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Other recommended blogs: Amy, Calpernia, Claire, Gwen, Kara, Reise, W3bgrl-Auntie Solder.
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Friday, 2006.02.17:
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I'm back. (Well, truth be told I never really left.)
A lot has happened in the past few months since the last entry, but I'll catch you up on it another time. Right now more important things are brewing.
Today is the 17th, and in about 4 days from now I'll be very drug-induced and in a considerable amount of pain. I decided last year to make a commitment to finish this transition off my way. I'm going back for FFS.
Those who know me have shaken their heads and wondered why I'd consider it. But I have my many reasons. I was actually trying to have this done a year ago when I was in Scottsdale with Kara but due to a scheduling miscommunication I ended up just having labiaplasty. I let things go for a while and then after a few incidents and seeing a few profile pictures of myself, I just felt that this is something I needed to do for myself. The previous two surgeries were for necessity, this is for vanity.
So I'm heading back on Sunday the 19th, pre-op appointment on the 20th, mandibular contouring on the 22nd, and flying out on the 26th. At least that's the plan. Actually, by the time you read this I will have already returned home---I decided to write these entries up and save them for posting later.
The bigger question is why am I back? It's probably better to ask why did I stop in the first place.
I've been working on transition since I was, what, 23 ? That's a long time ago. I'm tired. I've talked about transgender things for so long it almost consumed me. So I had to stop and refocus on my life. There was a lot of mess going on in my life back then as well which also needed my energy. But, as I've probably said before, you don't ever really leave the transgender "community" once you firmly set foot in it. It's an undeniable part of you and you just have to deal with it, minimizing it whenever possible. I still talk to my TG/TS friends, I still criticize my body to some extent about it not being girlier, and here I am about to head off to have another surgery where I'll meet umpteen other TGs.
So I'm shivering in my cold apartment thinking about my packing list. I'm sure I'll blink and the next thing I know I'll be in the hospital...
Technorati tags: Amberspace, FFS, Meltzer, Scottsdale, transsexual,, MTF.
Sunday, 2006.02.19:
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I hate travelling. Well, more specifically the endless waiting that accompanies travelling. I guess a lot of people were travelling today, being President's Day weekend, so I pretty much spent the entire day waiting in line for things.
First there was waiting for the bus in the City, then waiting for BART, then waiting at the airline ticket counter (where the lines snaked far outside the queue starting points), waiting for boarding the plane, waiting for the rentals shuttle, waiting at the car rental, etc. Queues, queues, queues... See, at least when you drive you have something to do, you can pull off the road for an In-n-out, you can blast your iPod through your stereo speakers, you can take off your shoes and hit cruise control... But, no, I stood there, hips aching, marinating in the body odors of nearby passengers. Thankfully Donna's place is a little oasis.
Casa Doña, for the unitiated, is a low-key, friendly, communal-type recovery center or just home-away-from-home for people going through gender transitions. (It's based on the Cocoon House.) Donna Rose, has opened her home and plays hostess to the many people that pass through here. It's not far from the Greenbaum surgery center or from Dr. Meltzer's office. Surgery is already stressful enough and Donna really creates a home and makes you her V.I.P. guest. Could you ask for anything better?
Anyways, so I pull my travel-weary body into her house, luggage and some bags of groceries in tow. I'm warmly greeted by Donna and one of her guests, Ruby. Donna gives me the quick tour of the house and shows me to my shared bedroom. It's a nice fluffy bed with plenty of pillows to prop you up any which way you want. The rest of the house is clean, comfortably appointed, and feels quite "open". There's a patio out back where you can relax in the fading desert sun and listen to the birds---bring a jacket in winter because the slight breeze carries a little bite to it.
