First blog post
7 years ago
P-Day.
I groggily blink open my eyes and grumble in protest while fumbling blindly for my phone to see the time while the sun pours into the bedroom.
It’s flat, showing me only a blank screen for all my confused efforts to turn it on. Once I’m awake enough to realise what’s going on I roll over and look at the alarm clock on Mel’s side of the bed.
It blinks red back at me, 11:59am.
D-Day. Well, P-Day.. PreOp day.
One day more, another day, another destiny,
I shake my head, muttering. I’ve never been a morning person but I couldn’t sleep last night because of the anxiety and after pottering around on the computer until 4:30am eventually drifted off full of Toblerone chocolate and cold water.
This never ending road to Calvary..
I start humming. My brain deals with stress in a very unique way - it settles on a song, embeds it and puts it on loop for hours on end in my head.
One more day before the storm,
At the barricades of Freedom,
When our ranks begin to form,
Will you take your place with me?
Absurdly it appears that for P-Day it’s chosen ‘One Day More’ - a company collective song from the musical ‘Les Miserables’. To top is all off it’s a song I don’t really know all the lyrics to so it’s skipping from part to part of the bits I remember.
One more day to revolution,
We will nip it in the bud.
We’ll be ready for these schoolboys,
They will wet themselves with blood..
I’m singing under my breath and doing the accents as I head for the bathroom. Mel is already up trying to press breakfast on me - something I really don’t have the stomach for at the best of times, least of all now. I snap at her but eventually relent and consent to sit down for a bowl of Special-K that looks concerningly nothing like the version we have back in Australia.
I get through about half of it and tip the rest down the sinkhole.
Watch'm run amuck,
Catch'm as they fall,
Never know your luck
'Till there's a free for all..
We’ve worked out the path we need to take to the Preop appointment with Dr Brownstein and it looks very much like we can just catch a bus from about 200 metres up the street to a stop approximately the same distance from his office. I’d like to say that was completely planning, but it’s been a stroke of good luck on our part - anyone coming here for this same reason however would do well to rent this place if from overseas.
I have around 20 minutes between the end of my half-breakfast in which to shower and dress, which I manage to do with a few minutes to spare. Mel recycles yet another SafeWay paper shopping bag into a make shift mudmap and we walk down the winding carbon-carpeted white wooden staircase to the street.
I’m still snappy and Mel is feeding off my stress, returning my verbal jabs here and there while we’re walking to the bus station. I’m trying to control it and do know that I’m being unreasonable, but we’re in a strange city with no idea (really) which way we need to go other than the slip of recycled paper bag in our possession and a strict deadline that’s tight for time.. it’s an environment that doesn’t really promote peaceful interaction.
Here a little dip
There a little touch,
Most of 'em are goners
So they won't miss much.
We arrive at what appears to be the bus shelter and stare at the street map bolted to the inside of the wall somewhat uncomprehendingly. I can’t make heads nor tails of it so Mel asks a nearby about-to-be passenger if they know about the direction of the stop we need to get to.
They don’t.
Mel feels unsure about the direction of the traffic and we argue a bit - but anyone who knows me knows that I have a truly shit sense of direction so I back down from that pretty fast. We (Mel) decide to go across the street to the other bus station to catch the flow of traffic going the other way.
San Francisco, and maybe the USA in general, has an amazingly vivid tapestry of people - particularly the homeless or hard luck cases. As I stand here and cuddle Mel from behind (my way of apologising for being a tool-burger) I’m listening to a shortish caucasian woman with hippie half-moon glasses talking articulately to another woman of african american decent about all the locations in the city that they hand out food and on what days.
She relates her experiences about being respectful and getting to know the food-handlers on a first name basis because they will then be ‘kinder and more generous’ in the portions they give out to her. She shares her process on getting to the front of the queue more successfully so as to get a better variety with her food stamps, and also how she uses the internet in the public library to scope out lists of places that give away organic fruits etc as seconds before they go to market. She’s healthy and well nourished with no immediately apparent traces of addiction.
There’s a real science to it and part of me wonders if this woman has fallen from corporate grace at some stage in her history - she’s smart, proactively savvy and streetwise. She’d be an asset to any logistics team and I’m reminded again how bad America’s economy really must be.
The woman she is trying to knowledge share with is missing most of her teeth, although in her mid thirties and a deep nut brown. She is dressed in gangsta-rap apparel and has a jittery air about her as she speaks in turn about the dangers of receiving her food and being mugged for it on occasion by those in the line bigger and stronger than her.
There is a third woman who, hunched, wisened and chinese, is sitting on the bench to the side who must be at least in her 80’s who is considerably less well dressed. They are all waiting for the bus, and all three of them were in the same line for food.
The correct bus arrives and pulls up just short of the station. Mel and I move down to get into the bustling jostle that has formed, only to be denied entry along with the gangsta-rap woman as the bus becomes to over-stuffed with passengers. The doors slam shut and it pulls away as I look down at my watch.
1:31pm.
My appointment is at 2:00pm with a projected 28 minute travel time thanks to the now rapidly dwindling bus and google maps. Fuck. This is less than ideal.
Mel suggests taking a taxi but a quick scan of the area reveals no obvious ranks and I don’t like my chances of flagging one down with the way the street is set up. We decide to wait for the next bus which according to the sign should be around 3 minutes away.
Which it is and pulls up with *considerably* less people wedged into it. We pile on, take a seat and I stare vacantly out of the window, my foot tapping nervously along to the musical continuing to take place between my ears.
One day to a new beginning
Raise the flag of freedom high!
Every man will be a king..
About 20 minutes into the ride Mel shares with me that she’s not sure that we’re actually going in the right direction, which calms me no end. After some cross referencing of our mudmap and my hazy memory it’s determined that we’re okay shortly before arriving at our required stop, piling off with a few other passengers at the top of a hill.
In the distance the skyline of San Francisco ‘actual’ stretches our like a picturesque postcard shot. Mel starts off down road cheerfully with me trailing behind - I absolutely have no idea how she always knows which way to go but it’s inhuman - and we arrive at 1001 Mariposa Street at exactly 2:00pm.
It’s nothing like I expected.. in my head, aside from errant musicals about french suffering, glass skyscrapers and a marbled lobby had swum, snooty faced receptionists and crazy stuff like that. In reality the building blends in with San Fran suburbia landscape innociously and looks for all the world just like another residential apartment.
I locate the entry buzzer and after stabbing at it repeatedly manage to get a connection to Suite 101 which is Dr Brownstein’s office. The door swings open and we walk inside to a darkish hallway with signs on the walls leading to ‘garage’ and ‘lifts’. Several wooden doors offer up brass number plates and 101 is the closest to the entry so easily found.
An attractive mid twenties woman with sandy hair and huge smile greets us at the doorway and welcomes us inside with an bouncy introduction of ‘Hi, I’m Katrina! Nga.. how do you say it?”
I chuckle and automatically correct her to the phonetic of ‘NighRee’ which she repeats with a nod, then introduces herself to Mel before beckoning us down a small 3 step set of stairs.
I’m mesmerised. If I thought the outside looked nothing like I’d built it up to be in my mind, the interior of office has hit a literal home run on my unreality meter. Directly in front of me is a life-sized tin-woodsman metal statue which *gigantic* breasts sticking out at a comical 90 degree angle.
The whole office has been decorated by someone with an incredibly eclectic sense of style. It’s warm, close, and decked out in predominately of rich brown woody colours. There’s not a hint of clinical hidden anywhere in here and we’re lead down to the main floor to a desk that is covered in glass under which are post-it notes with quite good sketches of a dachshund doodled over time.
The desk is overpowered by a huge, 1.5 metre high wing-backed bright yellow chair with purple stripes that is almost throne like in its presence. I make a quip to Katrina that I like her chair to which she chuckles and quickly identifies it as Brownstein’s.
The man has style, I’ll give him that.
Katrina sits with us and has me fill in some forms that I forgot to bring with me. (“It’s okay, that happens all the time!”) Mel asks a few small questions and we’re given some documentation to read at a later time on post operative care.
Frank makes an appearance and snuffles his way slowly over to us. Frank is Dr Brownstein’s 15 year old dachshund dog who I’d read on his website frequents the office and anyone who brings their dog to their office has instant respect from me. After a prolonged scratch session and inspection of Mel I’m graced with Frank’s attention and feel a little more relaxed once he’s done with me.
Katrina has gone and I stand up to shake Dr Brownstein’s hand as he enters the room. His grip is firm and he is dry man, but there is humour behind his eyes that I suspect is only reserved for people close to him. He takes a seat in his wingback and we resume the post op appointment.
He reviews my patient file and asks me where we come from in Australia, recounting how he has sailed up the east coast and is quite font of our continent, and then starts to talk about how tomorrow is going to go.
My surgery commences at 7:30am but I am asked to be at the surgery centre at 6:30am to commence further preop procedures. It will be during this time I have my chest drawn on and all the druggy goodness pumped into me.
He estimates 2 to 3 hours of surgery time and assures Mel that she will be able to see me about 15 minutes after he’s done. He also assures me that he will come and see her directly once the operation is completed and give her a rundown. She seems relieved by this.
He then pulls out a drain device and demonstrates how it will work, and gives examples of how the fluid coming out of them will change over the next week. He explains that if we see particularly large amounts of deep red fluids coming out that we are to call immediately and to remain vigilant in checking the differences.
I’m told that I will be fitted with special stockings that will keep my legs circulated during the operation and that I should continue wearing these for the next couple of nights - however if they itch or cause me discomfit I am to discontinue use and NOT call him.. particularly not at 2am in the morning as another patient did once.
I chuckle and assure him that I’ll be making no such call. He nods and then asks me to come over to behind a partition and remove my shirt. I do so, then remove my bra plus supporting sports bra that I use as additional support and sit bare chested on a clinic table while a conversation continues between Mel and the Dr.
It’s a weird feeling to sit here exposed with the air flowing around me essentially in public. I’m looking forward to this becoming more natural.
Dr Brownstein returns his attention to me and examines my breast tissue. He seems quite pleased with what he sees and assures me that we’ll see a good result, which sets me at ease considering that size was a key concern of mine. I ask questions about my stretch marks (I have extreme sets of them thanks to my size) and he responds by saying that my concern about these will not be as big as I think once I see my chest revealed.
I actually believe him and am relieved.
He finishes his examination and asks me to dress once again, we close the conversation and exit the office, walking back up the street again to the bus stop. I breathe deeply, once, twice and then a third time.
P-Day done.
O-Day tomorrow. Early tomorrow.
And I suspect no sleep tonight.
Tomorrow we'll be far away,
Tomorrow is the judgement day.
Tomorrow we'll discover,
What our God in Heaven has in store.
One more dawn,
One more day,
One day more..
It’s flat, showing me only a blank screen for all my confused efforts to turn it on. Once I’m awake enough to realise what’s going on I roll over and look at the alarm clock on Mel’s side of the bed.
It blinks red back at me, 11:59am.
D-Day. Well, P-Day.. PreOp day.
One day more, another day, another destiny,
I shake my head, muttering. I’ve never been a morning person but I couldn’t sleep last night because of the anxiety and after pottering around on the computer until 4:30am eventually drifted off full of Toblerone chocolate and cold water.
This never ending road to Calvary..
I start humming. My brain deals with stress in a very unique way - it settles on a song, embeds it and puts it on loop for hours on end in my head.
One more day before the storm,
At the barricades of Freedom,
When our ranks begin to form,
Will you take your place with me?
Absurdly it appears that for P-Day it’s chosen ‘One Day More’ - a company collective song from the musical ‘Les Miserables’. To top is all off it’s a song I don’t really know all the lyrics to so it’s skipping from part to part of the bits I remember.
One more day to revolution,
We will nip it in the bud.
We’ll be ready for these schoolboys,
They will wet themselves with blood..
I’m singing under my breath and doing the accents as I head for the bathroom. Mel is already up trying to press breakfast on me - something I really don’t have the stomach for at the best of times, least of all now. I snap at her but eventually relent and consent to sit down for a bowl of Special-K that looks concerningly nothing like the version we have back in Australia.
I get through about half of it and tip the rest down the sinkhole.
Watch'm run amuck,
Catch'm as they fall,
Never know your luck
'Till there's a free for all..
We’ve worked out the path we need to take to the Preop appointment with Dr Brownstein and it looks very much like we can just catch a bus from about 200 metres up the street to a stop approximately the same distance from his office. I’d like to say that was completely planning, but it’s been a stroke of good luck on our part - anyone coming here for this same reason however would do well to rent this place if from overseas.
I have around 20 minutes between the end of my half-breakfast in which to shower and dress, which I manage to do with a few minutes to spare. Mel recycles yet another SafeWay paper shopping bag into a make shift mudmap and we walk down the winding carbon-carpeted white wooden staircase to the street.
I’m still snappy and Mel is feeding off my stress, returning my verbal jabs here and there while we’re walking to the bus station. I’m trying to control it and do know that I’m being unreasonable, but we’re in a strange city with no idea (really) which way we need to go other than the slip of recycled paper bag in our possession and a strict deadline that’s tight for time.. it’s an environment that doesn’t really promote peaceful interaction.
Here a little dip
There a little touch,
Most of 'em are goners
So they won't miss much.
We arrive at what appears to be the bus shelter and stare at the street map bolted to the inside of the wall somewhat uncomprehendingly. I can’t make heads nor tails of it so Mel asks a nearby about-to-be passenger if they know about the direction of the stop we need to get to.
They don’t.
Mel feels unsure about the direction of the traffic and we argue a bit - but anyone who knows me knows that I have a truly shit sense of direction so I back down from that pretty fast. We (Mel) decide to go across the street to the other bus station to catch the flow of traffic going the other way.
San Francisco, and maybe the USA in general, has an amazingly vivid tapestry of people - particularly the homeless or hard luck cases. As I stand here and cuddle Mel from behind (my way of apologising for being a tool-burger) I’m listening to a shortish caucasian woman with hippie half-moon glasses talking articulately to another woman of african american decent about all the locations in the city that they hand out food and on what days.
She relates her experiences about being respectful and getting to know the food-handlers on a first name basis because they will then be ‘kinder and more generous’ in the portions they give out to her. She shares her process on getting to the front of the queue more successfully so as to get a better variety with her food stamps, and also how she uses the internet in the public library to scope out lists of places that give away organic fruits etc as seconds before they go to market. She’s healthy and well nourished with no immediately apparent traces of addiction.
