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hi,
i’ve decided to start this blog anew over here. maybe i’ll even write in it from time to time.
love xx
k. here is the way my days work. right now i wake-up at 7:00am. i take a antibiotic and then i go back to sleep where i wake up again at 8:00am and have some breakfast. breakfast, for the last couple of weeks, has been toast, sometimes with and sometimes without jam depending on the whims of the kitchen staff, another antibiotic and some anti-swelling meds. once eaten i dilate for about fourty to fourty-five minutes, start to finish. including clean-up and stent swop over. then i set my alarm for 12:00pm, when i take another antibiotic. and hour later i order more room service if i’m feeling up to it or i have a yogurt and a chocolate bar before taking more anti-swelling meds. the alarm then gets set for 4:00pm, when i have my second dilation. three hours later, at seven, i take my third hour-before-food antibiotic, wait around for a bit, and then order food, usually noodles and chicken, so i can take my other antibiotic and my final antiswelling of the day. at about eleven i do my last dilation. midnight i crash. throughout the day i take tramadol depending on how sore i feel or how worried i am about eventual dilation or how much i just want to zonk out. fun huh? it passes the time, considering i just haven’t been going anywhere at all recently.
the day surgery on wednesday knocked me about something rotten. a large part of my right labia needed removing and a little bit on my left needed taking off as well. smelling my own burning flesh as Dr Chetawutt cauterised the cut was very strange too. all the way through Nut held my hand. sure i was drugged up, but afterwards i cried a little because the staff seem so lovely.
since then i’ve been bed bound by my drains and lack of energy. i slowly sunk into a mini-depression as well. it just sucked all over, only being able to lie on my back, feeling the drains bite every time i moved, not having the energy to wash. it’s been pretty horrid. still, today they came out and i feel a hundred times better already.
i’ve met another couple of transwomen as well. i’ve also felt that i’ve done pretty well, to be honest. in the past i’ve always presumed that when i come up against trite notions of gender from other transwomen that i’d become argumentative and angry with them, but i must admit that i’ve just come across such a transwoman and i didn’t at all. she seemed nice enough, but she kept on talking about how it was so much easier being a woman and that women didn’t have any responsibilities and that all men were horrid and how now she had her SRS and facial surgery and papers sorted she was just a woman and she could get on with being just a woman and, really, get a fucking reality check would you please? still, she was pleasant, and i couldn’t get angry with her no matter how much i though ‘really, please, you’re in for such a shock’. and i couldn’t get angry with her because underneath all the talk of how being a woman was so great and underneath all her confidence was such a wide streak of insecurity. her voice was for her own reassurance and she couldn’t quite argue when, after asking me what i planned now i was finally a woman, i said that, really, i’d gotten over the finally becoming a woman a fair while back. the surgery is just fixing a little matter that needs attending to. the important part of what goes on inside your own head inside your own perception. i could tell she struggled with that a little, but who am i to get angry about that?
the other transwoman, i have to admit, i’ve taken a shine to. a softly spoken french quietly assured, although still a little nervous seeming, frenchwoman. although, the difference with her, was that she didn’t seem nervous due to her transsexuality. she just had that look about her that suggest gentle doeishness, although she’s more than likely nothing of the sort (in fact i’d be willing to bet money on the fact). she is here by herself and i feel for her already. i asked if she knew anybody here at the hotel who might be here when she gets out of hospital. she said she didn’t. i do hope she meets somebody who could at least keep her sane or visit her maybe at least once a day. we chatted a little, but inbetween the banter from the other and our own collective language barrier it was kinda difficult.
talk of going with a man was cast from our first companion, which is something of a conversation starter for me. this was where i spotted the first chink in her armour, when she said that there were a few men who might be intrested in her but she always got cold feet. she spoke about it like it would be an experiment, something you could write a recipie to. i just told her that make sure you trust them and feel safe. and watch out for stubble and, soemtimes, you do really need that bottle of vodka before you manage anything. the french lady didn’t say much here, maybe she didn’t understand us, but she’d also mentioned to me that she had a girlfriend. plus, she hadn’t opened up her insecurities for my socially starved brain to feed on (okay, i’ve had em, but it hasn’t exactly been a rock club atmosphere in our hotel room. more like three days after the warehouse party has been raided).
