Talking to family about hysto
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Hi all! I'm a 22-year-old trans man (he/him, no feminine terms please) and I've finally got started on the process of getting a hysterectomy. I've wanted to get one since 10+ years ago, even before I knew I was trans, and the current state of the world is more than enough to motivate me to finally do it.
However, I don't know how to break the news to my family (or if I even should do it in the first place). While my family has been very supportive overall, their attitude towards surgery hasn't been the best. They eventually came around me having top surgery, including helping with the financial aspect and visiting me in the hospital, but not before I had to hear a lot of comments on their fears of me becoming some sort of surgery addict and wanting to get more stuff done. That coupled with some of my relatives, like my mom, having had some struggles with uterine stuff (mostly fibroids) and hating the idea of having hysto themselves, and general societal attitudes about people with uteruses having autonomy over their reproductive health and willingly choosing to get rid of their ability to carry children, doesn't make me very hopeful about their reaction to my decision. I'm afraid that they'll try to talk me out of it or be very judgmental, and this is the last thing I need when I'm recovering from a major intervention.
I'm genuinely considering not telling them anything until the surgery is done and recovering on my own or with my friends's help. The surgery itself is covered under my country's healthcare system so I likely won't have to pay a lot of money, labor laws here are generally accommodating of medical leaves, and I live on my own. I'm just worried that I will need to have someone taking care of me the first days after surgery and I won't be able to have my family's support. I would love to tell them, but I'm scared that it will backfire on me and end up ruining our relationship. There's a long precedent of my family being very hesitant about me medically transitioning unless they talk to a medical professional first, and I really don't want to go through that again as an adult with a full time job and a life separate from theirs. It feels infantilizing and insulting.
Has anyone here been in a similar situation? How did you handle it? Is hysto recovery "chill" enough (for a major surgery, anyways) that you can just do it alone, or do you need a caretaker? I'm a pretty fast healer and recovered really fast from top surgery, but of course that might not be the case for hysto.
Ty in advance.