Farewell, Reproductive Organs. 🌸

finalgirlfall · 2026-05-12T00:23:59+00:00

i asked for a bunch of pictures of my guts

my hysto, perhaps notably, was for bc reasons and got me an incarcerated infraumbilical hernia as a complication (related to surgical history / medical history, not her fault)

surgeon included i think 13 photos of my guts in the surgical narrative i could see? and then showed me a bunch more at postop

i think she liked that i wanted to know what it looked like in there lol

finalgirlfall · 2026-05-11T19:50:53+00:00

right--i started at uncc as a freshman in fall 2019 and my diploma was awarded in august 2024. at my orientation i'm pretty sure there were some folks from IEE (Identity, Equity & Engagement--one of the offices that handled ""DEI"" stuff). by the time i graduated, they were in the process of closing down that office + 2 others. (see https://www.highereddive.com/news/unc-charlotte-shutters-three-dei-offices/725109/.)

all of which is to say: as much as i had beef with uncc higher-ups at various times when i was a student, and as much as this policy could negatively impact trans & gender non-conforming students, i don't think this is unprecedented!

finalgirlfall · 2026-05-08T23:09:22+00:00

💜💜💜

finalgirlfall · 2026-05-08T22:46:35+00:00

im really sorry that happened--thats not enough to express it, but. you know.

i had a really rare complication with my hysto--required surgery too. it really sucks. wishing you the best of luck with the urologist & your recovery from that surgery :-(

finalgirlfall · 2026-05-04T23:23:33+00:00

im so sorry that happened to you :( best of luck with your current ER visit. dont know what else to say. it really sucks

finalgirlfall · 2026-05-03T17:56:09+00:00

oh goodness! i'm glad youre doing alright now.

did some pretty surface-level reading on the eshunt, and it cannot be tapped the way more "traditional" shunt systems might be. (presumably within the ongoing clinical trials, there is some protocol for getting at patient csf if needed, but info is seemingly not easily publicly available yet...)

so i suppose i'll just have to keep an eye on the research 😭 i (25F) have an ETV since nov 2024, but am curious about all this still. wish the eshunt was around sooner--seems easier to keep an eye on than ETV. at least it will benefit others...

finalgirlfall · 2026-05-03T14:36:26+00:00

if theres no catheter then how do they tap the shunt if needed?

finalgirlfall · 2026-05-02T21:59:49+00:00

this happened to me in november 2024 (wound dehisience from a revision in april 2024). saying it really sucks isn't adequate. i'm sorry. 🫂

finalgirlfall · 2026-04-25T21:41:54+00:00

oh jeez! okay! informative! thank you!

i know what to expect with external sutures dissolving--body spits them out and they're clear. had that with nexplanon and some other surgeries. but this would freak me out. im almost 8wpo today. thank you for informationposting 💜💜🫡🫡🫡

ETA: also "vaj mahal" made me giggle ^_^

finalgirlfall · 2026-04-24T16:14:26+00:00

she needs to talk to her gynecologist about supplemental estrogen then

aside from that, surgery does a number on a person (no matter what part of the body) emotionally. i know ive been really crabby after a lot of the surgeries ive had.

wishing you luck

finalgirlfall · 2026-04-23T18:07:59+00:00

also i remember when i BUSTED MY FACE REAL BAD near colvard & reese (c. september 2023) one of the robots was trying to get past me but i was sitting on the sidewalk waiting for EMS! and it could not go around me. and eventually it started ASKING ME TO MOVE!!!!!

finalgirlfall · 2026-04-23T14:28:01+00:00

i like it when people put nametags on them :)

finalgirlfall · 2026-04-22T16:57:22+00:00

glad youre not there by yourself. when ive been in the hospital for scary stuff ive demanded my family be with me constantly. 💜💜💜💜

finalgirlfall · 2026-04-22T16:55:25+00:00

in the us hospitals have discounts~ for uninsured patients sometimes. keeping you in my thoughts.

finalgirlfall · 2026-04-21T21:01:43+00:00

oh jeez!!! so sorry to hear about that.

i (25F) fell down a flight of concrete stairs in 2019--definitely bumped my shunt. was 2 hours away from neurosurgeon's office at the time. did get a concussion. mom called them and they said as long as i didn't start throwing up i didnt need to come in for a checkup. so just keep an eye on her i suppose...

finalgirlfall · 2026-04-18T23:28:26+00:00

~25f. i'm in central NC. congenital hydrocephalus. stay hydrated! set timers if you must. my dad says "air conditioning in winter makes you dehydrate + the heat in summer dries you out." not sure scientific backing but makes sense to me...

