Posts tagged countdown

One more box ticked

June 23, 2011 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , , , , ,

Starting to house-keep and tidy up loose ends and…can’t for the life of me imagine why THIS post didn’t go up about three weeks back.

Apologies, but there may be a few of these now…stuff that seems to have crept into draft by mistake.

Here goes (from three weeks back):

Along to the GP’s to pick up my anti-androgen stuff (triptorelin) and have my four-week testosterone blocker.

Yay!

After all the rush last week… the hospital recommended the wrong stuff…then they wouldn’t change it without a note from the specialist …and he wouldn;t issue a note without a letter from me…and he sent his note to the wrong doctor … and the GP wrote up the wrong dose (three months rather than one!)… and then the practice mis-placed the prescription…

Phew!

You wouldn’t think such a simple request would lead to so much chaos – and next to none of it of my making.

But we’re done. I went along this morning, collected the box from the pharmacy fridge, and over to the nursing station for my jab. There, the nurse consulted a colleague, cause this is the funny gadget-y injection (with a connector to mix up the powder and solute) and one small prick later (yeah, yeah…but maybe this is almost the last time i’ll make that joke).

Although the nurse made me smile.

After fluffing for a bit trying to work out how the gadget functioned, she opined cheerfully: “well. at least next time i’ll know what to do”.

Er, no. “I think”, i suggested gently, “that if there is a next time for this drug i’ll be demanding my money back from the clinic!”

But yay! When this runs out, one more week of unrestrained testosterone. Ever!

And then the only T is going to be surplus converted from oestrogen, or supplements if my endocrinologist thinks i need it.

That is splendid news.

Except for the fact that now, without the hormone cushion, i understand i am much more likely to suffer side effects.

PMT and mini-menopause here we go. And i am supposed to be being sweet, reasonably and in best negotiating mood for a meeting on Thursday?

Nah! Think maybe i’ll just tear them limb from limb instead.

jane
xx

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Another one bites the dust!

June 1, 2011 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , ,

It is, as I about 90% expected, another green light.

The electrolysis lady, she say: “Yes”.

Which is just as well. Because what with trains and TfL running late, I only had about twenty minutes on the table and I was filled with dread: her suggesting I really needed two sessions and I’d just blown this one or something.

But no. As she repeated fairly positively at regular intervals: I’m not circumcised, so I’m having an “inversion”. This involves minimal use of the scrotal skin: so minimum need for heavy-duty zapping.

Twenty minutes was, in the end, more than enough to despatch the few scrawny survivors, and even left a couple of minutes over for her to experiment on my boobs. Er, electrolysis-wise, that is.

Next sesh is on 23 June, after which its eyes down and all systems go.

We-ell. First I need to find a psych to proclaim me dysphoric as opposed to more generally deranged.

Meanwhile, I succumbed. You know: the temptation to start working out the time in hours.

We-ell. Tomorrow at 8 am, its just 40 days to go and 40 times 24 is a pretty easy sum to do. So easy, in fact, that its near on impossible to fill your head with STUFF to crowd out the sum before you do it.

So I just did it.

As of 8 tomorrow morning, I have 960 hours to go.

No longer, even, in four figures! :)

jane
xx

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Countdown continues

May 30, 2011 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , , , ,

Hormones tonight…hormones tomorrow and then…. eeek! No more for nine weeks. That’s six weeks til the op and, as i understand, three weeks after.

I shall, like Dr Jekyll before me, turn back into some revoltingly bristle-laden Hyde.

Too, the cheques are in the post (one for the surgeon, one for the anaesthetist) and, so long as no-one tries to bank them before friday, that is sorted.

Last big piece of work should “bank” this week, leaving June as a month to pull together contributions for my journal and set some publicity in motion for the autumn.

One more week, and its back to the GP’s for my anti-androgen and mini-menopause shot. Yay! Hot flushes, here i come.

Just before that, however, on wednesday, its back for one crucial visit to the electrolysist to make sure i’m doing fine on the depilation front. Definitely feels it. I am smooth in a way i can’t quite remember being for decades. So-o…fingers well and truly crossed on that front.