i might be a member of it, but this is a weird world.
love
xx
ok, so………..
i’ve pulled a muscle in the left of my ribcage from LYING IN FUCKING BED. how? honestly.
i want more valium. it is the nicest thing ever.
i think i actually kinda enjoy dilation, but possibly only because i got up to my max depth on dilator number 2 the first tiem i used it. FIVE AND A HALF INCHES PEOPLE. go me.
i’m tired of popping pills. mainly because they aren’t valium.
being stuck in the hotel room is driving me fucking insane. abbie, the whole ‘<i>hey! let’s go to thailand and then do fucking nothing for an age</i>’ thing? i totally relate. also, glad to hear you’re kinda doing okay.
right, the thing they don’t tell you about SRS? it isn’t the dilation or the wound or anything else, it’s the fact that it nukes your intestines. i haven’t pooed properly for days. i’m really quite upset.
i want to live in a city like bangkok for a bit. in fact, i’m kinda dreading going home.
looking at my vag gives me warm feelings of fuzziness. closely followed by brief flashes of ‘<i>omg, that bit isn’t about to drop off is it?</i>’. seriously, though, it’s pretty. well, the side that doesn’t need revisions to remove the grat big flapping mound of outer labia is. and, yeah, that side had to be my left, didn’t it? but, even that is pretty in a malformed flapping kind of way.
i really am worried about going home. i’m worried about getting my head stuck up my ass with depression, being stuck in that tiny little dusty house of mine. i really, really, need to get out. but, hey, i have a plan. i’m thinking of a roadtrip and maybe trying to go on holiday in late november. maybe barcelona, if it’s cool with molly, or maybe krakow or prague or berlin. just <i>somewhere</i>. you know?
the most painful thing about the whole deal is the wind in the hospital.
the clit works.
i’ve been paid. i’m not sure i ever want to go back.
i have spent all day in bed. this pisses me off. smoedays i’m awake all day. others i’m asleep all day. i’m not so good at this being a post-operative patient.
gwyn, thanks for planting the idea in my head. and ali, Nut and Tair and Lucy (that isn’t her name, i’m sure, but that’s how we were introduced) remember you both. i’ve controlled morty with some tricyclic antidepressants and a great big spotted bow around his neck. he refuses to leave the room and is just sitting in the corner sulking. we can deal with this.
and, hey, dilating while three nurses sit around you and everybody kinda does that looking around thing not being too sure what to say but sorta feelnig they shold make conversation even though your on your back with your legs akimbo holding a plastic rod in your cunt? it’s sorta something to experience. just for the omgnothingcaneverembarassmeagain factor.
love xx
Hello, it’s Emma here again, live from Piyavate (pron Pee-yaah-way, in the same way that Vaseline here is pronounced Waseline!) Hospital, Bangkok.
I’ve been with Alma for a few hours this morning, she looked remarkably well and chipper for someone who endured major surgery yesterday, despite not getting back to the ward until 11.00pm. She says she doesn’t feel as dreadful as she anticipated – although she is taking regular doses of Tramadol. We chatted lots, she drank lots (catheter patent and draining well, as us nurses say!) and has had some soup for breakfast and lunch. We watched an episode of Shameless on the laptop and then she felt sleepy from her luchtime dose of tramadol so I’ve popped out for a little while and will go back and see her for an hour later.
Thankyou for all your kind messages, I have passed them all on and she sends her love to you all.
Posted by Emma:
She’s ok! I spoke to the hospital about half an hour ago and she was due back from the recovery room within about twenty minutes (approx 11pm Thai time).
