My trip to pursue FFS in Paris with Dr Quentin Qassemyar was finally here. Flying off on 6 Oct 2026, surgery on 8 Oct 2026. It's strange how time works; 1 year ago I was feeling the intense urgency to get FFS done, live life with a lot less brainworms and the wait time felt very difficult to get through. The curveball of being rejected by the US clinic last year made it feel like I had to postpone living life. And suddenly, here I am about to go for surgery and feeling very unprepared for it. Even though FFS in the US didn't pan out, being Isabelle the entire trip gave me the confidence boost I desperately needed to start going out more. I think the extra year was actually a blessing in disguise; it gave myself the time I needed to regain a footing and feel a lot less brainwormed about my appearance. The time also allowed me to better reflect on whether surgery was something I truly wanted (answer: yes). In being more confident to present as a woman, it allowed me to come out to more old friends and a few work colleagues (as a prelude to surgery plans, since coming back looking different was going to be hard to explain). The time also allowed everyone, especially my wife and parents, to ease in to the changes to come. It was an incredibly eventful 1 year, which I am grateful for.
My flight was at midnight, so I had a work day to get thru. Working at 110% efficiency, I managed to settle most things, but there was no mental bandwidth for anything else until the work day ended. I went home to do last minute packing, followed by dinner with my parents, wife and kid. It was nice; my dad steamed crab and blanched slices of the fish he bought from the market, which was always a treat.
Going into the night, I felt incredibly emotional. I remember hugging the pet cat after work alone at home and breaking down a bit on the sofa, telling her that I wasn't ready to leave people behind, almost like a dereliction of duty. In the post-dinner drive back with my wife, I told her I was grateful for her support so far, knowing that it has been a difficult journey for her, as well as be the solo-parent while I recovered overseas. I felt emotional as I hugged my parents at the departure gates, Mum showing love the way she knew how, passing me her rosary telling me that as a Mum, she couldn't be there to recover with me, so in her stead she asked Mother Mary to keep watch over me. As I sat inside Terminal 3 sipping a drink, waiting for my flight, tears kept streaming down my face as my kid and I exchanged text and audio nessages. It wasn't the end of the transition, but pursuing FFS was a big step, something that I had wanted for years. And coming back I would socially transition, something that I had been mentally prepping myself for but always felt very scary.
Flight into Paris was uneventful. I got lucky and didn't have anyone seated behind me, so I could fully recline and got a reasonably decent sleep the entire flight. Which is really important because the day ended up so long.
My room for most of the trip. Quite nice
My accommodation was a villa in the outskirts of Paris that had link-up with the clinic, with 4 rooms for patients and a common living area. They had a driver who picked me from the airport and was also responsible for sending me (along with the other women) to and from pre/actual/post-op surgery appointments. I was quite happy I secured a space, because it was good value for the price, conveniencr and I would be recovering with other transwomen (and their partners), which would make the experience a lot better. Within the first 2 days I made friends with a German transgal and her partner going for the same extensive surgery as me 1 day before, who were really great company and also helped me out because I was there alone.
So much supplies. Also I'm sure the painkillers with Opium gave me some trippy dreams
We drove into Paris at 1pm and the first step was to get prescriptions, since the doctor's appointment was at 5.30pm (which became 8pm as he overran like crazy as usual). The amount of medicinal supplies i needed post-recovery seemed a bit insane, filling up the entire jumbo plastic bag. We kind of just hung around Paris until the pre-consult with the doctor, where I recapped on the things I wanted for each of the degments. I was glad that I had 1 free day before surgery, which allowed me to eat some yummy french food and buy things for people back in Singapore before surgery day.
Being in Paris with adult money is so much different that as a student
The driver arrived at the villa at 7am on surgery day, in anticipation of the terrible traffic. I was already awake at 5am that day, getting ready, messaging people and attempting video calls with people back home. The emotions were a complicated cocktail mix, anxiety about surgery, uncertainty if all will be ok without post-op complications, worries about how things will play out when I get back home. Maybe there was also a sense of loss, thinking that today is the last day this will be my face, mixed in with grief and catastrophising, that if I were to die, I leave all these people behind. In general, during the drive to Paris, bringing into focus thoughts about family and the people I love made tears stream down my face.
After 1.5 hours of bad morning traffic, we finally reached the Clinique Eiffel Paris. The lobby is quite over the top looking, with the gold, mirrors, marble(?) and questionable artwork. But I suppose that's how plastic surgery hospitals are supposed to look...expensive. I sorted out the final payments, admin forms and i was brought to a room to change into the surgery outfit. This was when things started to feel real. Like a few years of anticipation and hope culminating in this moment...and then they made me wait an extra 2 hours cos the earlier surgery had a delay. Dr Qassemyar came into the waiting to do a pre-check on me, before I was lead by the nurse into the surgery room. It was really cold, so I was thankful for the warm air bed I was lying down in. The anaesthetist waltzed into the theatre, said some reassuring words, gave me an IV injection and the room started to spin. I remembered my final thoughts being "please wake up alive", before I closed my eyes and in the next monent I was awake again. Surgery was over!
I'll save the post-recovery for another post, but in short, I cannot overstate how damn rough recovery was; the closest parallel was a multiday endurance sport like a marathon, except you can't train your body for it and getting through it is just willing yourself to endure, holding on to knowledge that you'll get stronger as the days go by.
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