The Big One Year Update

Hi Everyone!

I’ve been waiting for my one year anniversary to post about some of the things that have been happening.  I’ll start with what has happened since my last post about my unsuccessful drunk sex with a rando.

The Good:

After that unsuccessful attempt, I started up with the dilators again in hopes that they would help.  After a couple short weeks using the dilators, I actually had pain free sex that lasted longer than 10 seconds (the length of my last pain free event).  The sex was probably no longer than four minutes, so who knows if the pain would have started had it gone on for longer.

The Bad:

After that I was feeling pretty confident!  I must be cured right?  Wrong…  I stopped using the dilators after that guy, because I had little motivation.  About a month later I reunited with an old friend.  This was no normal old friend, this is the old friend that is ok looking in high school then reaches beach model status in college.  We all have THAT friend.  Luckily for me, I had invested in him when he wasn’t as cute, so he still found me attractive.  He was SUPER hot, so I figured that I’d be into it and everything would go fine.  I was wrong.  He had two things going against him.  1. He was quite large, and 2. he had crazy stamina.  I wonder what it is like to be a normal girl and enjoy those things…  Things were good at first, but after about 5 minutes it started to hurt.  PERSPECTIVE:  before the surgery it would take about 30 seconds for it to hurt, and the pain was obviously worse.  Needless to say, this experience left me discouraged.

The Rest

I still have hope that using the dilators more regularly (or having sex more regularly) could help me.  Unfortunately I still am not in possession of a good test dummy.  I decided not to find someone for this sole purpose, it is just too weird.  Instead I will just have to see what comes along.  I’m seeing my doctor tomorrow, which actually inspired me to write this blog post.  Hopefully she can give me some insight.

Summary

Regardless of my mix of successes and struggles, the surgery did work.  My skin issues are *knock on wood* gone, and my remaining issues are most likely muscular.  This year has been frustrating and confusing, but I’m far from giving up the hope to have a normal sex life one day.

Thanks so much for your support!  I love reading your comments so feel free to drop one if you have any thoughts!  Always feel free to email me at surgeryswag@gmail.com.  Yes that is a real email, no I did not make it when I was high on Percocet.

Bye for now!

Drunk Sex 1, Me 0

Hi Guys!!

Apparently my vestibulectomy blog is now a sex blog… Which is cool I guess if you are into that.  For those of you who think this blog has taken a turn for the worse, at least you have all of my actually informative archives!  And for those of you who are interested in me sexual escapades you have found the right place!

A couple of weeks ago I brought a rando home from a party.  He was pretty decent looking, but nothing special (sorry dude).  Moral of the story, the sex was horrible and really hurt after a while (but not for pre surgery reasons).  Before the surgery, I attributed all my sex problems to nerve pain, and now I am realizing that that wasn’t necessarily true.

I’m not really sure where the issues came from.  It could have been the fact that this guy apparently doesn’t know what foreplay is, it could have been that I wasn’t into it, it could have been that I hadn’t used the dilators in months, or it could have been some unicorn in the sky trying to curse me for trying to have a good time.  This experience really freaked me out at first, because it made me realize that I may not have as good of a handle on the problem as I thought I did.  With more thought I stopped freaking out and decided to try using the dilators again in the hopes that it would change something.

I started using them a couple times a week, but then gave up due to a lack of prospects.  I think the I need a new strategy.  Before, I was looking for randos at parties and on tinder to hook up with and test things out, but now I think I need to look for more of a sex test dummy.  He doesn’t even have to be that cute, just a person who I can explain my situation to, and hook up with multiple times as a test.  Maybe I can find a boy who needs community service hours…

It has almost been a year since my surgery and after my previous celibate semester and failed attempts this semester it seems that I won’t be able to really get a handle on this problem for a while.  I’ve been too busy with graduate school applications to care much about boys anyway.  That is it for now!  Wish me luck on my more serious quest to find a test dummy rando!

Pizza > Boys (Rationalizing why it’s ok that I can’t have sex)

Me after a frat party (blue = me silver = rando)

Hi Everyone!

It’s been about a month since my failed/premature attempt to have sex.  I really should have known it wouldn’t work, seeing as I still couldn’t get the dick size dilator in… Good life choices.  This week I started using the “Large” dilator!  It’s about the size of an average white dick, yay!  It hurts like crazy since I pushed myself to go up a size too soon, but yolo! 

