T-plus 15 hours. Routines and swelling.

First of all, the swelling. Right now, my breasts are very very swollen. I.e. swollen to around D levels I think. At first before the technician informed me it was swelling I was a little concerned but I won't really know how they'll flesh out for awhile.
The vag is quite swollen too but I knew to expect this. With all the packing, bruising, swelling and everything it doesn't feel all that different from the penis, though clearly the majority of erectile tissue is gone. It's just like the orchie in a way. The swelling is a bit of a mindfuck. Like "oh my god nothing's changed yet" haha.

There seem to be a few routines going on. Obviously the catheter needs to be drained. There's also two drain locations where blood is removed every so often. I'm still on strict bedrest and haven't done so much as change my position yet. I need to take in a lot of fluids or else my Urea consentrations will be too great. Then there's the whole hourly breathing exercise I mentioned befor. I have to get my IV with painkillers replaced every so often it seems, last was about 15 minutes ago. There's also an automated taking of my vitals every 30 minutes or so. My Scottsdale buddy told me it wasn't automated for her. I guess getting this done so late had some little perks.

Oh and it seems my arm mobility has improved considerably. I'm not making all the stupid typoes I was this morning, and I'm way less tired.

T-plus 11 hours. Hungry!

My hearty dinner consisted of

• * Chicken broth (I think 6-8 floz, it's hard to tell


• * Lime Jello.


• * Something like 10 floz of apple juice.


• * Orange ICEE type beverage, but with considerably less liquid % than ICEEs have.

I actually don't mind. I'm just glad to be able to imbibe calories again. I'm glad the chicken broth was okay. I'm a vegetarian...I feel a bit on the guilty side because of this but the animal proteins are crucial to healing. I will probably drop meat again, someday...

Since I just happened to be awake for long enough, I'm starting to do breathing excercises this breathkng apparatus (forgot what it's called) 10 times an hour. It appeas to just measure the strength of your inhale.

T-plus 7h 30m. It's a Girl!!!

I woke up at about 2pm-ish and wow am I groggy. As far as I'm concerned, I didn't even make it to the surgical room. My blackout went from the trip there to some holding location immediately after surgery. At this location I had a bit of pain in both surgical areas, 7ish on their scale of 0 to 10. I don't recall getting wheeled up to my bed but here I am and the pain is down to a 2 or so. So the big qyestion, as I got the aug and the vag at the same time. Which one hurst the more? Right now it's the vag. It's tight and I'm not used to peeding through a catheter. Still hungry but I'm on strictbedrest so I'm still on their schedule more or less.
As far as I can tell, I've dodged the skin graft bullet. The original marteial to work wih was borderine based on my chats with Tomy Mtltzer.
My bladder sensation is amazing similar to how it was pre-op. I can clearly tell that the urethra is shorter now but the bladder-related feelings are still there and familiar. I'm starting to feel that my worries associated with bladder control wll be unfounded.
I'm amazed I can even write this at 3pm after 7:30am major surgery. It's nice to know that I'm as active as I hoped to be. Here's to a speedy recovery! :D :D :D :D

I am so, so very happy. I might be groggy on painkillers with limited mobility and the sandman just waiting to strike at any time, but I've ever beenn happier. I've arrived!!!!!!!!!

edit: I forgot to mention that i'm mini-hallucinations. How funny is that. Basically something in my peripheral vision is caught and for whatever reason my brain is trying to fillit up with something. Once I look directly at it, it looks like it's supposed to. That's funny. I never had it in this frequency before so I'm guessing it's a side-effect of theanesthesa
I'm also have mild issues distinguishing reality and my mini-dreams bt
tired need sleep

p.s. how i feel: Area around neovagina feels really tight. Same goes for beast area. I can drink now but it'll take awhile to get over the extremely dry mouth. Arm mobility is more than I expect at this stage -- thatmakes me happy. Areas worked on are NOT completely numb, in fact I have a few mini-sensations, though nothing even close to what the finished product hopefully sohuld be. Throat is sore, but that was an expected side effect of the anesthesia.

