Tag: SRS

night errors

I now have access to the accounts of many more SRS patients, including a better view of what can go wrong, and the insight that while complication statistics for the Suporn clinic very likely is still low compared to other surgeons, it is still higher than the numbers most often cited. Reading the stories of struggling girls scares me, it affects me a lot right now.

Part of me wonders if I still should not have aimed for the nearby clinic despite waiting times, just in case revisions are easier, even if that means waiting much longer. And part of me wonders if inversion vaginoplasty might be much easier dilation-wise given fewer stitches inside.

But in the end, I do not want inversion, I need that skin to be on the outside. And I’m sure every high-quality place I’d go to would have its share of issues and difficult stories. I’m queasy but I’m proceeding with my plans.

Given that I need to outline my fears, as now informed by the unhappy accounts I saw.

For a lot of women, it seems their main issue is that dilating to depth is physically difficult, stressful, painful, and that even into their second year post-op they may still have granulation tissue or bleeding, and may need to dilate daily, having to take painkillers to do so. I say a lot, but I don’t think they are a majority, but I don’t feel confident assuming I will not be one. I have to assume that daily dilation may have to be a thing for the next years. It’s somewhat similar in scope to the issues I lived with when I needed hours for angst management, that which I transitioned away from. So this I would not want permanently.

It’s a gamble. Chances are I’ll be OK. If I am not, I’ll try to have revisions. If I fail that, I’ll have to have some revision that has the vagina healing shut, giving me a zero-depth cosmetic outcome. If so I’ll regret not having inversion surgery, but if I have inversion surgery, I will also regret not having the Thai technique. So I am gambling on a no-regret outcome as a non-guaranteed possibility. Losing depth would leave me mourning a missing vagina just as much as I miss a uterus or XX karyotype, but would still mean being less dysphoric, and would still let me have outside sex. I would be in sorrow but I could live with it. And that means there is a worst-case scenario I can accept.

Worst-case in another regard is incontinence, if there is fistula or something wrong with the urethra. I don’t want to have to live with that permanently, having to wear diapers. So I’ll have to make sure I can fix that outcome if it happens. But there at least this is something that women do experience and there are surgeons who have dealt with it. Combined with the above, I feel tentatively OK in that it will be possible to deal with somehow, though I worry that any such additional stresses will be an obstacle for me spending enough effort to succeed in my work. I so wish I was a cis woman and did not have to worry like this. Though it is exactly analogous to the uncertainties of a cis woman having a baby.

Worst-case in regards to orgasmicity and clitoral sensitivity. I don’t think I can affect this save for asking for as much tissue reuse as possible. It’s a neuroanatomical lottery. My chances are probably good. But if I end up without that sensitivity, then my sex will be much like now – something I have for the sake of closeness and touch and pain, not for the sake of orgasm. I’ll mourn what I can still feel grinding against someone (and I’m really scared of this) but I know this is something that will be equally true regardless of choice of surgeon, and that the Suporn method is the one that reuses the most of the sensitive tissue.

Worst-case in regards to pain. Some women have ongoing pain, either too much from dilation, or too much when they get aroused, or from vulvitis-like symptoms, or overall. I might run this risk too. There is a small-ish risk I will have something like chronic pain. I suppose I will take this risk and then all I can do is prepare and be ready. It too should be no different between techniques.

So not all issues have clear solutions yet, though I think all eventually can be solved. There are worst-case fallbacks I would mourn but can live with. Mostly I worry over how much time this will lose me from working. Hopefully all will go well, and I will do anything and everything to improve my chances.

I feel sick from the fear, obsessive over it, but I’ve largely done all I could. I’m second-guessing my decision to have this surgery but I think that is an emotion that was to be expected and that I can keep on observing. I remain on schedule to have it, and I think I will process these fears by seeing things through their lens for a while. I’m really scared for surgery, because of the risk of imperfect outcomes, but I still want it. I must let myself navigate and experience that fear as I prepare myself.

caput draconis lexis

There was this interesting person saying she was in love with me. She took me to bed and we shared very intimate things about each other. It felt really powerful and I fell so hard and wanted so much to build something with her. Then she faded out. First, it was not wanting to meet other than Platonically. Then, it was not wanting to meet at all. Then, it was just not wanting to communicate. As far as she told me, all of this was just her issues with feeling unsafe with anyone coming too close. Her depression and dysphoria meaning she couldn’t spend time with anyone at all for the moment. Nothing wrong with me.

But then she told me in passing she was so busy with her friends, and with her new boyfriend, and that this was why she had been so distant. So I suppose she actually fell out of love, or realized she wasn’t in love with me after all. Maybe she thought she told me this somehow, but more likely she felt it was too difficult to say it to me other than in this way. So that’s an ex-something. Not an ex-partner, I suppoe, as we were not formally together, despite the above. Yet I need somehow an ex label for her in order to get over her. Ex-love? Ex-flame? Ex-lover? Ex-something, at least. Whatever it was, however little may have been actually reciprocated any longer as time wore on, whatever was there.

