Keep in mind that surgery has drastically changed for the better since I had the bottom surgery, but it was a good experience for me. My surgeon had walked me through the procedure in his office about a week before surgery, then came in the night before surgery to go through it again. (He wanted me in the hospital the night before to get IV's started and because the surgery itself started so early in the am).
Its a long procedure. Mine took eight hours. There was a team including my surgeon and a fourth year resident so they could do different parts of the surgery at the same time and were able to have short breaks as well.
Immediately post-op, they had me in a burn unit in the hospital for the warmth to make sure the circulation took. Coming out of surgery I was pretty sick to my stomach after having been under for so long, but it only lasted an hour or so. I had the RFF done with an area of my thigh removed and stapled to the forearm to cover the exposed tissue there. It was uncomfortable, but much less than I anticipated and they were really good about managing pain.
During the surgery, they put an ex on the skin over the artery to the penis and every hour a nurse came in and put a doppler on the x to check the circulation. All the nurses and Dr.s were nice, accepting and I had no problems as far as that went.
The new phallus had a tube running through the center to keep it hollow incase I wanted a hookup later. There was massive swelling and I had to keep a small pillow under it to keep it in line with the rest of my body for circulatory reasons. I don't know if it has been other's experience, but you do lose size once the swelling goes down. The artery came from my lower abdomen and was dropped down. I had a urinary catheter in for the first few days. What surprised me the most was the first time I stood up. Even though my thigh was wrapped, all the blood rushed into my legs and it was pretty bracing. That didn't last long and the wound there healed with absolutely no scarring. Because i was on my back for so long, I lost a big patch of hair on the back of my head, but it grew back.
I don't know if it will happen to you, but at first, having extra mass where the new testes were put some friction on my thigh across from the scrotum and moisture. That goes away. Also, after the swelling goes down, the top layer of skin that was so swollen tends to peel off kind of like a blister would. After I got home, there was some white/brown opaque discharge from the far end of the phallus, but when I called, the resident said it was just fat. That made no sense to me, but it went away.
If you get the RFF, the first time the bandage is changed, it can look pretty gruesome. You wear a bandage on it for quite a while and it needs to be protected from the sun for a few months. They used staples to put the cover skin on my forearm, which they took out later, but more migrated out for a few months every now and then.
All in all it was as good as a surgical experience could be. I imagine its a lot better now with all the newer techniques and more realistic results. One thing my surgeon did that I thought was smart was to start with smaller testicular implants to allow the skin to stretch, and then later put in larger ones. I knew two guys, both F to Ms who had two different Dr.s and both had a teste migrate when the full sized implant was put in first. They found one guy's, the other guy's was never found.
sam1234