Oh, I REALLY need food. Starving over here. :P

Oh, I also seem to be having little disorienting dreamlets. Just 3 minutes ago I thought I had to walk to he hospital but quickly realized I'm already here. Haha.

T-minus 30 minute. Last pre-op experiences.

Put together from memory because I didn't have access to anything to write or type with after my last blog:

I arrived at Greenbaum at about 5:30am. I got a few od my bags dropped off a=on the second floor and went back down. The series of ecents are as follows:
- Filled out paperwork
- Went to a checkup room and had some tests don.e
- Went to the patient beds. A nurse asked me some questions. I also got the IV inserted. My veins are a little small so the nurwe had to place the IV higher in my arm, pretty much the same place where I typically give bllod. I also got these leg compressor things attached.
- Then the anesthesiologist arrived and we chatted it up a little. He's quite a nice guy. If I recall correctly this is when he gave me the injection to minimize oral secretions. My mouth got really dry within 20 minutes.
- Nurse came back and I took a couple pills. One was an oral painkiller. (Celebrex) I forget what the other was.
- Dr. Meltzer finally arrived. We had a nice little chat.
- Finally I got the knockout IV injection. I went out fast. Continued in the next blog. :Do

T-minus 2h 30m. My last pre-op post.

It's time. I'm about to leave the hotel and walk to Greenbaum. It's only a couple blocks away from this hotel so I do have time to blog. The bowel stuff is more or less done, though I think I might have to check that once more at the hospital. I just took 2x 200mg Celebrex which is some kind of painkiller. I'm a bit on the nervous side but not even as much as I was just a week ago. That's really surprising to me. Everyone's different but you heard it here: getting yourself prepared mentally early on does help. I know this is uncharacteristic of me -- it's especially weird because I'm alone so I'm providing most of my own emotional support. Major surgery and the risks therein are ahead but I'm not all that bothered. Hrm.

Anyway, for obvious reasons this'll be my last blog as a pre-op even though I still have a couple waking hours left in me. I'm going to write down little bloglets on a piece of paper (if possible) of my experiences in the hospital -- as much as I can anyway. The rest will have rely on memory.

And you know what, call it premature but I'm going to do the thank-yous now. I won't name names because I'm trying to maintain the group's, and my own, privacy, but I want to thank the group for pretty much everything. I'd never have this day if I never met you. I want to thank a certain brave lady who helped me out to begin with at a younger age, ultimately getting me nearly the best realistic results in the long one. I want to thank another wonderful woman who introduced me to the group, and I want to thank the group for putting up with years of my awkwardness before I finally started getting the income and the maturity to make the best of my situation. I love you all.

T-minus 9 hours. TMI!

[[[Note: This entry is very TMI, so I've made the color and bgcolor white. You will have to highlight the text to read it. I did my best to not be crude but I want this to be informative to those who need to know.]]]


