So my surgery date has changed 3 times so far, and now it's just a vague question mark. All I have now is "in or after late August". Dr. S is taking paternity leave sometime around mid-July, so I likely won't have a date until the baby shows up. Hopefully I'll get at least a month's notice.

In some ways I suppose it's good. It'll give me time to fit in 2 more laser appointments, and as much electrolysis as I can afford. I can bug insurance some more about a single case agreement and a gap exception to lower my costs. I have more time to figure out arrangements for my dog. I'll definitely be able to lose the weight that Schechter wants me to lose. It actually works out better for my job if I wait until the end of August instead of earlier in the summer.

But I won't have anyone to take care of me. I've been planning on having my dad be my caregiver post-op. He's a high school counselor, and he was completely available from mid-June through mid-August. If I'm lucky, it'll line up so that he can fly out with me and stay through surgery day, whenever that ends up being. But I'm not counting on it lining up.

My girlfriend may be able to come out for about a week, but probably not for more than that. I have a friend whose surgery will be in June, and he's said if he's still out on medical leave by the time I go, that he'll come with and take care of me. There's also another guy I know who's waiting to be scheduled. I know he's hoping for something in June or July, I'm not sure if he can take a later date than that due to work but if his ends up around the same time, we might be able to arrange some kind of joint accommodations and save money that way.

Ugh. This has been the most exhausting thing I've ever done, and I haven't even done it yet.

Hi guys,

It's been a minute since I updated. I am still waiting on a concrete surgery date. I've exchanged emails directly with Dr. Schechter and he's promised me that we are looking at late August or early September. His scheduler confirmed this in a more recent follow-up email, and told me she would be getting in touch in early July to schedule. So fingers crossed for that.

In the mean time, the issue of having someone to come with me and where I'll stay during surgery has been solved. I've made quite a few good friends during this whole process, one of whom just recently had surgery with Dr. Schechter. After his experience, he has decided to permanently move to Chicago and open a recovery space in his apartment for trans people undergoing gender confirming surgery with the surgeons in the city. He is working incredibly hard (despite still recovering himself!) to make this a reality before my surgery date. And, he's made arrangements with friends of his in Chicago who have agreed to let me stay with them in the event that he isn't able to move by then. So I feel infinitely better now that at least that portion of the planning is taken care of. That still leaves plane tickets, time off work, a dog walker, etc. to figure out, but that is all easily managed once I have a date to work with.

If anyone is interested in more information about the recovery space, feel free to message me. He will be charging for folks who want to stay, but it is substantially lower than the cost of a hotel and includes transportation to/from the airport, the hospital, office visits, etc., as well as food and medical supplies. He is also running it on a sliding scale, and will not be turning away anyone that can't pay. I'm really excited to see how it works out, and promise to be candid about my experience.

Wow, he's really performing a service for trans people. I could never do what he's doing.

He's doing a great deed there. That's awesome, thanks for telling us about it and keeping us posted.

Do you know how long recovery will take you and when you'll be able to do things like drive and return to work?

Quote from: alienbodybuilder on July 04, 2016, 06:24:36 PM
Do you know how long recovery will take you and when you'll be able to do things like drive and return to work?

From guys I have spoken to, anywhere from 4 weeks to 12 weeks is normal with zero to minimal complications. I am planning to take a month off from work and physically be in Chicago that whole time. I'm planning to work remotely whenever possible during that period (probably for the last two weeks for a few hours each day). After I come back home, I am planning to take another 2 weeks to work remotely or go in for partial days. Depending on how things are going at that point, I may go back to work full time or I may continue to work remotely.

I should be able to drive as soon as I'm off narcotic pain meds, but I will probably take it easy for a while. The past few surgeries I've had, I've stopped taking meds very early on and went back to normal activities way earlier than most people do. I am planning to rest the entire 4 weeks I'll be in Chicago, and hopefully that will help me get back to regular stuff more easily once I'm home.

I posted about this on another group, but figured it was a relevant addition to my thread here. While I hope this doesn't happen to future Schechter patients, I think it's worth putting it out there so that folks know it has happened at least once.