We all sat and chatted to pass the time until we got ready to go for dinner---there was a group of people who meet up for Sunday dinners once in a while---and we mobbed a local restaurant with 14 people. Donna and I had cars so we made a pass by Greenbaum to pick up some recent Meltzer "graduates" and brought them out to dinner. I got to meet quite a number of people (including Dr. Becky Allison and Margaux). What's really funny is that even though I didn't really know anyone directly at the table we all have connections at least 1 or 2 degrees of separation from each other. For instance, a lot of people know Kara, a couple knew Marianne, one knew Terese (that was a long shot because I didn't know she was that connected). A couple people handed me their cellular phones after saying "hey, I have someone here who wants to talk to you" and I'm like "... Marianne?" and she's like "... Amber? You're in Scottsdale too?!" Hehehe... It was funny.
Back at Donna's I got ready for bed and then realized how scatter-brained I really am. I had forgotten the toothpaste. So I marinated in my own unbrushed-toothiness... Ack...
Technorati tags: Amberspace, FFS, Meltzer, Scottsdale, support groups, flying, Donna Rose,, Wrapped In Blue,, Casa Doña,, Casa Dona, transsexual,, MTF.
Monday, 2006.02.20:
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You how you sometimes can't get to sleep in an unfamiliar bed? Even though I was so tired last night I just couldn't really get into a deep snooze. It didn't help that around 6 in the morning Rochelle (my roommate) got up to dilate and quite uncomfortably I might add. But me being me, I slept through it pretty easily and perked up around 8-ish. I eventually got ready at my usual snail's pace and was out the door and over at Dr. Meltzer's office a few minutes later.
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I ran my errands afterwards, picking up all sorts of medication and supplies like Jello and Ensure. I am going to miss chewing, I know that already. But I've been through oral surgeries numerous times before and I'm not too worried about this. Actually, my life is on auto-pilot this week and I trust the people around me.
Ruby and I went for lunch and I took her out to get X-rays. I looked at them afterwards and I saw that there were areas that were a bit underexposed---that was the problem with my X-rays from this same place. But when we went back to Dr. Meltzer's office and they thought the X-rays were OK. All being well, we hit the Fashion Square Mall to get some gifts and just to stretch our legs.
When we finally returned Rochelle was gone (she flew home today) and I came into my room to find the other bed occupied by someone with black hair. I tiptoed in, dropped off the purchases and grabbed my laptop. After a while Rhonda emerged, a tad bleary-eyed. I guess she had a long flight. She perked up after a while and then started getting ready to go out with some local friends. Rhonda's one of those girls where I swear if she didn't tell you she's T you'd never know. As she was changing into a dress she complained, "I'd like to lose like 20 lbs. and get rid of these love handles." I'm looking back at her and thinking "you've got to be kidding me...what love handles?" Seriously, she looks good and not in trashy way.
This reminded me of a conversation I had with one of Dr. Meltzer's assistants this morning. The assistant is also post-op and so we got to talking a little about transition things. She made the usual comment about age about "you're so young". To which I replied, "that may be true but it's all relative. Because when I look at other people I know who have transitioned in their teens or early 20s I too look at that and think 'gee, I wish I had started sooner.'" Rhonda is in college right now, which just underscores my point.
Rhonda left to go out with her buds, Donna went to run on the treadmill, and I curled up on the bed and got my life in order. I stacked cans of soup on the mini-fridge in my room and put a few bottles of soda inside of it. I tried downloading some iTunes stuff but ran into problems---the wireless here is a bit flaky...
Oh as a side note I started dilating with my vaginal yeast cream. Usually after surgeries or other antibiotic treatments I've noticed I get yeast infections shortly thereafter. I'm going to try something new to see if the vaginal yeast cream keeps things happy Down There.
Technorati tags: Amberspace, FFS, Meltzer, Scottsdale, young transitioners, youth, X-rays, transsexual,, MTF.
Tuesday, 2006.02.21:
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I spent the afternoon back in the airport waiting. Funny, didn't I do this just a couple days back...? Today, however, was about returning the rental car. Since I came in on Sunday and my surgery is tomorrow, Wednesday, I really did not want to be cooped up in Donna's place. Even though it's nice and has amenities like a pool, workout room, and in-house laundry, it's still a smallish area to get stuck in for a few days. I love the fact in San Francisco you can just walk in any direction for 10 minutes and be in a completely different neighborhood. Having some amount of control in the form of driving helps me deal with it better.
