Metoidioplasty Blues Part 2

The Results (AKA, The Cons)
Once the swelling and bruising went down, I was initially fairly pleased with the results, or at least at first glance. My little guy was free, I had decent length, and the positioning definitely made it feel more like a dick. What I didn't anticipate is over the next few months my balls got into a war over who got to be front and center. At about 2-3 months post-op, it was clear who won. My right testicle found its way up and stationed itself right next to my dick, pushing it off to the side. My left testicle dropped, landing almost directly behind my right testicle. This is not at all how I intended or wanted my genitalia to look. Beyond that, my left testicle settled into a position that makes me perpetually feel like my scrotum is being pulled on or pinched. It's incredibly uncomfortable. To make a long story short, I went back for a revision 9 months later at a greater cost to me, enduring more pain, and nothing changed. The kicker is that I also discovered that I have scar tissue in my front hole from the surgery and any penetration is painful.

How I Feel
I am deeply and profoundly disappointed. My dysphoria is through the roof and has never ever been this bad at any other point in my transition. I don't look at my genitals, my libido is almost non-existent, and I am in constant physical discomfort. There were points in the last year or so where I felt absolutely hopeless. And, all of those self-shaming thoughts of internalized transphobia would roar in my mind. I deserved this. I did this to myself. This was all my choice/fault. I should've just been happy with my body as it was. My body will never look anything other than disfigured. I am a freak. Luckily, self-love won out and I started opening up to the "what if's" of having a phalloplasty. I still feel like I've lost years of my life from this and it'll be hard to let those resentments go.

The Pros (cause nothing's that simple)
Although I am overwhelmingly disappointed and unhappy with my surgery, there are some positives that came from this experience that I will acknowledge. Foremost, I felt a complete shift in how my mind made sense of my genitals. My opening no longer felt like a vagina - it felt like a hole at the base of my pelvis. Likewise, my phallus no longer felt like my clit. It did not feel like a penis, but it definitely did not feel like a clitoris. This departure from how my brain made sense of my previous genital configuration, I think, blew the door open for me to recognize and acknowledge that what I really wanted was a phalloplasty. It was too hard for me to envision my body with a penis when it still felt like I had a vagina and clitoris. That jump was too big for me to make. Sadly, it took a spike in my dysphoria to understand what I really wanted.

Another other pro is that I decided to have inner/outer thigh lipo as a part of my surgery. I am genetically prone to carrying fat in this area and hormones did not redistribute it to other areas. It made it difficult to find pants that fit and, in my mind, was another manifestation of my gender dysphoria. My silhouette has changed subtly from that procedure and just enough for me to not notice those areas anymore.

The Cost/Insurance
I could write a whole series of blog posts on the horror that was my pursuit of insurance coverage for this surgery, but I'm not going to. I'm still too exhausted by it. Those ghost stories would include threatening legal action and threatening to expose the dirty laundry, so to speak, to the community they were raising money from. In a nutshell, it ended up getting covered with the exception of the lipo and pubic lift. Medalie would not submit the pubic lift through insurance as medically necessary although he does not perform the procedures without it.