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.]]]