No further details as yet but i will keep you posted; I shall be visiting her in the morning. Thanks for all your sweet and kind messages x
i think i’m nervous. actually, i think i should be more nervous, but i know deep down i am quite scared. i started the whole fabled bowel cleansing part last night. it isn’t quite as violent or volcanic as i expected it to be. instead it’s only slightly continual after a point, largely irritating, and mostly just a wake-up call that, yes, this is happening.
tomorrow i’m going to the hospital. i don’t know what i’m most worried about: the wait before, the going under, the coming back up, the several days unable to move….. there is a lot to be worried about. there is quite a lot to be frustrated about as well. i want to go out, explore, see things, try and learn some of the language, but i can’t. it’s almost like i’m here to do a job and, whether i like it or not, a large patr of the contract goes directly against my desires. although, let’s be honest, the reason i’m doing this job is because of my needs, which should always come first.
i think the part that worries me the most is the cavity. the simple fact that a space is going to be created between my bladder and my bowel where a space didn’t exist before. that freaks me out slightly, although how else i’m going to wind up with a vaginal tract i don’t know. the next thing that worries me is the healing process. will all the particular parts take and hold and grow what they need to? while i’m largely nervous about the general and being out for several hours i’m more worried about the significance of doing that; i’m going to be totally out of control of what happens next. it’s scary for me.
but i also have a feeling i’m going to be fine. dr chetawutt seems thorough and profesional, friends who have seen him all seem happy, my own friends who have some experience in these matters say that the results of his work do look good.
considering this is such a momentous descision, there is very little else to say about it.
here’s to tomorrow evening.
love xx
it doesn’t feel real.
in fourty-eight hours i’ll be in bangkok. in six days i’ll be undergoing surgery in hospital. in seven days i’ll be awake, drugged up, and i’ll have a vagina. in, what, twelve days i’ll be dilating. in three and a half weeks i’ll be flying back to london, starting hormones, and settling in for the heal. there is so much to think about, so much to feel, and even though it’s incredibly imminent it just doesn’t feel like it’s actually going to happen. i’ve got no frame of reference at all. and because it’s such a big thing, and i can’t understand it myself, i just feel like it’s unreal. emotionally challenging, but no more than a scene in a movie. the fact that it’s my body, my nerves, my mind that is going to be going through such a procedure hardly registers.
i have had some doubts over this, but only fleeting ones. a lot of my doubts have revolved around whether i should have taken out a £8,000 loan to finance the operation so soon after having issues with NHS funding for it in this country. that, in itself, is a long story and not one i think i need to go into right now. but, my immediate decisions have left me wondering if i was too hasty. i’ve also had doubts due to my recent reactions. i’m scared, i’m feeling a little self-destructive, i’m not exactly overjoyed about what i’m about to do. if i thought i could i’d pull the plug on it all right now. honest to god, deep down i’m dreading going through this. but, every time i think about that i just wonder how i’d feel if i wasn’t doing this. i just remember my current relationship to my body and….. well. i don’t want to feel so incongrouous forever, you know?
over the last couple of years a lot has been coming together though. a lot of other things have been in a state of flux, oftentimes without me even realising it. this time last year i was finally convinced that, yep, i’m straight, which was a realisation that actually kicked this blog of in the first place as i was getting used to being heterosexual. sure, that sounds weird, but for somebody who didn’t really have a sexuality beforehand it’s, i figure, all part of the learning curve. now, though, i’ve realised that, yep, i am actually quite bisexual thank you very much and, in honesty, i can’t be bothered analysing it anymore. especially as i’ve discovered that you have no say over who you find attractive or fall in love with, or how intense that becomes, so arguing about it is completely fruitless.
it is still incredibly frustrating, though, that any self-actualising gains in perception can feel so knocked back from having a bad patch. it’s like crawling out of a slippery pit, getting closer and closer to the top and then, whee, sliding back down a few feet. you may not slide all the way back down, but the small loss of progress is terribly disheartening, no matter how far your net gain is at all.
i try not to be a pessimist, but to be a realist. sometimes the lines are very blurred. and then when you’re being an optimist people just think you’re naive. which is a pessimistic way of putting things. sometimes, though, healing just hurts.