It blows my mind that women are able to stretch out enough to have babies.  Seriously blows my mind.   It feels like no matter what I do, the muscles are just programmed to be shut, and are always fighting back.  I wish I had time for PT because even though I’m technically progressing I still feel like I’m missing something.  I started using the dilators in February, now it’s almost May and I still can’t comfortably get something the size of a dick in. 

This summer I’ll be working in Boston, and living with randos yet again!  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a super awesome internship and the people I’m living with seem really cool, but I’m worried about continuing my PT routine.  I have my own room in my apartment here, (as I’ll have in boston), but I still have to make that trip to the bathroom to wash the dilators after use.  My roommates aren’t weirded out by it, because they find it amusing and we all make light of the situation.  However, I don’t think randos will find it amusing if they walk in on my giving a soapy handjob to a dick sized tube.  I’ll have to figure something out.

In other news, I have been finding clever ways to reject the very few randos that have attempted to communicate with me (see figure 1).  I miss boys, they are so wonderful.  And by wonderful I mean terrible.  I’m such a prototypical college girl… Well those are my updates for now! Feel free to say hi in the comments!  I miss my active readers!

Talk to you later!

 

Getting It In (Or Nah)

Hi Guys!!!

I’ve missed you! How have y’all been? I guess it’s been about 3 and a half months since my surgery.  Time really flies when you’re not spending every second in bed watching How I Met Your Mother and having your meals brought to you on a tray!  I’m going to start this post by filling you in on my personal life (although let’s be real, that just means my academic life), and then get into the fun vagina stuff!

I’m coming up on the middle of the semester, and things don’t suck!  My classes are going well, I did well (enough) on my GREs, and my boss is still critical and obnoxious but hey that’s life.  Things with the roomies are rocky as one of them is slowly turning into a loud obnoxious alcoholic, but what can you do?  They think it’s really funny that I lock myself in my room every day to do PT, which it is.

Things with the dilators aren’t perfect, but they are significantly better than when I last posted.  I am now on the medium size!!  That’s a little smaller than a dick so good news!  The bad news is that the muscles are still really tight and burn when I first put the dilators in, but then it gets better as I leave them in for a bit.  The burning freaked me out a little since I always associate burning with vestibulitis, but I read on some message boards that it is normal and just a part of re training the muscles.  

I have a doctors appointment on Monday and am a little bit worried.  I had a phone call with her last week that I interpreted as a bit judgmental.  She asked me how the dilators were going, and I said it was ok and I was progressing but that it wasn’t great.  she commented “well keep trying because it’s been a few months”.  I interpreted that as her saying I haven’t progressed enough because I haven’t been trying hard enough.  I’m worried that when I have some pain with the exam (which I will because my muscles/anxiety hate stirrups), she will think I haven’t been trying hard enough with the dilators and imply I haven’t progressed enough. But that’s not the only reason that I think she will judge me…

Last friday night I got super wasted at a really ratchet lingerie party.  The party was awesome but that’s besides the point.  There was this shirtless dude wearing a construction belt that held whipped cream and chocolate syrup and various other goodies.  He started talking to me, and I was all omg male attention for the first time in forever!  I was drunk, he was hot, and they never told me I couldn’t try anything… I figured hey, if they give me a bucket of dilators and tell me to go nuts then how detrimental can trying to have sex be?  I just really wanted to give it a try.

So we are back at my place, things were going fine and I was feeling optimistic.  He whipped it out and it was nothing to be intimidated by.  We lubed it up and he tried to put it in, but needless to say it didn’t go very well.  I could get it in a few inches but the burning was bad and it really hurt.  We did other stuff then tried again later and it still wouldn’t go in.  Don’t worry though, I wasn’t trying for very long, so I did kind of listen to my body.  We hooked up in other ways for a while afterwards, so he wasn’t pissed or anything.  I was a little anxious about how much discomfort I had, but realized that I was probably way more tense than I thought I was.  I don’t think I’ll be trying again till my muscles are more ready.  At the end of the day I’m glad I had my first unsuccessful attempt.  I was curious already, so it was inevitable that it would happen eventually, and now I know what will happen if I try again before I am ready.

I’m nervous to tell my doctor about it.  I feel like I should just to be safe, but I’m afraid she will tell me that I am dumb.  Doctors don’t get me.  I will update you guys on how the appointment goes and on whether or not I get a lecture.  I will leave you with this piece of wisdom:  When in doubt, have sex with a rando.  I should write a book…. Bye guys!!!!