7:30: Releases now have significant liquid content.
8:58: Releases are starting to be a little on the burny side. I hope stomach acid isn't exiting along with everything else...probably not, it's probably just irritated.
9:07: Finished inserting the suppository, Bisacodyl 10mg. Not sure what to expect yet. The instructions say "retain suppository for at least 15 minutes, if possible" but initially it seems to retain itself, but I'm clinching just to be safe.
9:14: Mild rumblings but nothing unlike what I've been experiencing in the last couple hours. Feels slightly that I'm on fire though. Heh.
9:27: Not so mild rumblings...
9:30: No more water! Woohoo! Though it really wasn't as bad as I was prepping for. Though my caloric intake today was under 1000 just because it's hard for me to find appropriate calorie containing liquids to imbibe. Just took the three Bicacodyl 5mg oral tablets and my last 8oz of water. No more food and drink until after surgery.
9:43: So it's really no different than 9:27. I'm soon just going to let it happen. I was expecting more urgency than this. I guess I'm just really sensitive to the magnesium citrate, or my bowels are just healthy.
9:59: Releases are now a LOT on the burny side. After the last one it feels like there's something big trying to go through, but I think I'm just misinterpreting the end. This whole thing is a lot like diarhhea.
10:08: I think I might be nearly done. I'm now able to release liquids appropriately without solids again. (barely) I'll take a shower now and rewash the surgical area if necessary.
10:40: The verdict is in. It's more or less done. I expect the orally taken Bisacodyl exists for a reason. The oral Bisacodyl takes hours to take effect, while the suppository takes <1 hour. That aside, everyone overdramatized it. Maybe it's because I'm young, thin, I exercise, and have a decent metabolism and normally above average frequency of bowel cycles.
11:10: Spoke too soon. It's back to its old ways, but less frequent. It's funny, I was expecting it to be so dramatized for completely different reasons. What sucks about bowel prep is the burning irritated feeling later on.
12:40: Still happening. Also a little worried about getting too deep into sleep...
4:09: Still happening, after sleeping for about three hours. In fact is it supposed to keep going this far in? I need to ask Dr. M.


[[[End icky grossout blog.]]]

T-minus 12 hours. Cancel your dinner plans.

It's times like this that remind me about biological imperatives and the wonderful world of mortality. It's about an hour and 1/2 since I drank the Magnesium Citrate and I'm glad I'm in a hotel room for two reasons. First I don't really have any social awkwardness to worry about when my midsection growls loudly, I feel waves in my pelvic area, and then run off to reliefville every 20 minutes. Second, I won't have to clean up after the end result.
All I will say is this: It is a bit on the violent side.

T-minus 14 hours. Better move this laptop to the bathroom...

And so begins the bowel treatment. At 5:30pm I drank an entire 10oz bottle of Magnesium Citrate. It sounds worse than it really is. It's a flavored laxative liquid beverage, and while it tastes fine, it's unbelievably sour. A couple gulps and my lips pucker up. At 6:00pm, 7:00pm, 8:00pm, and 9:00pm I'll be having 8oz of water. 9:00pm is also when I have to insert the suppository. Eww. I said this blog would be uncensored but I'll try to minimize the details of that.

Improving mood

As I walked down the street to pick up my scrips from Walgreens, I realized that my mood has improved quite a bit in the last couple days, and nothing's really happened yet. It's great to be in a place where no one knows me, and frankly no one really gives a damn about me, aside from those involved with the surgery. It's nice to walk around without all the stresses of home, and it allows me to further develop who I am as a person. The whole dark mood facade breaks down, who knows, maybe it'll all but disappear by the time I get back. Honestly I never liked it.
I've been described as "spritely" by friends before, friends who don't know I'm T but I can still relax around them. Maybe that's the real me.

By the way, I've added tags to all my blog entries. All the entries that don't relate to SRS or labiaplasty (guessing in about a year or so) go under "sandbox". All SRS entries are together and sub-categorized as pre-op and post-op.

T-minus 20 hours. Horray for Ensure!

Perhaps it's 40 years too early for me to be saying that, but I'm glad it exists. I learned after my day-before consult with Dr. Meltzer that Ensure is fine. Better yet, I got the OK to drink three of them. So I'll actually be pretty nicely filled until early tomorrow morning.

Anyway, I had my consult with Dr. Meltzer at his office (not the hospital), had pre-op breast pictures taken for preparation for the breast augmentation, got my questions answered, then went to Walgreens for scrips. These days, bowel prep (aside from the restricted diet) doesn't start until 5:30, so I won't be living on the toilet all day. Yay!
I also played GTA Chinatown Wars during the long delay between the first Nurse and Dr. Meltzer's arrivals. I just find it funny.

As for my mood: I'm still pretty excited. I guess getting the reality checks out of the way a few days ago truly did get me past the fear stage. Worries are now redirected to "oh well" and "whatever".

