There were plenty on things about Gender Affirming Surgery (GAS, also known as SRS) that I wasn’t warned about, now most of them varied between being minor annoyances to strong inconveniences but one thing I really wish I was informed about was the post surgery migraine. 

I cant understate this enough, Holy Hannah that migraine was from another dimension altogether. Now, I’ve had the displeasure of experiencing migraines on a regular basis ever since i started HRT, typically they were of the variety where if you were to go crawl into a dark hole, you could emerge relatively unscathed a day or two later. But this one, this one was the mother of all Migraines, it was like your head was in a vice that kept getting tighter and tighter with every breath. I remember at one point I even tried to only take shallow breaths because the act of breathing was apparently the biggest insult imaginable to the blood vessels in my brain, needless to say, this strategy was hopelessly ineffective. 

For 10 days I laid in the hospital bed recovering from my “outie” being turned into an “innie”. Unfortunately for me, due to all the medications I was on, none of the doctors or nurses were able to give me any medication for the one tonne weight squeezing my skull into oblivion, fortunately however with all the pain in my head, I barely even noticed any pain ‘downstairs’ so lucky me? I think? 

After about a week or so I was given the all clear to begin eating non- hospital food, which to be honest, I wasn’t eating much of anyways, except for the Jello, I’ll always have a soft place in my heart for red kind (is it cherry? Is it strawberry? Who knows, to me it just tastes like red). To celebrate my new found dietary freedom, I ordered a pizza and coke and got it delivered directly to the hospital, it was a little awkward for the delivery driver though, I don’t think he had ever met someone in a drafty hospital gown, attached to IV’s in the dead of winter still dripping blood into the snow before, poor guy. The pizza was delicious but the holy grail for me was the coke, my tried and true migraine remedy recommended to me by a friend with a PhD in medical science, something about the caffeine and sugar combination dilating the blood vessels made it my savior. Within minutes of downing it, I began to spring back to life, like one of my houseplants who I’d often forget to water for weeks, I now felt unstoppable (not literally though, I waddled like a duck for weeks post surgery, it was comically bad, seriously, a turtle could have beat me in a race).

In case the post GAS migraine is something you’re now concerned about, don’t be. Most of the people around me who also got SRS had a bad headache at worst and theirs all dissipated within a day or two, my brain just wanted to be a drama queen. Whatever your experience may be, I wish you all the luck in your trans journey. 

Till next time,

Kylie