New Suicide Hotline Dedicated to Trans People Now Open for Calls

New Suicide Hotline Dedicated to Trans People Now Open for Calls | Advocate.com

This is obviously not related to my lower surgery but 41% of Transgender Americans attempt suicide. This might help some one. Please share.

1 year post-op!!!!!! 3 months post-op revision surgery.

Hey Everybody!

So I recently passed my 1 year post-op anniversary! And I am now 3 months post-op from my revision surgery so I thought I would talk a little about that experience and just update everyone about how I'm doing.

Revision Experience -

I went to Cleveland. My girlfriend and I rented a car and drove out there the day before surgery. I had surgery the following morning as an out patient procedure in his office. They prescribed me Ativan beforehand and I was instructed to take it 90 minutes before my procedure. So by the time I was walking into his office I was quite high and not at all nervous about surgery. lol So if there is anything you really want to talk to your surgeon about be sure to do it before revision day. I talked to him while under the influence, but he all ready had an idea of what he was doing before I came in so it's fine.

One complaint, I have told them a million times that I have an allergy to latex. It should say it on my file because when I filled out a medical history I wrote it on there. And they put it in the computer when I had the original surgery. And when I was in the waiting room I told the nurse when she came out to talk to me. I knew that they should be reminded because they have to set up special equipment usually when someone has a latex allergy. I found that out on original surgery day. When I told them I had a latex allergy while in the pre-op room and the nurse said they had to set up a new surgical room. They should have known but whatever, I understand mistakes happen and that's why I brought it to their attention. And that's why I brought it to the nurses attention when she came to talk to me in the waiting room before my revision. Sooooooo then I get into the room with the doctor and of course one of the first things he asked is "do you have an allergy?" And I say, "Yes, latex." And he started catching an attitude with me saying "You have to tell people these things." blah blah blah. That's when his nurse intervened and said "Oh, no he did tell me when we were out in the waiting room and I told him it was fine." Communication people! Come on! But anyways, he shut up when she said that. And he's lucky I was very high on Ativan or else I would have been mad. Anyways, he then went and got his latex free surgical things and all was fine in that regard.

The surgery was pretty quick. I don't have much concept of how long ti took exactly but I was practically falling asleep through it. The injections of the numbing medicine burned. The one in the tip of my penis especially sucked. lol But it made the area nice and numb for him to do his work and I was very unphased by it all. I laid there listening to his raido relaxing. When I was done the nurse walked me out to my gf in the waiting room. My gf took me out to a restaurant. I was fine but I was still super super high from the medicine. lol Then I went home and rested all day. The next day my girlfriend drove us home. I was fine on the car ride home. It was not nearly as painful as the original surgery. And I was back to work in a week after the revision surgery. Granted I was sitting on a pillow because my right testicle was bruised and I had stitches at the bottom of it so I was sitting directly on my stitches. But it really wasn't bad. It was nothing compared to the original surgery.

Another thing worth mentioning, I was charged $500 for this revision surgery. I personally think it should have been a free revision since it was in office and since it was mostly stuff that the surgeon could have prevented but I digress. I didn't make a big deal about it because I wanted it done and over with. I also didn't want to piss off someone who was going to do surgery on my penis. I also saved money by staying with a friend rather than in a hotel so I managed.

Results of Revision Surgery - 

In my last post I discussed the three things I needed done during my revision surgery. 1. extra skin removed at the base of my penis 2. foreskin fixed up a little 3. right testicle moved up more forward.

1. I'm happy with the extra skin removed at the base of my penis. It no longer reminds me of the outer labia that used to be there so I'm very happy about that because that was making me very uncomfortable.

2. Foreskin looks great! It's nice and uniform around the head now. I like it and I'm glad I had him touch that area up while I was under the knife.

3. He moved it up a bit. It's still lower then the left one but now the skin is more stretched out and moves easier. It is more in front of my legs when I'm standing normal so it looks better and is more comfortable. I haven't tried riding a bike yet so we'll see how that goes whenever I get around to doing that. I plan on doing some scrotal stretching to hopefully let everything hang more freely and now that my balls has been moved forward I am capable to do scrotal stretching. Before it was so low and tight it just wasn't possible to get anything wrapped around both testicles at the same time but now I can. So I'm very happy with that. Part of not having skin expanders put in before surgery means you are probably going to have a tighter scrotum depending on what kind of skin you have. I only wanted one main surgery and didn't want to deal with the pain and extra money of expanders so I took the risk knowing I'd probably have a tight scrotum. But like I said, now they are both placed in a good spot where I can put a scrotum stretcher above them and just let the skin stretch. The skin has also been stretching a lot on it's own over time for sure, I just want to help them along. lol

1 year Post-Op Update - 

It's been a whole year! Well I still love it. I still love seeing myself naked. I got nude and showed my penis to a room full of other trans guys at a lower surgery work shop at the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference. That was pretty cool! As I mentioned, as time goes on the scrotal skin is getting loser and moves more freely which is nice and I want it to continue to get loser so it moves more naturally.

Oh I had a very nice experience at the beach the other day. It was my first time going to the beach since having lower surgery. And for the first time, I didn't have to worry when getting in and out of the water about my lack of a bulge. While my penis is very small and therefore so is my bulge, there is still certainly enough there that when the shorts cling to me getting out of the water you can tell something is there. Before surgery I was always uncomfortable and nervous about that while swimming, especially at the beach where I am usually in semi shallow water and come in and out of waist level water frequently. Pre-op my wet bathing suit made it very apparent (at least in my mind) that nothing was there. But to my pleasant surprise, when I reached to move my clinging wet bathing suit away from my body I realized the clinging wet bathing suit just accentuates my package. lol So it's really super cool to not have to worry about that. And it was nice to have one of those moments where I'm reminded that having surgery is such a big relief. Now that I'm a year post-op it's easy to forget what it was like before. I'm glad that I was reminded how lucky I am to have had surgery. It's all those little nervous anxiety things about my genitals that were distracting me from living life before and while I am still trans and don't have a cis penis, my penis greatly improves my life by freeing me from a lot of the worrying and discomfort I used to live with. So it's really nice to say the least!

No regrets thus far. Again, sensation is fantastic, and aesthetically I'm very pleased. I still have my hang ups on how small it is and I have not ruled out phalloplasty down the road whenever insurance companies start to cover, but for now, this is exactly what I needed to be able to live comfortably. And for those who have not read my older posts, my urethra is untouched so that if I ever do have phalloplasty it wont increase my risk of urethra lengthening complications. Having a meta with urethra lengthening and then later going on to have your urethra lengthened again through a phallo increases your risk for strictures. Urethra lengthening is all ready a risky thing, and with the surgery I was having I did not want to potentially limit my future options or increase my risks for urethra lengthening. I don't know for sure if I will definitely seek phallo in the future but it's a very real possibility so I want to keep my options open. And as I've mentioned in the past, the surgery I chose was the option that would make me comfortable in my skin for now until I decide if further surgery will be necessary.

My Life Since Surgery - 

A few things worth mentioning, since having my original surgery life has been good! Since I was no longer struggling to save up for surgery I finally felt I was ready to move out of my parents house. So in November of last year I moved to Providence, RI and I now live here with some roommates. I was also asked to become a peer facilitator for the local trans support group here in Providence because the other facilitator was moving away. And that's been really cool to be a part of that. I am also involved with TGI Network of RI which is an organization that services the needs of transgender, gender variant, and intersexed individuals in RI. 

Non-trans related stuff, I got a job working an emergency veterinary hospital and I love it!!!!! I also got a kitten recently that came in as a stray at work. And he's the cutest little guy!