T-minus 24 hours. (!) No Sugar Added.

One thing I forgot before rereading the bowel prep instructions this morning was that sugar is off limits. D'oh! I didn't have any, I looked at the instructions immediately before doing anything this morning, but I can't have anything at the hotel because of it. Even the beverages are from concentrate, which means sugar added. I need to find a store nearby to get unsweetened apple juice. That'll be my breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Also, I'll have to get myself some of the sugar free Halls Vitamin C. The Airborne is unsweetened, so that seems okay.

And now for something completely different...

Just something on my mind I need to get off my chest. (no pun intended) My mind has been wondering in and out of the idea of unnecessary FFS. I go in and out of periods where I feel FFS is necessary, sometimes in a single day. Others in the group have had FFS even though everyone thought they looked fine. So I'm going to do the cliche blogger thing and coin a phrase now. "Jenna Bush Syndrome". Please use it from here on out.

Jenna Bush Syndrome is named such because if you look close enough (and you don't really have to, so long as you have the idea in your head) Jenna Bush looks a lot like Dubya. In a couple pictures I've seen, it looked like Dubya's face was photoshopped onto Jenna's body, but the resemblence is pretty obvious in most every picture I've seen of her.
So for most transwomen, the Jenna Bush Syndrome is that they can't accept facial features from their male years being on their female selves, and have to change them. This is normal and well known, but for me it's more complicated. I transitioned 13 years ago, so I barely remember my male years anymore. The pictures from that era are long gone. What's burned into my head is that I have a brother who is mentally troubled. Troubled in a way that was troubling for the rest of the family. Unfortunately, appearance-wise there's a clear connection between me and him, so when I look in the mirror, it's not only the old self that I worry about, but it's also him. Plus it's not only gender, but it's his flaws that I torture myself to prevent myself from carrying. My rational side realizes how foolish this is, but everyone's irrational sometimes...

So it's two things that I need to learn to live with. Though the majority of glances in the mirror don't show this resemblence. I look way more like my sister nowadays.
Of course, I could just get FFS like everyone else and make it go away. hehe...

T-minus 1d 10h. The Last Supper.

I don't get to eat tomorrow, so I'll be having my last supper. After having a hearty, healthy cinnabon with a diet coke at the airport, plus some ritz chips and peanuts on the plane, my lavish dinner consists of complimentary Knotts Blueberry Shortbread Cookies, Chex Mix, and a Quaker Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Granola Bar. I can't have solids at all tomorrow. I bought a measuring cup for the bowel cleansing which will make tomorrow really really suck. You have to have specific increments of 8 ounces every hour. More on that when I get to it, and have "what it's like" commentary to share.

As for my mood, I'm actually really excited now. Sure I still have nervousness about the whole recovery thing, but I'm kinda hyper for some reason. :D Maybe because I won't be able to skip and prance around all energetic like for a bit? A little bothered by all the germs I've been exposed to today but there's just no way I'm going to let it screw things up for me.

DELAYED

Gotcha.

Just my flight is delayed. I'm blogging from an airport. Luckily all my carry-ons are entertainment.

T-minus 1d 20h. Off I go, into the wild blue yonder!

sLast night had to have been the longest night ever. I had some major time stretching this morning at 6am. Between 6:00 and 6:05, it literally felt like 30 minutes passed, containing waking dreams and other experiences. If only we could harness this and effectively stretch out our lifespans, but alas it just comes along when it's most annoying.
I was seriously worried when I saw 6:05 on my clock that I'd somehow slept through an entire day or something. But no, today's still Sunday.

I'll be leaving in a little over an hour to fly to Scottsdale. I booked a hotel with shuttle service so I don't have to deal with that little battle. I need to keep my stress level low, Tuesday is going to be one hell of a day. Physically I'll be going through some major trauma, mentally I'll be calm/pleased with it. My body needs to be close to 100%.

