Tag: medical

This is my view of Spot for the next week and a half or so. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt!

My last stage of a buccal-graft (rebuilt with inside-of-the-mouth tissue) urethroplasty was this past Friday. I went home that same day, and I’ve been more or less asleep until today.

I low-key feel like I have to pee, all the time. This is normal, the same as any other time I’ve had a catheter in, though this time they’re giving me medication twice a day to prevent bladder spasms.

*Unlike* most other times, this stage of urethroplasty had me under total sedation, so they had to put a breathing tube down my throat during the surgery. I had a sore throat for the first couple days; it’s all fine again now.

Siiiigh. A year and a half of stricture complications since June 2015, and fingers crossed, this is THE LAST chapter in the Spot Surgery Saga. I have the catheter taken out two weeks after the surgery– as my doctor put it, “You’ll be peeing in a bag for Christmas, and standing up for 2017.”

Can’t wait. 83

You are looking at the strangest turn of luck I’ve ever experienced.

That up there? Is a kidney stone. It’s about the size of a dime, and has formed itself to be covered in spikes.

I just tore this crafty bastard out from my own urethra, *only* because of the hole my surgeon cut into me over five months ago in a last-ditch attempt to keep my repeated strictures from ruining said urethra.

This thing would have *shredded* poor Spot, if it had been left inside. And out it popped, precisely because I’d had so many complications with my phalloplasty.

Folks, I’m floored.

Also wheezing with relief that my last urologist checkup before they sew up the urethral hole underneath Spot’s base this December 16th happens to be tomorrow.

…Seriously, I want to have this thing bronzed.

Good news!! FINALLY some good news.

I didn’t even need a cystoscopy today, like was planned. Dr. Elliott went in with dilation tools, as seen here– which I want to assure everyone, was COMPLETELY painless, by the way!– and tried going down Spot’s urethra as far as he could ahead of time, to check for scarring.

He found no blockage. NONE. The mouth skin graft to make a new urethra back in June took 100%!! This is *fantastic* news!

I still need to chill a few months to make absolutely, *positively* sure the scarring isn’t coming back again, but my final surgery is already scheduled for December 16th, where they’ll sew shut my current urinary hole under the penis base and redirect Spot’s new urethra for good, after which I can get back to standing while peeing again.

Can’t wait~!

Word to the wise: if at any point you need a suprapubic catheter hooked up to you, and you’ve got a belly with some overhang, like I do, make sure you’re lifting it up and putting sterile, dry gauze over the entry site SERIOUSLY every day.

I could’ve had my catheter out with my urethroplasty yesterday, but because I’d been slacking off when it came to changing the gauze, not really checking if it was staying in place under my belly hang… yeah, even after six weeks of having a cath in, the area shouldn’t be looking *that* red. Got myself a nice little infection, which didn’t halt the surgery, but it means I have to keep it in for another week until I run a full antibiotics course.

NOW PLAYING in a certain phallo blogger’s insides– it’s “Stricture 2: This Shit Again”!

Remember that urologist appointment I mentioned having today? Well, I finally got an answer to why I’d still been on-and-off incontinent since the stricture removal in December, and the reason’s simple: The same scar tissue buildup (or “stricture”) that was making me incontinent back then is growing back in the exact same place.

The first surgery wasn’t a *total* loss– the stricture’s growing way, way slower this time. That explains why peeing hasn’t hurt, for now. But you see that squeezed-off pinchy bit in the x-ray? It’s gonna *start* hurting again, just like last time, if I don’t take action fairly soon.

I’ve got two options. Now that my docs know the scar tissue will just keep growing back in the same place if it’s scraped clear, I can either:

1.) agree to *another* surgery (done locally, this time; that part’s nice) that’ll take skin from the inside of my mouth and roll it into a whole new section of urethra, during which I’ll have to sit down to pee for at least 6 months while the new buccal-made urethra proves itself viable against the skin already there or not, with an estimated 70% success rate, OR…

2.) I can pass on the surgery, and instead insert what’s basically a sounding rod all the way through my penis, to bust up any new scar tissue as it regrows. Every day. Until… forever.

