglass figure. I have some fat around my middle, like any middle-aged man, but it’s shaped like a normal man, not a woman. It looks damn good. I’m just laying down what we went through.

  If I had known it was going to be that arduous, I would have had a friend stay with Lucky. My husband didn’t sleep for two days.

  Then, the second day we got the call. Lucky’s father was going into hospice. He was actively dying. I got a call from John, my father-in-law, the same day. He told me he was proud of me and that he knew he was dying. He said he was worried about my surgery. He wanted me to know he loved me and supported me. It was the hardest phone call I have ever had to have.

  The next two weeks saw my husband driving four to six hou
rs a day to get to his parents and back. I was so out of it that I could barely sit or stand by myself. I regret not having a friend come sit with me so he didn’t have to do that. By the time I came back to myself, and was starting to figure out what was happening, John had passed away.

  All my planning for the easiest, best post-surgical experiences? That didn’t work out so well. I’m not sure I can ever think of that time, without thinking of my father-in-law dying, and my own post-lipo human sprinkler experience.

  Despite all that, the surgery went very well. My wounds healed and the swelling from the lipo went down. The surgeon was an artist that sculpted my body. I may be a middle-aged man with a bit of a beer gut, but I am so happy with my body. All the scars, the efforts and pain? It was worth it. I cannot remember there ever being a time I was comfortable with what I looked like. It was never about making me Hollywood beautiful, but about making me whole. Post-surgery, I was finally whole. I owe that to the surgeon who worked on me.

  Despite all the hardships around my surgery, my husband never wavered from telling me, and showing me, how much he loved me. My vestigial fears that he would look at my now flat chest and decide that wasn’t for him, were so completely unfounded.

  During the quiet moments, he would look at my chest and be in awe of how flat it now was. The look in his eyes wasn’t revulsion, but happiness. He was so unfailingly happy for me. He still held my hand, held me and said he loved me.

  I had somehow managed to transition, and come out the other side with my husband of 25 years at my side. If that’s not a blessing, I don’t know what is.

  Chapter Twelve:

  Change in Surgery Plans