Post-Top Surgery: I Feel Fabulous

The vest is off, and I feel fabulous!

It’s been three weeks since top surgery, and I’ve finally been allowed to take the post-surgical vest off. I am so glad that it’s finally gone. Also, I love the way my clothes look! I am beyond excited about, well, everything regarding being done with top surgery. I am so pleased with how it looks — with how I look now.

Surgery Date Is Finally Here!

In just a few minutes, I will be heading off to get top surgery! Not exactly a sentence I can say everyday (by which I mean, only today for a few more minutes). After my constant “this many months left, this many weeks left” countdown posts, the last one is finally here. 

Top Surgery Tomorrow

Last Day Before Surgery

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’re probably aware that I’m having top surgery tomorrow . . . and if you haven’t been, well, now you know. I am so excited for it to finally be happening. I am rather less excited about the whole hospital/surgery thing. I don’t have much experience with either of those. Still, it’ll be what it’ll be, and my family and friends have been fantastic.

In Honor of TDOR

Today is TDOR, the Transgender Day of Remembrance. TDOR is, as the TDOR website states, a day to “memorialize those who were killed due to anti-transgender hatred or prejudice.” They list the people being remembered this year here. Instead of writing a post of my own today, I will offer a link to JamieAnn Meyers‘s “Transgender Day of Remembrance 2011: Remembering Our Dead, Seeking Justice for Our Living.”

One Month Until Top Surgery!

Because top surgery is scheduled for December 9th, I have exactly one month until it happens! Technically, slightly less than a month, given that surgery is scheduled for far earlier in the day than it is right now. I’ve confirmed with my surgeon, I’m scheduled at the hospital, and I told my manager today at work that I will need to go on medical leave for surgery/recovery. I’ve posted before at what I thought was the three month mark and also when surgery was two months away (when I realized that I needed to reschedule). Now it’s down to one month. 

National Coming Out Day Once Again

Well, it’s National Coming Out Day again (or so Facebook tells me), and a lot has happened in the past year. Most particularly, I’m now out as trans — I wasn’t quite ready to do that yet last year. In terms of coming out/transitioning, it’s been a big year. One of the best things is that I now actually have language for myself and words that feel comfortable to me. 

Top Surgery Rescheduled — Two Months From Today

I posted a bit ago about scheduling top surgery; if that scheduled date were still true, I’d be having surgery in less than a month. Unfortunately, due to complications with work, I’ve had to delay surgery a bit longer. For a time, I didn’t know when I would be able to have surgery, but surgery is now scheduled once again as December 9th. It feels a long way off, and there’s no longer any significance to the day, but at least it’s still happening this year.

My Dad Taught Me How To Shave!

My mom has been hinting since the summer that my dad teach me how to shave. Well, actually, “hinting” implies subtlety; she’s been outright stating it. Two weeks ago, I approached my dad about teaching me: he was going out of town soon, and my best friend’s wedding was drawing nearer. I knew that I was going to be in the wedding photos, and I didn’t want there to be any chance of weird patchy bits of hair on my face in the photos (because it indeed is growing in patchy bits, not evenly at all). And so my dad got out his fancy electric razor and showed me how to shave my face.

See? Little patchy bits covering my dimples that don't actually attach to the rest.

Missing My Uniform

From the time I entered kindergarten until I graduated from high school, I wore a uniform. I wasn’t a big fan of how it looked, but it made dressing in the morning very easy.

Once I went off to college, I had to pick out an outfit everyday, and it was exhausting. I didn’t do much in the way of fashion, but I still didn’t want to look as though I never changed my clothes. I ended up creating a uniform of sorts — generally jeans, black Doc Martens, and a solid colored v-neck of sorts. I had probably a dozen different v-necks in a rainbow of colors. It evolved a bit over the years — now I wear polos instead of v-necks — but it has remained surprisingly constant (or perhaps not surprisingly, given how inept I am with fashion and how little I have in the way of personal style).

Haiku Regarding Medical Appointments For Monitoring T

Med’cal gatekeepers
I don’t need regulation
So much frustration

Why require letter?
Been on T for near three months
I am “competent”