[head in hands, sighing] Y’know? I’m not happy about the choices I have to pick from, but *knowing* that something super rare and bad is happening is better to me than having to toss up my hands and shrug every time I’d lose bladder control. I’ll take a scary, concrete opponent to a mystery any day.

SUCCESS!

Out from the surgery with Dr. Crane to fix my urethral stricture and feelin’ surprisingly fine/lucid, if a bit sore around the area involved.

The scar tissue stricture was super dense, but short– enough to sew together the ends of the urethra without even needing to harvest any tissue from the inside of my mouth to connect any gap. Turned out to be a best case scenario. Finally! I could use one of those by now. :3

For Worried Anon!

I realize my last answer was a little vague numbers-wise, so to give some perspective of how rare the troubles I’m having really are, I offer this:

When I had phalloplasty, Dr. Crane and his team had done about 150 phalloplasties already.

So far, how many of those patients have had scar-tissue strictures like mine, *including* me?

3.

Those kind of odds are what I meant by “improbable.” So know what’s *possible* when you’re going in, sure– but honestly, I wouldn’t worry *too* much.

Month 4 ½-ish.

Movin’ slow this past week.

I’m in diapers again. For some reason, Spot has started leaking short, heavy bursts of the most foul-smelling urine, despite my already having a catheter in. At random. All through the day. Through the urethral stricture that’s already there, so whenever it happens, as urine is actually coming out, I am in UPPERCASE amounts of pain. The catheter opening’s been starting to leak tiny amounts of blood, too.

I’ve been told by my surgeon’s staff that this is something that can happen when a catheter’s in for a long time, and that I need to get my tube changed. Fair enough; it HAS been in for five weeks, and there’s still four weeks until my Final Boss Battle Surgery to get my urethra fixed from the mess of scar tissue it is now.

However, I just got told my usual doctor isn’t authorized to do this. I thought she was. Really should’ve double-checked on that, in hindsight. So, come Monday, it’s time for me to go re-catheterization shopping. And to have very little idea what’s going on with my crotch until then, other than that it’s drippy and smells awful.

I’ve been asked by two people now whether I regret having phalloplasty, and my response is a DEFINITE no. Not even through the complications I’ve been having. The humiliation of having to rush home from work to change my soaked pants. Or of being back in diapers. Or the pain. It’s still all been worth it. I recognize these are temporary problems, and can’t wait to finally write my name in the snow come winter. (I’m thinking cursive.)

It’s just… it’s been really, really hard this week. But, I promised to give my whole personal story when I started this blog, and if pain and uncertainty are temporary stopping points at the moment– even if most people going through phalloplasty will never have this happen, and I’m glad about that– I’m not going to hide this part, either.

Also, wanted to make sure to get a shot of under Spot’s head, ‘cause if nothing else, the area *around* the urethral opening’s been healing up like a charm. :3

Month 4. (Easier than going day by day, at this point.)

I wanted to bring up an important point for any of you who’re eventually going to go through phalloplasty, and that’s that it took me *four days* to muster up the courage to take this pic of my suprapubic catheter’s entry site.

Thankfully, nothing was infected when I finally looked at it, but it makes me realize the truth of something Dr. Crane and his staff told me: You *have.* To look. At your surgery site. To keep yourself healthy post-surgery. Buy a hand mirror. Use the reflection off whichever bathroom or bedroom mirror can reach down there. Just look at it SOMEHOW.

‘Cause I get it. For most of us, looking at our junk is something we’ve trained ourselves NOT to do, right? Out of sight, out of mind.

But this could’ve gone *so* much more badly than it did. All I had to go by was an awful smell coming from the catheter site. Does that mean it’s infected? No. Should I have checked to make sure a lot sooner than I did? YES.

Please. Don’t take that kind of head-in-the-sand chance with your health, any of you.