Tl;dr - I keep getting disappointed by Dr. Schechter's office, who has yet to schedule me for surgery after months of being ready and waiting. Still no surgery date. I scheduled a consult with another surgeon and am considering going to someone else.

To recap, I consulted with Dr. Schechter at the end of February. I asked during my consult if summer would be doable for surgery, and was told yes. It took about 3 weeks after that for my insurance to approve the procedure. Shortly after that, I got my first surgery date. And it was subsequently cancelled. This process repeated 2 more times. I've had a total of 3 dates, all of which were cancelled shortly after being scheduled.

Around mid-May, I reached out to Dr. Schechter directly to confirm what exactly we were looking at in terms of dates, and was told late August or September. Not what I wanted to hear, but fine. I got an e-mail from his office coordinator about a month ago, saying that she would be in touch in July to get me scheduled. She did get in touch last week, and asked if I was ready to pay the balance of my portion for the procedure. I assumed this meant that they had a date lined up, so I asked when I'd be having surgery.

Apparently she didn't remember cancelling my last surgery date and that's what she had wanted me to pay for. I told her I wasn't keen on paying any more toward my balance until I had a date, and was 2 weeks out from that date because of all these cancellations. She asked me to reconfirm what date range I was looking at, and I reiterated what Dr. Schechter and I had previously discussed about late August or September if there wasn't an earlier option. I could hear her scrolling over the phone and after a few seconds she finally goes, "Hmm well we're booked up for both of those months. It looks like the earliest we might have is October."

It took me a few hours to get over how ridiculously angry I was. After I did, I emailed Dr. Schechter and, as politely as possible, went through the timeline as I did above, reminded him all the dates we had discussed at various points in this process, and questioned why guys who had consulted after me, whose insurance had approved after mine, and who were at the same stage of readiness as me, had had surgery already this year, during the periods that I had wanted to have surgery.

Unfortunately I didn't get any kind of answer. He said they are still looking at dates and coordinating with the urologist that he works with. He didn't give me any kind of timeline or date range this time, just that they would "be in touch ASAP" with a date. This was exactly the kind of headache that I wanted to avoid by not going to Dr. Crane. It has taken every ounce of willpower in me not to call and ask to have my pre-payment refunded.

I'm still pretty upset about it. I've done everything possible to breeze through this process. I decided the day after that I wasn't going to wait for them to get in touch again, only to find out that there are no dates available until winter or later. So I got in touch with Dr. Bluebond-Langner's office in Maryland and scheduled a consult. She can't get me in until the beginning of October, but it doesn't seem like I'll be getting in with Dr. Schechter before then, so there's no harm in it.

There are a lot of pros to potentially going to her for surgery. She's about an hour away from my house, so travel costs would be minimal and lodging expenses would be non-existent. I have lots of local resources in place, all of whom highly recommend her. And my out of pocket expenses with insurance would be at least $3k less. The only con that I can see is that she is significantly less experienced. I've asked my doctor for copies of my referrals. Once I get those, I'll be asking if Dr. BL's office can add me to the cancellation list so I can potentially get in earlier.

I'm not excited about potentially having to restart this whole surgical process, but I'm really disappointed in the experience I've had thus far with Dr. Schechter's office. At first I thought it was just an issue of scaling up his capacity to meet the increased demands now that his name is more out there, but the fact that I've been passed over at least 3 times that I know of really makes me question what the hell is going on.

Feel free to leave feedback and thoughts. Every time I write this out, I get more angry about it and think about cancelling with him altogether. I want to give them the opportunity to do the right thing, but it seems pretty bleak at this point.

Is Crane's office typically as bad as Schechter's has been for you, or were you just tangled up in the whole Texas situation? Seems to me that after all of this, you might have been better off with Crane after all--but not if you had to go to California unwillingly.

I'm just blown away by your situation. I, too, would be absolutely furious. We have to put our lives on hold, arrange leave from work, sometimes get a significant other to get time off from work, get people to care for our homes/pets/kids, that sort of thing--and certain times of the year are significantly worse than others. We need some kind of assurance that, barring truly unavoidable circumstances, we will have some control over the surgery date and some expectation that the date will stand. After three cancellations under the circumstances you've detailed, I would certainly want to look elsewhere, too.

