After nearly a year of waiting, today is finally the day I will have my orchiectomy. A lot has happened in the past year... a lot of things I wish hadn't happened too, but I'm not sure there was much I could have done to change that. In the course of one year, I went from being very uncertain about where I was going with things, to deciding that a full transition was something I needed to be happy. Getting this procedure done isn't really an end, more of an intermediary step. I do still want to have GRS in the future, and to do everything else I can to be completely happy with my body. But this is all my insurance will cover, and if this is the best I'm ever able to do, I guess I can live with that. I'm just going to be happy to finally have this done, and to never have to think about the possibility of have male hormone levels in my body again.
But even though I never doubted that I wanted to have this done from the day I first stepped into my therapist's office, I came very close to canceling my surgery yesterday. Although my parents have been much more understanding about things since the beginning of this year, they still made it clear to me that they did not support my having this surgery, and did not want to be involved with it. And then about two weeks ago, my brother, the only one who has supported me from day one, tried to kill himself. He was hospitalized for about a week, and while this is not the first time he has been hospitalized for depression, this is the only time he ever made a serious suicide attempt. The worst part was, I didn't even see it coming. No one did really, it was a shock to everyone. In the past, I've always tried to keep an eye on him to make sure he was okay, but this time he was putting up such a strong front that even I didn't see through it. He has come out of it in one piece, and he's doing better now, and we're working on making changes to ensure things never get this bad for him again. But I still haven't slept soundly through the night since the morning I first found out about it.
And then yesterday, my Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. We had known something was very wrong for a while now, but the progression was so slow, and in a lot of ways atypical for Alzheimer's, so we never looked into it as throughly as we should have. My dad was very resistant to the idea of looking into it too, and it was only within the past six months that the decline became so severe that it could no longer be ignored. He had an MRI about a week ago, and my mom went with him to hear the results this afternoon. Even though no one really believed the news would be good, we had still hoped that it would be something we could deal with, and maybe even treat. But the results said that he has already lost 1/3 of his total brain mass, and even the most optimistic prognosis doesn't give us much hope that he will be able to maintain where he is for very long, let alone get better. My mom has really been devastated by this, and if my surgery wasn't scheduled so soon in the future, and it rescheduling it wouldn't create so many other issues, I would probably do it. She has been more against my surgery that anyone, and I would never have chosen this timing had I known what she would be going through. But, right now I feel that the best thing to do is to get this over with and make a recovery so it's not something anyone needs to think about anymore. Dragging this out would just create more tension, and it would delay other plans I've made to get my life back on track, which is not something I think would be a good idea right now.
*sigh*, so I am having surgery today, and that's all there is to it. I just hope everything goes well, and that I don't end up giving my family one more thing to worry about in a very difficult time...