 

Dilator Struggles

So I thought the dilators would be a piece of cake!  I was always able to have sex (not good sex, but it still counts), so I assumed that sticking a marker sized piece of plastic up there wouldn’t be that bad. I was wrong.  It’s not that painful at all, just more so than i’d like it to be.  I don’t feel the burning pain (which i’d hope) but there is still pain at the opening, and other places.  I assume the opening is the tightest place, which is why there is discomfort there.

 I’m just frustrated because A. I don’t really understand the pain even though it’s probably normal, which makes me really anxious, and B. I’m losing confidence that i’ll ever be able to have sex again.  Maybe the surgery traumatized my vagina so much that it tries to block out any intruders now.  It sucks because I can breathe and try to relax and it doesn’t change anything.  I probably shouldn’t be freaking out since I’ve only been using them for a week… but that doesn’t stop me.  I keep thinking about how my doctor said she wanted to be able to stick two fingers in comfortably by my next exam.  I don’t feel confident about that happening. 

3 days ago (when I was on the dilator that is smaller then a regular sized tampon), I did a q tip test on myself and was really happy with the results.  It didn’t hurt!  It’s obviously not comfortable to be poked with a q tip but there was no burning pain.  This made me really hopeful for a few days, and the success I had with the tiny dilator didn’t hurt either.  It wasn’t an entirely false sense of hope though.  I know how huge of a deal the q tip thing is, I’m just really nervous. 

Another thing that annoys me is the way they name the sizes.  The first one was an XS, which was totally appropriate.  When I opened the next one up, it was noticeably bigger then the first, but the box said XS+… Really dilator company?  Extra small plus!?  That just makes us feel lame!  I’d feel better about struggling with a small, but an extra small plus!?  Maybe they think it’s funny.  It makes a little bit of sense due to the variability on the upper range of sizes, but still!  They have some really huge dilators out there… Those poor women who have to give themselves physical therapy to take their mens dicks.  Or maybe they are into that, I don’t know.  I guess bigger is better for people with normal vaginas, but that just seems excessive.  

I haven’t really seen blogs where they go into detail about dilator use, so if any of you have seen posts about this please enlighten me!  That’s all i’ve got for now.  I’ve got to wake up early tomorrow for the dentist.  After years of panful vag exams, the dentist doesn’t seem as scary (knock on wood).  Goodnight!

6 Weeks Post Op: Snow… Can You Not?

Hey Y’all

I was supposed to have my post op appt tomorrow but oh hey ITS SNOWING.  The office is apparently closed tomorrow and I’m so annoyed because I really want to have this appointment so they can tell me how everything’s doing.  For all I know I could have some sort of silent infection slowly killing me that only an exam can find!  Ok that probably isn’t happening, but you never know!  Ugh.  

Everything is fine though, I can do everything I used to do except go to the gym.  I’m not sure what the rules are for that exactly but I was hoping i’d be cleared tomorrow… I miss the gym.  I still take baths sometimes because I heard that they help the stitches dissolve. I swear if they have to traumatize me with pliers pulling at my stitches I will not be happy.  I’m bringing lidocane cream just in case.  I also may take a Xanex before so I don’t get some sort of ptsd panic attack when they try to put me in stirrups.  Stirrups are scary!!  

Speaking of stirrups, I don’t understand the practice of gynecology.  I mean sure, some people love babies, miracle of life blah blah, but why would anyone want to do all the other stuff?  My Dr. is a woman who actually had the procedure done herself when she was 22, so it makes sense that she would be interested in this field.  My surgeon however, is a dude.  I just don’t understand why men would want to be vagina surgeons.  I can understand why men would go into plastics to look at boobs all day, but gynecology?  Does anyone know a male gynecologist, or have any insight as to why this phenomenon occurs?  I wouldn’t want to be a dick surgeon!  Now that I think about it, I reeeeeeally wouldn’t want to be a dick surgeon…. no thank you.  

I think they can fit me in on Monday, so I’ll update as soon as I have the appointment.  Hopefully nothing terrible happens, but compared to whats already happened I think I can handle it.

Bye!

When You Tell A Guy That You Have A Sexual Pain Disorder…

There are many reasons that one may disclose this sacred piece of information.  #1, you are seeing someone and want to be open and honest with them about your issues to make sure that they are sensitive to them before entering the bedroom.  I’m not so good at that one… #2, When a guy tries to stick his fingers in places you reeeeally don’t want them. #3, When your acting skills aren’t up to par and you have made yet another dumb boy feel inadequate about his sexual abilities.  “it’s not you it’s me!”.  

