Hi everyone!
Sooo... I haven't been around for a while either. I'd kinda been feeling a bit frozen in my transition, having hit a wall after doing everything I could in terms of sorting out hair removal, changing all my official stuff to my new name, etc.. And going back to uni has been pretty stressful for me of course, and it's been weird being in a situation where the staff all know and the official records are all changed but the fellow students are still unaware, and I'm only in a couple of days a week and don't really get a chance to speak to people much, so it's... odd. Like, people must notice I look and dress different, but I have no idea what they think, not that I should necessarily care. :p Anyway, I don't think I was coping very well with everything. Or... I definitely wasn't coping well. And that was compounded by the stresses of trying to get treatment started and...
...well anyway, it gets better. I don't really want to make a big song and dance about it, because I know I'm really fortunate to be in this position and that others have been waiting in some cases longer than I have, and I kinda feel bad about that. But having had very positive psychiatric and psychology assessments and after a bit of a back and forth with my GP and practice manager, I have been able to obtain a prescription for estradiol valerate which I started taking yesterday. The initial practice meeting was kinda negative, I think, but then after more discussions between them, my partner and me, my GP ended up speaking to Dr Gerber at Sandyford and apparently he agreed that, based on the details of my case, he would support the idea of bridging treatment being an option in this case, so.... It's taken a while from my point of view and I've just been hanging on for dear life and hoping something good would come of it, and I was desperately struggling psychologically at times, and then...
...well, as of yesterday, I just feel... like someone has pressed the reset button on me. I had prepared myself for the fact that I wouldn't really feel any different immediately, and I guess a big portion of it may be psychological, and I know it's not going to solve all my problems by any means, but I feel profoundly different (in a good way). I feel so calm and positive right now and my anxiety levels have dipped a lot and, well, I guess I feel kinda euphoric still also and I'm sure that will pass but... so far it's been amazing. So, having pulled my head out of the sand where I had firmly stuck it for the past month or two, I wanted to come back on and share my good news. ^^
Sorry as ever for the wall of text, lol. I hope everyone else is doing ok and I hope you don't mind me sharing my news with you, even though I know I've been super lucky with this.
Hopefully it shows that the idea of getting bridging treatment is not completely hopeless, even if there's still a widespread reluctance to prescribe it in spite of what it says in the literature in support of it.
