it's difficult for me to discuss hormones without running afoul of the rules so i will try to be circumspect and therefore likely end up being vague.
While my pathetic financial situation is not changed at all, I did get my NP to agree to prescribe Spiro, but sadly at a low dose appropriate for blood pressure treatment (i was only borderline high) which is only about a quarter of what I understand to be proper for HRT...but I had ordered 100 of those with my tax refund, and those are almost gone now. I've been hoarding the prescription pills and I'll string them out as long as i can but by labor day I'll be back to the low, unhelpful dose (unless something happens to my income).
meanwhile, i found a way to score some E (safe, legal, stuff, no black market...but...unorthodox) but it, too, is at a lower dose than I'd like.
Yes, I know - dangerous and all that. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
I can't double up to the "standard" dose of E without running out before the end of the month, I've heard about "cycling" and I wonder if there's any benefit to taking "Dose X" for two weeks, the "Dose X*2" for a week then a week off?
Anyway, I'm kinda down about the idea that when the spiro dosage drops so will the (modest) progress. I'm brainstorming ways to maximize the results from my rather minimal resources.
I've been doing this (with one short break) since March 1 and I've got (after about 11 weeks) some breast tenderness and possibly some marginal development (I know its way to early but I have a lot of fat tissue there so it's tough to be sure but the wife commented the other day that i'd soon not need to pad a bra - and she doesn't know I'm taking anything - so i thing there's SOME change.
But otherwise, I can tell nothing. the one thing i most wanted (besides the obvious) was some emotional development and I'm just not sensing any of that. Perhaps the dose is just too low. I had ONE sort of irrational teary moment during a movie (a scene that shouldn't have provoked it) which was encouraging but otherwise, nothing.
I'd like to have at least had a taste of things to come...
Beyond that, I had a "best of times worst of times" moment the other day. We took the boys to see Transformers Wed. night, and on the way down there she said we needed to talk when we got home about my situation - later, as we were going in the theater i asked my sons to keep in mind that the other guests would see me as female and in order to avoid an ugly bathroom incident, to try to be very discreet about calling me "daddy" where anyone could hear.
she heard this and i swear if she'd have been armed she would have shot me down right there.
So yeah, were we ever gonna talk later!
she didn't, as it turned out, have one of her rages, despite being very angry (more evidence to me that her uncontrolled rages at me are themselves a mental issue and not just simply being angry with me - i saw Wed night and Thursday what being rationally angry and hurt look like and it wasn't the same thing)
the kicker is, what she had wanted to talk about was this: she was going to tell me that as long as i didn't change the name or have any surgery, she would live with the current behavior ...although when I asked her about hormones, she said that was off the table too - but i think I can make the case that until there are breasts she can't deal with, the hormones don't matter. I told her truthfully, as i have before, that when I can get HRT I will take it and will not seek her approval because i know she won't give it. I told her that i intended to do the name before seeking any more education if I did go through with that but i didn't set an absolute date.
the surgery is a non-issue as long as we have so little money.
BUT the whole "don't call me daddy" think threatened to undermine her willingness to move on the issue.
I'm not sure yet. but I do take it as an encouraging sign that she was wiling to agree to accept a level of transition well beyond what she'd previously been willing to discuss.
i think I can persuade her that the hormones are not an issue until i actually have breasts and if at that point she can't stand them, then we gained that much time.
I think it's 50/50 whether she will accept the idea of a legal name change at some point down the road (though she will never use "Tammy" she might be persuaded that what name other people use doesn't concern her)
Some might say it's foolish and somewhat co-dependent to try to string this out as long as possible, I can only say it's a product of circumstance. I'd love to have been able to just file for divorce and be on my way so she could find some closure but it's simply not that simple here.
all that said, if the weekly rages continue, i may have to go ahead and accept we simply can't come to terms. I never know from one day to the next.
