Tracheal Shave, One Day Later

Yesterday, I had a tracheal shave at Kamol hospital in Bangkok. tl:dr; it went well.

Background
I'm 39 and nonbinary. I also frequently travel to Thailand for martial arts training. While I don’t have extreme dysphoria around my adams apple, I’m not a huge fan of it either, and I do most of my healthcare while I’m traveling. I almost got a tracheal shave last year, but decided against it. I finally pulled the trigger on it this year.

The Surgery
The surgery cost 25,000 baht (about 800 USD at time of writing) under local anesthesia and 45,000 under general anesthesia. I personally prefer to be awake during surgery if possible, so I can better understand what's happening with my body and communicate with my surgeon if necessary.
The only other major surgery I’ve had was a vasectomy, and this was substantially more physically and psychologically challenging than that. While there wasn’t any pain, the feeling of having my skin opened and trachea moved around was very unsettling. My surgeon was good about communicating, and letting me know what she was doing and when she was switching tools. If I signaled to her that something hurt, she would stop and give another local injection. The surgery only lasted an hour or so, but it was pretty intensely unpleasant hour; I kept feeling afraid that I would swallow at the wrong moment and mess up her cuts.

Recovery So Far

I felt extremely weak coming out of surgery, and asked to lie down in one of the patient beds for half an hour. Fortunately, my hotel is only 3 minutes from the hospital, so getting back was easy. There was a fair amount of swelling and discomfort in my neck, though definitely less pain overall than the vasectomy. I had a discord call this morning, and could only speak at the volume of a late-night smooth jazz DJ. At 24 hours out, I feel like my voice is about halfway restored. I was given painkillers along with my anti-inflammatories and antibiotics, but I’ve only felt the need to take them once.

Kamol Hospital
I was initially recommended Kamol hospital by a transgender Thai friend; I later found some pretty bad reviews of it on this subreddit, which gave me pause. I then later got in touch with someone who had the same surgery with the same surgeon (Dr. Janjira) and had a very positive experience, and that convinced me to move forward with it.
I would categorize the staff at Kamol as being very kind but a little bit disorganized. Dr Janjira had very good bedside manner. I started crying a little bit during surgery (turns out, a lot of emotions can come out on the operating table). One of the nurses held my hand during the operation, which I was extremely grateful for. They also offered to do free wound cleanings and bandage changes daily.

On the downside, communicating with them was a little touch and go. I initially contacted them through facebook, and they stopped responding to my messages; I then contacted them through WhatsApp, and they got back to me on Facebook. There were also some signs of disorder in the hospital – when I came in for my scheduled wound cleaning, I ended up waiting for an hour or so until a nurse was available. I might just be catching them at a time of transition, or this might be typical of their hospital.

Overall, my experience has been very positive. While my neck is still pretty swollen and bruised, not feeling that chunk of cartilage is nice. I had some difficulty getting detailed accounts of tracheal shaves, and hopefully this post will help inform others in the future who are considering getting one.