Author: ChinchillaMajor

Haha– not offensive at all, I can totally see it! I’m just glad Spot’s model doesn’t give me any trouble with stairs. :3

Also, nope, the sleeves I usually wear are made of simple stretch cotton and thread. I just started going to a hand therapist today, however, who gave me an Isotoner brand compression glove that serves to cover up most of my arm like the sleeves, as well as a whole stack of daily hand exercises for my homework. [sighs, looking at all the pages] I can do this. I can do this…

I wish I had a less boring answer for this one, but the long and the short of it was: starting a savings account and adding to it every week, even little bits at a time if that’s all I had, for a little over seven years. It really does add up over time, and if I *could* add more in a given week, I did, all that I could.

This last year (since November 2014 or so), I had an added leg up thanks to getting insurance through HealthPartners, which allows for phalloplasty if they deem it medically necessary. Though I wish I could say that part was more help than it ended up being; I battled with them all the way from the start through the last weeks before surgery trying to get them to accept it as “medically necessary,” and again to have the surgery be counted as “in network,” as paying the out-of-network costs literally would have bankrupted me.

(Fun fact! It takes an average of two “Can I speak to your manager"s before you can talk to someone who actually knows how something is determined to count as medically necessary.)

My highest kudos to you for this ask’s timing. My partner admitted to me tonight that my arm is seriously freaking him out even when it’s covered, which explains how distant he’s suddenly become since I’ve gotten back. There’s a bunch of stuff up in the air between us right now, so hearing this was a much-needed confidence boost, thank you.

It hasn’t always been easy, but I promise to do what I can where I can, information-wise. :3

Dr. Spencer was one of the two that wrote me my letters, so you’re in luck! 😀

Aww, thanks! I try. :3

My first consultation was back in June of 2014, when I took a quick two-day trip to San Francisco to meet with Dr. Crane in person. This was after a 2013 trip to meet with Mr. Christopher in the UK, who has fantastic results, but required a hysto/vaginectomy before he’d do a phalloplasty.

Once I got the okay from Dr. Crane, as well as confirmation that scrotoplasty/the various -ectomies were only optional with him, June 17th in 2015 was the earliest I could schedule with him for the procedure itself. Between the consult and the phalloplasty, I had to get together two letters of recommendation from mental health professionals (both of which I got from the Center for Sexual Health at the University of Minnesota), as well as a letter from my general MD explaining why I hadn’t had HRT and didn’t intend to start. Requirements for my insurance company differed slightly, demanding specifically phrased information be used, but even they still needed those three main letters.

I personally had a leg up on getting a meeting with one of the psychiatrists at the CSH, due to my having had therapy with her back when her caseload wasn’t as gigantic as it is currently. Keep in mind, without that prior approval to see her, wait times for enrolling to see a psychiatrist at the CSH can be ridiculous, and if you haven’t been there in over a year, you get put on the general waiting list no matter how many times you’ve been there previously. If you want to see someone there, acting quickly is your best bet!

Also, make sure to confirm that the psychiatrist you see actually writes recommendation letters if that’s what you’re after, as I lost several months waiting to schedule to see one psychiatrist there who, it turned out, didn’t provide those.

Good luck to you!