There’s a real science to it and part of me wonders if this woman has fallen from corporate grace at some stage in her history - she’s smart, proactively savvy and streetwise. She’d be an asset to any logistics team and I’m reminded again how bad America’s economy really must be.
The woman she is trying to knowledge share with is missing most of her teeth, although in her mid thirties and a deep nut brown. She is dressed in gangsta-rap apparel and has a jittery air about her as she speaks in turn about the dangers of receiving her food and being mugged for it on occasion by those in the line bigger and stronger than her.
There is a third woman who, hunched, wisened and chinese, is sitting on the bench to the side who must be at least in her 80’s who is considerably less well dressed. They are all waiting for the bus, and all three of them were in the same line for food.
The correct bus arrives and pulls up just short of the station. Mel and I move down to get into the bustling jostle that has formed, only to be denied entry along with the gangsta-rap woman as the bus becomes to over-stuffed with passengers. The doors slam shut and it pulls away as I look down at my watch.
1:31pm.
My appointment is at 2:00pm with a projected 28 minute travel time thanks to the now rapidly dwindling bus and google maps. Fuck. This is less than ideal.
Mel suggests taking a taxi but a quick scan of the area reveals no obvious ranks and I don’t like my chances of flagging one down with the way the street is set up. We decide to wait for the next bus which according to the sign should be around 3 minutes away.
Which it is and pulls up with *considerably* less people wedged into it. We pile on, take a seat and I stare vacantly out of the window, my foot tapping nervously along to the musical continuing to take place between my ears.
One day to a new beginning
Raise the flag of freedom high!
Every man will be a king..
About 20 minutes into the ride Mel shares with me that she’s not sure that we’re actually going in the right direction, which calms me no end. After some cross referencing of our mudmap and my hazy memory it’s determined that we’re okay shortly before arriving at our required stop, piling off with a few other passengers at the top of a hill.
In the distance the skyline of San Francisco ‘actual’ stretches our like a picturesque postcard shot. Mel starts off down road cheerfully with me trailing behind - I absolutely have no idea how she always knows which way to go but it’s inhuman - and we arrive at 1001 Mariposa Street at exactly 2:00pm.
It’s nothing like I expected.. in my head, aside from errant musicals about french suffering, glass skyscrapers and a marbled lobby had swum, snooty faced receptionists and crazy stuff like that. In reality the building blends in with San Fran suburbia landscape innociously and looks for all the world just like another residential apartment.
I locate the entry buzzer and after stabbing at it repeatedly manage to get a connection to Suite 101 which is Dr Brownstein’s office. The door swings open and we walk inside to a darkish hallway with signs on the walls leading to ‘garage’ and ‘lifts’. Several wooden doors offer up brass number plates and 101 is the closest to the entry so easily found.
An attractive mid twenties woman with sandy hair and huge smile greets us at the doorway and welcomes us inside with an bouncy introduction of ‘Hi, I’m Katrina! Nga.. how do you say it?”
I chuckle and automatically correct her to the phonetic of ‘NighRee’ which she repeats with a nod, then introduces herself to Mel before beckoning us down a small 3 step set of stairs.
I’m mesmerised. If I thought the outside looked nothing like I’d built it up to be in my mind, the interior of office has hit a literal home run on my unreality meter. Directly in front of me is a life-sized tin-woodsman metal statue which *gigantic* breasts sticking out at a comical 90 degree angle.
The whole office has been decorated by someone with an incredibly eclectic sense of style. It’s warm, close, and decked out in predominately of rich brown woody colours. There’s not a hint of clinical hidden anywhere in here and we’re lead down to the main floor to a desk that is covered in glass under which are post-it notes with quite good sketches of a dachshund doodled over time.
The desk is overpowered by a huge, 1.5 metre high wing-backed bright yellow chair with purple stripes that is almost throne like in its presence. I make a quip to Katrina that I like her chair to which she chuckles and quickly identifies it as Brownstein’s.
The man has style, I’ll give him that.
Katrina sits with us and has me fill in some forms that I forgot to bring with me. (“It’s okay, that happens all the time!”) Mel asks a few small questions and we’re given some documentation to read at a later time on post operative care.
Frank makes an appearance and snuffles his way slowly over to us. Frank is Dr Brownstein’s 15 year old dachshund dog who I’d read on his website frequents the office and anyone who brings their dog to their office has instant respect from me. After a prolonged scratch session and inspection of Mel I’m graced with Frank’s attention and feel a little more relaxed once he’s done with me.
Katrina has gone and I stand up to shake Dr Brownstein’s hand as he enters the room. His grip is firm and he is dry man, but there is humour behind his eyes that I suspect is only reserved for people close to him. He takes a seat in his wingback and we resume the post op appointment.
He reviews my patient file and asks me where we come from in Australia, recounting how he has sailed up the east coast and is quite font of our continent, and then starts to talk about how tomorrow is going to go.
My surgery commences at 7:30am but I am asked to be at the surgery centre at 6:30am to commence further preop procedures. It will be during this time I have my chest drawn on and all the druggy goodness pumped into me.
He estimates 2 to 3 hours of surgery time and assures Mel that she will be able to see me about 15 minutes after he’s done. He also assures me that he will come and see her directly once the operation is completed and give her a rundown. She seems relieved by this.
He then pulls out a drain device and demonstrates how it will work, and gives examples of how the fluid coming out of them will change over the next week. He explains that if we see particularly large amounts of deep red fluids coming out that we are to call immediately and to remain vigilant in checking the differences.
I’m told that I will be fitted with special stockings that will keep my legs circulated during the operation and that I should continue wearing these for the next couple of nights - however if they itch or cause me discomfit I am to discontinue use and NOT call him.. particularly not at 2am in the morning as another patient did once.
I chuckle and assure him that I’ll be making no such call. He nods and then asks me to come over to behind a partition and remove my shirt. I do so, then remove my bra plus supporting sports bra that I use as additional support and sit bare chested on a clinic table while a conversation continues between Mel and the Dr.
It’s a weird feeling to sit here exposed with the air flowing around me essentially in public. I’m looking forward to this becoming more natural.
Dr Brownstein returns his attention to me and examines my breast tissue. He seems quite pleased with what he sees and assures me that we’ll see a good result, which sets me at ease considering that size was a key concern of mine. I ask questions about my stretch marks (I have extreme sets of them thanks to my size) and he responds by saying that my concern about these will not be as big as I think once I see my chest revealed.
I actually believe him and am relieved.
He finishes his examination and asks me to dress once again, we close the conversation and exit the office, walking back up the street again to the bus stop. I breathe deeply, once, twice and then a third time.
P-Day done.
O-Day tomorrow. Early tomorrow.
And I suspect no sleep tonight.
Tomorrow we'll be far away,
Tomorrow is the judgement day.
Tomorrow we'll discover,
What our God in Heaven has in store.
One more dawn,
One more day,
One day more..
Path to Preop
View Larger Map
635 14th St
San Francisco, CA 94114
$2.00 (vs. $1.28 driving)
Travel time: about 23 mins
Showing Trip 1
Walk to Church St & Market St
About 2 mins
Bus - 22 - FILLMORE - Direction: 3rd St. & 20th St.
Service run by San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency
1:10pm Depart Church St & Market St
19 mins (18 stops)
1:28pm Arrive 18th St & Pennsylvania Ave
Walk to 1001 Mariposa St, San Francisco, CA 94107
About 2 mins
1001 Mariposa St
San Francisco, CA 94107
Thoughts from the flight.
A splash of sunset is bleeding sandshell pink through the cabin windows and is staining the rear of the wing outside my window an unearthly shade of pale crimson. The massive jet engine has a perfect circle of copper burn ringing it’s inner edge and I idly wonder if that is the true colour of the metal underneath the plane’s knight-livery of logoed blue and white.
We’ve been in the air for around 2 hours now and power has become the most precious commodity onboard. Cruising at an altitude of 33 thousand feet, the monitors bolted to the ceiling of this behemoth 747 advise me that we have roughly just over 10 hours to travel before we reach San Francisco airport.
A fact I am less than enthused about.
It is taking all of my strength to keep my eyes open. They are lidded with gritty wedges of sandpaper and unpleasantly warm each time I blink. In an effort to leave my job behind for the 4 weeks of leave I am taking and just live I worked 10 hours straight last night, finishing at 4am in the morning with an empty inbox and a splitting headache.
Just live. I haven’t done that in more than a while. Part of me wonders how long it will take before my brain is able to shut off from the list making, resource management and organisation that is so much of a lynchpin in my day to day.
I give it until they wheel me into the operating room.
We’ve outpaced the sun and night sucks away the colour in a few short seconds. None of it is really real to me yet. I have no concept of what lies behind the hours between when we land and when we next take off. I know that there will be friends to meet in person after many years, adventures to be had and above all ‘THE OPERATION’ - but it all seems so very far away. Well over the edge of the clouds that carpet the skies beneath the belly of the iron beast I currently reside in.
8 years I’ve been staring on and off at Dr Brownstein’s website. 8 years of looking at results, wanting, wishing.. but not 8 years of ever thinking this would be something I’d ever actually achieve. It's all almost came as a surprise to me, engineered and made possible by a single man curious enough to ask questions and then fight for a pathway in which I could secure the funding necessary to make this life changing trip.
A distant part of me, again very far away, is terrified. Terrified of the needle, the scalpel, the pre-op sampling, the process it’s all be shoved aside into the same place I go when public speaking is demanded. I’m floating somewhere between the edges of my body and the core of my mind, and the numbness is a welcome wrap against the rising panic.
Logically my brain knows there is nothing physically wrong with my chest. It knows there is no cancer, no disease, no malfunction with the flesh that should cause me to have these breasts removed. Logically it’s the part of me going ‘What the fuck are you mutilating yourself for you idiot?! This is how you’re reconnecting with your body??’
The rest of me just wants to get to the other side of ‘THE OPERATION’. Wants to know what it’s like to have a chest that doesn’t feel like it was bought at a coin operated sideshow alley. Doesn’t feel like it hangs off me, foreign, painful, deceitful and a lie.
It’s a confusing mix of emotion that whips me back and forth like a flag on a blustery day.
Over the loudspeakers we’re advised of turbulence in the near future. I smile wryly at that one - I’m already experiencing it.
Buckle up kiddo, this ride is just beginning.
We’ve been in the air for around 2 hours now and power has become the most precious commodity onboard. Cruising at an altitude of 33 thousand feet, the monitors bolted to the ceiling of this behemoth 747 advise me that we have roughly just over 10 hours to travel before we reach San Francisco airport.
A fact I am less than enthused about.
It is taking all of my strength to keep my eyes open. They are lidded with gritty wedges of sandpaper and unpleasantly warm each time I blink. In an effort to leave my job behind for the 4 weeks of leave I am taking and just live I worked 10 hours straight last night, finishing at 4am in the morning with an empty inbox and a splitting headache.
Just live. I haven’t done that in more than a while. Part of me wonders how long it will take before my brain is able to shut off from the list making, resource management and organisation that is so much of a lynchpin in my day to day.
I give it until they wheel me into the operating room.
We’ve outpaced the sun and night sucks away the colour in a few short seconds. None of it is really real to me yet. I have no concept of what lies behind the hours between when we land and when we next take off. I know that there will be friends to meet in person after many years, adventures to be had and above all ‘THE OPERATION’ - but it all seems so very far away. Well over the edge of the clouds that carpet the skies beneath the belly of the iron beast I currently reside in.
8 years I’ve been staring on and off at Dr Brownstein’s website. 8 years of looking at results, wanting, wishing.. but not 8 years of ever thinking this would be something I’d ever actually achieve. It's all almost came as a surprise to me, engineered and made possible by a single man curious enough to ask questions and then fight for a pathway in which I could secure the funding necessary to make this life changing trip.
A distant part of me, again very far away, is terrified. Terrified of the needle, the scalpel, the pre-op sampling, the process it’s all be shoved aside into the same place I go when public speaking is demanded. I’m floating somewhere between the edges of my body and the core of my mind, and the numbness is a welcome wrap against the rising panic.
Logically my brain knows there is nothing physically wrong with my chest. It knows there is no cancer, no disease, no malfunction with the flesh that should cause me to have these breasts removed. Logically it’s the part of me going ‘What the fuck are you mutilating yourself for you idiot?! This is how you’re reconnecting with your body??’
The rest of me just wants to get to the other side of ‘THE OPERATION’. Wants to know what it’s like to have a chest that doesn’t feel like it was bought at a coin operated sideshow alley. Doesn’t feel like it hangs off me, foreign, painful, deceitful and a lie.
It’s a confusing mix of emotion that whips me back and forth like a flag on a blustery day.
Over the loudspeakers we’re advised of turbulence in the near future. I smile wryly at that one - I’m already experiencing it.
Buckle up kiddo, this ride is just beginning.
First time shaving jawline!
I've been shaving my upper lip for around 4 years now so that's nothing new, but with the onset of whispy-chin-hair syndrome I had to clean myself up for an client meeting the following morning.
An epic shopping list.
Well, here we are again, and I have some gigantic updates that I need to do for you all. This post will be quite different from the others in that you'll be subjected to far less story-telling and more of a 'shopping list' of events just due to the sheer volume of things that have been happening. :)
So, where to start?
Firstly, I've been taking a bit of break from this to try and sort out my issues with the accident. It's now sufficiently been manhandled into the foggy part of my brain so that it's not a debilitating level of stress any longer and I'm ready to deal with whatever happens on the insurance front.
To take you right back, I did end up remembering to call Dr Jayadev on the Wednesday (2 days after the smash) who confirmed that my bloodwork had delivered a 'surprisingly excellent' result for beginning my hormone therapy. Turns out that I'm nicely geared to accept Testosterone into my system, my liver is in brilliant condition (thank you Ngaire for never drinking!) and that my blood count is great.
All blazing green lights for me to get needles stuck into my bum.
With that news I quickly made an appointment for the 5th of April to do just that and then fell back into trying to make it through the week.
Coming home to Mel was a Godsend.. having a major negative event happen to you when you have no friends/family/partner physically around to comfort you can be very draining. Especially when you can't sleep. Or eat. Or anything kinda life-giving like that.
By Saturday I'd sorted out enough stuff that I could make a conscious decision to just focus on organising my transition by getting everything locked down and paid for - which helped me enormously. It also put me into 'Project Management' mode which is always helpful when it comes to dealing with emotional issues, and restored some confidence as each result was achieved.