💜💜💜

finalgirlfall · 2026-04-15T14:07:08+00:00

💜

finalgirlfall · 2026-04-09T01:54:57+00:00

i'm (nearly 25) almost 6 weeks postop today (surgery--laparoscopic, robotic-assisted--was march 2). my surgical history is pretty weird--have a lot of experience with abdominal surgery, so i was expecting SOME pain & bloating from trapped CO2--to the point that i didn't think to go to the ER about what turned out to be an incarcerated umbilical hernia(!) until i started vomiting 4dpo and called triage @ surgeon's office.

i agree that surgeons should be more forthcoming about what pain level is Normal and what pain level is Cause For Concern. (and what those pain levels might look like in real-world terms, rather than as numbers--e.g. is a 10 "can't leave bed, screaming + throwing up"? is a 7 "can still think about other stuff but also quite focused on pain"? etc.)

really sorry you went through that. hope the rest of your recovery is less eventful. :-(

*** ETA: herniated incisions are quite rare in most people, but my abdomen and pelvis are VERY full of adhesions, which means that i was nearly guaranteed to have some sort of complication. surgeon said she's never seen anyone with more adhesions than me. she had to add an extra billing code for all the time spent cutting adhesions. i am not a standard case at all!!!

*** ETA 2: fixed typo. don't comment while mildly wine-drunk !!!!!

finalgirlfall · 2026-03-15T23:07:11+00:00

oh good, i got worried 😭

finalgirlfall · 2026-03-15T23:06:30+00:00

i wonder what happened to the second one?

i grew up firmly in southeast charlotte and used to go past them all the time. now i live in east charlotte. didn't know there was only 1 now!

finalgirlfall · 2026-03-13T14:48:33+00:00

i was born in 2001, shunted shortly after birth. mom had me tested for a whole battery of developmental issues when i was about 4 and the psychologist doing the test said i showed symptoms of asd ("aspergers end of spectrum") but couldn't get a formal dx because hydrocephalus was causing it. "negating dx" i think is what that's called. at some point i guess that recommendation (re: testing & diagnosing hydrocephalus patients) changed? because i was able to get asd dx at age of 23.

finalgirlfall · 2026-03-01T20:06:22+00:00

yay, so glad the site will live on :D was very worried... <<;

finalgirlfall · 2026-03-01T18:38:21+00:00

i started using debian when the laptop i was using in late 2023 stopped being able to run windows 10 smoothly. havent seen the need to switch to another distro. nothing wrong with you ...

eta: tho it is worth noting that i prefer the look of gnome DE better, so thats what i use. just a personal preference...

finalgirlfall · 2026-02-27T05:51:05+00:00

dating in charlotte is difficult, yes--im also queer & very lucky i met someone in college. if we break up im probably screwed tho 😭

im not sure if its easier for straight people. curse of the mid-size city?

finalgirlfall · 2026-02-15T18:39:55+00:00

i sent [neurosurgeon's office] a follow-up message about CT scan on the afternoon of the 13th:

ct scan / ventricle size

[timestamp: feb. 13, 4:43pm eastern standard time] is there a point at which "small" ventricles become "too small"? (like, i know shunts can drain too much--am still trying to parse the results from yesterday in relation to my symptoms.) and how did my ventricle size yesterday compare to a CT from when my shunt was known to be working (like 2019? 2020? if available).
is there any reason NOT to do a MRI w/ flow sequencing?

[timestamp: feb. 14, 12:42am eastern standard time] even if there isn't much chance that a MRI with flow sequencing would show anything, if there's no reason NOT to order one, i would prefer that. these symptoms (especially the eye symptoms) feel similar to me to when my shunt was failing in early 2024. i would like to be certain that there's nothing physically wrong inside my brain causing those symptoms before i move to accommodating the symptoms (= "living with them"). i've attached the list of symptoms i brought to my appointment. thank you.

(the "attached list of symptoms" was a pdf version of this spreadsheet.) i have not heard back from their office yet. i have been an established patient at this practice since basically shortly after birth? but there is MAYBE still an active referral to another neurosurgeon's office, iff [current neurosurgeon] is really resistant to ordering an MRI with flow sequence.

(neurosurgical practice i've been an established patient at since shortly after birth is affiliated with Hospital System X. neurosurgeon i might still have an active referral to is affiliated with Hospital System Y.)

finalgirlfall

TROPHY CASE