Frankly, I'd hesitate to have such a delicate surgery performed by someone without tons of experience, but I can see the attractions of staying close to home. What other reasonable options have you?

There were a lot of really awful stories about dealing with Dr. Crane's office around the time I started surgeon shopping. They were hard to get in contact with, hard to hear back from, people were waiting for months on end without any kind of confirmation about what stage of the process they were in, etc. I have heard it has gotten better over the last few months. I also would not want to travel to SF. I've heard a lot of bad experiences with the hospital they operate out of. I'd be open to going to Austin, but I don't think I'd want to be one of the first patients to be hosted there. I'd want them to have some time to work the kinks out, and that would probably push me out into next year.

I am still pretty angry about the whole situation, and I think deep down I would like to cancel with Schechter. I have a friend who had surgery with him about a month ago who is still there, and mentioned that he would talk to him today and see if he could get a sense as to what happened. I've been racking my brain the last few days trying to think if there was any possibility that it was something on my end that might have led them to cancel, but I feel like they would've said something after the first one if that was the case. Either way, I'm interested in hearing what he says. My general feeling right now is I will wait until the end of the month for them to give me a date, and if I haven't heard from them then, I will cancel.

I definitely like her results from what I've seen. My doctor showed me a fairly lengthy presentation that Dr. BL did, and aesthetically it's very impressive. I would love to find one of these guys and talk to them to see if functionally everything is as good as it looks. I have a friend who will be having surgery with her sometime this fall, so I may be able to talk to him afterwards if mine hasn't been done by then.

She has done far fewer than Schechter has, but she's well into the double digits at this point. I do think as a community we should be more open to lesser known surgeons. I like the approach Crane took with Chen, and I think ideally that is how everyone should do it. I can't remember who Dr. BL trained with. I want to say the London team, but not 100% sure. She's a big fan of MLD, which makes me think she also spent some time with one of the Serbia teams. If I end up going to her, I may have her look at my MLD donor site. Schechter said it was not ideal, but I've lost over 40lbs since then so maybe it is now. I've already done a lot of hair removal on the arm though, so that would be a waste.

I could consider other surgeons, but there's really no one else I'm interested in going to. Out of everyone I'd consider going to, they all have cons that outweigh the lack of experience that Dr. BL has, at least for me at this point.

Man, sorry you are getting the run around with this. Sounds like there's big room for improvement with their scheduling system. Or something else is not right.
Thanks for keeping us updated, it is important and helpful to hear the good as well as the not so good experiences.
I hope you get a solid date set soon, whichever surgeon you ultimately end up with for that.

Does this Dr. Bluebond-Langner have results photos available at all, perhaps if one contacts the office by email? I'm finding nothing online. Surgery's still a ways off for me so I'm still keeping my eyes open for options.

I don't know what is up with Crane's office. My case manager told me I'd be using Crane--as if I had no other options--because he is in my primary network. Yet Crane's office says that he doesn't deal with my insurance provider at all.

I do have a PPO, but it covers only half for a surgeon outside of the system, so I don't know whether Meltzer or someone else on this side of the country is a possibility.

Now I'm starting to worry that I'll get into the same kind of merry-go-round that you are on, FTMax. When I finally schedule procedures, it's because I'm reaching the end of my rope and cannot gracefully handle delays.

How the heck do you cope?

Good news is that my friend who recently had surgery with Schechter spoke to him about all this, and Schechter said he is working to get me in this August. So, fingers crossed that (1) that happens, and (2) they tell me about it with enough notice that I can actually take the date.

@blink : I don't believe she has any results online. That is an issue I've run into with all of the surgeons who are affiliated with University hospitals - no online results to speak of, unless the patient has posted them. If I find some, I will definitely point you in that direction. And if I end up going to her, I will be posting online and would be happy to share.

@Arch : If your case manager is saying one thing and Crane's office is saying the other, I would see if you can do a conference call with them to hammer out where the disconnect is. A lot of guys recommend asking for Ursula at Crane's office. She will make sure stuff gets done. I'd also look into Dr. Dugi and Dr. Berli at Oregon Health & Science University. They have trained with Dr. Miro and are starting to offer phalloplasty this fall, so by the time you are ready to go, should have a decent practice started up. I know someone who has gone to Crane who is having them do his implants, and he was very happy with his consult and excited to work with them.

