Surgery has made me suicidal. Now I need to discuss options.
This may be long, but I desperately need advice or support or something.
Please see my last posts for more context. Put briefly: my left arm after months and months of time, pain, and money spent on hair removal was not a viable candidate for surgery. I woke up from what was meant to be a left arm RFF phalloplasty with instead a partial metoidioplasty. This situation in itself has made me profoundly depressed and suicidal which I have not felt in years.
After a scan of my right arm it was found it is likely a good candidate for surgery. My options, as it seems, are get Right arm RFF next month BUT know there is a possibility I will wake up with a delayed thigh flap surgery to prepare for ALT. if once they’re operating on my right arm they realize somehow it’s not useable again they’ll start the ALT process. Or live with my weird partial meta until I get hair removal again and then go for the RFF (again with the ALT back up).
I was supposed to feel better after talking with my surgeon (Dr. Santucci) but instead I feel worse for some reason. It’s no fault of the surgeon, it’s just my stupid fucking anatomy. I never even considered something like this could happen, no one has ever told me this is a possibility or type of potenital complication. (For those wondering, I am in excellent physical health, I’m 5’6” 145lbs, very active, I work out 3-4 days a week, I have good cardiovascular health.) There was no way I imagine I’d be in the 1% who (would have) had total phallus loss (if they did the procedure).
But now since I’m starting school soon I feel that there is no good window for me to obtain this surgery. The recovery , the follow up appointments, the follow up procedures, I wanted to get it all done before graduate school. Now the next surgery date he is proposing to me is right before school starts.
I feel absolutely lost and I don’t know how to move forward. I’m also wondering if I should consider switching surgeons, but no one would get me in as fast as he can. Besides, he knows what needs to happen with my partial meta to become a full phalloplasty.
No matter how optimistic I try to stay, dying seems easiest. It feels like all of this work just to try and get as close as I can to feeling like a real man isn’t even worth the effort anymore. I just want to give up. I feel like a freak. I feel hopeless. I never would’ve imagined things would go so badly.