I'd been dealing with a lovely woman at Dr Brownstein's office called 'Katrina' via e-mail about getting my chest surgery locked down. We'd been going back and forth trying to get things to fit and registered for some point at the back end of the year, and were down to around 6 dates that could possibly work in for me.
The accident somewhat crystalised things for me and without hesitation I fired an e-mail to her that booked in the earliest one available within the date range - the 20th of October. Katrina quite efficiently shot back payment details for the scheduling surgery fee ($500 US), which I paid, and now there is 'Patient Confirmation' package winging it's way across the oceans to my snail-mail box.
My surgery will be performed on the 20th of October, with a pre-operative appointment on the 19th of October in which they will biopsy my breast tissue and take me through exactly what is going to happen during the 3 hours I'll be chemically disconnected from the world.
The second cab off the rank was sorting out flights to actually get us there (in once piece) for a semi-decent price.
Now that the surgery was booked in we had some timeframes to work with. By previous experiences I wanted to allow for at least 48 hours of jetlag-recovery-time so I wasn't dealing with both an exhausted body and a fairly serious procedure simultaneously.
We decide that ideally this would see us leaving Sydney on the 17th of October, which is a Sunday.
Over the preceding weeks Mel had been doing some fairly serious legwork researching flights and had come up with the best case option of around $995 one way per person with a transferral flight in the middle of it from LAX to San Fran.
Having taken a few international flights with work I knew this wasn't too bad, but I seriously couldn't stand the concept of having to deal with LAX, trying to sort out luggage and then having to get on another plane to San Fran AFTER a 10 hour delay in said shitty airport.
Blarg.
I decided to engage the services of Gavin, a friend of mine who has seen and been through quite a few ups and downs with me during our time together. Gav has spent more time on a plane than many others on the planet can lay claim to, and most of this has been international.
He can recite the steward's safety procedure word for word pretty much regardless of the airline and rattles off specifications of planes like they were a make of car.
Seemed like a good plan to have a chat with him before booking anything in, particularly when money has become such an important resource right now.
So off to Gavin I went, credit card in hand, and asked him to wave his magic wand of 'Galileo'. And wave it he did - securing us flights with United Airlines on a Boeing 787-400, direct from Sydney to San Francisco, for $1385 AU each.
... return.
(And there was much rejoicing.)
This particular initial flight from Sydney to San Fran, amusingly enough, will see us set down 6 hours before we take off. Gotta love racing before the dawn.
Mel finds a particularly nifty site that tells us about the feedback on each particular seat, including the best volume of space and where to sit in an ideal world. We make a selection based on the quietest and largest areas to stretch out so we're well taken care of each way.
Flights: done and dusted.
The next item on the list is our accommodation. Mel again had put quite a lot of time into searching the web to try and find us optimal lodgings.
We needed somewhere that had 2 beds because I essentially will need to sleep alone until the drains come out from the operation. (Approx 9 nights.) We also needed somewhere quite 'homey' in that it was fully self contained, had laundry facilities and was also pleasant for me to spend a lot of time staring at the walls.
Mel had come up with some awesome places, some of which had truly scary pricetags. ($3700 US a week? Urk.) We needed something around the $1K mark, preferably under, and so we glumly went back to the drawing board to try and see what things we could do without rather than with.
By sheer chance I stumbled onto a website called HomeAway.com and herein we found our jewel.
A fully renovated 1940's style condo-apartment with more features than you can poke a stick at for $900 US a week. We were stunned. Not only two fullsize queen beds, it had two actual bedrooms flooded with air and light. A fireplace, completely decked out kitchen, laundry facilities, bath AND shower (bath very important for a chopped up man), all linen etc etc etc.
We booked it straight away for the 3 weeks we need. ($2700 US) I don't just want to rent it, I want to live there!
Accommodation: Check!
What remains to be done now is to physically pay for the surgery itself ($5,500 US) and work out additional funds for living expenses while in the US and the facility/anesthesiologist fee. ($2,300 US.)
While I'm still slightly short of the funding required, but there's time to sort that out.
The most important thing is that many balls are now rolling, and that this thing I've been researching for 8 years is finally going to happen.
So, where to start?
Firstly, I've been taking a bit of break from this to try and sort out my issues with the accident. It's now sufficiently been manhandled into the foggy part of my brain so that it's not a debilitating level of stress any longer and I'm ready to deal with whatever happens on the insurance front.
To take you right back, I did end up remembering to call Dr Jayadev on the Wednesday (2 days after the smash) who confirmed that my bloodwork had delivered a 'surprisingly excellent' result for beginning my hormone therapy. Turns out that I'm nicely geared to accept Testosterone into my system, my liver is in brilliant condition (thank you Ngaire for never drinking!) and that my blood count is great.
All blazing green lights for me to get needles stuck into my bum.
With that news I quickly made an appointment for the 5th of April to do just that and then fell back into trying to make it through the week.
Coming home to Mel was a Godsend.. having a major negative event happen to you when you have no friends/family/partner physically around to comfort you can be very draining. Especially when you can't sleep. Or eat. Or anything kinda life-giving like that.
By Saturday I'd sorted out enough stuff that I could make a conscious decision to just focus on organising my transition by getting everything locked down and paid for - which helped me enormously. It also put me into 'Project Management' mode which is always helpful when it comes to dealing with emotional issues, and restored some confidence as each result was achieved.
I'd been dealing with a lovely woman at Dr Brownstein's office called 'Katrina' via e-mail about getting my chest surgery locked down. We'd been going back and forth trying to get things to fit and registered for some point at the back end of the year, and were down to around 6 dates that could possibly work in for me.
The accident somewhat crystalised things for me and without hesitation I fired an e-mail to her that booked in the earliest one available within the date range - the 20th of October. Katrina quite efficiently shot back payment details for the scheduling surgery fee ($500 US), which I paid, and now there is 'Patient Confirmation' package winging it's way across the oceans to my snail-mail box.
My surgery will be performed on the 20th of October, with a pre-operative appointment on the 19th of October in which they will biopsy my breast tissue and take me through exactly what is going to happen during the 3 hours I'll be chemically disconnected from the world.
The second cab off the rank was sorting out flights to actually get us there (in once piece) for a semi-decent price.
Now that the surgery was booked in we had some timeframes to work with. By previous experiences I wanted to allow for at least 48 hours of jetlag-recovery-time so I wasn't dealing with both an exhausted body and a fairly serious procedure simultaneously.
We decide that ideally this would see us leaving Sydney on the 17th of October, which is a Sunday.
Over the preceding weeks Mel had been doing some fairly serious legwork researching flights and had come up with the best case option of around $995 one way per person with a transferral flight in the middle of it from LAX to San Fran.
Having taken a few international flights with work I knew this wasn't too bad, but I seriously couldn't stand the concept of having to deal with LAX, trying to sort out luggage and then having to get on another plane to San Fran AFTER a 10 hour delay in said shitty airport.
Blarg.
I decided to engage the services of Gavin, a friend of mine who has seen and been through quite a few ups and downs with me during our time together. Gav has spent more time on a plane than many others on the planet can lay claim to, and most of this has been international.
He can recite the steward's safety procedure word for word pretty much regardless of the airline and rattles off specifications of planes like they were a make of car.
Seemed like a good plan to have a chat with him before booking anything in, particularly when money has become such an important resource right now.
So off to Gavin I went, credit card in hand, and asked him to wave his magic wand of 'Galileo'. And wave it he did - securing us flights with United Airlines on a Boeing 787-400, direct from Sydney to San Francisco, for $1385 AU each.
... return.
(And there was much rejoicing.)
This particular initial flight from Sydney to San Fran, amusingly enough, will see us set down 6 hours before we take off. Gotta love racing before the dawn.
Mel finds a particularly nifty site that tells us about the feedback on each particular seat, including the best volume of space and where to sit in an ideal world. We make a selection based on the quietest and largest areas to stretch out so we're well taken care of each way.
Flights: done and dusted.
The next item on the list is our accommodation. Mel again had put quite a lot of time into searching the web to try and find us optimal lodgings.
We needed somewhere that had 2 beds because I essentially will need to sleep alone until the drains come out from the operation. (Approx 9 nights.) We also needed somewhere quite 'homey' in that it was fully self contained, had laundry facilities and was also pleasant for me to spend a lot of time staring at the walls.
Mel had come up with some awesome places, some of which had truly scary pricetags. ($3700 US a week? Urk.) We needed something around the $1K mark, preferably under, and so we glumly went back to the drawing board to try and see what things we could do without rather than with.
By sheer chance I stumbled onto a website called HomeAway.com and herein we found our jewel.
A fully renovated 1940's style condo-apartment with more features than you can poke a stick at for $900 US a week. We were stunned. Not only two fullsize queen beds, it had two actual bedrooms flooded with air and light. A fireplace, completely decked out kitchen, laundry facilities, bath AND shower (bath very important for a chopped up man), all linen etc etc etc.
We booked it straight away for the 3 weeks we need. ($2700 US) I don't just want to rent it, I want to live there!
Accommodation: Check!
What remains to be done now is to physically pay for the surgery itself ($5,500 US) and work out additional funds for living expenses while in the US and the facility/anesthesiologist fee. ($2,300 US.)
While I'm still slightly short of the funding required, but there's time to sort that out.
The most important thing is that many balls are now rolling, and that this thing I've been researching for 8 years is finally going to happen.
High impact.
It's raining, the cold is the kind of cold you retreat into a warm snuggly bed from but for some reason I'm sitting on a couch next to an open sliding glass door absorbing it all in. It's been a hell of a week and I find myself struggling to approach an entry, even though I know I need to do one.
Snippets of conversations, shattering glass and the sickening crunch of tortured metal being bent into directions it was never meant to go fill my head. I'm trying so hard to forget that I don't know where I can possibly begin.
"God dammit it all to hell.. I'm sick of this shit!"
I fling my bag down onto my bed, fuming. I've arrived to my hotel in Brisbane from my 8:30pm Sunday flight to a room without should've-been-there-car-keys. It's happened again, irrespective of the fact that the workcar was prearranged to be dropped here on Friday, and by now I'm getting pretty sure it's a deliberate insult that's being played by a store manager who is supposed to know better.
After a few deep breaths I decide to hire a car because I have an early meeting first up tomorrow morning and I won't have time to collect the work car. I'll charge it to the store and hopefully deal with the 2 squarking birds confronting me with 1 stone.
I have a pre-existing account with an existing car rental agency and I use this to hire a car, feeling considerably better once I've done so. I'm still angry and the darkness curls tightly around me, but I've got a solution now and the rest will be a battle for tomorrow.
After unpacking I get into bed and quickly kill the lights, I'm tired from the flight and Monday looms large.
Waking the next morning I iron and then shrug into my work suit, adjusting a few things here and there as the first meeting is a key one. A small, subconscious sigh, one of thousands, escapes my lungs as I smooth the shirt down over my chest.
A tie, soon I'll be able to properly wear a tie without these.. things.. getting in the way.
I call for a taxi, shoot across town and pick up my rental car. The day goes smoothly, the meetings go particularly well and aside from some further unpleasantness with the aforementioned manager, it's a successful day.
It's my last week in Brisbane for a while and I'm loading up my calendar to moosh as many people into face to face discussions about my impending transition as I can. Some already know, most don't, so it's going to be an interesting next few days for me.
David and Jenna - check.
Salvie - check.
Christian and Kat - can't make it, previous commitments.
Gavin - check.
Nimer - check.
The work day is over and I'm on the way to Lonestar for dinner with David and Jenna - the first metaphorical cabs off the "Nye's fun transition talks" rank.
"Don't forget that you have to call Dr Jayadev Wednesday.."
I smile as Mel's voice echoes in my head, privately basking in the warm glory of the knowledge that, everything going well, I could be booked in for my 'T' shot sooner rather than later.
I arrive at Lonestar for the dinner with Dave and Jenna, which goes well as I stumble my way through an incredibly well cooked and tasty steak AND explaining GID/Transition/Next Steps/etc etc.
The steak is only a little cold by the time I'm finished.
They both respond brilliantly well and we retire from the steakhouse for custom Icecream from Cold Rock. The night ends and we retire to our cars for the trip home.
Only.. I don't go back to the hotel.
It's one of those nights.. y'know? One of those nights where the skies are a rich, crisp velvet tapestry of glittering shards of star-streaked magic. One of those nights where the air stings your nose with the oncoming whisper of Autumn. One of those nights that hands-and-knees BEGS you to hit the open highway and blast away the rigors of the day.. and the mundanity of life in general in the muted glow of the dashboard lights.
My rental car happened to be an Audi A4 turbo. Glistening. Powerful. Full of pride.
And it was one of those nights.
It happened when I decided to turn back around to head back to Brisbane, roughly half an hour after setting out from the dinner. A judgement in which I believed oncoming traffic to be a correctly safe distance away saw me T-boned at roughly 60kms an hour at an intersection locally famed for accidents and scattered with debris of previous impacts.
I write the above with as much emotional distance I can muster. It took me 3 sleepless nights and countless second/minutes of ridiculous stress levels smashing through the ceiling of what I believed to be my endurance threshold to get where I am now.
It's not the sound of the twisting metal and exploding airbags railing around me I can't get away from. It's not the smell of road-stripped tires and chalky white-powdered stiffling cling of the airbag inflators. Not the feeling of being flung sideways at speed and crunching back off a lightpole after the initial impact.
It's the fact that if the insurance assessors from the rental company find any way to pin this accident on me as careless, reckless or deliberate they will force me to pay for the FULL REPAIRS of the Audi.
Not the excess of their insurance. Not even the $330 damage liability reduction that I took out and additional protection package I paid extra dollars for.
The. Whole. Cost. Of. Repairs. To. The. Audi.
It could wipe out the money set aside for my chest operation. And that is what is causing the sleepless nights and stomach-churning stress.
Everyone around me who knows has been as comforting as they know how in their own unique ways. Peter has sledged me (while offering solid advice), the owner of the company I work for has offered to try and find 'some way to work it out', people who work in my team have called relatives who are insurance lawyers.
The problem I face is that I won't know either way for at least two weeks while they sort this out.
And that's absolutely killing me.
Snippets of conversations, shattering glass and the sickening crunch of tortured metal being bent into directions it was never meant to go fill my head. I'm trying so hard to forget that I don't know where I can possibly begin.
"God dammit it all to hell.. I'm sick of this shit!"
I fling my bag down onto my bed, fuming. I've arrived to my hotel in Brisbane from my 8:30pm Sunday flight to a room without should've-been-there-car-keys. It's happened again, irrespective of the fact that the workcar was prearranged to be dropped here on Friday, and by now I'm getting pretty sure it's a deliberate insult that's being played by a store manager who is supposed to know better.
