Elena’s (bad) story

Will Vladimir Luxuria be waving a flag for me too? Elena’s (bad) story

translation by Daniela Brunelli from the original here. 

My story begun  when I had my “sex restitution” surgery at “San Camillo” hospital in Rome in May 2000.
C.F. was the doctor who operated me: he created a new vagina with a great result.
Unfortunately, by the years the size of the vaginal cavity had reduced; for this reason I have been visited by Dr F. in 2010. He explained me that by taking some tissue from perinea zone, he would have been able to reproduce the depth,  so they put my name on a waiting list.

In November 2012 the hospital contacted me and told me that they would have visited me visit before the day of the intervention. I didn’t find Dr. F. at the visit, but Dr G. He told me he would have operated me and that he would have taken the tissue from my arm.

I came back to Firenze troubled, so I called Dr F. at his private studio to ask for advice. He told me not to be afraid : Dr. M had been an apprentice of him and that he was proficient. Later I founded out that he was both  his apprentice…and his nephew.

After my calling, they must have talk together, because a few days later, Dr. M phones me and told me I would have had my surgery in February.  The 18th of Ferbruary  2013 I had my surgery. It seems to be well done, so Dr M. would like to dismiss me the following day. But I refuse it because I had more than 50 surgical seam stitch in my right arm and my vagina was stitched up, closed with some gauze inside. It wasn’t a good condition to join a journey from Rome to Florence and the disposition of my surgery required five days of hospital stay.
I came back to Firenze one week later, doctors unstitched my vagina and gave to me a gauze support tool to insert into the vaginal cavity during the night.

Three days later, I took the support out and I saw that it was dirty of faeces. Troubled, I called Dr. M. who told me it was a fistula that I caused with the support. I went to Rome for a visit and I was told to feed myself only with liquid food, honey and yogurt until fistula would have closed. They prescribed me no exams.
I didn’t trust this doctor anymore so I contacted Dr. S who worked at the “Monna Tessa” hospital in Florence. He refused to receive me, suggesting me to talk with the doctor who operated me. I had the same answer from other  changing-sex Italian centres: “We don’t deal with others’ made surgeries”

I came back to Rome and they visited me, without any kind of exam. They told me I could have a diet without fibres and that I could go on with my gauze support. I ask my doctor a magnetic resonance to check the fistula situation and after that I had a vaginography with contrast in which we saw that my vaginal cavity was about 11 cm deep and there was the fistula on the top of it. I called Roma and Dr. M jokes me because he thought it was a waste of time. I was told to wait….
I had lost the support: it had moved itself to the abdomen. I felt a stabbing pain, I was afraid of going to the hospital so I removed it with anaesthetic lotions in the end. Since that day I started having copious seepages of faeces from my vagina. I haven’t had the stirring to defecate, I defecated without being aware of it, I was forced to wear adult diapers. It has been two nightmarish months of pain, infections, and nobody cared about me. They finally told me I need a surgery to close the fistula with clips through rectus with local anaesthesia.

At the beginning of May 2013 I went to Rome and instead of the surgery, I had a rectoscopy. Doctor M. inspected the result and he ordered me to go and show it to an expert; in any case he thought that it would have been necessary a total anaesthesia surgery as soon as possible. The next week I have been recovered at “San Camillo” again. I gave my informed consent, they would have decided what to do in the operating room.

When I woke up they told me they had tried to close the fistula with stitches and the result was good. Two days later I noticed I still had seepages from my vagina. So they told me I had to have a deviation intestine surgery because the last surgery hadn’t solved the situation. And more, they told me they had removed the vaginal cavity depth made in February.

I ask for explanation and they told me my vagina was into the rectus and so they had closed me everything. They deviated my intestine. I thought I would have stayed for three days, but I stayed there for about one month without eating, venous feeding only. When  dismissed me, they told me my fistula would have been closed in six months. I asked to see my case history and I saw the result of rectoscopy: my fistula had a diameter of three centimetres. It was impossible closing it with stitches, but in a roundabout way I found out that surgery had been for remove the tissue graft that probably had a necrosis.

They dismissed me and addressed me to Careggi hospital (Firenze) for stomia, medications and visits. I went to Dr T.’s surgical ward, but they only teach me how to change sacs and it was the same story of “we can’t visit other’s surgeries”. After a claim to Urp of Careggi, I had been visited in September. By the time, my vagina was three cm depth and fistula hadn’t closed already.

In the meantime I denounced San Camillo hospital for the terrible wounds and lack of assistance. I have never received a calling in nine months. Nobody wanted to visit me and under the stomia it developed a hernia. I couldn’t go out from home, or look for a job. I lived thanks to my mother, who is retired and collect 600 euros a month. In January I turned to Consigliere M.R. and thanks to his interest on my happening, I finally have been visited by Doctor S. in Florence. He told me they would have took advantages fromthe deviation of intestine for renovating the depth by using a piece of colon and to sort out the intestine situation. But at first he wanted to visit me under anaesthesia.

The 6th of February 2014 they hospitalized me, and after the visit they told me I would have done three surgeries -the first one lasts 6 hours, in which they would have closed this enormous hole by infiltrations, lifting up the muscle that stays between vagina and rectus, fixing it with four screws- the second one is for remove the stomia and during the third one (I didn’t catch what it was for)  they would haven’t worked on vagina, because “colonvaginoplastic” surgery is not a common surgery and in Italy nobody do it. So they would have worked in another way. It was Stomaci who told me about that surgery. I was really frightened, I had undergone three surgeries in 2013 and now have I to undergo three more without reacquire the use of vagina? I am indignant.

I have suffered so much to turn my body into something that can coexist with my innate female identity and now I have to renounce to a sexual and affective life. It’s not fair! I found out that Dr Morelli from Pisa does this surgeries, maybe at the Cisanello hospital. Before having three further surgeries, with my enfeeble body, I would like to be informed on different opinions. Not all the surgeries are available in Italy; according to European laws, we can have this surgeries abroad and take advantage from sanitary compensation, but I don’t know if I can benefit of this advantages.

I am really tired, and also my family and they who love me are frightened and worry. For what deals with medical assistance I have been leaved alone.

Has the life of a transsexual person got such a meagre value in this Country?

 

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Daniela Brunelli 

Originaria della bizantina Ravenna, attualmente frequenta la Facoltà di Lingue, letterature e studi interculturali di Firenze. Entrata a far parte a fine 2012 del GGG* Firenze, gruppo libero ed indipendente, dove raccoglie le informazioni e si fa le ossa per partecipare attivamente alla lotta contro la discriminazione degli orientamenti sessuali, della violenza di genere, a favore della demolizione dei ruoli di genere, della distruzione dell’egemonia del patriarcato, dell’effettiva emancipazione di donne e uomini, che ha sempre avvertito come una necessaria battaglia quotidiana. Ha pensato di combinare la sua passione per le lingue con la condivisione di ideali relativi all’autodeterminazione dell’individuo, al fine di aumentare la diffusione e la fruibilità di idee e documenti tramite la traduzione.