{"id":57318,"date":"2015-06-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-06-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-graduate-at-home-after-getting-sex-reassignment-surgery-in-california\/"},"modified":"2015-06-19T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2015-06-19T00:00:00","slug":"uri-graduate-at-home-after-getting-sex-reassignment-surgery-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2015\/06\/uri-graduate-at-home-after-getting-sex-reassignment-surgery-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 graduate at home after getting sex reassignment surgery in California"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tJessica Brand feeling great, ready for public speaking about transgender experience<\/b><\/p>\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 June 19, 2015 \u2013 Jessica Brand plops down in the sofa of her Exeter house, complaining about the sniffles. A bad cold is wiping her out, not the sex reassignment surgery she just had in California.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cYou know you\u2019re doing pretty well,\u201d she says, with a chuckle, \u201cwhen the cold is much worse than the recovery.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nA month ago, doctors were wheeling the 22-year-old 溏心vlog免费B站 graduate into an operating room at a hospital outside San Francisco to undergo surgery to complete her transition from a man to a woman. The procedure has left her \u201celated.\u201d <\/p>\n


\n\u201cI can relax after all those years of suffering,\u201d she says. \u201cMy body is finally right.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nIt\u2019s been a long and sometimes painful road for Jessica, who knew at the age of 2 that her body did not fit with her mind. She kept her secret inside until puberty, when she couldn\u2019t stand to look in the mirror. Eventually, she found the courage to tell her family that she was a woman. The next step was hormone therapy and, eventually, surgery.<\/p>\n


\nDr. Marci Lee Bowers, an internationally recognized surgeon who specializes in transgender surgery and is also a transgender woman, performed the operation at Mills Peninsula Hospital in Burlingame, Calif. Jessica says her 溏心vlog免费B站 health insurance covered much of the cost.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI couldn’t have done this without the support of 溏心vlog免费B站,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m eternally grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nJessica flew out to California by herself on May 9, and stayed in a hotel near the hospital. She had a few days to see the sights. She went to a game at AT&T Park between the Giants and Marlins, met a friend who underwent the surgery 20 years ago and joined a relative for an Italian dinner of chicken parmesan. <\/p>\n


\nThe night before the surgery she slept soundly. Nervous? \u201cNot at all,\u201d she says. \u201cI was calm and happy it was going to happen. I\u2019d been waiting for this all my life.\u201d Her mother, Susan Trostle Brand, a 溏心vlog免费B站 education professor, and sisters, Faith, 12, and Fiona, 9, flew in the day before the surgery.<\/p>\n


\nAs Jessica was wheeled into the operating room, Fiona\u2019s eyes welled with tears. So did Susan\u2019s. \u201cIt was a huge milestone for Jessica,\u201d says Susan. \u201cI thought I had a son and now I\u2019m getting a daughter, so there was a combination of nostalgia, relief and gratitude \u2013 almost like a birth.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nSusan, Faith and Fiona have stood by Jessica since she told her mother \u2013 and father, Stephen Brand, a 溏心vlog免费B站 education professor who died in 2013 \u2013 that she was a girl in a boy\u2019s body.<\/p>\n


\nThe procedure took four hours. \u201cI don’t even remember counting down,\u201d she says. \u201cThat\u2019s how quickly I was out.\u201d The operation, first successfully performed in the 1960s, is more complex than people think.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cA lot of people are under the misconception that it simply gets removed. That\u2019s just not done,\u201d says Jessica. \u201cIt’s sort of like shape-shifting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moments after surgery, everyone knew Jessica was fine: She started cracking jokes. Her mother and sisters bought her a pink balloon that said, \u201cIt\u2019s a girl!\u201d Jessica remained in the hospital for a few days and then returned to her hotel for recovery so she could be close to her doctors.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cI can’t even tell you how overjoyed I felt,\u201d she says. \u201cI felt so free of stress and loathing of my body. I had a smile on my face every day.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nOn May 24, she returned home to Exeter, where she\u2019s been recuperating, cooking, watching movies and reading. So far, she hasn\u2019t had any complications. <\/p>\n


\nOver the next few months, she\u2019ll continue to see Dr. Michelle Forcier, the pediatrician at Hasbro Children\u2019s Hospital who prescribed hormone therapy. \u201cShe basically saved my life,\u201d says Jessica. \u201cIt was that or death.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nSusan says the surgery has changed her daughter\u2019s life. \u201cShe\u2019s been waiting so long to achieve independence and be who she really is. She keeps saying, \u2018I\u2019m so happy. I\u2019m so happy.\u2019 \u201d <\/p>\n


\nJessica has found time to socialize a bit. Not long ago, she crowned the new queen at the \u201cBorn This Way\u201d prom in Newport. (Jessica was the queen last year.) And she\u2019s talked to the two New York filmmakers, Jenn Hallam and Jane Renaud, who are making a documentary about her transgender experience that will be released next year. Jessica is prominently featured in the film, \u201cWhat I\u2019m Made Of.\u201d <\/p>\n