My Boobs Make Me Want to Die. Or, It’s Called Top-Surgery, And I Need…
By: Teresa Kuhl
Tags: LGBT, Relationships, LGBTQ, Love, Transgender

LGBTQ | Transgender | Love

My Boobs Make Me Want to Die

Or, It’s Called Top-Surgery, And I Need It

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

It is a genuinely surreal moment when you go with your female-bodied grandchild to have an elective double mastectomy. And you're excited for it to happen. No cancer or tumors led to this removal of body parts. That would have made perfect sense. This reason, however, was equally fatal.

My grandchild is an FTM (female-to-male) transgender human being. He is an incredibly loving and kind young adult (22) male. I am a born-again Christian with a house full of Bibles. I am a caring and kind Grandma who had no idea how to absorb the news of his true identity. That surgery sure got it through my head. Our lives had changed forever!

Kameron had waited a long time for this day. He came out about his sexual identity when he was just 16, a courageous act, to be sure. He chose to wait until he was 18 to start taking hormones, so no one else had to take responsibility for the decision. Kam waited even longer for the life-changing, body-altering cut of a scalpel. But now, the day was here.

We arrived at the surgery center, a 90-minute drive. At this stage of the day, it was Kam, his dad, and me. Kam’s mom and his aunt arrived close to surgery time, right after work. We were all nervous, except maybe Kameron. If he was anything other than happy this day had come, he didn’t let on.

The doctor spent time with us, explaining just how everything would proceed. We listened and nodded as if it were an appendectomy. I was thrilled for my grandson and, at the same time, keeping a close eye on his mom. My daughter loved her child so deeply, and this step was enormous.

Then we waited.

After surgery, things looked a bit scary. The doctor had put in two drains, one on each side, to release fluid buildup. We took turns looking Kam over and assuring each other that everything was going to be okay. At that moment, with all those excellent drugs from the surgery floating around, Kam was quite literally on the proverbial ninth cloud. Right then, the most frustrating part was that after years of wearing binders to flatten his chest, Kam now needed to keep an ace bandage wrapped tightly around his chest area while he healed. The discomfort was nowhere near over yet. And then we got in the car and headed home.

Kam became immediately nauseous and had a tough time on the ride. It seemed insane to me that this was an OUTPATIENT procedure, and we were on an hour and a half ride home just a couple of hours after major surgery. . And yet, we were. So we rounded up a container for Kam to hold onto in case all that stomach acid came hurling out. We drove to my house. We had made a plan for Kameron to come and stay at my house during his recovery. I was home all day, and he wouldn’t be alone. I was beyond grateful to be the caregiver.

I won’t lie to you. Those first few days were rough going. We soon figured out that the pain medication was too much for his system. We were there in the bathroom, me trying to hold these plastic drains while he puked his guts out. And then he got so dizzy I thought he was going to fall over. When we cut back to a less potent pain med, commonly known as ibuprofen, things improved.

Every day, we needed to empty the drains several times as they filled with bloody fluid. I remember wondering what all this fluid was draining out of his body. Was this normal? A quick phone call to a nurse comforted our fears. Kameron spent what felt like hours looking at the swelling remaining in his chest, so afraid it would stay that way.

And then, his nipple started to fall off.

No kidding!! You see, before the surgeon removes the breasts, he takes off the nipples and replaces them properly at the end of the procedure. (Fun fact — I had never even thought of such a thing!) But there we were, with one nipple hanging kind of sideways.

Through this entire procedure and recovery, I was fascinated by how well this young person handled this surgery. I had wondered if he might feel some loss after his breasts were gone. But no. He didn’t blink until now.

When I watched how devastated he was at the thought of a deformed nipple, I had another of those moments where the hugeness of this whole journey hit me. This person, who I still thought of as a child, truly was a male. And he was tired of people looking at him sideways, trying to figure out “what” he was. He NEEDED to look normal.

I remembered the times he was cutting, trying to make his pain disappear. I remembered the stay in the psych ward when his suicidal ideations tried to crush his very life. I remembered every bit of the pain he walked through in the past three years. And I cried for that stupid, hanging nipple. I cried for the last time at the dreams I had when this child was young. The thoughts of what a beautiful bride she would be when she grew up. The way she looked like a porcelain doll when she had on her Easter dress and shoes. The way that little girl loved to be with her grandma.

I cried as I released that little girl and embraced the pain of this young man, so scared he might never look like a real man. That was what he said. A real man. A real boy. We needed to call the doctor and get this fixed, NOW.

We had talked a lot about the surgeon Kam chose. The guy had a reputation for creating a very natural, masculine chest, so critical for Kam. I suppose it is for every transgender person going through the procedures required. To finally be in that place where how you feel matches how others see you is a massive relief. Anything that went wrong would derail the entire thing.

It took a few hours, maybe even the next day, before the surgeon responded to our frightened call. He confidently set up a follow-up and reassured my grandchild everything was going to be fine. And it was. In the end, everything was fine.

It’s been a couple of years now since that monumental day. Kam is more at peace and more content than he has ever been. He fits. He’s normal, whatever that really means. He looks like he feels. And that is a beautiful thing.

Thank you for being here as I retravel this journey. If you would like to read more about the biggest change in our lives, you can start here:

And, of course, the road isn’t always easy going, like I talk about here:

And if you’re ready to start your journey to openly be an ally to the LGBTIQ people in your life, this series might help:

Finally, here is one of several stories about a group of LGBTIQ refugees in Kenya fighting for their survival: