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.

3 months post-op: Update

Hey Everybody! Sorry it's taken me a while to update. I've been very busy with work and a few other things lately. I want to give a general update as well as talk about my pubic lift and a possible revision I'm seeking for one testicle that's a bit lower then the other. I'm going to separate this into two different blog posts just so the people who only want to read the pubic lift stuff wont have to do any scrolling around.

Update - 

So at this point, life is totally back to normal. I can do everything that I did pre-op. I can run for miles without anything bothering me down there. I can ride the exercise bike at the gym. I can lift. I can sleep on my stomach. etc. etc. I would say by the 7 week mark I was back to almost doing everything I just listed except the exercise bike I waited till recently to really give a try.

As for sensation, this is awkward to talk about so openly, but I said I would tell it ALL and in the hopes of being honest to other trans men out there I'm going to say it. Yes, it all works! lol Surprisingly, a lot of trans guys ask me if I have "any" sensation. I've actually never heard of any specific guy who has had metoidioplasty lose sensation. Not that it's impossible (a surgeon could always screw up) but the way guys ask me, you'd think it happens all the time. On the contrary, I've talked to hundreds of men who have had this surgery and not a single one has lost sensation, so obviously it does NOT happen often. (Those men may be getting confused with phalloplasty. But even with phallo, you CAN certainly have sensation in your phalloplasty, it just depends on what donor site you chose.) It just reminds me that there are a lot of ridiculous myths about FTM lower surgery but, that's why I'm writing this blog.

Back to my penis, it has lovely sensation! There is definitely no problem in that department. It is just as sensitive as it was pre-op maybe even more so now. Being intimate with it is certainly different than it was before because now it can be interacted with differently, but that is certainly a good thing! It definitely has increased my pleasure. I've heard of some guys saying that it was very different masturbating after meta surgery and that they had to "re-learn" how to masturbate because of the reconfiguration of things. But I haven't really had that problem. I requested "as much foreskin as possible" to my surgeon lol And for me masturbating mostly consists of moving the foreskin around so maybe that's why it's easy but honestly I find it even easier to masturbate now then I did pre-op. I have also received oral sex post-op and currently blow jobs are the reason why I exist. lol No but seriously, even though my penis is tiny, the reconfiguration of my genitals just makes oral sex feel so much better and look way sexier. I love it and it's wonderful.

Overall things are looking great and I'm really happy! (I am however considering a very minor revision on one of my testicles which I will explain in my next post.) I did lose some thickness in my penis as all the swelling came down. Haha, but I expected that. And even though it's less thick now, it's nice not having the swelling because now it's softer and moves around a lot more freely. I'll be honest, it's small. lol Like tiny, but I think it's a beautiful tiny penis. I feel very comfortable. My self esteem about my body has gone through the roof. I look in the mirror and what I see is beautiful. It's like having this little package makes any other parts of my body that I was self conscious about before not really matter. I thought the novelty would wear off by now, but I'm still constantly checking myself out in the mirror. lol I may still seek out phalloplasty down the road (when it hopefully becomes covered by insurance) because of size, but my meta surgery has extremely reduced body dysphoria for me. There are other aspects of dysphoria that probably never fully 100% go away, like the fact that I'm short and have small features. Or the fact that I'm trans. It's my history. I can't change it. I am who I am and I need to accept it, which for the most part I do, but every once in a while I start to feel "less than" a cis-male because I'm trans. Sometimes it makes me feel "different" being trans. I knew going into lower surgery that this was not going to cure those feelings totally. I knew that there were limitations to the surgery; I knew no matter how many surgeries I had my genitals would not be 100% like a cis-male penis and it took some time but I'm okay with that. I've accepted that. And having this surgery, just makes me feel so much more comfortable. It makes me feel a lot less "different." Most importantly, when I'm alone and look in the mirror I think I look beautiful and masculine and I'm so happy. What a terrible feeling it was to feel uncomfortable with my body, even when I was alone. Now, just having this little package, a penis and balls, it's just perfect.

Now, don't get me wrong and I can't stress it enough, this is a tiny penis. lol I don't want trans men to think I strayed them into believing metidioplasty created a huge penis. (Hell, it's not even an average size penis.) It's not huge in the physical sense, but it made a huge impact on how I feel and relate to my body. So if you're a trans man, sitting there, believing in your heart that the only way you'll feel complete is to have an averaged size (or larger) penis, then I'd recommend you look into phalloplasty. Again, I haven't wrote off phalloplasty for some far off time in the future where I'm either rich or U.S. health insurance covers it lol, but for right now, this meta surgery was attainable and exactly what I needed to feel right in my skin. If you'd like to read more about my decision making process on getting metoidioplasty instead of phalloplasty I'd suggest you check out my old blog post:  Why This Procedure?

So that's about it for my general update. My next post which I might even do later on today is going to be about the pubic lift (aka mons resection) and my possible minor revision on one of my testicles.

Any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

Take care.