Oh and in December I started dating my girlfriend. She is awesome and super supportive. I will mention what that was like since some of you guys might wonder about dating while post-op meta. We met on OkCupid.com and on my profile I had stated that I was trans so I didn't really have to "come-out" about that. She was very much okay with me being trans and even though she had never dated a trans person before she is very trans-savvy. But we did talk a little about my genitals before getting in the sack. As many of you may know, the common myths are that "no trans men have lower surgery" or that "all trans men have lower surgery". In my experience, most queer or trans-savvy people assume you have no had surgery. But I have experienced the people that assume I have had surgery and even if they do, I feel like I need to disclose a little about my genitals beforehand since I don't have the typical cisgender penis package. Your mileage may vary. lol Anyways, somehow or another on the second date, at a restaurant we got on the subject of my penis. (Typical charming guy, talking about his penis at a restaurant on the second date.) But in vague terms I explained that I had lower surgery, which I was a little nervous about because I figured she had assumed that I didn't have lower surgery and I was worried how she would react to finding out I had surgery. People can sometimes be weird or uncomfortable with that sort of thing. But after I told her I had surgery I did feel the need to elaborate that my genitals were different than cisgender genitals. That part of the convo is not something that I would have really talked about with friends or casual acquaintances lol. But talking to someone who I was interested in sexually I personally felt I wanted her to know what I had going on in my pants ahead of time because sometimes when you tell someone you had surgery they assume your penis is just like every cis gender penis they've been with and I wanted to clarify. What other people disclose to partners about their body is up to them and they can do whatever they want to do, I'm just saying with me, I wanted to at least let her know that I had surgery, that my penis definitely "works" as in it has great sensation and I get erections, but it's very small and for the type of surgery I had, my set-up is not exactly that of a cisgender guy.

And she was super cool about everything. The conversation was very nonchalant. There was humor involved and it was light-hearted. I felt very comfortable sharing with her and she was very receptive of it all. And because of that conversation, I wasn't worrying in the back of my mind about how she was going to react when she "found out." So before we started being physically intimate, I was able to just get to know her and not really worry about that. When we did eventually start having sex, I was also very happy that she all ready knew about my fancy penis and there was no really big surprises. lol And something I think about a lot, I'm really happy that she never knew me pre-op. I feel like it gives me a certain level of comfort with her only having ever interacted with my body this way. I have a very deep level of comfort with her that I've never had before and it's awesome. Whether its from having surgery, or just because she's an amazingly accepting and wonderful person, I don't know, but I imagine it's a little of both.

Sooooo, I will leave everything at that. Maybe in a few months I'll update about how ball stretching is going and talk about anything else that might come up. Feel free to ask questions in the comments section, I get notified by e-mail when someone asks a question and I try to get back to them within a few days. Plus I'm very open and the whole point of this blog is to answer people's questions so go right ahead.

Take care!

Long Overdue Update!!! 9-Months post-op from surgery

Oh boy! Long overdue update. I'm sorry, I've been busy with life and overall after a certain point not much changes with healing so there really wasn't all that much to say.

I just had a minor revision surgery and I'll make a separate post addressing that specifically but let me tell you what lead to having this revision surgery.  I absolutely loved and was happy with having surgery but there were three things that needed some tweaking. I'll go from greatest to least importance to me.

First, once all of the swelling came down (which takes many months slowly over time) I was able to see that there was in fact skin left over just to the side of the base of my penis above my right testicle. Basically what I'm saying here is there was left over outer labia. And it had to go. There was no question in my mind ever at any point if I was going to leave it there. Once it became apparent that it was there, I knew I was going to need a revision. People who have seen it assured me that it didn't look bad and just looked like it was a part of the scrotal skin but I didn't care. I knew that it was labial skin, it reminded me too much of what used to be there, and I knew it had to go.

Second, the damn right testicle. lol With the mass amount of swelling after the operation it basically pushed the right testicle somewhat into my body and way lower than the left one. When I was laying down or sitting, the testicles looked quite normal but when I was standing normal the right was so low that basically my testicles would be one in front of the other and you could hardly even see my right testicle when I was standing. Which I didn't like very much. Though it wasn't the end of the world, I still wanted to have it moved more forward on my body. They didn't have to be perfectly symmetrical because I know cisgendered men's balls are often not symmetrical and that's totally natural and normal but I felt mine were just a little too crazy to look natural. It went beyond that natural asymmetry and into the odd zone in my opinion.

In earlier months of the healing process the low testicle was very annoying and uncomfortable. I would sit on it. It felt like it was going inside of me and was uncomfortable. It would hurt if I tried to ride a bike. Things like that were bothersome. But as time went on and the skin started to loosen up and swelling went down it became a lot less physically uncomfortable. Once things loosened a bit, it started to move out of the way when I was doing stuff basically. lol I can feel them move past each other and what not when I'm moving around and it's not uncomfortable. So a few months ago the low ball was probably my biggest concern but once it wasn't bothering me physically anymore it became less of a concern. Though I still wanted the thing lifted up more in front of my body which is why it's another thing I asked for in my revision procedure.

