I had my Stage 2 with RBL/ Dr Zhao on July 9th @ 10 am. Stage 2 consist of vaginectomy, gracilis muscle flap, urethroplasty, t-dick burial, glansplasty and scrotoplasty. I have a Foley cath in my penis, and another catheter in my lower stomach, and one drain coming out of my leg (this is where they took the gracilis muscle flap from). But everyone kept talking about how much easier this stage is compared to stage 1, but idk this pain has been kicking my ass. 

Honestly I woke up in more pain than I did with stage 1. I Only had to spend one day in the hospital and I was sleep the entire stay. I only walked once the day of surgery around 8 pm but I was so weak/tired/ light headed I walked for 2 mins and collapsed into a deep sleep the moment I laid back in the bed. The pain I’m experiencing has been from bladder spasms which is not a good feeling (but it has subsided so much from the meds it’s not bothering me anymore), abdominal pain, my butt/anal area (possibly from the position I was placed in during the surgery) because my tail bone has been where the most pain is coming from. And oh my god. Gas. They warned me before hand that they do expand the stomach for stage 2 with gas, and when you wake up you’ll feel it in your shoulders and back and they were right. I feel the gas pain only in my right shoulder, both sides of my neck, and I want to say abdomen but I’m not sure since they had to dig around in there during surgery to do whatever they had to do. But it’s been hard to sit up due to abdominal pain, and sit down due to butt pain. And to do both of those things, the gas pain in my neck & shoulder has been killing me and so severe dude. Words cannot explain how bad it hurts all at once it’s like I can’t move and breathe at the same time. It’s so sharp and paralyzing and this is no exaggeration. 

For medications I am currently taking gas x, miralax (dealing with constipation) gabapentin for nerve pain, cefuroxime (antibiotic), oxybutynin (bladder spams) and oxycodone for the pain. The day after surgery I woke up and felt so much better. NYU told me that walking is the best thing you can do for the gas pain, so I went home and I walked, and walked and walked. This has helped my gas pain tremendously (better than gas x imo). It felt so good that i kept going and going and I think I over did it because when I got back home I noticed blood in my catheter. It only lasted for about an hour then it was back to regular urine. 

A hot heating pack/pad is good for gas pain too. For some reason the walking and heat takes away the symptoms for a long while so for those who have stage 2 coming up keep this in mind. Other than that the pain is paining. The catheter hasn’t been bothering me at all, it feels good not get up and go pee a bunch of times a day. The drain doesn’t bother me at all. My glans is currently coban wrapped until my 1 week post op appt and I’m so stoked to see how it looks. It’s been a struggle so far but hopefully things continue to get better. Feel free to ask me anything if you have questions and hopefully this doesn’t scare you too much. I just wanted to be real about this experience and I don’t regret a thing about it (until the butt/gas pain attacks me) and that’s when i regret it all lol but standing to pee is only a couple of weeks away and I can’t wait! This is the main thing I wanted a penis for and I’m almost there.

Stage 2 complete. This is not an easy stage! (At least for me)