I didn't sleep well last night again. I tried hugging the body pillow (which I'm definitely going to have to get) but I miss my fluffy comforters pretty bad. I miss Cameron the Cam Bear (a black teddy bear that I snuggle with sometimes); there's a couple bears left in the room but it's not the same. I wouldn't say I'm homesick, but maybe suffering from a mild bit of stir-craziness. I cradled a Starbucks java chip frappy in the airport waiting for a pickup from Donna.
I had a chance to run errands this morning while I still had the car. I dropped gifts for Dr. Meltzer and the nurses off at the office and Greenbaum, respectively. I got a chance to chat with a couple of the "graduates" that we had gone to dinner with on Sunday. I did a little retail therapy at Fashion Square Mall. Knowing that I'll be on a liquid diet in a matter of hours from now I had a junk food lunch at McDonald's, savoring the salt on the evil reconstituted french fries. And then I turned my mind towards surgery.
I'm not nervous; I've thought about it for a long while. I'm just anxious to get it over and done with and deal with feeling weird sutures in my mouth for the next few weeks. Dr. Meltzer was great at explaining what I can expect to feel tomorrow when I wake up---like if he hadn't told me where the drains would be I probably would have taken them out accidentally. He also told me where his incisions will be, so hopefully that won't trigger my gag reflex. (Eep! I'm having flashbacks to the horrid gagging I suffered right after my trach shave. Blech.) And I'm reminding myself I need to start downing the arnica montana pellets.
...
11:45p. Only a few more hours to go before I go in and it feels like the last 100 yds. of a race where you're barrelling down the last stretch of the race towards the big "FINISH" banner. I've had my last sips of things to drink, my last solid food meal, and my bags are pretty much packed for tomorrow. My teeth are going to miss seeing the toothbrush for the next 4 days or so---you can't really brush while the incisions are new. All I have to do is show up and the show will begin:
- 9:00a: I wake up, Rhonda leaves the house (she has a pre-op appointment, her actual surgery follows mine)
- 9:30a: I shower up good, no lotions, no meds, nothing.
- 10:30a: Robin (one of Dr. Meltzer's drivers) comes to pick me up.
- 12:45p: I take the happy meds and I doze off, surgery begins.
- Afternoon: I stay in Greenbaum all drugged up.
- Thursday: drains out, hospital release, back to Donna's.
Rhonda and I were chatting earlier about things and she brought up that she has been thinking about FFS. The whole brow reduction, the cheek implants, the jaw contouring. Quite frankly, I don't think she needs it. Sure she does have features which could be refined, but I swear her attitude and presence is so naturally girly that you would be hard pressed to ever guess that she's not a GG. Oh did I mention her voice is pretty damn near perfect. I guess what I'm saying is that at some point the way you carry yourself in the world makes all the difference and any additional cosmetic surgery is really icing on the proverbial cake. Somehow deep in me I feel that I do need to get the icing, because while I'm functionally complete my self-image isn't quite aligned yet with my body. And the thing is, I can fix these things through surgery.
I have to be real careful here to state that I'm not a surgery junkie and don't ever want to be perfect. I hate surgery. But I also hate the thought of having to live a life of "what if". What if I had the guts to go through with FFS in 2006 then I'd feel better all these years...? That kind of thing. Before with vaginoplasty and labiaplasty they were sort of have-tos. This is totally optional. It is not an imperative to get this done---the previous desire to have my external genitals match my internal gender compass helped me power through SRS w/out reserve. I could look at the doctor tomorrow and say "I've changed my mind" but I know if I turned away now I'd kick myself later for not finishing up. I'm so close to getting my body to where I want it to be that I have to do this for myself. It is time to be a little selfish.
Technorati tags: Amberspace, FFS, Meltzer, Scottsdale, transsexual,, MTF.
Wednesday, 2006.02.22:
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It's 6:00a. I shouldn't even be writing this. Any sane person would be getting as much rest as possible the night before surgery. I, on the other hand, can't sleep. I don't know what it is. Part of it maybe is nerves. I think quite a bit of it is I'm just plain hungry and thirsty.
