NHS Nurse's Transition Surgery Goal

Update 12/09/2023

This is long overdue and it has been a bumpy ride, so get a cup of tea.

Quick trigger warning, This update contains a description of a suicide attempt.

Where the hell do I begin? A lot has changed since my last update.

In February we lost Brianna Ghey, the 16-year-old trans girl from Culcheth, Warrington.

A mere 6 miles away from my former home, she was murdered in a park, assumedly for nothing more than being trans. This came at a time when media discourse around trans inclusion was set to ‘Demonise and Vilify’.

I experienced a period of true mourning for a girl I didn't know, but I also began to mourn my world because it had changed overnight. I was no longer safe. My environment had gone from ‘safe enough’ to ‘I might get murdered in a park’.

This unfortunately sparked another spiral in my mental health. I began to feel extremely paranoid at work, wondering if my patients would murder me given the chance.

I was again signed off from work, and I stayed indoors. As the weeks rolled on, my hope and will to carry on, faded to nothing.

Then on the night before Good Friday, I decided to end it. I lay in my bed as calmly as I could, I tied a rope around my neck, and then again, I wrapped it multiple times, tighter and tighter with each loop… In my mind, I was going to drift away peacefully but instead, all I felt was extreme pain in every inch of my head.

I continued to tie the rope, I felt my eyes bulge and burn, my lips swelled, and my scalp and skin felt like a million needles… the pain became too much, I wasn’t fading away, I was just hurting… so I stopped.

I removed the knots and layers of rope to ease the pain as I cried because my only option had failed... because I was afraid of a painful death.

I got in touch with a dear friend from Brighton who talked to me long into the night until I was calm enough to sleep.

The next day there were questions about why I had a bruise all the way around my neck. This began a string of involvements with the Crisis team, mental health services, my GP and my gender clinic.

Meanwhile, my friend was working away in the background, and as it happened there was a room in Brighton with another friend, that needed filling.

In the interest of your time dear reader, I quit my job in Wigan serving my notice period on sick leave and began applying for a new one in Brighton.

2 weeks later on the 2nd of May, I said bye to my friends and family in the north and I drove 215 miles south.

A month later I interviewed for a job in a Critical Care role at the Royal Sussex Hospital and got it!

I now live, work and love Brighton and Hove. I’ve loved it for years, but now I’m never letting go.

Gender-affirming care can be something as simple as where you live. In my sadness, I had lost sight of this.

I'm now able to have a “more normal” life. I can worry far less about mean comments or petty assaults because I'm trans, it very rarely happens here. That's not to say I'm not still guarded, I avoid going places alone to protect myself, but this is easier with a large circle of friends around me in such a relatively small city. The LGBTQIA+ is part of the fabric here in Brighton. I’m no longer the pariah, I’m at home with my brothers and sisters, friends and chosen family. I play bass in a small band with friends at open mic nights, I’ve sung on stage for Punk Rock Karaoke to a room of a hundred people who chanted my name when I was done. I’m taking better care of myself, I exercise now - I took up skating again, something I haven’t done in decades! I go to pub quizzes and picnics on the beach - Any of this would have caused me a meltdown back up north. Here in Brighton, I’m just another trans person, just another person. I have a community of people who are like me and understand me. I feel happy for the first time in too long.

I no longer want to stop existing.

I want to continue thriving. I still need my surgeries. But now they are more a choice of self-care, whereas previously it was motivated, majoritively in self-preservation. Now they're just for me.

The downside to all of this was that being off sick from work, terminating my car lease early, then the cost of moving my whole life south, flat deposit, and the NHS HR department taking 3 months to get me started in my new job has meant that all of my existing Go-Fund-Me pool was completely depleted in keeping me afloat while waiting for work to start.

Universal credit helped but that was only just enough to cover my rent and bills.

My intention was to update you on all of this once I had received my first wage from work and I could start saving for myself again before coming and asking people to donate. I had almost forgotten about my fundraiser.

But then this past Sunday morning, something lovely happened.

I opened my Instagram DMs to a message request, expecting another unrequested cock-pic, I held my breath but was instead greeted with this (name and link redacted because she was a patient and I have to maintain the confidentiality of identifiable markers)

Crying with joy, I went on to discover her post on Instagram which sparked it all.

All accounted for, this kind woman raised over £800 in 3 days.

And that is why you’re getting an early update.

It’s been over a year since I started this fundraiser, but recent events and this lovely woman have spurred me on again. I'm planning new stickers, new fundraising efforts and more updates because I really can't do this alone.

Your donations keep this train rolling, so thank you all, Please continue to share and make my dreams a reality.

All of my love and unending gratitude

Samantha xoxo

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Update 21st December 2022

Just an update to thank everyone for helping to get me to 11% of my goal in the first 4 months! I just wanted to come on and say Happy Non-Denominational Holiday Festive Best Wishes 9000 to each and every one of you who shared and contributed to my fundraiser in 2022. I've been adding my own money periodically to top up the pot and keep the momentum going. Please continue to share and donate when you can, I can't do this alone xoxo

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Hiya!

I'm Samantha, but my friends call me Sam.

I am a transwoman from the Greater Manchester area, and this September, I turn 40!

I've worked full-time as a Registered General Nurse for the National Health Service (NHS) for the last 15 years.

A brief history

In 2016, after many years of ignoring warning signs, shame, fear and regret, I finally began to figure out who I am and started to take steps toward social gender role transition. This action cost me my marriage, my pets, my home and a significant financial burden with the need to return to my parent's home to save money and rebuild my life.