So be it. Am I feeling hurt? Yes, of course I am. And that also intrigues me somewhat. I’m glad to know my body is capable of holding emotions I can’t stop. Being able to hurt means I am able to love. I regret nothing. I learned such valuable things about myself, about how I love, hurt, suffer, long, respond. I learned to access my emotions even better, so in some ways she really did succeed in her welcome intention to get me out of my head. I’m stronger and more whole for this.

I’m feeling cruel as well, though I’ll let that mostly pass, I’ll have her in mind as I read of Inanna and Dumuzi in the Underworld. For whatever reason, I was not what she wanted. I am no less worthy for that. Though the pattern of that painful joke remains, that marks three people coming out of an ace/aro period, doing a test drive of intimacy with me, then moving on to whatever they really want. Boys, in two cases, cis girls in one. Not to mention the people who first tried me as a poly/kink adventure in the past. I’ll accept more applicants, I embrace my role as the safe slut to play with. Though be aware, if you get that close to me I’ll probably fall for you too. Fine. Hearts are made to be broken and to heal.

I’m feeling a little bit of headache, and a sort of determined tiredness but also some form of energy. Listening to Tami T who is remarkably appropriate for these moments. I appreciate the meaning my life contains, quite deeply. I’ll spend time making myself better. And if any of those who spurned me see me as whom I will become, then I hope they will appreciate what it was they missed out on.

*

On another note, did an STD test. HIV negative so far, so nothing there stopping me from surgery with the Suporn clinic.

ninshubur faithful in waiting

It worked.

My Ninshubur, sukkal of Inanna, messenger and proxy and right hand, she did it. When a date for SRS with Dr Bank, successor and disciple of Dr Suporn, opened up, that very same minute she requested it and I now have it provisionally reserved.

Ninshubur here is a virtual Ubuntu 18 server running in the Google Cloud, with a fake cron script running in a screen; it scraped the calendar once a minute, parsed it, prioritized available dates, then sent a message on my behalf directly to the clinic using the google mail API. Tech I needed to learn or brush up on for this: VMs, cloud services, python, PIP, google API, CSS, HTML tables, Android notifications, robot.txt, and I would have kept going as needed. I feel this means I’ve done my part in propagating the trans girl hacker stereotype, though I’ll happily continue that so long as I draw breath.

So.

I’ll have vaginoplasty on December 6, 2019.

That’s in eight months. Exactly as long as I would have from my first missed period if pregnant. Time to prepare for what may be the hardest and scariest thing I’ve done so far in my life.

I’ve never had surgery. I am needlephobic.

I need to tell my mother.

I need to get in shape: lose enough weight (but stay stable for the month before), exercise to get cardio and circulation maximal, reduce any tendency to insulin resistance, reduce stress levels. I need to start sleeping properly and rush less. I need to make sure I am (and stay) HIV negative. I need to look into everything else – skin spots, teeth, breast exams. I must become as healthy as I can.

I need to get all other transition components to a state I am OK to wake up in with my new anatomy – carry out voice training, electrolyze the remaining facial hair (which is all white), decide on my new initials and change my name to its final form, then get a new passport.

I need to prepare my life: My apartment must be ready to recover in, unless I do so in my ancestral homeland. If so I must ensure it can be rented out in the meantime somehow. Renovations e.g. elevator and bathroom need to be ready so I can stay there. I need to prepare my team so they can handle it when I am gone. I need all projects to be in a stage where my absence entirely for at least a month does not break them. I need to prepare my friends for my silence and following weakness. I need to ensure I have support in place – prepare therapist in case of post-op depression, work out and establish contact with gynecologist, pact with friends who can help me during the helpless period. Set up time off – vacation, holidays, then sick leave, and last more vacation if needed. Prepare my habits to make time for years of dilation and wound aftercare.

I need to prepare my mind and heart. I need to learn to endure pain and fear and confusion and hunger and chaos. I need to finally learn to set boundaries and guard my time. I need to make myself ready for something scarier than I’ve ever been through. It’s on the level of traumatic childbirth and I really will think of it so. I must gain control of my life for the sake of she-I who will be born.

Certainly all of these things have value of their own, and it is true I use this now necessity as an excuse for my higher self to take priority. I let my greater fear defeat my lesser fears. I’ll take a major step forward in transitioning, not only my body, but all of me so as to be able to accommodate that. I welcome those side effects.

But most of all, I want my post-op body healed up by my 40th birthday.

And it now looks more likely than not that I will.

Praise be Ninshubur, sukkal of Inanna! Praise be Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth! Hail Eris! Hail Discordia!


the battle belongs to the strong

So, read another (second in total) case of Chettawut handling poorly one of his rare poor outcomes. So going there in case I cannot get a Suporn date is no longer an option.

That then makes it more bothersome that I still am not sure how that will go – yesterday ninshubur signalled and emailed for a December date, but they have not gotten back to me, so maybe it was caught in a spam filter and I have to somehow email manually.

So now I learned about gmail filters and set all other notifications to silent, but keeping these ones on, and set this as my custom ring tone for SRS date notifications:

It can ring in meetings or at night and I will hopefully catch it. It’s several minutes long.

