Images

Holy smokes! Did I seriously forget Spot’s 8-month anniversary by a couple days? Time sure does fly, doesn’t it?

While I’m still open to Asks, I’m not sure what else I can post to here lately that would be all that interesting. Spot’s peeing just fine; I can still come (albeit with any fluids coming directly from the factory plumbing, not the phallus); all’s right with the world.

I’ll have a 1-year retrospective in photos, to be sure, but otherwise, Spot’s been behaving himself, not counting the occasional accidental wetting.

Steady as he goes, I guess? Though feel free to drop me any messages. :3

In other news, this was my follow-up appointment with Dr. Chen today in a nutshell:

DR: We’re going to need you to stay here in San Francisco a while yet. No going home early, sorry.

GERBIL: Haroo. 😦

DR: But you’re healing from your urethral reconstruction like a champ!

GERBIL: Hooray! 😀

DR: You need to keep your catheter in another week, though. Need to give that surgery site some time to recover.

GERBIL: Haroo. 😦

DR: But we can cap the end off and have you start re-teaching your bladder how to hold onto urine again! Just unplug the cap and hold it over the toilet when you need to go. Then you can gradually switch over to using your phallus!

GERBIL: Hooray! 😀

DR: That about covers it for now. Any questions for me?

GERBIL: Hoor– oh. wait. naw, I’m good.

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.

You never forget your first sounding.

Mine came at my appointment with my surgeon today, and was… surprisingly painless! I know, right? I was all set to hear horror movie noises come out of my mouth, and nope– he already had the length of it lubed up and pressed down through my dong without me feeling anything more than a mild tightening at the base.

Bad news is, the sounding treatment didn’t unblock the scar tissue that’s in the way of my urine stream, so I have emergency surgery scheduled for Thursday in the early afternoon. My surgeon’s going up my urethra with a tiny camera and a wire, so he can scrape away the blockage where he finds it.

Huh. Well.

Bit of a setback last night. I’d been having some mild pain when peeing for the past week and a half or so, but the UTI test I took came back negative, so I didn’t think much about it. Then Friday night rolled around, and my pain when urinating jumped from a 2 or 3 on the pain scale to a 6 or 7, along with a greatly reduced stream.

From what the symptoms are pointing to, I might have developed a partial urethral stricture, meaning my dong is trying to “heal” itself by scarring up the urethra and making it that much harder to pee through it.

The ER staff confirmed I still *can* void my bladder, pain notwithstanding, so I’m not in any major danger. (Thanks, ridiculous pain tolerance!) They’re trying to treat the problem with antibiotics first, hoping it might just be a UTI that’s making my bladder spasm when I try to pee. Even though they agreed that it very well might be a stricture. They wanted to make sure I’m not playing an ace when a two will do, basically.

I’ll keep everyone posted. Fingers crossed, yeah?

Day 89.

Siiigh. *Right* as I was about to step through the door to work, too. This is why I carry around at least three extra shield liners and a spare pair of boxers and pants at all times.

(NOTE: my issues with bladder control go *years* previous to the phalloplasty, so if you’re planning on having the surgery done, this shouldn’t be as much of a concern unless you ALSO have a history of bladder-holding weakness. If you’re like me, and would have occasional accidents before the surgery: that issue’s not gonna get any better after all the parts downstairs have been shuffled around.)