Mmm, well, I really don't know
for sure.So you probably really want to know what's going on right now, don'tcha? (Even if you don't I'm going to write it down anyways. Pbbpbpbptptt!) I couldn't sleep. I wandered into Donna's hallway and found the rack of CDs and DVDs. I thumbed through the shelves and found Hitch. Donna and Rhonda had been chatting about it---it's a cute movie. Definitely seems to have put me in the right mood for today. Will Smith, Eva Mendes. Great together. Totally upbeat movie.
It makes me think about relationships. I don't think I've really changed that much since before transition. And so that personality shows through when I'm in relationships too. I wondered if I should bother acting a certain way to attract attention. But you know, that's just a stupid attitude. Can you really change yourself? You can make rules about what to do or what not to, but those are rules. The spontaneity and passion comes from within and can't be constrained by step-by-step processes. I guess I have to just accept that who I am is who I am, both in terms of my gender and in my general attitude.
I mean, it's not like I'm trying to find a meaning to the movie Hitch. C'mon, it's fiction! But at the same time I see my own faults and travails reflected in it. I think about the kind of guy I want to meet. What should I do? What should I say? Where could we meet? I'm finding out how to love and meet people again, even though it should all really be so familiar already.
I just had a scary thought. Maybe surgery and work are excuses to keep me busy because I'm afraid of dating. I freely admit I am afraid of dating. I feel so clueless some days. I'm now in a big city without my usual set of friends to lean on. I'm like floating in a harbor while ships are just drifting by. I sometimes wish I knew what to do. Keeping oneself occupied helps so that I don't have to think about these things. Sure I've hooked up with 1 guy, but when's the next guy going to pop into my life? How?
...
OK, enough of my whining. About 10:30a Robin came and picked me up for the hospital. Not having really had any sleep or anything to drink I was pretty much hitting rock bottom on my energy level. I gathered some things and to the hospital we went. Eventually Dr. Campbell injected some happy meds into my line and I really don't remember a thing after that point... the cart moving... trying to move onto the operating table... total blackout...
Technorati tags: Amberspace, FFS, Meltzer, Scottsdale, surgery, transsexual,, MTF.
Thursday, 2006.02.23:
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... ice packs ... drainage vials ... IV medicine dispenser clicking away ... it was all such a blur. Through the night I couldn't really focus or do anything except remember not to bite down on the small drainage tubes stuck into either side of my mouth. My head was completely wrapped in bandages. At some point Dr. Meltzer finally returned and helped remove the drains. I felt (and still do feel) so lightheaded, but thankfully I'm not in pain. Back at Donna's I snuggled onto her leather couch...
Technorati tags: Amberspace, FFS, Meltzer, Scottsdale, transsexual,, MTF.
Friday, 2006.02.24:
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I'm swollen today. No big news there! So rather than talk about my sorry-looking chipmunk face I'll fill you in on a little news since my last departure in August of last year.
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August 2005 was sort of a time when a lot of things started happening. I was pretty fed up with one of my now-ex-friend's antics, I was hating work, and I was eager to try to find a way back into the dating scene. But I was pretty chicken about it---I still am. But somehow I got carried onto the Internet dating scene on a lark and I started seeing people.
I thought of it as practice really. I didn't (and still don't) really know what I was doing---I'm trying to go by my instincts now. Anyways, so I started dating this one guy who has turned out to be more of a friend. But there was another guy who was a total sweetheart. We went on three dates or so. He was a gentleman to the core and a total teddy bear to hold. I thought we had something pretty strong going on and by the end of September we were pretty involved. I told him about my past. I don't like hiding things like this if I think things are getting intimate, and they were...
It was a cool September evening and we had just had an awesome dinner downtown. We strolled along the sidewalk down to Starbucks to get some coffee. I was already getting nervous, butterflies welling up inside. I knew I'd have to say something soon because this was already the 4th date. Warm cup in hand we walked out to the side of a quad between a few buildings. There were benches around the perimiter; we took one.