After a few deep breaths I decide to hire a car because I have an early meeting first up tomorrow morning and I won't have time to collect the work car. I'll charge it to the store and hopefully deal with the 2 squarking birds confronting me with 1 stone.
I have a pre-existing account with an existing car rental agency and I use this to hire a car, feeling considerably better once I've done so. I'm still angry and the darkness curls tightly around me, but I've got a solution now and the rest will be a battle for tomorrow.
After unpacking I get into bed and quickly kill the lights, I'm tired from the flight and Monday looms large.
Waking the next morning I iron and then shrug into my work suit, adjusting a few things here and there as the first meeting is a key one. A small, subconscious sigh, one of thousands, escapes my lungs as I smooth the shirt down over my chest.
A tie, soon I'll be able to properly wear a tie without these.. things.. getting in the way.
I call for a taxi, shoot across town and pick up my rental car. The day goes smoothly, the meetings go particularly well and aside from some further unpleasantness with the aforementioned manager, it's a successful day.
It's my last week in Brisbane for a while and I'm loading up my calendar to moosh as many people into face to face discussions about my impending transition as I can. Some already know, most don't, so it's going to be an interesting next few days for me.
David and Jenna - check.
Salvie - check.
Christian and Kat - can't make it, previous commitments.
Gavin - check.
Nimer - check.
The work day is over and I'm on the way to Lonestar for dinner with David and Jenna - the first metaphorical cabs off the "Nye's fun transition talks" rank.
"Don't forget that you have to call Dr Jayadev Wednesday.."
I smile as Mel's voice echoes in my head, privately basking in the warm glory of the knowledge that, everything going well, I could be booked in for my 'T' shot sooner rather than later.
I arrive at Lonestar for the dinner with Dave and Jenna, which goes well as I stumble my way through an incredibly well cooked and tasty steak AND explaining GID/Transition/Next Steps/etc etc.
The steak is only a little cold by the time I'm finished.
They both respond brilliantly well and we retire from the steakhouse for custom Icecream from Cold Rock. The night ends and we retire to our cars for the trip home.
Only.. I don't go back to the hotel.
It's one of those nights.. y'know? One of those nights where the skies are a rich, crisp velvet tapestry of glittering shards of star-streaked magic. One of those nights where the air stings your nose with the oncoming whisper of Autumn. One of those nights that hands-and-knees BEGS you to hit the open highway and blast away the rigors of the day.. and the mundanity of life in general in the muted glow of the dashboard lights.
My rental car happened to be an Audi A4 turbo. Glistening. Powerful. Full of pride.
And it was one of those nights.
It happened when I decided to turn back around to head back to Brisbane, roughly half an hour after setting out from the dinner. A judgement in which I believed oncoming traffic to be a correctly safe distance away saw me T-boned at roughly 60kms an hour at an intersection locally famed for accidents and scattered with debris of previous impacts.
I write the above with as much emotional distance I can muster. It took me 3 sleepless nights and countless second/minutes of ridiculous stress levels smashing through the ceiling of what I believed to be my endurance threshold to get where I am now.
It's not the sound of the twisting metal and exploding airbags railing around me I can't get away from. It's not the smell of road-stripped tires and chalky white-powdered stiffling cling of the airbag inflators. Not the feeling of being flung sideways at speed and crunching back off a lightpole after the initial impact.
It's the fact that if the insurance assessors from the rental company find any way to pin this accident on me as careless, reckless or deliberate they will force me to pay for the FULL REPAIRS of the Audi.
Not the excess of their insurance. Not even the $330 damage liability reduction that I took out and additional protection package I paid extra dollars for.
The. Whole. Cost. Of. Repairs. To. The. Audi.
It could wipe out the money set aside for my chest operation. And that is what is causing the sleepless nights and stomach-churning stress.
Everyone around me who knows has been as comforting as they know how in their own unique ways. Peter has sledged me (while offering solid advice), the owner of the company I work for has offered to try and find 'some way to work it out', people who work in my team have called relatives who are insurance lawyers.
The problem I face is that I won't know either way for at least two weeks while they sort this out.
And that's absolutely killing me.
Tmates == Wewt!
Well, Mel got notified tonight that she made the cut and is now officially a TmateFTM presenter!
Needless to say there when I heard the screaming from the lounge room I thought that was my cue to doubletime it from the music room to collect and remove a spider. However, on hearing the news, I think I made more noise than she did.
It's going to be awesome and I've threatened to get a hot pink T-shirt that says "My girlfriend is a Tmate!" made up that I will follow her around with.
Congratulations beautiful!!
Also, to slightly hijack this post, a lot of you who know me personally are aware that I've had a particularly bad week straight from the ass-end of Hell so I apologise for breaking my regular posting habits.
Once I figure out how to write about it, rather than relive it, I will fill you in on as much detail as I can stand.
(We anticipate being able to return to our regularly scheduled programme shortly! In the meantime, here's a word from our sponsor..)
Needless to say there when I heard the screaming from the lounge room I thought that was my cue to doubletime it from the music room to collect and remove a spider. However, on hearing the news, I think I made more noise than she did.
It's going to be awesome and I've threatened to get a hot pink T-shirt that says "My girlfriend is a Tmate!" made up that I will follow her around with.
Congratulations beautiful!!
Also, to slightly hijack this post, a lot of you who know me personally are aware that I've had a particularly bad week straight from the ass-end of Hell so I apologise for breaking my regular posting habits.
Once I figure out how to write about it, rather than relive it, I will fill you in on as much detail as I can stand.
(We anticipate being able to return to our regularly scheduled programme shortly! In the meantime, here's a word from our sponsor..)
Transitional Fears.
I was surfing around YouTube again tonight and came across this video created by a Transguy called Tyler:
I think it says a lot very, very well.
I think it says a lot very, very well.
It's a community thing.
After watching an excellent channel on YouTube for partners of FTM's across the world, Mel decided to respond to an open audition shoutout today with the following video:
Check it out. :)
Check it out. :)
Soft, golden eyes.
There're cheetahs on the roof..
I'm lying flat on my back in a treatment room, crisp white hospital sheets beneath me, staring distantly up at the ceiling. At some stage in the past a kindly soul decided to tape a picture of three baby cheetahs directly above the gurney to help combat boredom, but in my case I'm just trying desperately to get some blood back into my head. The cheetahs are staring intently back down at me with soft, golden eyes, and for the moment I'm grateful for something, anything to concentrate on.
It's been a long day.
I woke up blearily on the loungeroom floor of my apartment, having retreated there at 12:37am 'last night' because I couldn't sleep. It's my usual remedy to slap a mattress down directly under the aircon which is then ramped down to 17 degrees C and turned on full blast. Something about being frostbitten on the outside, but snuggly on the inside helps me fall asleep when I'm anxious.
Today. Today is the day there will be at least 1 needle in my immediate future. Another step closer to my transition.
My understanding of what's about to transpire is pretty limited despite all of my readings. I know that I have to have a blood test first in which the endocrinologist will match me to the specific rhythms that I will need to have 'T' administered. Some guys can have it 2 weeks apart, others 3, some as long as 5.
But the results are usually the same if you screw it up: PMT ON OVERDRIVE. Once you've started on Testosterone the emotional backlash if your body essentially runs out is catastrophic and something I hope fervently to avoid.
It's quite ironic really. I've spent most of my life to this point hating PMT and looking forward to it being gone - and now there is *duh duh duh*.. MAN PMT.. in the wings if we're not careful.
Other than that though, I'm not really sure what today holds for me. Will I walk out of there with a lump of 'T' in the muscles of my ass? Will they tell me I can't start for 6 months? Will they take one look at me and for some strange reason slam the door on any transition at all?
I really don't know and it's that unknowledge that's making me very unsettled.
I go through the usual morning routine and end up at work after a very drawn out, very smelly taxi ride. (How that guy ever got a job with Silver Service I will never know.) On my arrival the office is devoid of people and I'm again left to my thoughts, the chocolate brown of my desk and the struggle of trying to focus on 'work things'.
It's hard, and each minute that passes only makes it harder. During one point of the day, about an hour before I'm due to be collected by Mel who (bless her cotton socks) is coming with me, Kim mentions that it looks like I'm freaking out a bit knowing that the appointment is coming.
She's right, for any one of a hundred reasons. I've gone past tapping on the desk and hurtled straight into doing stuff like washing dishes and frequent trips to the bathroom. I'm agitated and it's showing.
Mel arrives and after some gentle 'jabs' about how much I'm concerned by the concept of getting stabbed with a needle, I'm bundled out of the door and into the car. I drive. It's at least something I can control and it settles me somewhat as we make our way to the Concord Reparation General Hospital.
The bumps in the final stretch of road are rhythmic and strike me oddly as they sound off steadily against the tires like a heartbeat.
After a small kerfuffle with the parking machine and some 'guess again!' gate directions, we're walking hand in hand down a long, covered walkway. It reminds me disconcertingly like walking down a school corridor, the cement pathway is old and scuffed with painted arrows pointing the way to various departments. I get stuck with a major bout of Déjà vu until I realise my brain is overlapping every significant school transit experience I've ever had.
Walking out of primary school for the last time, walking out of high school for the last time, walking back into my first school as an adult Account Manager.. it seems that scuffed concrete will continue to support my footsteps at interesting junctures during my lifetime.
We make it to the door of the Andrology unit and share a breath before Mel opens the door to move inside. It looks like any other doctors surgery from the 80's with large, faded non-colour tiles on the floor, cream walls and a white 'hasn't been scrubbed in a while' ceiling which flickers slightly under the fluro lighting. It smells clinical and there are lowered voices as people move around the hallways.
The receptionist is quick to pull my attention away from the surroundings.
"Hello there - how can I help you?"
I explain who I am and that I have a 3pm appointment with Dr Conway or her counterpart. She checks her schedule and finds my name before handing over a patient detail form, directing me to a waiting area so I can fill it out.
I sit down next to Mel and begin to fill it it. Name - easy. Address - sure thing. Gender - ... uh.. what?
There are two options on the form, male or female. I stare blankly at them, confused. What do I put here? What I am or what my body is? Why do they even have these options on this form? I chew on it for a while and then, unable to come to any other reconciliation, tick the female box. I write '(physically)' next to it though which makes me feel marginally better.
After returning the paperwork and getting back to my seat I make a comment to Mel that I hope I get Dr Conway and not her counterpart. Ann Conway has been around transgender patients since.. well.. forever in medical terms. (35 years.) She's been an Australian authority on many things Trans and it's natural that I'd feel a little safer in her hands.
Unfortunately I recognise her as she walks into the waiting room and collects a man who was sitting across from me. My stomach sinks slightly as I realise I've struck out.
I mull for a while and then a bright, fresh faced woman of what appears to be Indian descent approaches me, her smile a warm bath of pleasant.
"Hello there.. my name is Dr Veena Jayadev, Nye?"
Something about disposition instantly inspires trust in me and I nod, introducing Mel as my partner as we walk down to her office. She's about 5'6, maybe mid 30's, slim in build and has a very gentle mannerism. She comes off as naturally curious, but careful about her approach with people and as I take a seat with Mel in her room I'm far less nervous than I expected.
She begins by asking my age, medical history, do I smoke, drink, those kind of things. I've never smoked a day in my life, nor consumed alcohol and I can't tell you how glad I am about this as both of those really contribute to things like skin scaring after surgery. She also weighed and measured my height - I'm 4 cms shorter than I thought I was.
Dammit.
After the routine questions are out of the way we move onto the GID specific stuff, along with a good dose of information about the process and how the 'T' is going to effect me.
One thing I've learnt in my travels so far is that doctors are very, very concerned not only about stuffing people's lives up, but of not impacting people with the full level of information about their changes. Venna was exceptional, I thought I knew most things but she more than filled in gaps I didn't even know I had.
Once I start 'T' my body will undergo changes to bring me in-line with being a man. I'll go through a second puberty where my voice will break, hair will grow, acne will rock up (again) and the breasts that inhabit my chest will shrink. I will put on muscle like no-one's business if I do gym. Also my metabolism will speed up and I will find it easier to lose weight. I will also grow essentially a mini-penis as my clitorial area changes.
I knew all that. What I *didn't* know was the following.
If I stop 'T' that won't go away.. I will have that bad boy for the rest of my life. (Win!) The other chunk of info that she gave me wasn't so great though.
If I don't choose to get a hysterectomy I will never be able to have Male on my birth certificate. Or my drivers license. Or my medicare card. Or my passport. And because of that it also means I cannot legally marry until it's done. (Australia recognises FtM full transitionals as properly able to marry.)
That really sucks.
I'd never even wanted to go down that path of major surgery because I'm comfortable with having a uterus as it's inside of me and a non-presenting part to the outside world. I don't need it to be gone, and I didn't want to take the risks I'd have to take getting rid of it.
Now it may be that I have no choice. And that sucks more than I can possibly say. I feel invaded.
Veena finished up her consultation and headed off to get Leo, the head nurse of the clinic that I've mentioned previously in my posts. He came into the room and settled himself comfortably, turning out to be nothing physically like I expected.
For some reason his voice on the phone gave me the impression that he was a young, possibly gay, man.. maybe 35 or so. Sandy coloured hair. Maybe a little taller than me.
In reality he was even better. Probably around 55 or so, very trim, with a gold wedding band on his finger. His is a face that has seen a lot of miles, both happy and sad.
Like a well loved book he quite simply opened up to Mel and I, taking us through the process, carefully ensuring that we both understood what was going to happen to me and making sure we knew he was always going to be available as a resource.
He is quiet, completely unassuming and it's very clear to me that he has absolutely no idea of the impact he makes in other people's lives.
Once we had gone through everything with him, Venna reappeared at the door and asked what Leo's opinion was about commencing treatment. His response made me light up like a Christmas tree.
"I think we should absolutely start him straight away."
Venna proceeded to write out a script for my 'T' which Mel swiftly pockets to ensure I don't lose it. (She knows me well.) I'm led into another room that contains a hospital bed and some chairs. A rainbow of needle cases line the walls and Leo busily prepares some empty vials and an arm strap.
The room spins a bit as I sit down on the bed.
There are good natured cracks being thrown around the room about my dislike of needles and Veena stays to lend 'support' with no small amounts of chuckling. Leo straps up my arm, flicks a vein a couple of times and then Mel urges me to look away.
