Wow, it has been a long time since I posted here. Did anyone miss me?
Actually looking around, I see so many new faces here that weren't even around back when I was posting regularly, I'm not sure how many people here will actually remember me. I just wanted to give a quick update on how things have been lately for me, in case anyone might have been wondering.
To put it mildly, last year was the worst year of my life. I spent most of it shut up in my room, alone, struggling with dysphoria, hiding from my unsupportive family members. There were some bright spots, like starting full dose hormone therapy, going full time (which happened so organically I couldn't tell you exactly when it started), and spending a month in New York with my aunt, but overall it was just a constant struggle.
I think I can finally say, things are much better now. It took nearly a year, but my family has finally accepted my decision to transition, and while they aren't really encouraging me, they now accept that this is something that needed to happen for me to be happy, and they are treating me with a reasonable amount of respect and understanding. They still get my name wrong in public a lot, but they try, so what can I do?
I also
finally managed to get a letter for an orchiectomy, and I will be having surgery on the 31st of this month.
This took much, much longer than I was expecting given the discussions I had been having with my therapist last year. Part of the problem was that I had to change therapists early last fall because the therapist I had been seeing graduated from the postdoctoral program she was enrolled in and moved on. She would have written the letter before she left, except they still hadn't worked if they could count the time I was taking hormones on my own (but with documented testing), as part of the required year on hormones before they are allowed to write a letter. And so I had to start things over again with a new therapist. But he insisted that I come to some resolution on the issues I had with my family before he would write the letter, since they would be the ones responsible for taking care of me after I had surgery. I guess I can see his point, but it just ended up dragging out the inevitable, and in the end I worked things out with my family
anyway.So after all the work I put into having an orchiectomy as soon as possible, I ended up moving up the time frame about a month or two sooner than it would have been if I had just waited the get the letter when I had been "officially" on hormones for a year. *sigh*, but at least I did get the letter eventually, and it won't be much longer until I can finally get this over with.
I was actually reading some of the discussions about orchiectomies that were posted here a few days ago. I did give a lot of consideration to whether I might want to skip the orchiectomy altogether once I started leaning in the direction that I did want GRS in the future. But in my case there are several reasons I decided it was better not to wait. First and foremost, I don't want to rely on the Internet to get my medication anymore. Although what I take as an anti-androgen is very effective, and my endocrinologist was completely okay with me continuing to take it as long as the proper tests were done, I have no idea how long I will still be able to get a stable legitimate supply of it. It might never end up being a problem, or I might see an out of stock message or a blank web-page the next time I try to reorder it. Plus it's not the healthiest thing to take long term, and I have been taking it for years now. There is also just the whole peace of mind issue, of being able to know that no matter what happens (even if there were to be a nuclear apocalypse tomorrow morning), I will never have to deal with male levels of testosterone in my body again. And since I really don't see myself being able to afford GRS any time in the next few years (and even if I had the money there are other transition related things I would probably want to do first), I think it's still a good idea to do this even as a temporary measure. Also, my surgeon does have experience with transgender patients, and we discussed doing the surgery in a way so that it will not cause any damage in areas that would be worked with during GRS.
But possibly the best news of all, is that the sleep medication I had been waiting to come out (Belsomra), is now out, and plan to start taking it once I have recovered from surgery. Initially I was extremely disappointed when I heard that almost no insurance was covering it (certainly not medical assistance), and that the out of pocket cost was completely out of my price range. But then I learned that because insurance companies haven't been covering it, the company that makes it actually started offering coupons so you could buy the medication at a reasonable price (what a novel concept
). I still won't know if it works until I start taking it, but if it does, I might actually have a chance at a somewhat normal life. Or as normal as it gets around here at any rate.
So all things considered, I am doing pretty well lately. If I am actually able to get a job this year, I should be able to continue peacefully living at home and saving money so that I can complete my transition without compromises. And in the mean time, I am just enjoying the feeling of knowing that I am not in a hopeless pit of despair, and knowing that there is a real possibility I could have a normal, happy life in the near future.