One other thing. I've woken up every day for the last 4 or 5 days with one of my nostrils stuffed up. I think the extreme amounts of vitamin C (more than 2000% US RDA) I've taken has been supressing what could have been a nasty cold that may have been able to really screw up my plans. I'm glad I started taking it.

T-minus 2d 16h. Holy crap.

This'll be a cliche line in my blog, but I can't believe I'm actually here. Not much to say right now. I'm finishing up my packing except for a few toiletries which I'll pack tomorrow before I fly out. Also, taking a friend's advice, I'm also making sure everything will be in arms reach, as I'll have the effects of top and bottom surgeries AND the lingering after-effects of anesthesia. That's apparently another thing that isn't well publicized: Anesthesia has lingering after-effects that last about 4 weeks. I'm sure most people misinterpret as a direct result of the physiological surgical changes. I learned this from someone who had general anesthesia for something else as well.

T-minus 3d 14h. Tick-tock-tick-tock...

Longest. Day. At. Work. Ever. But that's that. Next time they see me I'm going to be less physically active and will have what will probably be notably larger breasts. I've been wearing falsies since forever and yet I have a feeling the result will be larger than intended. My work doesn't know anything. I transitioned a long, long time ago. I'm a bit nervous about that but screw it. When the time comes I'll just handle the awkwardness. Mind you, as an engineer it's going to be a bit odd. Lots of women in engineering just don't care, nor do the men really, and I'd expect engineers to be more perceptive than the average person.

My irrational fears haven't returned so I don't have to take my previous blog back. I have a feeling I'm going to have bubbly stomach acidy butterflies the day before, though. It's like that first roller coaster ride, only you're waiting in a line that's a mile long.

Next for me is to finish up packing and find a donut if I can. It seems I should probably get a traditional donut due to the fact it puts no pressure on the new equipment. Taking a friend's advice I'm also going to put everything at standing arm's reach, because especially with the breast augmentation, reaching up is going to hurt like hell. Need to clean up this sty as well, have plenty of stumbling room. Haha.

I'm pretty excited! Lets get this show on the road!

T-minus 5 days. What's after fear, WHAT'S AFTER FEAR?

I'm after fear! At least when it comes to the whole stages of something major in one's life. I have to admit there were some things I left out of my last entry because they would identify me, but I've more or less resolved that one and the consequences thereof. The short of it is I made unrelated plans that will probably be cancelled because of SRS and it upset me. Recovery without complications is too important.

As for the other fears listed, they don't grip me the way they did two days ago. Not to mention I've been told by a couple people already that I misinterpreted a couple of the post-op pictures I saw. So lets get this show on the road.
...after five long days.

Still having mild insomnia but not remotely as bad as it was on Saturday. Even my bitchiness has been curbed, though I'm a little disturbed by the fact, and I knew this would happen, that my raisins have decreased in size slightly. I hope Dr. Meltzer has enough to work with, as I'm also getting a breast augmentation.
But that'll come back when I get back on hormones anyway.

One more thing, regarding the war on germs, I'm now taking one Pure Protein brand protein bar (20g protein and 6IU of vitamin E) with one Airborne (1667% RDA vitamin C and 30IU of vitamin E) per day. This doesn't cross the pre-surgery limit for vitamin E and gets me more protein, which is crucial for healing, than the balance bars.

T-minus 6d 14h, The Gravity of the Situation

[[[WARNING: This is probably going to be the most serious entry I'm ever going to make, counting my pre-op and post-op entries, and for those of you still getting into the whole SRS thing, it might be difficult to read. I recommend not reading this immediately before having to go to any kind of public function, work included. Your illusions will be torn to shreds. You have been warned.]]]

I guess there comes a point in where everyone about to go through SRS realizes the gravity of the situation. Before I was just nervous about things that are like buzzwords in comparison to what's going through my mind now.