The stab happens.
Oh Christ. Four vials. Four fucking vials of my blood is being drained out of me. Where to put my eyes, I can't look like a pussy in front of these people but I can't look at the FOURFUCKINGVIALSOFBLOODBEINGDRAINEDOUTOFME.
I distantly hear the endocrinologist asking me to breathe. I think I am breathing. Apparently I am not.
1 vial in plunked down in the tray. My head isn't connected to my body anymore and Mel is over to my left somewhere. A second vial joins the first with a soft clatter and I look down to see redfilled glass staring back at me. My stomach flips. A third vial joins the others that swiftly has a fourth placed in with it.
Leo is very, very good at extractions.
It's over. I'm sick to my gut and woozy. Leo makes a comment about it's always the big burly blokes that faint from needles, and regardless of how true that is, it makes me feel better.
I try to get up but the floor isn't stable yet so I'm asked to lay down for a bit and I stare up at the cheetahs plastered on the roof.
Leo gets me some water which I'm told in no uncertain terms to drink while he takes the blood.. my blood.. away. He then uses the next 5 minutes it takes for me to get my head right to line up my next set of actions.
In a week's time I am to call Veena to get the results of my bloodwork. If that's all clear, and the matches are all sorted, I can book my first appointment for a 'T' injection 2 days after this. He also explains where and how to get the 'T' with the script I've been given.
Mel jots everything down in her iPhone and I know I'm in particularly good hands as I try for the second time to get up. It's late and Leo should've left by now, but he makes sure I'm stable enough to get out of the building, we part and then Mel gets me back to the car.
Another week of waiting to go before I have a 100% on the next phase but for now..
Step 4: Completed.
I'm lying flat on my back in a treatment room, crisp white hospital sheets beneath me, staring distantly up at the ceiling. At some stage in the past a kindly soul decided to tape a picture of three baby cheetahs directly above the gurney to help combat boredom, but in my case I'm just trying desperately to get some blood back into my head. The cheetahs are staring intently back down at me with soft, golden eyes, and for the moment I'm grateful for something, anything to concentrate on.
It's been a long day.
I woke up blearily on the loungeroom floor of my apartment, having retreated there at 12:37am 'last night' because I couldn't sleep. It's my usual remedy to slap a mattress down directly under the aircon which is then ramped down to 17 degrees C and turned on full blast. Something about being frostbitten on the outside, but snuggly on the inside helps me fall asleep when I'm anxious.
Today. Today is the day there will be at least 1 needle in my immediate future. Another step closer to my transition.
My understanding of what's about to transpire is pretty limited despite all of my readings. I know that I have to have a blood test first in which the endocrinologist will match me to the specific rhythms that I will need to have 'T' administered. Some guys can have it 2 weeks apart, others 3, some as long as 5.
But the results are usually the same if you screw it up: PMT ON OVERDRIVE. Once you've started on Testosterone the emotional backlash if your body essentially runs out is catastrophic and something I hope fervently to avoid.
It's quite ironic really. I've spent most of my life to this point hating PMT and looking forward to it being gone - and now there is *duh duh duh*.. MAN PMT.. in the wings if we're not careful.
Other than that though, I'm not really sure what today holds for me. Will I walk out of there with a lump of 'T' in the muscles of my ass? Will they tell me I can't start for 6 months? Will they take one look at me and for some strange reason slam the door on any transition at all?
I really don't know and it's that unknowledge that's making me very unsettled.
I go through the usual morning routine and end up at work after a very drawn out, very smelly taxi ride. (How that guy ever got a job with Silver Service I will never know.) On my arrival the office is devoid of people and I'm again left to my thoughts, the chocolate brown of my desk and the struggle of trying to focus on 'work things'.
It's hard, and each minute that passes only makes it harder. During one point of the day, about an hour before I'm due to be collected by Mel who (bless her cotton socks) is coming with me, Kim mentions that it looks like I'm freaking out a bit knowing that the appointment is coming.
She's right, for any one of a hundred reasons. I've gone past tapping on the desk and hurtled straight into doing stuff like washing dishes and frequent trips to the bathroom. I'm agitated and it's showing.
Mel arrives and after some gentle 'jabs' about how much I'm concerned by the concept of getting stabbed with a needle, I'm bundled out of the door and into the car. I drive. It's at least something I can control and it settles me somewhat as we make our way to the Concord Reparation General Hospital.
The bumps in the final stretch of road are rhythmic and strike me oddly as they sound off steadily against the tires like a heartbeat.
After a small kerfuffle with the parking machine and some 'guess again!' gate directions, we're walking hand in hand down a long, covered walkway. It reminds me disconcertingly like walking down a school corridor, the cement pathway is old and scuffed with painted arrows pointing the way to various departments. I get stuck with a major bout of Déjà vu until I realise my brain is overlapping every significant school transit experience I've ever had.
Walking out of primary school for the last time, walking out of high school for the last time, walking back into my first school as an adult Account Manager.. it seems that scuffed concrete will continue to support my footsteps at interesting junctures during my lifetime.
We make it to the door of the Andrology unit and share a breath before Mel opens the door to move inside. It looks like any other doctors surgery from the 80's with large, faded non-colour tiles on the floor, cream walls and a white 'hasn't been scrubbed in a while' ceiling which flickers slightly under the fluro lighting. It smells clinical and there are lowered voices as people move around the hallways.
The receptionist is quick to pull my attention away from the surroundings.
"Hello there - how can I help you?"
I explain who I am and that I have a 3pm appointment with Dr Conway or her counterpart. She checks her schedule and finds my name before handing over a patient detail form, directing me to a waiting area so I can fill it out.
I sit down next to Mel and begin to fill it it. Name - easy. Address - sure thing. Gender - ... uh.. what?
There are two options on the form, male or female. I stare blankly at them, confused. What do I put here? What I am or what my body is? Why do they even have these options on this form? I chew on it for a while and then, unable to come to any other reconciliation, tick the female box. I write '(physically)' next to it though which makes me feel marginally better.
After returning the paperwork and getting back to my seat I make a comment to Mel that I hope I get Dr Conway and not her counterpart. Ann Conway has been around transgender patients since.. well.. forever in medical terms. (35 years.) She's been an Australian authority on many things Trans and it's natural that I'd feel a little safer in her hands.
Unfortunately I recognise her as she walks into the waiting room and collects a man who was sitting across from me. My stomach sinks slightly as I realise I've struck out.
I mull for a while and then a bright, fresh faced woman of what appears to be Indian descent approaches me, her smile a warm bath of pleasant.
"Hello there.. my name is Dr Veena Jayadev, Nye?"
Something about disposition instantly inspires trust in me and I nod, introducing Mel as my partner as we walk down to her office. She's about 5'6, maybe mid 30's, slim in build and has a very gentle mannerism. She comes off as naturally curious, but careful about her approach with people and as I take a seat with Mel in her room I'm far less nervous than I expected.
She begins by asking my age, medical history, do I smoke, drink, those kind of things. I've never smoked a day in my life, nor consumed alcohol and I can't tell you how glad I am about this as both of those really contribute to things like skin scaring after surgery. She also weighed and measured my height - I'm 4 cms shorter than I thought I was.
Dammit.
After the routine questions are out of the way we move onto the GID specific stuff, along with a good dose of information about the process and how the 'T' is going to effect me.
One thing I've learnt in my travels so far is that doctors are very, very concerned not only about stuffing people's lives up, but of not impacting people with the full level of information about their changes. Venna was exceptional, I thought I knew most things but she more than filled in gaps I didn't even know I had.
Once I start 'T' my body will undergo changes to bring me in-line with being a man. I'll go through a second puberty where my voice will break, hair will grow, acne will rock up (again) and the breasts that inhabit my chest will shrink. I will put on muscle like no-one's business if I do gym. Also my metabolism will speed up and I will find it easier to lose weight. I will also grow essentially a mini-penis as my clitorial area changes.
I knew all that. What I *didn't* know was the following.
If I stop 'T' that won't go away.. I will have that bad boy for the rest of my life. (Win!) The other chunk of info that she gave me wasn't so great though.
If I don't choose to get a hysterectomy I will never be able to have Male on my birth certificate. Or my drivers license. Or my medicare card. Or my passport. And because of that it also means I cannot legally marry until it's done. (Australia recognises FtM full transitionals as properly able to marry.)
That really sucks.
I'd never even wanted to go down that path of major surgery because I'm comfortable with having a uterus as it's inside of me and a non-presenting part to the outside world. I don't need it to be gone, and I didn't want to take the risks I'd have to take getting rid of it.
Now it may be that I have no choice. And that sucks more than I can possibly say. I feel invaded.
Veena finished up her consultation and headed off to get Leo, the head nurse of the clinic that I've mentioned previously in my posts. He came into the room and settled himself comfortably, turning out to be nothing physically like I expected.
For some reason his voice on the phone gave me the impression that he was a young, possibly gay, man.. maybe 35 or so. Sandy coloured hair. Maybe a little taller than me.
In reality he was even better. Probably around 55 or so, very trim, with a gold wedding band on his finger. His is a face that has seen a lot of miles, both happy and sad.
Like a well loved book he quite simply opened up to Mel and I, taking us through the process, carefully ensuring that we both understood what was going to happen to me and making sure we knew he was always going to be available as a resource.
He is quiet, completely unassuming and it's very clear to me that he has absolutely no idea of the impact he makes in other people's lives.
Once we had gone through everything with him, Venna reappeared at the door and asked what Leo's opinion was about commencing treatment. His response made me light up like a Christmas tree.
"I think we should absolutely start him straight away."
Venna proceeded to write out a script for my 'T' which Mel swiftly pockets to ensure I don't lose it. (She knows me well.) I'm led into another room that contains a hospital bed and some chairs. A rainbow of needle cases line the walls and Leo busily prepares some empty vials and an arm strap.
The room spins a bit as I sit down on the bed.
There are good natured cracks being thrown around the room about my dislike of needles and Veena stays to lend 'support' with no small amounts of chuckling. Leo straps up my arm, flicks a vein a couple of times and then Mel urges me to look away.
The stab happens.
Oh Christ. Four vials. Four fucking vials of my blood is being drained out of me. Where to put my eyes, I can't look like a pussy in front of these people but I can't look at the FOURFUCKINGVIALSOFBLOODBEINGDRAINEDOUTOFME.
I distantly hear the endocrinologist asking me to breathe. I think I am breathing. Apparently I am not.
1 vial in plunked down in the tray. My head isn't connected to my body anymore and Mel is over to my left somewhere. A second vial joins the first with a soft clatter and I look down to see redfilled glass staring back at me. My stomach flips. A third vial joins the others that swiftly has a fourth placed in with it.
Leo is very, very good at extractions.
It's over. I'm sick to my gut and woozy. Leo makes a comment about it's always the big burly blokes that faint from needles, and regardless of how true that is, it makes me feel better.
I try to get up but the floor isn't stable yet so I'm asked to lay down for a bit and I stare up at the cheetahs plastered on the roof.
Leo gets me some water which I'm told in no uncertain terms to drink while he takes the blood.. my blood.. away. He then uses the next 5 minutes it takes for me to get my head right to line up my next set of actions.
In a week's time I am to call Veena to get the results of my bloodwork. If that's all clear, and the matches are all sorted, I can book my first appointment for a 'T' injection 2 days after this. He also explains where and how to get the 'T' with the script I've been given.
Mel jots everything down in her iPhone and I know I'm in particularly good hands as I try for the second time to get up. It's late and Leo should've left by now, but he makes sure I'm stable enough to get out of the building, we part and then Mel gets me back to the car.
Another week of waiting to go before I have a 100% on the next phase but for now..
Step 4: Completed.
Two sides of the coin.
I've decided it's a very odd feeling to send naked pictures half way across the world.
I've just spent the last 5 minutes 'posing' with my shirt off to provide pictorial material to my will-be surgeon. Arms up, arms down, left side, right side.. click, click, click-click. It's incredibly weird and obviously becoming a porn-star is not a potential career path for me.
Part of me wonders when being able to wander around (outside of the house) without a shirt on won't feel like an alien experience. What it's going to feel like for the first time laying on a beach (with 4 tonnes of sunscreen) without a shirt on, swimming without a shirt on, running.. the list goes on.
On reflection, at least my dysphoria level is such that I can actually *be* without a shirt in front of Mel.. irregardless of the other issues I deal with. I've read quite a lot of material to date where guys are physically unable to actually be naked with their partners and one particular case of a woman who has been with her man for 8 years. She, as I'm sure he, is very much looking forward to seeing his chest for the first time after his upcoming operation.
I thought I'd link it for you because it's incredibly powerful: TMates FTM
Can you imagine being in her position?
It's less than 2 days now before I visit the Endocrinology unit, and it turns out that the physical changes from the T might actually start to take place faster than I expected. (Beard, voice.. etc.) With this in mind it means that I'll have to have a conversation with the owner of the company I work for somewhat sooner than I expected. Considering that he has no idea what is about to happen/what's going on with me, or even what GID actually is, this will obviously go 1 of 2 ways.
Things would obviously be easier if the general public was well educated about GID, and what it actually means when someone suffers with it. As a people we're getting there with things like racism and homosexuality, but if you walked up to the average person in the street and asked them to define GID - you'd more than likely be met with a blank look.
So, my workload in talking to people about what I experience is doubled - not only do I have to express my own side of things, I also at the same time have to educate them about GID which they then have to understand and personally take onboard.
Fortunately to date I haven't hit someone who has run screaming from the discussion, and that's comforting. Mostly I'm met with a genuine dose of confusion which is something I can work with.
I'm not looking forward to the day when I experience the other side of the coin.
I've just spent the last 5 minutes 'posing' with my shirt off to provide pictorial material to my will-be surgeon. Arms up, arms down, left side, right side.. click, click, click-click. It's incredibly weird and obviously becoming a porn-star is not a potential career path for me.
Part of me wonders when being able to wander around (outside of the house) without a shirt on won't feel like an alien experience. What it's going to feel like for the first time laying on a beach (with 4 tonnes of sunscreen) without a shirt on, swimming without a shirt on, running.. the list goes on.
On reflection, at least my dysphoria level is such that I can actually *be* without a shirt in front of Mel.. irregardless of the other issues I deal with. I've read quite a lot of material to date where guys are physically unable to actually be naked with their partners and one particular case of a woman who has been with her man for 8 years. She, as I'm sure he, is very much looking forward to seeing his chest for the first time after his upcoming operation.
