January 22nd, 2008

Ok, my big news - I'm going to have my GRS & breast augmentation on May 21st, 2008 with Dr. Chettawut in Bangkok, Thailand!  I put a lot of research in to various surgeons and techniques, and had my choices down to Dr. Chettawut, and Dr. Suporn, also of Thailand.  If I could wait another year for this, Suporn might have been my choice, but he is more expensive, and I couldn't really verify that he did anything better than Chettawut.  I found that most women who had the surgery will swear by their doctor as the best.  But I did find some differences in these doctors’ described techniques, versus what  other surgeons do, and from what I could tell, these two perform the same technique, so I figured either one was fine.  I also wanted to ensure that there would be other patients around to socialize with & have support from while I was there, and that was also a factor in my decision.  Again, both doctors have hotels for their patients and group them together, and there is a bit of a community for each one of them.  I'm on an email list for each doctor, and people are always talking about getting together, and who will be out there for surgery and when, so I felt comfortable with that.  In fact, I'm going to be sharing a room while I'm out there, with a girl who's having her surgery one week before mine.  I liked having roommates in San Francisco for my FFS, so I'm looking forward to this too!

But it's not as simple as just saying I'm going out.  I have a number of tasks to complete before I can leave, which include getting my passport in, getting letters from my psychologist to support my decision, and making sure I've got my payment in on time.  Each of those tasks involve a few steps along the way and a certain amount of waiting.  So I'm sure my mind will be a bit preoccupied with those issues, but I'll be happy when it's all set.  Once my FFS was done and out of the way, it was such a relief to get it off my mind, and just go on with life.  So once my GRS is over with, I'm looking forward to the summer where my family is having a reunion, and my daughter will be getting married.  

Anyway, I probably will be posting more about how this process is moving along, but my flight is set, and the date is set.  I'm hoping to pick up some Thai phrases before I get there.

Sa wat dee kha!  (This is Thai, for hello, how are you & also used as a farewell.  The 'kha' at the end is used by female speakers, where as males would say khrap instead)