Truman Customer Story Column
"Taking My Shirt Off Proudly and Playing in the Water"
There are words that most often disappear in the gynecomastia consultation room: playing in the water, public baths, swimming pools. Places where you have to undress. When I ask since when they stopped going, some people answer with a year.
The answer the person I am introducing today wrote for what they most wanted to do after surgery was one of those: "Taking my shirt off proudly and playing in the water,"
A Place with Less EmbarrassmentAs their impression when they first came to the clinic, they wrote this: "There were only male doctors, so it was less embarrassing, and they treated me kindly and well."
Gynecomastia care involves undressing and showing a part you have long kept hidden several times, at the consultation and before and after surgery. If that setting is uncomfortable, people end up putting off care itself, and nothing changes while they put it off. That is why our Daegu branch is run mainly with male medical staff.
Two Things That Were FrighteningAs their biggest worry before surgery, they wrote this: "I was afraid of difficulties in daily life and pain after surgery. But it was more bearable than I thought and it was okay."
This is the course this person went through. The degree of pain and the speed of returning to daily life vary with the extent of excision and the individual's condition.
The Period When Daily Life Is LimitedThe actual schedule is this. The 12 to 48 hours right after surgery are a period with a risk of bleeding, so you spend that time with one more layer of compression over the compression garment, and when you come to the clinic the next day, we check for any bleeding and then remove that additional compression.
During this period you cannot do upper-body exercise, but you can do light walking or lower-body squats. The stretch when you can do nothing but lie down is shorter than you might think. Just knowing that what you should not do and what you may do are separated changes how the same period feels.
From Hearing the Explanation to Falling AsleepFor a memorable moment during surgery, they wrote this: "They explained the surgery well, and I fell asleep right away, so I have no memory."
Our gynecomastia surgery is performed under sedation. The surgery begins after you fall asleep, and I go in after the anesthesia has taken effect. The surgery itself takes about thirty minutes, and I explain the results in the recovery room after the surgery is finished.
Going Back to Places Where You Take Your Shirt OffSaying you will play in the water again is closer to saying you will put the places you had erased back into your schedule.
This person left the words that they recommend the surgery to those who are unsure. This is this person's experience, and whether to have surgery is something to judge after confirming your condition through an examination. In the last box, they wrote their thanks for being taken good care of.
