Hey all, I haven't posted in years, been kinda just living life. Been super busy going through Nursing School at CUNY: CSI and mostly lurking forums. I've recently had an interesting chain of events and was wondering if people had some insight on what might come of them.
Back in November I suffered testicle torsion and had emergency surgery. While I was glad for the relief of pain, I was furious that the surgeon refused my request to just remove my testicles since he was cutting into my scrotum anyway. Instead the surgeon sutures my testicles to my scrotum to prevent torsion. This lead me to try and get help at the VA hospital when I went for my post op follow up with urology (Surgery was done at local hospital since I went in the ER). The VA docs gave me a whole spiel about not being able to remove viable testicles, and a explain that their not viable and even had to change blockers several times because they were damaging my kidneys. They're final remark is that the VA cannot do any surgeries for gender dysphoria.
Fast forward to about 2 weeks ago, I begin having terrible pains again just like the torsion pain. This time I take the drive to the ER at the VA and while I don't have a second torsion, the ultrasound shows bilateral microlithiasis (tiny stones in both testicles). The ER tells me to followup with urology again. When I see urology I explain to them I'm in pain everyday, can't they just take them out for pain management. Again they tell me they cannot, however the head doctor places a consult to be seen at Mount Sinai by a urologist associated with their Transgender Health Team.
Now we forward to today, I received a call from the Veteran's Choice program (the referral service). They are setting up an appointment with Dr. Lee Zhao, a urologist on the Gender Reassignment Team at NYU Lagone. What I'm wondering is if anyone has had experiences with Dr. Zhao or NYU Lagone. Also, has anyone ever heard of a referral like this ever going through all the way and a Veteran getting surgery done, something I thought was impossible through any military health care?