I just realized that I need to buckle down and embolden myself now, because I'm going to be going through one tough and probably frightening journey. I've known for awhile how much dilation is going to occupy my life but now I'm thinking less about the ideal end result and more about how I'm going to get there. And you know what finally made me think of this?
Pictures.
No, not your before and after photos that goes from a midsection with a penis to the same midsection with a cookie cutter vagina, but an actual set of progressive recovery pictures. Mind you I had no illusions that surgery would be an instant cakewalk but I had no idea that it'd take as long a time as it does to recover.

Amazingly, with this strange community that tries to talk people out of SRS from one end and encourages it from another end, there's an unbelievable gap when it comes to details of SRS. I'm going to take many of the generalizations I've heard one-by-one and spell them out, right here. I'm sure there's plenty of surprises yet to come for me yet, and I'll make it a point to provide as much detail as I can, both mental and physical, after I go under the knife.

• "There's a bit of swelling and bruising after surgery": This so badly needs to be elaborated. I saw a day 9 picture where a good 10 square inches or so of EACH if the girl's inner thighs were blue/purple. And that's just the inner thigh, not ground zero. The swelling/bruising is more than any pre-op reading this has ever experienced. I'm glad I found out about this now.


• "Dilation initially must be done four times daily, decreasing over time": You're going to have to dilate 15-60 minutes, 4 times a day, initially with all that bruising, and you can't miss sessions otherwise it'll result in anything from one long and extra-painful session(1~3 misses) where you're trying to keep your width/depth intact, to going down a size(~4+ misses), to losing the vagina altogether. (??+ misses) And that's no joke. I mentioned in my "Reality Sucks" entry that the body thinks it's a wound and it does -- a muscle that was moved over in surgery is constantly trying to move back. The war isn't over after 6 hours under the knife.


• "...": Something you never hear, but it takes a really, REALLY long time for the new equipment to settle in. Longer than two months, at least.


• "Some transwomen...opt to get labiaplasty...": I don't have the exact quote, but there's a considerable difference between before and after on this one. I doubt most people, at least most young people, would opt to skip this step. I think this quote tends to rely on the notion that finances are tight and maybe my generation has a warped view of what the vagina should look like because those that get out there look a certain way, but I have trouble myself filing this under optional after seeing the results. But I can understand why others might.

At this point I kind of wish this week would just end. I'm glad I waited so long to do this little reality check. I thought I was done before, but wow, do I feel naive. I don't think it can do me much good at this point. I'm a worrier and information can sometimes be my poison. I now fear things like will I be able to perform my routine duties while healing in two places, will the probably exposed clitoris be okay(a very rare complication is necrosis), will I heal well at all. I'm fairly athletic though I'm a vegetarian, will that affect my healing.

It's like I'm about to bungee jump for the first time and I'm staring down for 7 days straight. Too much time to think about what could go wrong, I just want to take the plunge already.

[[[End scary boogieblog.]]]

T-minus 7 days, War of the Worlds?

Only seven days left. I've pretty much won all the battles leading up to that. Everything is paid for, I have plane and hotel set up, pretty much everything I'll need to bring, my finances are doing well. I could still get hit by a car or something, but that'd disrupt more in my life than this. The only thing left to worry about is what ended the alien invasion in War of the Worlds: germs. I want to avoid so much as a little cold. A friend recommended Airborne, but then I realized it has vitamin E and it'd force me to stop taking balance bars. So I'm taking eight "HALLS Defense" vitamin C every day until surgery.

Aside from that, my dreams are getting weird. They're jumbled messes that have no sense of narrative, like my dreams often have. My dreams are normally like Family Guy, narratives with mild randomness within. I find myself waking up in the middle of the night with about 10 thoughts going off in a jumbled loop and I have to sit up and clear my head for a moment to get anywhere. It's rather annoying.
Seven more days...

T-Minus 9 days. Can't sleep, clown'll eat me.