there is the fact that this operation is only going to heal one part of me. there is more that will require additional care. my anxiety, self-deprecation, worry, feelings of uglyness in my body and in my mind…. most often unwarranted, and sometimes in the case of the latter leading to a self-fullfilling prophecy. this isn’t going to wholly fix me. i’m not going to wake up instantly happy and together. in fact, in the short term it’s going to give me more issues than i’d like. but i’m hoping, i’m honestly wishing that it gives me a little more space to move on. i really do hope, through not having this one ache, that there is more room to breathe and relax and get on with y life. i’m just hoping that becomes real.
love xx
seriously, i am getting very bored of people telling me that i will be fine. i can appreciate that it probably makes me sound very ungrateful, but it isn’t something i need to hear right now. i know i’m going to be fine. however, i’m still due to have major surgery in one and a half weeks on the other side of the world. no matter how many times i am told that i will be fine, and no matter how deeply i know that myself, i am still going to be feeling a maelstrom of confused emotions. not to mention the huge dollop of anxiety that is wrapped around my head, which feels like something inbetween a wet towel and a gigantic smush of squirty cream. i can’t help that fact, and being told i will be fine is the emotional pacification equivalent of blowing smoke rings at a desk fan.
hey, plus, get this, i feel kinda guilty that i’m not writing a formal SRS diary. i feel like i’m somehow letting myself down by not documenting every in and out about it. i somehow feel of slightly lowered worth because i don’t have any impasioned insights to expound or amusing anecdotes to deliver. instead, right now, i have this:
got up, had toast, dicked about online, had a bath in lots of bubbles, got clean, went to hospital, was told that i’m going to be referred to a local endocrinologist FINALLY, and the got told that i’d have to spend £50 to get my MRI results.
oh yeah. i need endocrinology and i might need the MRI scans. not right now for the operation, but eventually. that’s another incidental story though. so, moving on, i……
………..did recycling, came home, ripped CDs and stuck them on my mp3 player, reserved seats on the plane, had a panini on the beach, went and did some recording with my current musical mentor, did more recycling, photocopied all my important documents, came home, made a couple of videos and got a reply from HCW stating that they were not going to compensate me for surgical costs and played some guitar and looked at earphones online and took a whole bunch of pictures and tidied up and dicked about with my camera and wrote this. boring.
where getting the operation is concerned there is just nothing to say apart from,
ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod, this time next week i’ll have taken the fucking laxatives, ohmygodohmygod
and, really, after a few days of that you’re going to be bored.
love xx
there are just two things i want to note, although i don’t really want to write a detailed post about them. i just want to mention them rather than explain.
one is my continual ire when somebody tells me that, because of the tran, i’m lucky in comparison to them due to such and such a reason. for instance, pointing out that after surgery at least i won’t have a screaming and very dependant individual to look after for the rest of my life. like, thanks for reminding me about the sterility component and my own broodiness. similar comments are ‘at least you don’t have periods!‘, and come very close to winding me up in exactly the same way as ‘welcome to womanhood‘ proclamations. just don’t make comparisons relating to my trans-status, okay? no matter how much they are meant in the vein of sisterhood. i get kinda touchy.
the other is my desire to compartmentalise my transsexuality, and slight guilt around this. this, in a way, is probably what this blog is going to be all about.
i’ve moved on from vibrators.
love xx
it’s been a while, and a lot has happened. mostly, though, it’s been characterised by not having a great deal to say.
so, the last ten or so months in rapid flashback form………
slid into hypothyroidism and depression. joined another couple of bands and started to play more music. got referred for the big down there surgery. did best to find ways to crawl back out of depression. started to perform in front of audiences with bands. got turned down for surgery funding. started to slide back into depression. started to fight surgery funding descision. took out huge loan to finance surgery abroad anyway, because waiting for it was killing me. turned thirty and got some action with a real cute guy who had no soul.
and now i’m four weeks from flying out to thailand for genital reassignment surgery and, you know, i’ve got very little to say about it.
i’m sure something is going to come to mind though.
love xx
