Truman Customer Story Column
It Was Just Comfortable
The worries people bring before surgery generally split in two. One is fear of the operation itself; the other is what has to be endured once it is over.
This person's answers were the same. As what worried them most, they listed "the fear of surgery" and the compression garment. The two differ in nature. The former is a fear whose substance you cannot know until you experience it; the latter is a discomfort whose shape is relatively clear. The one with clear substance can be largely settled by explaining it in advance.
If the Compression Garment Worries YouWe always explain the garment in the same order.
The stretch between 12 and 48 hours after surgery still carries a risk of bleeding. During this time you spend the period with additional compression over the garment. With the chest and abdomen doubly compressed, it is genuinely uncomfortable. I say so without hiding it.
When you come in the next day, we check for bleeding and remove the extra compression. From then on it becomes considerably more manageable. During that period you should not do upper-body exercise. Light walking and lower-body squats are fine. Knowing in advance that it is not a stretch of lying down doing nothing changes how the same period feels.
Asked how their first visit felt, they wrote that the atmosphere was quiet and the waiting room private, which they liked. They added that the staff were kind and that the person who handled the consultation went through everything in detail.
This is an area we attend to deliberately. Many people find visiting a clinic for gynecomastia difficult in itself. Even meeting someone's eyes in a waiting room can be a burden, so we divided the routes and the waiting space accordingly.
The Memory of the SurgeryI asked what moment stayed with them. The answer was one line: "It was just comfortable."
Our gynecomastia surgery is performed under sedation. The operation takes place while you sleep and finishes in about thirty minutes. The explanation of results is given in the recovery room afterward. Because the time passes while you are asleep, little in the way of memorable scenes remains, and I take this person's answer as one such case.
For what they most wanted to do after surgery, they wrote "I just want to wear clothes comfortably" — with a question mark attached. It seems they felt a little sheepish stating it as a big wish.
Yet in the consulting room, this is the answer that comes up most often. A state in which you do not have to calculate your body first when choosing clothes. Picking up a T-shirt in summer without thinking. It looks like nothing, but for someone who has not been able to do it for years, it is a change in how life is lived.
To others with the same concern, they answered to the effect that there is fear in surgery, but that trusting the medical team should be enough. That is what they experienced, and whether your condition calls for surgery is something to judge after confirming it through an examination. The fastest way to reduce fear, I think, is not resolve but explanation. Deciding afterward is not too late.