Fear of complications will always be there. But so would it for a cis woman giving birth.

In other news I have a terrible headache that will not relent. I wonder why.

grip

It really feels like my life is on hold until I have a surgery date. I can’t force myself to eat healthily because it’s like I feel I’m holding my breath and my spoon supply is low as a result. Like I’m waiting for a test result for something dangerous and crucial.

ninshubur and the hidden moon

So, I couldn’t let it go and I walked the rest of the way and coded up a virtual machine that polls the Suporn surgery calendar every two minutes. If parsing doesn’t break when they update next it will automatically select an available date based on my preferences and mail to request it.

Having a date feels very very major a need now. It’s the thing I turn to when I feel tired or sad. I long for it. I feel like a girl whose pregnancy test turned up negative, and who will keep trying until it is not. It’s a painful uncertainty, by contrast of the certainty of my longing to leap headfirst into the whole of the procedure and use the momentum, the gravity, as a tool and excuse to make other changes to my life and habits.

Just as I wrote this, got other communication from them on another question (re: hair removal being OK), and they say new dates will soon come. Curious on whether the parser will break (worried that it will ruin my chances if it sends them an embarrassing email). Excited to see. Really centering on this now.

Otherwise tired and headachy, next steps will be coffee and regular work-y programming. Need to stay strong so my life can be prepared for what comes. I.e. need to be ahead of my plans so I can rest from them later.

craze

Had a bit of a breakdown. Of course being overworked and underslept is part, makes me less containment-capable. But I think this is more interesting.

Having started to schedule SRS I run into the problem that the surgeon I decided on has no waiting list. Meaning my only option is to watch the calendar to request dates as they come online. Twice now other people were before me when that happened, in a matter of hours.

This freaks me the everliving fuck out. I panic-worry that I’ll just wait and wait and never get a date and that uncertainty is intolerable. Basically it’s tolerable only if I know I’ve done everything.

This is dysphoria. This is a deep need to finally fix my genitals. It’s desperate now because only now when I decided, do I let myself actually want it, dare believe it can happen. So I’m fully and extremely on edge for it.

What I need is to be able to send the clinic an email from my gmail the minute a suitable date appears. This means I need to poll the site every few minutes. It would have worked from my office workstation but that has no internet connectivity and won’t until at least Monday. Too long. My old lab servers would work but there I can’t install the libraries needed for pip needed for the google mail API, because I can’t sudo. So now I’m reading up on Google’s VM services. If I can access a virtual linux where I am root, then I can set this up.

I then need a cron job calling the Suporn calendar web scraper I wrote earlier this week, some surrounding logic, and the python gmail API to send the email. I’ll probably end up setting this up rather than waiting. I need to know I have done all I can to secure my path to the SRS I need as soon as I can.

I know I’m being overstressed and irrational, but on some level this is still constructive. But I’ll also try to just rest. I’ll be saner tomorrow. And hopefully in possession of a tool that will let me secure a surgery date as soon as possible, having learned several new tech platforms to do it.

Feeling envy, jealousy – cis women get to have anatomy like I need to without going through all this. Cried a lot earlier tonight once I got home. But one way or another I proceed. Nothing will ever stop me for long. I’ll prove that.

gauntlet on ground

So now twice good Suporn dates were announced and I was too late for them. Apparently just a notice app doesn’t cut it, I really need to go full on hacker girl for this.

What’s relevant is how strongly it impacts me. I desperately need this surgery date to be set now. It feels very heavy, very impactful.

Very well. This is who I am. I’ll do whatever I need to get what I want.

staggra

Epiphanies come quickly these days one after another. Experience is so intensive and it shifts. My life has weird dynamic ranges. I go from the very detailed or the very obscure to the very high level. In the past weeks I hung out in squats and witnessed the Babylon arch-Chancellor inaugurate something. I hang out with drifters and philanthropists and teenagers and medical bosses, and am at once a patient and part of the treatment infrastructure. I really am spanning systems at this point, in one way of witchery.

By way of the less impressive watch tool, I found Suporn dates in November opened up this morning. I’ve been dazed all day since, but I emailed. I expect someone else requested them before me, but it lets me know I must escalate, accelerate, proceed.

And if I get a November date, that is less than nine months ahead. Almost nothing. I feel like someone who just stopped using contraceptives, still not expecting a pregnancy so soon even though she planned for it, set it in motion. Like the process falls out of your control and it’s time to struggle to get all in place. But I don’t know yet. It’s like I wait for a pregnancy test. It may well be negative still.

Today I didn’t shave and didn’t put on foundation, but still went to another inauguration ceremony and talked to people. I feel individual hairs but don’t see them. Need to let them grow until I see them, to see colour. This is less scary now. As is being out and social.

Core to that is, I believe on an emotional level that I either pass for cis or am read as trans. I don’t expect to be misgendered or parsed as cis male. Surely I am clocked often. But at the same time, I know on some level I have passing privilege now, to some extent. I am treated better than some of my sisters because some of my changes went quicker, some of my starting points were better. Increasingly I have to remember that also. Still really wondering how often I am not clocked. I’m really curious about this.