During this time, I was able to start paying off debt and purchase life essentials. I needed furniture, clothes, makeup, wigs (because male-pattern baldness sucks), 11 sessions of Laser Hair Removal (LHR) on my face and torso, and even started some small savings.

Eventually, after a three-year wait, I was finally granted access to hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and sessions with a Psychologist and gender counsellor through my Gender Identity Clinic (GIC) in Sheffield, UK.

I have also been fortunate enough to be granted eight further sessions of LHR for my face (and only my face) via the GIC on the NHS.

I am also on the extremely long waiting list to see the surgeon to plan my bottom surgery (vaginoplasty) via the NHS.

Anyone reading this will recall what fun we all had in 2020.

While most of you were furloughed or working from home, I still had to go to work to care for my patients.

I'm in the fortunate position of really enjoying my work as a Nurse, but as COVID hit, my ward was designated to care for COVID-positive patients.

I had to witness people dying slowly as there was no known treatment for them.

I lost colleagues and friends who contracted COVID through their job.

I became terrified of getting COVID or passing it to my mum, who has chronic, life-limiting respiratory illnesses. Slowly I began to lose hope in the face of adversity, and the overwhelming impression of futility began to take over.

In August of 2020, I broke and suffered a breakdown at work, mid-shift. Shortly after, I attempted to end my life, only to have my parents unknowingly intervene. That would start a fourteen-month absence from work with CPTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder), Depression & Anxiety - with factors including my Gender Dysphoria, relationship grieving, workplace trauma, health and finances.

The fourteen months away from work were some of the hardest I've ever been through. The constantly increasing pressure of my home life, transition, money worries, and working in unprecedented conditions had rendered me useless. But as time progressed and I "did the self-work", I began to realise improvements in small areas of my life. I continued work with my Psychologist and started the path to healing old wounds, fear and traumas. Over time, I could integrate more fully as the woman I am. I returned to work in September of 2021, now presenting as my authentic self full-time, not just in situations outside of work. While this has helped me feel more like myself in various aspects of my being, it opens me up to many more opportunities to be misgendered, insulted and even assaulted.

I work in a highly visible, public-facing role, and I've found that even if people don't mean to hurt me, they're still going to hurt me with "He", "Him", "Lad", and "Fella".

I've done so much work in therapy to overcome the limitations of my appearance, and I've gained an excellent insight into self-compassion and acceptance. But when you are 6'6" with a male skull, a baritone voice and a flat chest (unless you wear *that* bra), it is challenging not to feel less than the other women around you. I have wonderful, supportive, reassuring family, friends and colleagues. Still, reassurance doesn't stop other people from making my life miserable for the simple fact that being a man never really fit me.

That's where you come in.

Living in the default settings as a man, testosterone has brutalised my body for 36 years. I went through a male puberty in the 90s and never dreamed transition would ever be possible for me, you can thank media-generated hate campaigns and growing up poor for that.

I never stood a chance of looking like a woman, at least on my face and chest. Being routinely misgendered by the public is exhausting and triggers dysphoric feelings constantly, despite all the reassurance and support I get from my wonderful family, friends and colleagues.

I intend to undergo Facial Feminisation Surgery (FFS)/Surgeries and Breast Augmentation to give me some quality of life in the future and a degree of confidence I haven't enjoyed since I lived as a man. It's easy to take simple things for granted, like nipping to the shop for tea bags or going for a walk without stares or abuse.

I love my job, and I'm bloody good at it too.

But trying to do meaningful work as a Registered Nurse while my emotions are constantly being tested is a lot. My dysphoria and depression are causing me to be absent from work, and my mental health is steadily declining.

Add to all that, against the cost of living, I've had no real pay rise since 2010, and I turn 40 this year; I will be dead and gone by the time I could save enough money for this by myself.

I can't get a personal loan to cover the amount I need with repayments I can afford; I've tried, but they don't exist, not on my salary. Not even if I took two promotions.

I don't want to be a 10/10 beauty pageant winner. I only want to pass.

I want to feel at home in my body, confident that I look like a woman without all the makeup, wigs and glamour.

Honestly, I am more desperate for FFS than my Vaginoplasty because my face is what the world can see. Genital reconstruction almost feels... I don't know, a bit like putting the cart ahead of the horse.

The surgery/surgeries I need include;

-Forehead Recontouring with hairline lowering and browlift and brow bone recontouring

-Canthoplasty (eye lift)

-Rhinoplasty (nose job) and upper lip lift

-Cheek augmentation (implants)

-Chin recontouring and Jaw reduction

-Tracheal shave (Adam's apple removal)

-Breast augmentation (implants)

-Laser Hair Removal (finishing up what I started years ago)

All told, I'm going to need circa £37,500. And this is just the surgery and aftercare.

I do not include the cost of flights to Belgium, transfers, a passport, or the initial consultation with the surgeon, which is £250.

I can't bring myself to book an initial consult at the moment because that would let some small part of my brain believe it's real. If I were then unable to afford it, I would, in all likelihood, give up altogether.

I find it extremely difficult to ask for help.

But I'm at the point of desperation here.

I don't know what else to do.

In many ways, I'm afraid even to start this fundraiser because if it fails, I have no alternatives. I've been thinking about it for a long time, and I think it's one of the few things keeping my hope alive, like, "Hmm, yeah, that could work!"

But always too scared to find out that it wouldn't work.

Please, with my knees on the floor and hands clasped, help me out in whatever way you can.

If you are able, please donate whatever you can and share my story with your friends, families and allies and ask them to do the same.

Please help me to enjoy my second shot at life.

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Samantha

xoxo