I thought I'd link it for you because it's incredibly powerful: TMates FTM
Can you imagine being in her position?
It's less than 2 days now before I visit the Endocrinology unit, and it turns out that the physical changes from the T might actually start to take place faster than I expected. (Beard, voice.. etc.) With this in mind it means that I'll have to have a conversation with the owner of the company I work for somewhat sooner than I expected. Considering that he has no idea what is about to happen/what's going on with me, or even what GID actually is, this will obviously go 1 of 2 ways.
Things would obviously be easier if the general public was well educated about GID, and what it actually means when someone suffers with it. As a people we're getting there with things like racism and homosexuality, but if you walked up to the average person in the street and asked them to define GID - you'd more than likely be met with a blank look.
So, my workload in talking to people about what I experience is doubled - not only do I have to express my own side of things, I also at the same time have to educate them about GID which they then have to understand and personally take onboard.
Fortunately to date I haven't hit someone who has run screaming from the discussion, and that's comforting. Mostly I'm met with a genuine dose of confusion which is something I can work with.
I'm not looking forward to the day when I experience the other side of the coin.
Mel's Spot - 1. Introduction
*waves* Hi everyone, this is my first guest blog spot and I thought I'd start of with a little bit of an explanation about me.
My name is Mel and I've been Nye's partner for the past two years. Meeting Nye helped me to learn a lot about my own sexuality and part of this is what I'd like to share with you.
My sister always thought I was a bit different when we were growing up. I can always remember one time when we went shopping together as teenagers and she spotted a hot looking guy, she nudged me about him but I just hadn't seen him. She always teased me that I never noticed the hot guys. Of course this made me entertain the idea of my being attracted to women, but it was pretty much the same with them.
This isn't to say that I wasn't interested, I often was, though I didn't have many dates. However, it was always after I got to know a person that I felt attraction. I learnt to fake appreciation though for the sake of getting along better with girlfriends.
When I met Nye I was already accustomed to this fact about myself. It's important to be aware that at this time Nye was publicly passing as a female, most especially at work where we met. So as our friendship was developing and I was discovering my attraction to Nye I was getting a little confused.
The problem was that while I felt comfortable with the idea of being with a woman, it was my attraction to Nye's personality that mattered, I just didn't get a female vibe from Nye. Add to this confusion that I was getting major mixed messages from Nye (note: your boss is likely to feel uncomfortable about asking you out) and I didn't know what to think.
It was just after a lot of these feelings had come to a head and I'd made the personal decision that it was best for us to just be friends that Nye told me about GID and that she was actually a he. Suddenly everything fell into place in my head and made sense. Oh and yeah it didn't take us long after that to get together. *grins*
I think the light bulb moment for me was when I was chatting on the phone with Nye soon after this and I described him as a heterosexual male, that he doesn't identify with the gay community at all really. His reaction then told me I'd hit the nail on the head and I was really happy that I'd gotten there myself.
I started reading an researching more and more about GID and related topics. Nye started me off with some links and it just snowballed from there. Somewhere along the line I stumbled upon the term Pansexual, and suddenly I knew where I fit. It wasn't that Pansexuality was about the personality side of my attraction, but that it didn't matter who the person was, but that I could be attracted no matter what.
So that's who I am, future posts will be more about my experiences with a FTM partner and what it's like experiencing the changes he's going through from a partner's perspective. I'm looking forward to sharing with you all.
~Mel.
My name is Mel and I've been Nye's partner for the past two years. Meeting Nye helped me to learn a lot about my own sexuality and part of this is what I'd like to share with you.
My sister always thought I was a bit different when we were growing up. I can always remember one time when we went shopping together as teenagers and she spotted a hot looking guy, she nudged me about him but I just hadn't seen him. She always teased me that I never noticed the hot guys. Of course this made me entertain the idea of my being attracted to women, but it was pretty much the same with them.
This isn't to say that I wasn't interested, I often was, though I didn't have many dates. However, it was always after I got to know a person that I felt attraction. I learnt to fake appreciation though for the sake of getting along better with girlfriends.
When I met Nye I was already accustomed to this fact about myself. It's important to be aware that at this time Nye was publicly passing as a female, most especially at work where we met. So as our friendship was developing and I was discovering my attraction to Nye I was getting a little confused.
The problem was that while I felt comfortable with the idea of being with a woman, it was my attraction to Nye's personality that mattered, I just didn't get a female vibe from Nye. Add to this confusion that I was getting major mixed messages from Nye (note: your boss is likely to feel uncomfortable about asking you out) and I didn't know what to think.
It was just after a lot of these feelings had come to a head and I'd made the personal decision that it was best for us to just be friends that Nye told me about GID and that she was actually a he. Suddenly everything fell into place in my head and made sense. Oh and yeah it didn't take us long after that to get together. *grins*
I think the light bulb moment for me was when I was chatting on the phone with Nye soon after this and I described him as a heterosexual male, that he doesn't identify with the gay community at all really. His reaction then told me I'd hit the nail on the head and I was really happy that I'd gotten there myself.
I started reading an researching more and more about GID and related topics. Nye started me off with some links and it just snowballed from there. Somewhere along the line I stumbled upon the term Pansexual, and suddenly I knew where I fit. It wasn't that Pansexuality was about the personality side of my attraction, but that it didn't matter who the person was, but that I could be attracted no matter what.
So that's who I am, future posts will be more about my experiences with a FTM partner and what it's like experiencing the changes he's going through from a partner's perspective. I'm looking forward to sharing with you all.
~Mel.
Leo.
Did I mention that it's freezing? Well, it's just started to spit rain too, and Mel's on the way back to pick me up from her trip to the bookstore. I'm still standing outside on a sidewalk that seemed to look different than it did an hour and twenty minutes ago.
Bunched in my left hand is the paperwork that Dr Toohey left me with, including the phone number of Dr Ann Conway's private offices - the Endocronlogist I need to go and see about getting hooked up with for my T injections to commence. I notice that I'm kind of staring dumbly down at them while a new set of people rush around me.
I shake my head and snap out of it, realising there's absolutely nothing stopping me now from taking the next step as fast as humanly possible. I can book an appointment with Ann right here, right now. I hurry over to a deserted bus stop seat and plunk my backpack down, pulling out my iPhone and punching her number in.
A bewildered woman answers my call and there's an instant chill in my gut.
"Uh.. Hello there? Who are you looking for?"
I swallow. This is definitely not how I expected it to go. Then my years of dealing with clients via phone kicks in and I'm on auto-pilot.
"Hello there. My name is Nye and I'm looking to speak with a Dr Ann Conway. Is she available?"
The words roll off my tongue so smoothly, several octaves above the tone presented to the cafe owner less than two hours ago. It seems to do the trick.
"Oh, sorry, I'm a little flustered here at the moment. We're packing up the office and moving into a new premises tomorrow and it's a bit chaotic."
I insert a well practiced chuckle here, letting her know I understand exactly where she's coming from. Then the bomb hits.
"Oh, sorry, yes, Dr Ann Conway retired last year, she's not seeing any patients."
Everything stops. It feels like I've been punched in the gut. I hear something on the other end of the phoneline and then snap back into listening again.
".... and I can refer you to another of our doctors, he's very good and has taken over a lot of Ann's previous patients? Hang on, let me get you his details.."
I hear a ruffling of paper and perhaps a box getting knocked over. I cough to get her attention as my brain grinds back into gear.
"Sorry.. just a quick moment.. is the gentleman you're suggesting.. does he have experience with GID patients?"
The rustling on the other end of the line stops. I can almost hear her head tilt.
"I didn't quite catch that.. does he have experience with what?"
I restrain a very audible, very long exhale. Please god don't tell me I'm going to have to go through this again.
"Does he have experience with GID patients. I have GID and I've just been cleared to see someone like Ann to start my testosterone treatment."
It's almost like a bolt of lightening strikes her from high.
"Ooooohhhh.. I understand.. no, he doesn't have experience with that. You need to talk to the people at the Concord Andrology unit. They'll be able to help you.. I've got the number around here somewhere...." More rustling ensues.
At this stage I'm rapidly scrambling to get my computer out of my pack with the phone jammed to the side of my head, cursing internally at the spitting rain and praying that Job's made this thing more waterproof than the last model.
"Okay.. here we go.." She reads the number out to me and I punch it dutifully in, thank her for her time and then get straight back on the phone with my new piece to the puzzle.
Leo answers. Wonderful, wonderful Leo.
Let me talk about Leo for a moment before I go on. A friend of mine who is also going through transition mentioned that Leo from the unit would be the best person to talk to about finding a GP etc, finding support groups, and just generally helping me find health care professionals who will treat me like a human being. I stored the name away when I heard it and thought no more about it until he picked up the phone.
"Hi there, my name is Leo, how can I help you?"
He's got a very gentle speaking manner and relief floods my voice as I recognise the name.
"Hi Leo, my name is Nye and I'd like to make an appointment to see a doctor at the clinic.. I have GID and I've just been passed to commence treatment."
Leo doesn't skip a beat, and there's a genuine smile behind his words.
"That won't be a problem at all, do you know who you would like to see?"
I explain that I'd been referred to Dr Ann Conway's private practice but she was gone, so I was somewhat in the dark and looking for recommendations. (Translated: Help - I'm lost!)
"Dr Conway? She still treats with us, even though she's retired from private practice and is currently training a new doctor to take over her work in the GID field, there'll be no issue seeing her through the clinic."
Ever had the feeling where you've wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time?
"That's brilliant, how soon can I see her?"
Leo asks if I have my referral letter from Dr Toohey, and then, very very carefully adds the following question.
"I just want to check because I have to get this right on the paperwork the first time - you were born a physical female?"
Just his care alone makes me feel, for the first time in a very long time, accepted. Finally in line with someone who's going to look after me. Rhian was spot on with recommending this guy. The fact that he added 'physically' in there just said it all.
I give him the affirmative and he scans the calender.
"The first I can fit you in will be the 17th.. how does that work?"
I let him know that's no good as I'll be in Brisbane for the coming week.
"Okay then.. let's have another look here.. how does the 24th work? Say 3pm?"
That works freaking great! I'm there! Sporting bells, whistles and any other noise making attachments I can find! He locks it in and then spends a little more time with me being conversational.
"You know, it's quite funny and I have to ask, how on earth did you find out about us? We don't advertise and yet we have at least one new case a fortnight who is in exactly the same situation that you are."
And there it is again.. it's not a problem.. it's not an issue.. it's a 'situation'.. something I can't control, something that is happening TO ME.. but can get some help resolving.
I explain to him that not only had Dr Toohey directed me across to the clinic, but I'd had excellent feedback from the general online community about the work being done there. There's a genuine smile of appreciation behind the phoneline that I can hear now.
"Ahh.. well, that's good then, I'm glad we're helping. But it is still very funny - we're actually a male fertility clinic by trade."
I laugh with him at that one, the irony is heavy and it washes away all the tension of the last few days. I thank him again and hang up the phone, pack all my kit away and get out of the rain as Mel circles the block one more time before coming to collect me.
Step 3. Done. Roll on the 24th.
Bunched in my left hand is the paperwork that Dr Toohey left me with, including the phone number of Dr Ann Conway's private offices - the Endocronlogist I need to go and see about getting hooked up with for my T injections to commence. I notice that I'm kind of staring dumbly down at them while a new set of people rush around me.
I shake my head and snap out of it, realising there's absolutely nothing stopping me now from taking the next step as fast as humanly possible. I can book an appointment with Ann right here, right now. I hurry over to a deserted bus stop seat and plunk my backpack down, pulling out my iPhone and punching her number in.
A bewildered woman answers my call and there's an instant chill in my gut.
"Uh.. Hello there? Who are you looking for?"
I swallow. This is definitely not how I expected it to go. Then my years of dealing with clients via phone kicks in and I'm on auto-pilot.
"Hello there. My name is Nye and I'm looking to speak with a Dr Ann Conway. Is she available?"
The words roll off my tongue so smoothly, several octaves above the tone presented to the cafe owner less than two hours ago. It seems to do the trick.
"Oh, sorry, I'm a little flustered here at the moment. We're packing up the office and moving into a new premises tomorrow and it's a bit chaotic."
I insert a well practiced chuckle here, letting her know I understand exactly where she's coming from. Then the bomb hits.
"Oh, sorry, yes, Dr Ann Conway retired last year, she's not seeing any patients."
Everything stops. It feels like I've been punched in the gut. I hear something on the other end of the phoneline and then snap back into listening again.
".... and I can refer you to another of our doctors, he's very good and has taken over a lot of Ann's previous patients? Hang on, let me get you his details.."
I hear a ruffling of paper and perhaps a box getting knocked over. I cough to get her attention as my brain grinds back into gear.
"Sorry.. just a quick moment.. is the gentleman you're suggesting.. does he have experience with GID patients?"
The rustling on the other end of the line stops. I can almost hear her head tilt.
"I didn't quite catch that.. does he have experience with what?"
I restrain a very audible, very long exhale. Please god don't tell me I'm going to have to go through this again.
"Does he have experience with GID patients. I have GID and I've just been cleared to see someone like Ann to start my testosterone treatment."
It's almost like a bolt of lightening strikes her from high.
"Ooooohhhh.. I understand.. no, he doesn't have experience with that. You need to talk to the people at the Concord Andrology unit. They'll be able to help you.. I've got the number around here somewhere...." More rustling ensues.
At this stage I'm rapidly scrambling to get my computer out of my pack with the phone jammed to the side of my head, cursing internally at the spitting rain and praying that Job's made this thing more waterproof than the last model.
"Okay.. here we go.." She reads the number out to me and I punch it dutifully in, thank her for her time and then get straight back on the phone with my new piece to the puzzle.
Leo answers. Wonderful, wonderful Leo.
Let me talk about Leo for a moment before I go on. A friend of mine who is also going through transition mentioned that Leo from the unit would be the best person to talk to about finding a GP etc, finding support groups, and just generally helping me find health care professionals who will treat me like a human being. I stored the name away when I heard it and thought no more about it until he picked up the phone.
"Hi there, my name is Leo, how can I help you?"
He's got a very gentle speaking manner and relief floods my voice as I recognise the name.
"Hi Leo, my name is Nye and I'd like to make an appointment to see a doctor at the clinic.. I have GID and I've just been passed to commence treatment."
Leo doesn't skip a beat, and there's a genuine smile behind his words.
"That won't be a problem at all, do you know who you would like to see?"
I explain that I'd been referred to Dr Ann Conway's private practice but she was gone, so I was somewhat in the dark and looking for recommendations. (Translated: Help - I'm lost!)
