Hey all, thought I'd start a new post (link to old thread below) to detail my experiences as there really hasn't been much recently on these boards for Haugrud.
First off, I'm 29 yrs old, 5' 10", 155lbs.. not fat but not ripped either. Suffered with this since I was 15. Have even been down as low as 135lbs when in incredible shape but the gyne was always still there. So....
Called the office early 2009 to book a consult... I was quite surprised when they said the earliest available would be October 2009.. but I booked it and went along with my life. Consult came up and I went and sat in the waiting room with some ladies who looked like they were having or just had the exact opposite procedure haha. Haugrud is a super nice guy.. very approachable, reasonable, I had a good feeling about him and had no real hesitations about him doing the work. He was realistic in what he said to expect. He typically does gland excision only and uses drains. After my 20 minute talk with him I decided to go ahead and at least say yes to the surgery at that point knowing there was another 8-10 month waitlist for a surgery date after that. My name went on the main list,and also a short call list in the event anything came up sooner.
I got a call in March for the shortlist, but the timing didn't work for me so I was unable to take it. Then late June I got the call that my surgery date would be August 17, 2010. I had about a month to figure out if I could swing getting some time off work etc. Some how it all magically fell into place and I managed to get myself 3 weeks off of work (Haugrud suggested 2 weeks at a minimum).
Surgery day arrived, and I showed up at Rockyview Hospital at 6am for my 740am surgery. Great friendly people there, I can't stress that enough.. they really made my stay at the hospital feel like less of a hospital stay.. I hate hospitals. Got checked in... then into a gown.. waited around to have some questions asked.. including a very very nervous med student who came to say hello and that she'd be in the operating room as well.. poor girl.. she appeared far more anxious than me. 7am rolled around and I got wheeled into the next room waiting for the operating room to be prepped. I had some more questions asked and Haugrud then came to chat with me a little and make some markings on my chest. Explained what was going to happen. Then I got an IV for the general anesthetic and was taken into the operating room. Super cold in there.. moved onto the tiny operating table.. they doped me up with some relaxing drugs as things got ready to go and then it was go time and boom, I was out.
Woke up in the recovery room 1hr 15mins later with some nurses talking to me nonstop.. they asked my pain level then blasted me with some morphine.. that was good stuff. I had a bit of extra bleeding out of my drain tube under my right armpit, they just applied some pressure and some new bandages then I got wheeled back to the main day surgery area to recovery fully. However, it wasn't long before I felt something weird in my left chest and then a lot of pressure.. I called a nurse and she came up and immediately asked for someone to page Haugrud.. I was pretty loopy still at this point and really didn't have much cares in the world. Haugrud showed up right away and yup, my left side was filling with blood, I needed to go back under to have it removed and stop the bleeder, but they couldn't do it just yet so they wrapped me tight in a tensor bandage and I just hung out. Was still pretty out of it when I got wheeled back into the operating room for round #2. I think I was only operated on for a quick 8 minutes to remove 250cc of blood out of my left chest and back into recovery I went.
Well I was right screwed up by all the drugs and so they said they wanted to keep me overnight.. I had no objections to that as I wasn't sure what I was feeling but it certainly wasn't great. A fairly uneventful night, just about passed out when I got up to go to the washroom, I was very weak. The nursing staff was simply amazing.. nothing but respect for these people, they really made the stay that much easier. Next morning I saw Haugrud again.. he said I was going to bruise and swell quite a bit more as a result of that extra bleed and I had already swollen quite a bit. I got the all clear to go home and so here I am.
It's now 4 days post op. Never had to take any of the prescribed T3's or Percocet's.. pain has been nearly nothing.
I took off the tensor and main bandages on day 2 post op and had a look.. Holy swollen batman, and bruised pretty good too. Hard to tell main results, but I'm missing some gyne so I'm happy about that.. I know it will be a long process and am hopeful the results will stick, can't wait for the swelling to go down as my upper chest ballooned out quite a lot on top of the tensor bandage and is taking some time to reduce in size so hard to get a good feel for how things will look.
The drains are annoying and need to be emptied a couple times a day.. they have decreased a lot in what's being put out.. I get to have them out on Monday (day 6) when I go back to see Haugrud in his office. I have a compression vest as well that I will start wearing after that, but am a little concerned that there will be some discomfort as the vest might rest quite close to where the drain points were (under the armpits).
So far I'm very happy I went through with this. I'll be happy with just a slight reduction in the moob appearance and to be able to wear a tshirt freely will be all worth it. Fingers crossed things work out well over the next few months. Best of all, everything was covered under Alberta healthcare so I never paid a dime out of pocket... just had to wait nearly 2 years to get it all done.. but as others have said.. we've typically had this condition for a while so a little bit of a wait wasn't too much of a hardship for me. I only ever told one of my closest friends about this and pretty much kept it secret from everyone else. Be interesting to see if I can keep it going.. was quite hard to avoid my roomate all this week.. thankfully he works lots and just thinks I've been ill lately.
I know I just wrote a novel there, and will continue to update... I have taken some pictures and will likely post them up in the near future as I get a couple weeks at least worth of shots. Feel free to ask questions or comment.
Feels great to be on the "other side".
SeeSaw
link to previous thread:
http://www.gynecomastia.org/smf/index.php?topic=20595.0