I have a lot of experience with 3, ok and some with 2. There are a series of stages that a dude goes through when information is disclosed in this way (don’t ask me about the first one I don’t know any sensitive guys i’m 21). Here are the stages, from a man’s perspective.  STAGE ONE:  Confusion, like why isn’t this girl diggin my lovin?  is that even possible?  clearly i’m the sex god of the frat world. STAGE TWO: Guilt.  Hmm even though i’m a douchebag I don’t really wanna physically hurt this girl even though she says its ok. STAGE THREE: Bargaining. Well it’ll be ok, she says she’ll tell me if it hurts too much.  STAGE FOUR: Doubt. Hmm, this girl just told me that she has a medical condition where she is unable to enjoy sex… yea no its my fault she didn’t have a good time, blah blah insecure about performance blah.  STAGE FIVE: Reassured.  Oh aight this girl says i was mighty fine and she totally would have had a good time if it weren’t for an excess of nerve endings.  

Moral of the story, it sucks making guys feel inadequate, but sometimes it’s amusing.  

Anyways, today I had a facebook chat convo with a guy I hooked up with in a freshman dorm hall shower.  He has weirdly vivid memories of that night because i’m a little out of his league.  He implied I didn’t enjoy it as much as he did and I was like yea sex hurts for me cause X, Y, Z… He seemed confused and concerned, until I said these words that I have never really said to a guy before.  It’s ok, I got something done to fix it.  For a split second I forgot about the surgery.  I was just that same girl explaining to guys why they don’t actually suck in bed.  It was so great to realize that I might not be that girl anymore.  

(Almost) 5 Weeks Post Op: Look Who’s Back At The Bar!

Oh hey, didn’t see you guys there!

My last update was at 3 weeks post op.  I was walking around, driving places, and participating in other fun activities!  Now i’m pretty close to being back to normal!  I can even spend 2 hours walking around the mall with hardly any discomfort, (the bro’s bar mitzvah is coming up, gotta impress the fam with a super classy dress).

As much as I’d love to ramble about my life, I should probably talk some about my symptoms, since that is probably what many of you are here to read.  At 3 weeks the pain was discomfort and itching, and at 5 weeks there is hardly any discomfort or itching at all.  Going to the bathroom and sitting up straight are the only times that I am reminded that I had the surgery.  For some of week 4 I still had a slight limp sometimes.  This is mostly gone now.   The fact that I have to think about if there is anything else that bugs me should indicate that things are going pretty well.

And now, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for… the story of how I got back to the bar scene!  As a hip young college student who is new to the art of being 21, I was usually found in within a 10 foot radius of some sort of alcohol.  After the surgery, I had less of a reason to drink.  I didn’t need any help socializing with netflix, so sobriety was an easy task.  Plus I was on so many drugs that I wouldn’t risk it.  Last weekend, my cousin at a nearby university invited me to stay with her one night, and go to one of her favorite campus bars.  She reassured me that the place was a 5 minute walk from her apartment, and that we could leave if I got tired or ripped my vag open or something.   I took a shot and a half, then was ready to go!  Once we got to the bar, I felt like I’d finally returned home after a long trip out of the country.  I was ragin like the good old days!  And the best part was that pushing every guy away made us the most popular girls at the bar.  Admittedly it was a thursday night during winter session and there weren’t many prospects anyway, but still! Guys eat this rejection shit up.  Everything was going great until I went a little too wild with my awesome dance moves.  Nothing traumatic, just a “oh I probably shouldn’t do that” feeling.   One I ignore often… but that’s besides the point.  Overall it was a successful night out, with very few repercussions the next morning!

You can probably see how my life has turned from bedtime forever to up and about as usual. In school I literally never have time to rest, and I somehow always manage to return to that state.  It’s my long run equilibrium!  Any other econ nerds out there? In other news I have become academically productive again!  I have been spending countless hours in the library and my local starbucks working on summer program applications, doing things for my lab at school, and beginning to prep for the GREs.  Not the most fun activities, but I feel a lot better now that I am accomplishing something.

I still really miss the gym.  I can feel my muscle definition leaving me and it’s so depressing.  I’ve been trying to eat healthier to compensate but there is this piece of cake in the fridge calling my name and I think about it all the time… It’s so chocolatey… Oh well, maybe if I gain a lot of weight I wont have to resist hooking up with guys because they will resist me instead! That’s the dream I guess.