We talked about what we wanted in relationships, just letting the conversation flow. Finally I had to bring up The Topic. "I really like you. But, um, you're sort of the first guy I've dated... I used to date girls..." He thought about that for a moment, but was like that didn't matter. "I also used to go by a different name. A guy's name..." He was a bit more stunned at that and I sat quietly cuddling my Starbucks while he thought some more. He said that sort of changed his perspective a little, but then he did the most awesome thing... he pulled me into a long, warm, gentle hug and we stayed like that for a long time. I think I remember kissing him and then we walked back to the car.
From then on we saw each other once or twice a week. Eventually things got intimate as I supposed they might. Sex was ... interesting. I mean, this being the first time to really try out Down There it seems to have worked just fine. (Thank you Dr. Meltzer!) We did have to use lube---"I need a little help" I said. He was pretty big around so I'm glad I dilated up to a #5, but the depth wasn't an issue. Maybe it's just me, but I didn't find sex to be all that. It felt good but it was really hard to come to orgasm. Yes, I'm told this is pretty much the case for many women, but still. At least I'm thankful that SRS was pretty much a success.
The relationship, for all of its good points, started to fade after a few months though. I think a lot of it was that he was busy all the time and I just didn't feel that he made me a priority in his life for me. It was a real pity. So we broke up a while ago. I didn't really shed any tears over this because the decline was sort of a slow decline and I prepared myself for it.
I looked for the silver lining in our short relationship. I think that it helped me get over my fear of dating. Of course, I'm still wary about the sex aspect---what if I don't live up to the guy's expectations? I think that fear will always be with me. But I also think I know where my heart lies and I definitely am looking for guys instead of girls for potential mates. I'm still very clumsy about going about dating, but every step is a learning experience and there's no way to get better other than to try and be bad at it a few times I guess.
Also in recent times I've moved. This also sort of really drove the final nail into the coffin that was our relationship. I now live much farther away from where he was living. But here there's new opportunity. I'm trying to learn how to get around a big city and try to find ways of hooking up with people. I come from suburbia. People meet at school or on the job and then they go home. I don't want to live in a bedroom community, so I have to force myself to get out and experience things. I'm starting to wander, starting to go out more. It's a good thing.
And finally there's this FFS thing. As I wrote back on the 17th, this is a trip for vanity. Most of the time I get by just fine, but I have found some very unpleasant situations where people questionned my gender based on my profile. I mean, I haven't had any FFS to this point (trach doesn't count) so my features are sometimes masculine. More importantly I looked at photos of me and I knew that this bugged me enough. So back to Dr. Meltzer I went.
Kara's here today. She was kind enough to make a little stopover in Scottsdale to make fun of me. She wanted to get me back for all those times I made her laugh while she was recovering from her FFS in 2004. (It really does hurt to laugh, darn it.) But it's nice to have her company here.
Rhonda started asking Kara and I questions about the whole transition process, almost like doing one of those panels at a TG conference. I guess for Rhonda she's been mostly isolated from the TG community. She says she knows a few older Ts but has no true peers of her own. She's now in a big school, no real contact with other Ts, and still pre-op---that actually surprised me because I thought she was a post-op. So she's in that weird position where she looks totally transitioned, socially assimilated, getting on with her life, and yet she's still hiding her biology. She had a lot of questions for us, and it really feels like she wants to have a sense of community without getting sucked into support groups or weird gatherings or getting outted. I don't blame her, but it does complicate her life to be stealth without many people to talk to.
Technorati tags: Amberspace, FFS, Meltzer, Scottsdale, transsexual,, MTF.
Saturday, 2006.02.25:
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Happiness is finally removing the stuffy gauze and mesh wrapping that encircled my head for the past few days. The good news is the bone I wanted to be gone appears to be gone. The bad news is I look like chipmunk---and I'm told I'll be like this for a few weeks to come. Oh great, I'm not out to my roommates so I'll have to be creative. Maybe I'll just barricade myself in my room for a few days...
Fiona arrived at Donna's today. It's amazing how often people come and go around here. We had a long talk about stuff she was doing back home that stretched through the afternoon. She eventually went out for dinner with some friends; I finished up Donna's book.