So apparently it's common for some amount of nervousness and anxiousness pre-surgery, and I'm getting it in some annoying ways. During the day all is fine and dandy. Night's not so great, though, and I think it's because I've never had major surgery before. A part of me is really worried about something going horribly wrong. (almost entirely being dying on the operating table and not being able to pee properly) Though one mildly scary thing is people say they don't even dream with anesthesia. It's like they're a machine being switched off and on. It's a tad freaky to think about. I don't think any amount of coaxing will make me not worry about this until I'm awake and functioning properly. So at t minus 9 days I'm officially in insomnia mode. I've had it for a couple days now and I expect it to be worse. I'm age 7 and every night from here until the big day is Christmas Eve. I don't expect to sleep a wink the night before. I know myself too well.

It would be a relief if somehow I could get bumped up another week, even though it'd also completely destroy my travel and work plans. Hah.

T-minus 11 days DAMNIT!!!!

Erm, yeah. I've been off hormones for 96 hours now and I've become really, really bitchy and weird. I haven't been off hormones since 2002 when I experienced a mild financial dry up, and that was before my orchiectomy. I thought it wouldn't be so bad as there's no significant source of testosterone available to take its place, but that's how it is. It shows, too. It's been showing at work. Thank goodness I work at a liberal company, but elsewhere I feel like I should just avoid everyone for the next 11 days.

T-minus Two Weeks

Short post. Not much to really say. At this point I stop taking hormones. All my travel plans, except the trip home, have been made. That aside, I always thought that being off hormones for an extended period would lead to osteoperosis. Maybe it contributes to it, but I guess it would have to take a long time. After all, a certain archaic class of singer, along with servants to an emperor, went their entire lives without normal levels of either hormone and lived just fine. Many into their 90's. Go figure.

T-minus Three Weeks

Almost to the minute I've hit the three week mark, as in my surgery date is three weeks from today. There's a lot of things I can't do already, but the toughest ones include:
- Limiting my vitamin E intake, which means my multivitamin is now out. Specifically, I cannot have more than 100% of my daily RDA (recommended daily allowance) of vitamin E as recognized by the FDA.
- No more asprin, which is an active ingredient in all headache medicines except Tylenol.
Amazingly...and thankfully, I don't have to stop hormones until two weeks prior. I guess this depends on the surgeon. Some require stopping four weeks prior, and that scares me. I know I'm still young but the spectre of potential bone deterioration still haunts the back of my mind.

As for my state of mind, well my anxiety level hasn't changed on a day-to-day basis. In fact, it may have increased, and I pretty much know why. My entire life it seems that something that should be a positive experience ends up going wrong or getting tainted somehow. Oversimplify it as pessimism if you will, but I almost expect something to go horribly wrong...my plane gets delayed, I get read at work because of the NOT PRIVATE ENOUGH bathroom stalls. (seriously, people, don't leave such sizeable gaps between panels in the stalls, GOD...) Or perhaps the biggest of all cosmic jokes, something goes wrong with the surgery itself.

Mind you, I will attempt to minimize the chance of something going wrong. I'm playing it safe these last few weeks to avoid any situation I could get read, even if it means ditching plans that have even a minor level of risk. I'm also trying to make sure I won't get sick by using supplements, but there's no guarantees with that.

Aside from that anxiety, I'm also forced to finally resolve issues involving those that don't approve of what I'm doing. I shouldn't care at all what they think, and yet it still occupies the back of my mind. I went into this knowing I'd lose much if not all of my family, but I lost them in a bad way. (got some back, but meh) Also have to learn to live with the negative depictions of us in the media. I'm not an activist, I think trying to change this will only backfire in a way similar to the Streisand Effect. In the end, it's foolish of me to be thinking of this now because I already had an orchidectomy over four years ago. Hah.

Anyway, that's me T minus three weeks. I don't expect everyone to appreciate the lengths of my posts, but I want to keep this blog as real and uncensored as possible. You'll thank me when I'm blogging at T plus 7 hours. Here's a preview of what it'll probably look like:
"asdeff I adhad itbvdone aand I'm wioooooooooozyyyy moooore morphine yeeeee!!!!!!!"