I'm 7 months post op and very happy to be done and moving forward with my life. But I keep falling into deep depression and dysphoria worse than ever, I can rarely go outside anymore.
I had a very traumatic hospital stay and recovery. I was moments away from bleeding out two days after surgery, fortunately after over an hour of waiting and shock taking over, my lifeless body finally got the blood transfusion necessary.
Dr. Schechter never told me the severity of the situation, he had my blood soaked dressings changed several times a day by his intern. I rarely saw the actual surgeon, and when I did, he was abrupt, condescending and distracted.
The facility is like a 1950's psych ward. the caninet in my recovery room was rusted through, there was no handicap accessible shower (just one closet converted to a shower for the entire floor). The hvac failed as well as the air matress. They had to change my bed 3 times because the matress would keep deflating completely, leaving me lying on the hard plastic frame for the first 3 days of my recovery until finally I fixed the bed myself by looking up the manual online. This, after three hospital maintenance call, two emergency service calls to the vendor who rented the bed to the Dr for my recovery (the hospital doesn't have air matresses for people on constant bed rest), pleading to the head nurse, and even a visit from the CNO and countless attempts by nurses and assistants.
The icing on the cake is on the day of my discharge (10 days post op), after begging to leave the Dr finally agreed and said he'd sign the release paper before heading into surgery for the day (he seems to do at least one a day). Turns out he didn't do any such thing. so after waiting about 2 hours for the volunteer to show up and wheel me out I spent the next 2 hours trying to get someone from the nurse station to respond to my calls, and inquiries as to when I would be ready to go. They paged my surgeon, who was is the OR, but no response. they called his resident surgeon, no answer. turns out that he was also in the OR and I am responded after about an hour that it would probably be after 5-6pm. The surgeon told me he'd sign the releas paper at 7:30am. At 1pm, after my girlfriend helped calm me down from the multiple panic attacks I was having, she informed me that I could check myself out of the hospital. I hesitated, but then another panic attack started. So we grabbed my stuff, went to the nurses station and asked for my release waiver. The staff initially claimed that I couldn't do that, then refused to accept my patient rights when finally another nurse at the station had gathered the form and after a couple minutes of debating I was being escorted out of the building.
I never felt so liberated in my life. But it was going to be a long rough ride home. I still suffer from the ptsd from this experience. while the surgeon may have good results on occasion, mine was not.
Not only was the experience horrific, but the results of my surgery are so much worse than I had hoped. Dr Schechter doesn't reroute the urethra, and essentially just splays the urethra open to create a pseudo labia minora. the problem for me is that he didnt seem to remove any internal corpora cavernosa. It literally feels like he just amputated the penis, bifurcated the remains and created a perinatal flap along with the grafts from the penile skin.
Anywhoo, long story short, is that when I get aroused, my "labia" get so engorged that it looks hideous. To make matters worse, I also still have all the erectile tissue under my perineum, which swells and makes vaginal penetration difficult.
So I'm guessing I need to have a 2nd stage surgery to fix everything and do a labiaplasty, but I can't afford to, and my insurance likely won't cover any revisions.
Thanks for reading, I really appreciate any positive energy or other girls (or guys) who have been to Schechter, I'd like to know what your experience was like?
If not, be warned.
Jessi
oh, p.s.
The nursing staff are mostly students and interns, so be prepared for a lot of strange looks and awkward questions. In addition to the general homophobia and transphobia by all but the couple of queer nurses who were my saviors.
I had three friends who had phalloplasty with him last year and two of them had horrific experiences and very extended stays. Both of them were very upset about the experience and the care they received. I don't think either of them are crazy about their results either, but it's been a bit since I've spoken to them about it (don't want to make them relive things). I'm so sorry you had this experience :'(
Quote from: FTMax on February 12, 2017, 10:10:09 AM
I had three friends who had phalloplasty with him last year and two of them had horrific experiences and very extended stays. Both of them were very upset about the experience and the care they received. I don't think either of them are crazy about their results either, but it's been a bit since I've spoken to them about it (don't want to make them relive things). I'm so sorry you had this experience :'(
I'm so sorry to hear about your friends experiences also, I think it's much more widespread. hopefully. more patients will speak out.
It's ressurring to know that I am not crazy and others have had horrible care.
If anyone knows of other Schechter ftm/mtf patients, send them here.
I had a consultation with him for my SRS and was considering him. After 2 weeks and 2 requests for available surgery dates and no response other than someone would get back to me I gave up on him. I've heard several times now that I made a good decision!
Quote from: Charley on February 12, 2017, 11:11:20 AM
I had a consultation with him for my SRS and was considering him. After 2 weeks and 2 requests for available surgery dates and no response other than someone would get back to me I gave up on him. I've heard several times now that I made a good decision!
who did you end up with, or are you still looking for a surgeon?
I went with Dr. Rumer in PA. Very happy with the results.