"Dr Conway? She still treats with us, even though she's retired from private practice and is currently training a new doctor to take over her work in the GID field, there'll be no issue seeing her through the clinic."
Ever had the feeling where you've wanted to laugh and cry all at the same time?
"That's brilliant, how soon can I see her?"
Leo asks if I have my referral letter from Dr Toohey, and then, very very carefully adds the following question.
"I just want to check because I have to get this right on the paperwork the first time - you were born a physical female?"
Just his care alone makes me feel, for the first time in a very long time, accepted. Finally in line with someone who's going to look after me. Rhian was spot on with recommending this guy. The fact that he added 'physically' in there just said it all.
I give him the affirmative and he scans the calender.
"The first I can fit you in will be the 17th.. how does that work?"
I let him know that's no good as I'll be in Brisbane for the coming week.
"Okay then.. let's have another look here.. how does the 24th work? Say 3pm?"
That works freaking great! I'm there! Sporting bells, whistles and any other noise making attachments I can find! He locks it in and then spends a little more time with me being conversational.
"You know, it's quite funny and I have to ask, how on earth did you find out about us? We don't advertise and yet we have at least one new case a fortnight who is in exactly the same situation that you are."
And there it is again.. it's not a problem.. it's not an issue.. it's a 'situation'.. something I can't control, something that is happening TO ME.. but can get some help resolving.
I explain to him that not only had Dr Toohey directed me across to the clinic, but I'd had excellent feedback from the general online community about the work being done there. There's a genuine smile of appreciation behind the phoneline that I can hear now.
"Ahh.. well, that's good then, I'm glad we're helping. But it is still very funny - we're actually a male fertility clinic by trade."
I laugh with him at that one, the irony is heavy and it washes away all the tension of the last few days. I thank him again and hang up the phone, pack all my kit away and get out of the rain as Mel circles the block one more time before coming to collect me.
Step 3. Done. Roll on the 24th.
235.
It's a surprisingly chilly Thursday morning and I'm standing on the sidewalk of what essentially is a typical street in the guts of inner city Sydney. I've got my backpack slung over one shoulder and am hunched against the slice of wind that should be reserved for winter. Fuck it's cold. Wish I'd brought a jacket.
Peter's voice runs through my head. "Soft cock." I chuckle.
I'm staring up at three little numbers with my hands jammed in my jeans pockets, people moving around me, all in a hurry to be somewhere. 235. Two hundred and thirty five. Macquarie street to be precise. It's been less than 24 hours since my encounter with the GP and I've managed to wedge myself into a cancellation at Dr Toohey's offices. Yep, on level 4 of that building is the next guy I have to make understand I'm a dude.
So I can get another letter to go somewhere else. It's a strange game of 'scavenger hunt' that I'm playing here.
I'm standing on the street because the problem is that I'm something like an hour early for this one, unwilling as I was to brave running late in the scandal that is Sydney morning traffic. Although I could've taken the train and probably gotten here about 5 minutes before my 8:50am, public transport and I are not friends, so my beloved drove me in, dropped me off and made a beeline for the nearest Kinokuniya bookstore.
There's a cafe next door so I hunch my way in there and take a seat in the corner, scanning the billboard menu. A guy who obviously owns the place heads over.
"Good morning sir, what can I get you?"
I smile wryly, pleased with his gender pronoun but knowing what's about to happen even though I'm speaking in my low, rough morning tone.. the closest thing I've got to a guy voice.
"Can I grab a French Toast, no extra fruit, no cinnamon and the syrup on the side please. Uh, and a chocolate milkshake too thanks."
He goes red and fumbles the order onto his notepad, mumbling an apology to the 'ma'am' sitting in front of him, then retreats behind the counter to cough out an order to the cook.
I sigh. Really, people feeling embarrassed and like they've offended me leeches the joy out of being recognised correctly, and I feel so bad about it. I'm looking forward to that going away more than I can say.
My drink turns up in double time. The french toast takes a little longer because they screw it up and make me pancakes for some reason, so I get it to go and then dump it in a bin out of sight up the street.
The time's upon me now and I walk up three white marble steps into the main marble lined foyer of the building. It's a stately old set of offices, the wall plaque to my left covered in brass name chits - doctors and lawyers all. I scan the board.. my guy is on the 4th floor so I step past them and into a lift that feels like something out of the 40's. Punch in level 4. Here we go.
A slightly hair raising ride later I get out of the lift as fast as I can. A single brown door confronts me from across the hallway that I proceed to try and open. It's locked. Hrm. I knock a couple of times and get buzzed in, tripping over a pile of mail leaning against the doorframe.
A kindly looking man in his 60's, grey hair and average height greets me as I lean over to pick up his letters with the quip of "Mail-call. Special delivery." He laughs and ushers me into his office which is conspicuously bare of any of those laying on couch things you see on TV. I take a seat on the 3 seater leather couch while he settles into a single seater across from me.
He asks for the GP letter and has a quick read, before commencing the session. I instantly front with my carefully prepared joke about spending part of the day of my 2 year anniversary in a shrinks office. He does me the courtesy of not writing down that I use humour to deflect uncomfortable situations.
I'm not going to go into a blow by blow of the session, needless to say that for most of it I wanted to leap across the room and steal the paper he was making so many notes on. I have no doubt of his complete professionalism and completely recommend him to any FtM's or MtF's that may need their letter to proceed to hormone therapy because he was amazing.. I'm just not great under such a bright personal spotlight.
His questions centered around my childhood, my friends, my family, my anxiety levels during my life and when I started to realise what was wrong with me. He had to keep pulling me back with questions like 'But how did you feel?' and 'Tell me how that effected you - I really want you to feel it.' all the time.
I guess, on reflection, I was drawing the conversations naturally away from focusing on me via deflection techniques that seem so natural I don't even know I'm doing it. He was understanding though and we got there in the end. As he was preparing the paperwork I'd need for the next step he left me with one very important piece of information.
"Nye - I want you to accept the anxiety you feel about your situation, you don't have to be strong about this, but allow it to flow up and then work with it. At the moment, it's completely repressed and that's not healthy. While I don't want you to allow it to disable and overwhelm you, to do need to accept that it's effecting you and then work through it."
That statement alone said volumes to me - ie: the deflection thing. As you will have seen from my previous posts, my life consists of a daily churn of screwed up due to my GID, and that's something I guess I've just come to accept. I have the philosophy in life that if something is fucking with you, no amount of tears, screaming, fighting, drugs, breakdowns etc are going to make a difference - you have to DEAL with the thing that's fucking with you.
Once that gets done, everything is fixed and you're happy again. That makes sense to me.
I thank him, and he refers me to an Endocrinologist who is a personal favourite of his, asking me to call him when I have an appointment booked so he can send the letter I need directly to her seeing as I don't have a GP. It's the best possible result I could've hoped for.
I pay for the session, $330 bucks that is mostly covered by Medicare, and then go back down the crazy elevator, and back out into the biting cold.
Step 2, done. The next step is booking that appointment with the Endo so they can take up bloodwork and fit me out with the best 'T' for my system.
It's all coming together.
Peter's voice runs through my head. "Soft cock." I chuckle.
I'm staring up at three little numbers with my hands jammed in my jeans pockets, people moving around me, all in a hurry to be somewhere. 235. Two hundred and thirty five. Macquarie street to be precise. It's been less than 24 hours since my encounter with the GP and I've managed to wedge myself into a cancellation at Dr Toohey's offices. Yep, on level 4 of that building is the next guy I have to make understand I'm a dude.
So I can get another letter to go somewhere else. It's a strange game of 'scavenger hunt' that I'm playing here.
I'm standing on the street because the problem is that I'm something like an hour early for this one, unwilling as I was to brave running late in the scandal that is Sydney morning traffic. Although I could've taken the train and probably gotten here about 5 minutes before my 8:50am, public transport and I are not friends, so my beloved drove me in, dropped me off and made a beeline for the nearest Kinokuniya bookstore.
There's a cafe next door so I hunch my way in there and take a seat in the corner, scanning the billboard menu. A guy who obviously owns the place heads over.
"Good morning sir, what can I get you?"
I smile wryly, pleased with his gender pronoun but knowing what's about to happen even though I'm speaking in my low, rough morning tone.. the closest thing I've got to a guy voice.
"Can I grab a French Toast, no extra fruit, no cinnamon and the syrup on the side please. Uh, and a chocolate milkshake too thanks."
He goes red and fumbles the order onto his notepad, mumbling an apology to the 'ma'am' sitting in front of him, then retreats behind the counter to cough out an order to the cook.
I sigh. Really, people feeling embarrassed and like they've offended me leeches the joy out of being recognised correctly, and I feel so bad about it. I'm looking forward to that going away more than I can say.
My drink turns up in double time. The french toast takes a little longer because they screw it up and make me pancakes for some reason, so I get it to go and then dump it in a bin out of sight up the street.
The time's upon me now and I walk up three white marble steps into the main marble lined foyer of the building. It's a stately old set of offices, the wall plaque to my left covered in brass name chits - doctors and lawyers all. I scan the board.. my guy is on the 4th floor so I step past them and into a lift that feels like something out of the 40's. Punch in level 4. Here we go.
A slightly hair raising ride later I get out of the lift as fast as I can. A single brown door confronts me from across the hallway that I proceed to try and open. It's locked. Hrm. I knock a couple of times and get buzzed in, tripping over a pile of mail leaning against the doorframe.
A kindly looking man in his 60's, grey hair and average height greets me as I lean over to pick up his letters with the quip of "Mail-call. Special delivery." He laughs and ushers me into his office which is conspicuously bare of any of those laying on couch things you see on TV. I take a seat on the 3 seater leather couch while he settles into a single seater across from me.
He asks for the GP letter and has a quick read, before commencing the session. I instantly front with my carefully prepared joke about spending part of the day of my 2 year anniversary in a shrinks office. He does me the courtesy of not writing down that I use humour to deflect uncomfortable situations.
I'm not going to go into a blow by blow of the session, needless to say that for most of it I wanted to leap across the room and steal the paper he was making so many notes on. I have no doubt of his complete professionalism and completely recommend him to any FtM's or MtF's that may need their letter to proceed to hormone therapy because he was amazing.. I'm just not great under such a bright personal spotlight.
His questions centered around my childhood, my friends, my family, my anxiety levels during my life and when I started to realise what was wrong with me. He had to keep pulling me back with questions like 'But how did you feel?' and 'Tell me how that effected you - I really want you to feel it.' all the time.
I guess, on reflection, I was drawing the conversations naturally away from focusing on me via deflection techniques that seem so natural I don't even know I'm doing it. He was understanding though and we got there in the end. As he was preparing the paperwork I'd need for the next step he left me with one very important piece of information.
"Nye - I want you to accept the anxiety you feel about your situation, you don't have to be strong about this, but allow it to flow up and then work with it. At the moment, it's completely repressed and that's not healthy. While I don't want you to allow it to disable and overwhelm you, to do need to accept that it's effecting you and then work through it."
That statement alone said volumes to me - ie: the deflection thing. As you will have seen from my previous posts, my life consists of a daily churn of screwed up due to my GID, and that's something I guess I've just come to accept. I have the philosophy in life that if something is fucking with you, no amount of tears, screaming, fighting, drugs, breakdowns etc are going to make a difference - you have to DEAL with the thing that's fucking with you.
Once that gets done, everything is fixed and you're happy again. That makes sense to me.
I thank him, and he refers me to an Endocrinologist who is a personal favourite of his, asking me to call him when I have an appointment booked so he can send the letter I need directly to her seeing as I don't have a GP. It's the best possible result I could've hoped for.
I pay for the session, $330 bucks that is mostly covered by Medicare, and then go back down the crazy elevator, and back out into the biting cold.
Step 2, done. The next step is booking that appointment with the Endo so they can take up bloodwork and fit me out with the best 'T' for my system.
It's all coming together.
Chocolate and Cream.
Tap.. Tap.. Tap.. ugh..
It's Wednesday morning, I'm at work and I've just checked my bank account for about the 500th time. It's there, enough to be safe in the assumption that the rest will come shortly.. enough to see this thing through.
So what am I waiting for?
There's no one else in the office at the moment so the incessant sound of my pen against the desk isn't driving anyone batty. Except for me. And I'm more annoyed with myself than batty right now.
Tap..
Actually, I know exactly what I'm waiting for. It's fear. A churning, gut wrenching, leg miring fear. I'm waiting for the fear to go away. Only it doesn't. And I know it's not going to until I actually go and address the thing that is causing the fear.
.. .. Tap.. Tap..
I've just skipped a beat thinking about it. It's silly really. All I have to do is get up from behind the chocolate-brown desk I'm sitting at, pick up my wallet and iPhone, and then walk down a flight of cream tiled stairs, out through a single glass door and continue walking straight up the street for around 200 meters. It's not hard, and it's certainly not impossible.
I just have to do it.
The thing that seems the most insurmountable is the first step. And not because I'm concerned about going through my transition, far from it, I'm excited. What's got me tied up in knots is that at the end of my relatively simple walk up the road is a GP (a General Practitioner - sort of an entry level doctor) who has to a) Understand what I want to do and then b) Write me a referral to a psychiatrist to will give me the green light to start my treatment.
I look over to the folded piece of A4 paper that has Dr Toohey's details hidden inside of it, the guy I need the referral to. I don't know the name of the GP that I'm going to see because I don't actually have a regular GP, and I hate most GP doctors in general because I think they're essentially quacks. However, I have to force myself to walk up the street to this no-name guy and get him to understand that I need a letter from him that's going to change my life at the most fundamental level. And if at any stage he says no, for whatever reason religious/personal/or otherwise, I then have to go through it again with someone else.
Daunting is an understatement.
.. Tap.. Tap.. CLUNK.
Right, that's it. I've had enough of being afraid and sheer annoyance has taken over. I gather my gear, paper in hand and make a beeline down the stairs and up the street.
I get to the medical centre and make my way inside, standing in line behind a young woman with a chronically coughing child. Subconsciously I'm trying not the breathe in here and contract some sort of airborne disease while I get called to the counter. I explain to the receptionist that I need to see a GP. She sort of eyes me up and down looking for some sort of ailment while asking for who I want. I tell her I don't need someone specific, I'm just looking to get a referral. I get a clipped nod, fill out some paperwork and get directed to a seat.