Hope you enjoyed my novel!  Till next time!

3 Weeks Post Op: Happy New Year!

Hey Everyone!

Well three weeks ago I was under the knife!  It feels like such a long time ago that I was freaking out and reading everyone else’s blogs and stocking up on pillows.  Anyways, here’s my update!

I’m not really in pain anymore, I just have this burning itching feeling still.  It’s not constant, just when I walk around a lot, or wake up, or  sometimes it even randomly occurs.  The only time I feel actual pain is if I am standing or moving around way too much… which I guess I sometimes do.  EXCITING NEWS: This means i’m off painkillers!!!  Even though the motrin helped me with the burning and itching too, I’m trying to do without them for the sake of my stomach.  

I’m a ton more mobile then before!  I can walk around a lot and even drive!! I still try not to sit up perfectly straight, but if I lean on one hip or sit cross legged i can manage on any normal chair.  I went out to a new years get together last night with some old friends from high school.  It was so great being out, and I managed to be sitting most of the time so everything worked out ok.  Most of the people there knew about the surgery, but didn’t know exactly what it was for.  I was definitely more sore when I woke up today, but it was totally worth it! 

My family is back from london now!  It’s nice to have them all home again, annoying as they are.  It’s a good thing that i was doing better when they got home, because I didn’t want them to feel bad about having to leave me.  We made plans last summer to go on this london trip with my extended family.  That was around the same time that i was deciding if I was going to do the surgery or not.  My mom was really concerned about what to do with the trip, and was considering not going so she could stay home with me (even though they weren’t scheduled to leave until 9 days after the procedure).  Last summer I convinced her that she should go, so it was important to me to show her that I really was fine.

I hope you all had a good new years!  Till next time! 

 

18 Days Post Op: Where Has The Time Gone?

Hey Guys!

Sorry I haven’t updated in a while.  This week was a standstill for the most part.  I wasn’t really in pain for the most part, unless I stood up for a long time.  All week i’ve had some pain in the morning, maybe my nerves just wanted to rise and shine and say hello!  Then the rest of the day wouldn’t be so bad.  

What I have been experiencing is more of a burning irritated feeling.  So more discomfort then pain.  This isn’t bad at all when I’m sitting, but gets aggravated when I sit on it wrong, walk, stand, or go to the bathroom.  It kind of itches sometimes in a raw way, but not in a mosquito bite i’m dying and need to scratch way.  I’ve been lucky so far in that sense.  

It still kind of stings to pee, which is a little disconcerting.  I still have some bleeding whenever I have a bowel movement, hopefully that isn’t an indicator that I’m messing up the healing.  

Anyways, this was basically my life all last week.  Still haven’t checked out the area, and not planning too until the 6 week post op visit.  Maybe not even then… I mean I had trouble looking at it before.  How many weeks is 18 days… 14 is 2 weeks so 2.5ish weeks?  (guess you can tell I’m not a math major).  I definitely expected to be walking around more and leaving my house by now.

Since I had been making so little progress, I really want to try and come off the pain meds so I have a basis of comparison. How am I supposed to measure change when none of my variables are controlled for?  I was taking the meds at different times, in different positions, with different amounts of food in my stomach, so how would i be able to objectively tell if there was some subtle improvement?  

Today I made a little bit of progress.  I took fewer painkillers and it wasn’t a big deal.  It’s easier since i’m just experiencing this burning feeling now, and not real pain.  I also had less discomfort with standing! Sometimes it catches up to me the next day, so I’ll have to wait and see.  

Still using the sitz baths, but haven’t used ice in a while.  Some women say the baths help reduce their symptoms a lot (at least temporarily), but I never really noticed this.  I’m sure they are useful though, at least to keep the area clean.

Ugh I really want to leave my house and go accomplish things again.  I am in SERIOUS gym withdrawal!!  I’m a rock climber and being off the wall for 6 weeks + is gonna kill my strength.  More the reason to work double as hard next semester though.  The fact that the surgery was upcoming really affected my fitness goals.  Aside from just generally keeping in shape, I wasn’t that motivated to get stronger, because I knew 6 weeks with no strenuous activity would just kill it.   I just want to run on the treadmill and do P90X abs and climb and show off with TRX cables…  

I’ll update again the next time something changes, hopefully it will be soon.  

Till Then!