Hanako’s Bottom Surgery / February 2026
I am finally taking one of the biggest steps on my journey, and it will be happening in February of 2026 in San Francisco, California: I am going to have a vulvoplasty. The medical term for this is “chopping off the willie to make a jillie!”
<scream class=”excited girly” /> I am extremely excited about this!
After the surgery, I have to stay in San Francisco for three weeks for followup appointments, and then the overall recovery is expected to take another two months or so, but I’ll be back home for that, for various values of “home.”
I have rented a two bedroom, two bathroom AirBnB in the Sunset district of San Francisco for my recovery in the city. This is a quiet, residential neighbourhood not too far away from Golden Gate park and Ocean Beach.
Help Wanted!
TL;DR I’m reaching out to Friends and Family looking for anyone willing to come and stay with me in San Francisco in February 2026, for anything between a few to ten days.
Right now, in August 2025, I’m trying to put the idea into people’s heads so they can think about it, and so I can try to gauge people’s theoretical willingness to lend me a hand. I know it’s a lot to ask of anyone. I know some people would need to take vacation time, and this hardly compares to a trip to Tahiti. I understand this isn’t a great time to want to travel to the US for many people. I will completely understand if you say no. I will completely understand if you say “probably” and then circumstances change at the last minute. But… Nobody can say “absolutely” or “probably” or “possibly” unless I ask. (Asking for help is something I’m always working on with my therapist.)
So what’s involved?
I am going to have mobility and endurance issues during my recovery, and I’ll need some people to stay with me and help me out. One of the surgeons I consulted described it something like this:
Your helpers don’t have to do anything clinical; that’s our job. The worst they might have to do is empty your urinary catheter bag for you. I want you to be laying down almost all of the time. After the first week, we will remove the Foley catheter. After that, you will get up to go to the bathroom, and occasionally stand to get the blood moving; your helper(s) will need to help you walk, especially at first. You won’t have the endurance to stand up long enough to wash dishes, or to run to the door for food deliveries, or to do much of anything, so they’ll also be helping with those kinds of tasks. Also, they’ll need to escort you to and from your weekly checkups. You really do need to have people actually staying with you, but they won’t need to be glued to your side 24/7.
If you come, you’ll have your own room, and you are of course free to come and go and explore the city while you’re here! If you can’t take a vacation, and you are allowed to “work from home,” there’s high speed Internet of course. If you want to bring someone along, the second room theoretically has a bed that can covert into three beds, but I have no idea how well that will work.
I’ll be covering the cost of all the accommodations and most of the food, since I kind of need to be there anyways.
Unless you’re planning to drive down, you probably don’t need a car in San Francisco, as it’s well covered by transit, Uber, and CyberTaxis (which are actually really convenient and cool!)
Calendar
| January 2025 | ||||||
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
| 26 | 27 | 28
PreOp Appt 1030 |
29
AirBnB Start |
30 | 31 | 1 |
| February 2025 | ||||||
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
| 2
Surgery! |
3
Release from hospital |
4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 9 | 10 | 11
PostOp Appt 1300 |
12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
| 16 | 17 | 18
PostOp Appt 1030 |
19 | 20 | 21 | 22 |
| 23 | 24 | 25
PostOp Appt 1000 |
26
AirBnB End |
27 | 28 | 29 |