About 15 minutes later an elderly tight-lipped chinese gentleman makes his way briskly out of his office and barks out a version of my name. I follow him in and close the door behind me, taking an uncomfortable seat. He asks me what my problem is and before I can squeeze out a reply proceeds to take a phonecall while he waves me into silence.
Now I'm more than annoyed.
Once done, he turns back to me and asks again what my problem is. I tell him I don't have a problem but that I need a referral to the doctor on the sheet of paper I push in front of him. He asks me what kind of doctor it is. I reply it's a psychiatrist and his eyebrows raise slightly. He starts tapping on the computer and asks me for what reason I want to be referred. It's that split second where time slows.
"I want to speak to him about gender assignment surgery."
There's silence in the room while he tries to work his brain around this concept.
"I'm sorry, what was that?"
I squirm slightly. I don't have time to explain to this guy the ins and outs of GID and quite frankly it's shit that I should have to. I tell him again that I'm looking to have gender assignment surgery and that I need to have a referral to a psych as the next step in my treatment. It's at this stage his eyes have dropped to my chest and seem locked there.
His eyebrows have shot off the Richter scale by about now but he turns back to his computer as each keystroke sounds like a gunshot. He grunts slightly and then proceeds to ask me where I intend on getting the surgery done. I explain I'm having it done in the US. This seems to irritate him even more than having someone in his office he can't prescribe a drug to fix.
"And why aren't you having it here in Australia? There are many fine surgeons in this country."
I explain to him that Dr Brownstein, the guy I'm hoping to book in with at the end of this year, is the best in the word at what he does. (I've seen some hideous results from other surgeons and I'm not taking any chances.) I'm then asked what the cost is, to which I reply it's going to cost me around 20 grand all up.
He grunts again and prints out a letter that has his 6 syllabled name on, and then pushes it at me. I glance down and make sure that it has what I need it to on it, a single sentence, thank him and flee the building while he follows me out and barks for his next appointment.
"I am referring this patient to you for the purposes of discussing Gender Assignment Surgery."
It's all I needed from him and the space around me returns.
It's Wednesday morning, I'm at work and I've just checked my bank account for about the 500th time. It's there, enough to be safe in the assumption that the rest will come shortly.. enough to see this thing through.
So what am I waiting for?
Tap.. Tap..
There's no one else in the office at the moment so the incessant sound of my pen against the desk isn't driving anyone batty. Except for me. And I'm more annoyed with myself than batty right now.
Tap..
Actually, I know exactly what I'm waiting for. It's fear. A churning, gut wrenching, leg miring fear. I'm waiting for the fear to go away. Only it doesn't. And I know it's not going to until I actually go and address the thing that is causing the fear.
.. .. Tap.. Tap..
I've just skipped a beat thinking about it. It's silly really. All I have to do is get up from behind the chocolate-brown desk I'm sitting at, pick up my wallet and iPhone, and then walk down a flight of cream tiled stairs, out through a single glass door and continue walking straight up the street for around 200 meters. It's not hard, and it's certainly not impossible.
I just have to do it.
The thing that seems the most insurmountable is the first step. And not because I'm concerned about going through my transition, far from it, I'm excited. What's got me tied up in knots is that at the end of my relatively simple walk up the road is a GP (a General Practitioner - sort of an entry level doctor) who has to a) Understand what I want to do and then b) Write me a referral to a psychiatrist to will give me the green light to start my treatment.
I look over to the folded piece of A4 paper that has Dr Toohey's details hidden inside of it, the guy I need the referral to. I don't know the name of the GP that I'm going to see because I don't actually have a regular GP, and I hate most GP doctors in general because I think they're essentially quacks. However, I have to force myself to walk up the street to this no-name guy and get him to understand that I need a letter from him that's going to change my life at the most fundamental level. And if at any stage he says no, for whatever reason religious/personal/or otherwise, I then have to go through it again with someone else.
Daunting is an understatement.
.. Tap.. Tap.. CLUNK.
Right, that's it. I've had enough of being afraid and sheer annoyance has taken over. I gather my gear, paper in hand and make a beeline down the stairs and up the street.
I get to the medical centre and make my way inside, standing in line behind a young woman with a chronically coughing child. Subconsciously I'm trying not the breathe in here and contract some sort of airborne disease while I get called to the counter. I explain to the receptionist that I need to see a GP. She sort of eyes me up and down looking for some sort of ailment while asking for who I want. I tell her I don't need someone specific, I'm just looking to get a referral. I get a clipped nod, fill out some paperwork and get directed to a seat.
About 15 minutes later an elderly tight-lipped chinese gentleman makes his way briskly out of his office and barks out a version of my name. I follow him in and close the door behind me, taking an uncomfortable seat. He asks me what my problem is and before I can squeeze out a reply proceeds to take a phonecall while he waves me into silence.
Now I'm more than annoyed.
Once done, he turns back to me and asks again what my problem is. I tell him I don't have a problem but that I need a referral to the doctor on the sheet of paper I push in front of him. He asks me what kind of doctor it is. I reply it's a psychiatrist and his eyebrows raise slightly. He starts tapping on the computer and asks me for what reason I want to be referred. It's that split second where time slows.
"I want to speak to him about gender assignment surgery."
There's silence in the room while he tries to work his brain around this concept.
"I'm sorry, what was that?"
I squirm slightly. I don't have time to explain to this guy the ins and outs of GID and quite frankly it's shit that I should have to. I tell him again that I'm looking to have gender assignment surgery and that I need to have a referral to a psych as the next step in my treatment. It's at this stage his eyes have dropped to my chest and seem locked there.
His eyebrows have shot off the Richter scale by about now but he turns back to his computer as each keystroke sounds like a gunshot. He grunts slightly and then proceeds to ask me where I intend on getting the surgery done. I explain I'm having it done in the US. This seems to irritate him even more than having someone in his office he can't prescribe a drug to fix.
"And why aren't you having it here in Australia? There are many fine surgeons in this country."
I explain to him that Dr Brownstein, the guy I'm hoping to book in with at the end of this year, is the best in the word at what he does. (I've seen some hideous results from other surgeons and I'm not taking any chances.) I'm then asked what the cost is, to which I reply it's going to cost me around 20 grand all up.
He grunts again and prints out a letter that has his 6 syllabled name on, and then pushes it at me. I glance down and make sure that it has what I need it to on it, a single sentence, thank him and flee the building while he follows me out and barks for his next appointment.
"I am referring this patient to you for the purposes of discussing Gender Assignment Surgery."
It's all I needed from him and the space around me returns.
After the dust settles..
It's been a very long six months leading up to this point. Epic battles waged by (many) different people who I am forever grateful to help me secure the funding I need to go forward with this. My partner getting cut into the redundancy side of the workforce. Starting a new business. Phew.
I knew 2010 was going to be a cracker but we're only in March!
Last Tuesday I got partially paid the huge wack of commission money owed to me by the company I work for, which was the final barrier against actually starting my transition process. After 8 years of research, wistful wandering around the net viewing transmen sites and wishing, I'm finally in a position to get the outside of me to match the inside.
Let me explain a little more about GID and how I feel on a daily basis. Imagine, if you can, waking up each morning and feeling like you're wearing a very ill-fitting sumo suit. It's not only baggy, but parts of it are unweildy and you can't move very well inside of this thing.. it sort of.. sits 'on' you. You adjust your gait, slouch your shoulders and kind of fold in on yourself as you travel through the day.
You can't hug the people you love properly with it on, you can't have sex without being acutely aware that it's there which effects your ability to be 'in the moment'. You don't like your lover actually touching the suit so it becomes awkward for any deep level of intimacy and things become very one sided in the bedroom. You have difficulty in standing up in front of a crowd and speaking because you know they're seeing you through the suit, and not what you actually are.
To try and deal better with the suit you put on several layers of support around the chest area by way of bra's/sports bras/anything that will stop the reminding movement that's present with every step. While this provides a small measure of relief, your shoulders ache from the increased force needed to strap tightly enough, then your back aches and most afternoon's you end up with a raging headache.
You go to bed, uncomfortable but at least free of the supporting strapping so your shoulders can take a break, and then your partner tries to cuddle into you and rest her head on your chest, but again, the suit gets in the way.
And each day that you wake up you know one very important and crushing thing.
You can't take it off. It never stops.
So that's me, I walk down the streets of my life not fitting. It's a different feeling to being on the outskirts of a social group, or a racial group, because while I completely acknowledge people struggle greatly with those challenges, it's very, very hard not being able to 'fit' within yourself on such a fundamental scale as your gender identity.
Throughout most of my life there was a large focus on my mane of long hair. It was a living, breathing thing that my mother had proudly displayed to her social set during my childhood and earned me many a pat on the head. As soon as I was old enough to understand I carried a brush with me everywhere and took great pains to ensure it was tanglefree and in best possible condition for show.
This naturally translated into my teen set and my hair became a defining point as a method of identity. The women in my social circle would stroke it, it was commented on, and yet for some reason I was incredibly uncomfortable looking in the mirror while having it cut by a stylist, so it remained growing and wild for most of my teenage years.
Come adulthood and the requirements of a workplace where such hair isn't considered a professional asset, trips to the hairdresser are done once every 6-8 months on the outside. It's a horrible, horrible experience having my hair cut and styled, albeit ever so basically, in a feminine cut. I spend most of the 2+ hour sessions staring at the floor. Yet the accumulated weight of reinforcement about how important my hair is to my existence remains and it's just something to be tolerated.
Flash forward to around 2 years ago when my partner Mel helped me work up the courage to get it cut correctly to a male style. She thought, like the hairdresser who did the actual deed, that I would freak out once it was gone but both I think were incredibly surprised in how overjoyed I was with the result. I'm still not quite sure if the stylist really realises how much of a difference she made to my life.
I love getting my hair cut now and have it done around once every 3 weeks. It's a relaxing, enjoyable experience. This may seem trivial but it's a fundamental thing.. my hair now fits me. The me who I am, not this suit that you see.
I can only imagine at this point how good it's going to be when the rest of me experiences the same thing.
I knew 2010 was going to be a cracker but we're only in March!
Last Tuesday I got partially paid the huge wack of commission money owed to me by the company I work for, which was the final barrier against actually starting my transition process. After 8 years of research, wistful wandering around the net viewing transmen sites and wishing, I'm finally in a position to get the outside of me to match the inside.
Let me explain a little more about GID and how I feel on a daily basis. Imagine, if you can, waking up each morning and feeling like you're wearing a very ill-fitting sumo suit. It's not only baggy, but parts of it are unweildy and you can't move very well inside of this thing.. it sort of.. sits 'on' you. You adjust your gait, slouch your shoulders and kind of fold in on yourself as you travel through the day.
You can't hug the people you love properly with it on, you can't have sex without being acutely aware that it's there which effects your ability to be 'in the moment'. You don't like your lover actually touching the suit so it becomes awkward for any deep level of intimacy and things become very one sided in the bedroom. You have difficulty in standing up in front of a crowd and speaking because you know they're seeing you through the suit, and not what you actually are.
To try and deal better with the suit you put on several layers of support around the chest area by way of bra's/sports bras/anything that will stop the reminding movement that's present with every step. While this provides a small measure of relief, your shoulders ache from the increased force needed to strap tightly enough, then your back aches and most afternoon's you end up with a raging headache.
You go to bed, uncomfortable but at least free of the supporting strapping so your shoulders can take a break, and then your partner tries to cuddle into you and rest her head on your chest, but again, the suit gets in the way.
And each day that you wake up you know one very important and crushing thing.
You can't take it off. It never stops.
So that's me, I walk down the streets of my life not fitting. It's a different feeling to being on the outskirts of a social group, or a racial group, because while I completely acknowledge people struggle greatly with those challenges, it's very, very hard not being able to 'fit' within yourself on such a fundamental scale as your gender identity.
Throughout most of my life there was a large focus on my mane of long hair. It was a living, breathing thing that my mother had proudly displayed to her social set during my childhood and earned me many a pat on the head. As soon as I was old enough to understand I carried a brush with me everywhere and took great pains to ensure it was tanglefree and in best possible condition for show.
This naturally translated into my teen set and my hair became a defining point as a method of identity. The women in my social circle would stroke it, it was commented on, and yet for some reason I was incredibly uncomfortable looking in the mirror while having it cut by a stylist, so it remained growing and wild for most of my teenage years.
Come adulthood and the requirements of a workplace where such hair isn't considered a professional asset, trips to the hairdresser are done once every 6-8 months on the outside. It's a horrible, horrible experience having my hair cut and styled, albeit ever so basically, in a feminine cut. I spend most of the 2+ hour sessions staring at the floor. Yet the accumulated weight of reinforcement about how important my hair is to my existence remains and it's just something to be tolerated.
Flash forward to around 2 years ago when my partner Mel helped me work up the courage to get it cut correctly to a male style. She thought, like the hairdresser who did the actual deed, that I would freak out once it was gone but both I think were incredibly surprised in how overjoyed I was with the result. I'm still not quite sure if the stylist really realises how much of a difference she made to my life.
I love getting my hair cut now and have it done around once every 3 weeks. It's a relaxing, enjoyable experience. This may seem trivial but it's a fundamental thing.. my hair now fits me. The me who I am, not this suit that you see.
I can only imagine at this point how good it's going to be when the rest of me experiences the same thing.
So, it begins.
Well, here we are at the technical start of it all. Today, after 31 years on the planet I've been given the 'all clear' to begin my transitional journey from a physical female with GID to a chemically and chest-correct guy, albeit unfortunately still sans the little dangly bit.
I think there's a drought out there of blow by blow transitional blogs that detail the full range of the experience for transguys to refer to, so I'm offering myself up as a resource for anyone who may find my ramblings useful.
I've marked the site as Adult Content because I intend to share the full gamut of the change, chest pics and all. Also, my ever lovely partner, Mel, will be making guest appearances from time to time to share her perspective on what's happening to me. (And, she says, to her!) :)
So welcome, and thanks for having an interest in what's about to take place on the journey to approaching my personal babylon. Hope you enjoy the ride as much as I do!
I think there's a drought out there of blow by blow transitional blogs that detail the full range of the experience for transguys to refer to, so I'm offering myself up as a resource for anyone who may find my ramblings useful.
I've marked the site as Adult Content because I intend to share the full gamut of the change, chest pics and all. Also, my ever lovely partner, Mel, will be making guest appearances from time to time to share her perspective on what's happening to me. (And, she says, to her!) :)
So welcome, and thanks for having an interest in what's about to take place on the journey to approaching my personal babylon. Hope you enjoy the ride as much as I do!
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