Psychologically, as key dates tick by, the pace does feel like its hotting up. I have six weekends left, and three, now, are filled with interesting events.

S’pose i should start to circulate the big event date, providing all goes to plan on wednesday, which is for a sort of open house on the weekend of July 9/10.

Not quite the sombre occasion of Jacques Brel’s dernier repas – though i like the spirit: a time of leave-taking, not so much of friends, but of my old self.

Because even if that is long gone: and even if, as i am sure others who have gone this way before are equally aware, the srs is not the major thing i once thought it was, it is still a useful point along the way for marking before – and after.

So, no. Not a celebration. Nor a wake. But, hopefully, a gentle time for those who know me to drop by, to take a glass of wine, to chat and, even more hopefully, to wish me luck. or whatever.

Somehow, i don’t think “break a leg” is quite appropriate.

jane
xx

P.S. I will ask – but does anyone know if i should also stop the finasteride pre-op?

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On tenterhooks: seven weeks and counting

May 23, 2011 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged , ,

Seven weeks.

Forty-nine days.

I have so far resisted the temptation to work out how many hours or minutes, though I suspect it won’t take much more than a long car journey and my mind will, inevitably turn to the first, if not the second of those tasks.

If all goes well, if no obstacles appear, if, if, if.. . if no-one does the medical equivalent of leaping up and down at the back of the church and yelling “I object”, then on Monday 11 July I will enter hospital.

And a day later I’ll be down for srs.

Its finally dawning on me how close I am and the excitement, the happiness is palpable. I want to dance. I want to shout. And at the same time, I’m filled with dread.

What? At the idea of making a mistake? Might I end up as the UK’s seventh regretter? Er, no! No way!

The dread surges in on the back of some fairly typical – for me, at any rate – pessimism. So many tests still to pass: so many barriers to cross. On 1 June, the electrolysist will hopefully declare the war against the hair is won and give the green light.

At some point later in the month, yet another psych will eye me up and presumably pronounce me Jane. Sorry, sane!

And at the back end of June, another slew of tests: mrsa screen; ecg; blood work.

Eeek! This is like finals, only worse: if I fail a single module, its back to square one and start again. Or at least, wait another month or two or three.

I can’t. I just can’t! Already, I feel my life beginning to shift over to hold. June will be a month of preparation. One last major piece of work to go and deliver early next week. Then, since such work is never done when its done, loads of ever-decreasing questions and revisions to do. A few small pieces to write. A journal to put to bed and then… and then….

I can sense, already that I am going to be a nervous wreck before the wait is over (and that’s even without all the impending hormone changes).

jane
xx

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Countdown

May 14, 2011 · Filed under Uncategorized · Tagged ,

Suddenly it feels like the countdown has begun…albeit with one early abort point on 1 June, of which more in a moment.

I now have my letter from Brighton (or rather, letters, plural, which cover mostly the same ground but slightly differently).

That sets down that on July 12 I will enter the operating theatre as still reasonably male and leave it some hours later as a good deal more female. (Note, please, the rejection of essentialism!).

That’s about eight and a half weeks still to go. Although, as mentioned above, if the electrolysist thinks I won’t be ready when she next tortures me (on 1 June), then its all change. Fingers crossed.

First problem: I need to start smoking either tomorrow or Monday.

Well, otherwise, I don’t see how I’m going to meet the first target of stopping smoking on 17 May, eight weeks out from the target date!

Two weeks later, and still six weeks out, on 31 May, I must stop taking oestrogen. Ugh! Horrid idea, but I guess it has to happen.

A week after that, on 7 June, I get the latest and hopefully last of my anti-androgen injections.

5 July, I should be drug-free. Note to self (and milkman, who has branched out in surprising and innovative ways of late): cancel the coke.

Monday 11 July, arrive at clinic, complete with large overnight bag, plenty of comfy nighties, some casual clothes and a lunchbox.

Some time that evening, I get my last meal for some while…and wake – oh joy! – to an early morning enema on Tuesday.

More detail to follow.

I am excited. I am so, so terrified.

jane
xx

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