As far as coping, I'm really not. I'm super stressed, anxiety is awful, and I don't think I've ever wanted to not exist more than I have during this whole period of time.

August! Fingers crossed for you.

And thanks for being willing to direct me to results. Frustratingly, websites with readily available results photos such as Dr. Crane's seem to be the exception rather than the rule. I understand only so many people are comfortable sharing their results, but to me it seems many surgeons just have not hired someone to create such a website, for whatever reason. I don't understand it. Seems like it'd be a huge factor in how many patients one would get. Maybe these surgeons feel they already have enough patients through word of mouth. Or maybe I am underestimating how many hundreds of patients a surgeon has to have to find a handful of dudes comfortable with sharing their results.

Dr. Dugi, Dr. Berli. I keep seeing more names in this thread I don't recognize and really wonder how many good options I'm unaware of. After all, I ended up going with Dr. Gary Lawton for top surgery and I had to dig around awhile before his name came up. He's not one of the more talked-about surgeons (or wasn't when I went to him, maybe that's changed) but I'm satisfied with my results. Max, I agree with your view that it's a good idea to consider lesser-known surgeons. Dr. Crane was also once such a surgeon.

Not ever? Is it worse for you now than before starting transition? That sounds horrific, I'm sorry. Wish I had something more helpful to say but, hang in there. It'll happen at some point, and then it will have been worth it.

Quote from: blink on July 15, 2016, 12:20:15 PM
August! Fingers crossed for you.

And thanks for being willing to direct me to results. Frustratingly, websites with readily available results photos such as Dr. Crane's seem to be the exception rather than the rule. I understand only so many people are comfortable sharing their results, but to me it seems many surgeons just have not hired someone to create such a website, for whatever reason. I don't understand it. Seems like it'd be a huge factor in how many patients one would get. Maybe these surgeons feel they already have enough patients through word of mouth. Or maybe I am underestimating how many hundreds of patients a surgeon has to have to find a handful of dudes comfortable with sharing their results.

Dr. Dugi, Dr. Berli. I keep seeing more names in this thread I don't recognize and really wonder how many good options I'm unaware of. After all, I ended up going with Dr. Gary Lawton for top surgery and I had to dig around awhile before his name came up. He's not one of the more talked-about surgeons (or wasn't when I went to him, maybe that's changed) but I'm satisfied with my results. Max, I agree with your view that it's a good idea to consider lesser-known surgeons. Dr. Crane was also once such a surgeon.

Not ever? Is it worse for you now than before starting transition? That sounds horrific, I'm sorry. Wish I had something more helpful to say but, hang in there. It'll happen at some point, and then it will have been worth it.

It seems the way some of them luck out at least early on is by accepting a lot of common, local insurance plans and relying on that instead of word of mouth. At least speaking in terms of Dr. BL, I know she is covered by the majority of plans in the greater DC region now so I have heard of quite a few folks going to her (mostly MTF, but I've met 2 other guys who are planning to go to her for surgery and 1 who is using her for post-op care though Schechter did his phallo). I would never have heard of her if I hadn't asked my doctor who locally was doing bottom surgery.

Also, if you're on Facebook I can direct you to some secret groups with tons of results. Feel free to message me if that interests you. You'd have to add me as a friend in order for me to add you to them. They grow by direct word of mouth only, which is cool.

I think the trend will continue and we'll likely see a lot of new names over the next few years. Dr. Miro from Serbia has been traveling pretty extensively throughout the US teaching teams at different hospitals how to do both phallo and meta. I'm not sure if he is planning to continue doing that, or if it has all been by request, but I think it bodes well either way that there was enough of a need for him to come here and do that.

And yeah. I think pre-transition I was able to distract myself with enough other stuff that it wasn't as overwhelming. But up until now I've been able to do everything transition-wise on my terms so being stuck and not knowing why or when it'll be fixed is just awful.

Quote from: FTMax on July 15, 2016, 09:19:19 AM
As far as coping, I'm really not. I'm super stressed, anxiety is awful, and I don't think I've ever wanted to not exist more than I have during this whole period of time.