Technorati tags: Amberspace, FFS, Meltzer, Scottsdale, transsexual,, MTF.
Sunday, 2006.02.26:
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The funny thing about trying to live stealthfully with two roommates you only met a couple months before is that you tend to think about excuses. For instance, I was thinking of what to say should any mail show up in my old name at the current location. Or if my voice is having a Bad Day. Or, more importantly, coming home after surgery and looking like you've got gobs of food jammed into either side of your jaw.
When I got home from my very uneventful plane flight I slipped into my room. My room is sort of in the middle of the other two bedrooms, our kitchen and living rooms at the other end of the hallway. Roommate #2 was in her room with her door closed as usual. Roommate #1 hadn't come home yet. It was about lunchtime and my jawline still is a bit raw around the lines of stiches, so I'm on a soft food diet. I rummaged through my shelf in the pantry and found some Indian ready-to-eat meals. I figured that if Roomie #2 came out I'd act like I was eating---which in a way I was.
Later on around dinnertime I knew I had to eat again because the medication has to go with food. That meant making another appearance in the living room/kitchen area. I heated up some oatmeal and sat down to watch a movie. Roommate #1 ambled out into the living room and so we talked. But rather than show him my entire puffy face I semi-hid behind a blanket like I usually do when I'm watching TV. I don't think he noticed anything out of the ordinary...
I don't know what they'd say if they found out. Maybe they already have their suspicions or maybe they figured it out, but I'm not saying anything. This is sort of my attempt to sink into the background noise of the people that live here. This is my first attempt to try to live in an area where I begin to have friends that don't know nor never will know of who I once was. What's funny about me trying to do the stealth thing is that it's not really about being stealth---it's about moving on.
When I'm around my old group of friends sometimes the topics of my past come up invariably. (Around T friends the topic always comes up.) I'm actually really kinda tired talking about it. It's just boring and old hat in a way. I'm trying to find a place where I can just be. Transition was never a destination for me but more of a detour.
I'm also finding it more awkward to talk about anything T. While it's certainly a big part of who I am, it's beginning to feel like an old flesh wound that is kinda gross to talk about, almost a private issue. I was picked up today by an old friend who is T along with her 12-year-old daughter. My T-friend asked me in the car what kind of surgery I had. If it was just me and her I probably would have gone into gory detail. But with the daughter there, I just didn't feel like doing a full show-and-tell. It just felt odd and inappropriate. I even sorta fibbed. I said I had some dental work. I just couldn't get comfortable laying it all out in the open.
Technorati tags: Amberspace, FFS, Meltzer, Scottsdale, going home, transsexual,, MTF.
Monday, 2006.02.27:
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I like having time off. I missed reading, dreaming, and just slowing life down a little.
These past few days have been a wonderful change from the usual BS that seems to surround my daily life. I'm pretty fed up with the office. I know I've been saying that for a long while but it feels constrictive, flavorless, and I spend more of my time trying to negotiate rather than getting any productive work done. I've been fighting uphill battles with my management and my supposed teammates. It wasn't always this way, but my manager is a rules junkie and my teammates are completely ineffectual to the point where I'm having to do their work. I know I shouldn't be bitter about work. While most people really aren't all that happy with their jobs, I had a really good thing going about 6 months ago. I could leave the office feeling that I had accomplished something. Now I'm mired in politics, burdensome process, and feeling like I'm leading a daycare facility.
I think where this ties into transition is that I now understand the power of personal choice. I don't have to settle for what has been given to me. It's really up to me to take charge and create the right environment.
Oh, photos of the jaw work are now up.
Technorati tags: transsexual,, MTF.
Tuesday, 2006.02.28:
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What was originally a short blog rant turned into a longer Ramble. Please see "Transition, Say No More!" for the rest...
Technorati tags: transsexual,, MTF.
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Entries may show the mood for the day. From best to worst moods here's the list:
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Ecstatic -
Happy -
Good -
OK -
Blech -
Sad -
Abysmal
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