Third, the head and foreskin needed a little bit of tweaking. It wasn't bad at all and if it had been the only problem I sure as hell wouldn't have seeked a revision for it. It's really hard to explain but basically the foreskin didn't wrap around the head in a very symmetrical way. In other words one part of the glans (head) stuck out a lot more form the foreskin while the other side was more covered. It wasn't that big of a deal but since I was all ready going under the knife for a revision I figured I'd have it fixed.

Funny story, while I knew it bothered me a little, I hadn't even been planning on having it fixed. I was thinking "Ah, I shouldn't mess with the tip of my penis. It's the most important part and it's doing just fine!" lol But then I got to my doctors office for the revision procedure.... I was very high on ativan which had been prescribed to keep me calm since I would be awake for the procedure. And under the influence of ativan, when the doctor was going over what we had talked about for the revision, he followed it up with "Anything else you want done?" To which I replied, "Actually!!!......" And we discussed fixing the head and I decided to go for it and have it touched up. So that was literally done on a whim. lol No regrets though. I'm happy I decided to have it fixed up. I was there and if I was gonna get all the other things that bothered me fixed might as well go for it all, right? lol So that happened.

Mhmm, so that is where I was at just before I had my revision surgery. Honestly, you weren't missing anything from 3 months post-op to 9 months post-op. Not much happened other than me noticing these three things that bothered me once the swelling came down.

FYI, so with these surgeries, the surgeons do the best they possibly can in the original procedure. But they are not miracle workers and they are doing a lot of stuff at once. Then everything swells up and once things heal everything can look a lot different. It's not uncommon for people to decide they might want some revisions. Some people don't need them, some people do. It's the luck of the draw I guess. In my situation, I could have "lived" without the revisions but I absolutely despised that extra skin and I would have been very uncomfortable not getting rid of it so for me, the revision was needed and worth it. Another person might have had the same results as me and maybe it wouldn't have bothered them and they wouldn't have bothered to have a revision. It can often be a very personal choice. (Side note: sometimes revisions are not just a personal choice, such as when there are surgical complications that absolutely need to be addressed. Examples: painful positioning of implants, urethra fistula - hole in the urethra, or a urethra stricture - tightening and possible closure of the urethra.)

But, I had my revision surgery 3 days ago, so for my next blog post I will talk all about my experience going back to Cleveland for my revision surgery.

Revision Surgery - 3 Days Post-Op

(AH!! I just realized I saved this post as a draft but never actually clicked publish!!!! I'm so sorry about that! Here it is, 3 months after I originally wrote it. lol)


Hey everybody,

I had my revision in his office under local anesthesia. He had me take ativan 90 minutes prior to the procedure so I was very calm and really really calm. lol I was actually falling asleep while he was doing it. It was very nice. I felt him give me the shots of lidocaine which burns for 10 seconds but after that everything was numb and he was doing his thing while I was falling asleep listening to the music he had playing in the background. Vastly different experience then when I had my chest revision under local anesthesia and was very conscious and freaking out the whole entire time. So this was a piece of cake!

I had him lift my right testicle that was sitting a lot lower than the left one. I also had some outter labia left over at the base of my penis above the right testicle and I hated it so he removed that. And I had him tweak the head a little bit. I wanted the head to look a little more symmetrical on both sides so he adjusted that a bit.

Only had to stay in Cleveland for 1 day. Pain hasn't been very bad. He prescribed me pain meds but I really haven't needed much of it. Mostly it's just some serious soreness and occasional aching of the stitches below my balls. Makes it very uncomfortable to sit and walk around.

So ya, I'm healing now. Hopefully that pesky right ball doesn't go back down because I really like it in this position. But I was much more concerned about the extra labia skin at the base of my penis and that is gone so I'm very happy about that! And the adjusting of the head/foreskin symmetry wasn't even a big huge deal to me but since I was all ready there to fix other stuff I figured I might as well have that done too. I'll update when I'm healed up.