Oh, god, I know that feeling. It's unspeakable, especially when it goes on and on.

I am sorry. Online, you come across as very controlled, even when you are angry. That'll teach me to make assumptions.

On the Friday before my hysto, I found out that my insurance actually hadn't approved the procedure. I was told to reschedule. I kept the date, knowing full well that I would owe hoards of money if the insurance didn't come together in a matter of hours.

I didn't want to miss work, but I knew perfectly well that the department would get someone to cover my classes for a couple of weeks. The issue was mainly that I'd started the process six months earlier when I was just about at the end of my rope, and I didn't think I could hold on anymore. I had calibrated my whole life to that December date and felt that even a huge amount of debt was better than a one-month delay. I had gotten to that point.

I guess when I'm setting up bottom surgery, I'll have to keep telling myself, "This is not a sure thing yet. This is not written in stone. Don't count on it." But I don't know how much that will help. I suspect that the anxiety will continue until I'm actually flying up there and checking in for my surgery.

Come to think of it, I don't think my hysto was pre-approved either. I had it less than a week after the consult. They didn't seem to care though. My insurance has been pretty cool about all the stuff I throw at it.

Quote from: Arch on July 15, 2016, 03:17:05 PM
I guess when I'm setting up bottom surgery, I'll have to keep telling myself, "This is not a sure thing yet. This is not written in stone. Don't count on it." But I don't know how much that will help. I suspect that the anxiety will continue until I'm actually flying up there and checking in for my surgery.

Yep! I've decided I'm going to call them the day before I'm scheduled to fly out just to confirm that we are indeed going to do it this time around. At this point, experience tells me that when they call with a date, it's not real. It's pretty sad that it's gotten to that point. One time, I could forgive. But 3? Absolutely absurd.

Talking about it helps though, so thanks for listening and engaging

Three times is ridiculous, yes. Makes me wonder what leads to that kind of scheduling issue.

Ah, man, I don't have a facebook. I've refused to register one this whole time. This would be a good reason to get one, though. I'll have to mull it over. In the meantime, thanks.

I came across this thread whilst Googling to try find Dr. Bluebond-Langner's email. I am FTMax's friend who is planning to move to Chicago to open a recovery apartment, and who recently had surgery with Schechter on May 31.

I am incredibly disappointed with my experience, and the lack of care, concern, communication, and follow up that has taken place following my RFF Phalloplasty with Schechter on May 31, and thus am looking to try to schedule stage 2 potentially with Dr. B-L.

Does anyone have her email address? I'd like to try to email her to ask a couple of questions.

cheers-
rhys

Quote from: rhysharper on August 12, 2016, 04:53:15 AM
I came across this thread whilst Googling to try find Dr. Bluebond-Langner's email. I am FTMax's friend who is planning to move to Chicago to open a recovery apartment, and who recently had surgery with Schechter on May 31.

I am incredibly disappointed with my experience, and the lack of care, concern, communication, and follow up that has taken place following my RFF Phalloplasty with Schechter on May 31, and thus am looking to try to schedule stage 2 potentially with Dr. B-L.

Does anyone have her email address? I'd like to try to email her to ask a couple of questions.

cheers-
rhys

I can get you her scheduler's email address if you can't find a direct one to her!

Also - I don't think I updated here but did elsewhere online. I did end up cancelling with Dr. Schechter's office at the beginning of this month. They immediately tried to offer me dates, but I turned them down.

I have a consult scheduled with Dr. Bluebond-Langner for Oct. 4th, and am on her cancellation list if something earlier opens up. While I'm not happy about things getting pushed so far off schedule-wise, it feels like this was the right choice to make given the circumstances. Her scheduler told me it is usually a 6-8 week turnaround on consult to surgery if you're ready by then so *hopefully* I can have surgery before 2017. Insurance is the biggest part of that turnaround period, so I'm optimistic knowing that they approved in just 2 weeks last time. And Dr. BL is in network, so that may speed the process along a little bit.

Fingers crossed! I will keep updating with how it goes. I am expecting a refund check next week from Dr. Schechter's office for the money I prepaid. They were nice enough to send me back my referral letters so that I could reuse them with Dr. BL.