| nervously excited |
[Mar. 25th, 2009|10:38 am] |
I haven't posted much about this, because I was afraid if I let myself get too excited, something would happen to screw it up and I'd have to cancel or worse..
but now it's almost here I can talk about it.
my chest surgery is on Monday.
I've paid the surgeon, I've paid the hospital, I've paid the anaesthetist.
I rang the hospital this morning, they said to be there at 11am on Monday.
I have the plane ticket. Accommodation is booked. The dog is booked into a kennel for 2 weeks. I have airport parking for the car. I have almost 3 weeks off work, starting Friday.
I'm nervous, but I'm excited. |
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| **sigh** |
[Feb. 29th, 2008|10:59 pm] |
Dear folks at VicRoads,
You suck. No, really. You suck. There are many problems both great and small that have to be dealt with in the course of a "sex change", or transition from one gender to another.
Thank you *so* very much for your contribution to the general bureaucratic fuckmuppetry level of difficulty.
Perhaps you could explain why, when one has satisfied the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages that your sex reassignment is sufficiently complete that they are willing to issue you with a new birth certificate showing your amended gender - which, on its own is no small feat, involving the signatures of no fewer than four doctors affirming that you have undergone surgical treatment in connection with your transgenderism - and when Medicare, Centrelink, and even the Passport office are willing to accept this amended birth certificate as adequate proof and to amend the data they hold in their databases, why then do you insist that it is NOT adequate proof, and that one must also have a letter from the surgeon to accompany it?
Instead of the relatively easy changes I've already made to both my Medicare details and my Centrelink records, you've made me have to drive over 40km out of my way, take an extra hour battling peak hour traffic, and now I'll have to fax you this piece of paper because, naturally, you closed before I could get back to show you the proof.
Do you refuse to accept the birthcertificates of non-trans folk? Do you insist that they show proof that they are in fact gendered as their birth certificate says? Because if you don't, then you are in fact discriminating against us despite the nice piece of paper you gave me that says you are permitted to do so to uphold the sanctity accuracy of your records.
absolutely no smegging love at all
me. |
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| it never rains, they say... |
[Feb. 26th, 2008|06:22 pm] |
... but it pours.
After finally finishing up the old house last tuesday to the best of my ability, I was all primed to get my MR license on thursday, and start my new job on friday.
Well, for a few reasons that didn't happen.:-/
First off, does ANYBODY realistically think you can learn to drive a large (but not articulated) truck in under 2.5 hours and be up to testing standard? well, clearly some people can. But notably that's not going to be everyone. I was not confident on being able to maintain the speed required while keeping all the other things in mind that are different about driving a 6 gear manual truck, AND stay between 5 and 10 kph under the speed limit on a given street. I'd've been fine if I could have selected a safe speed for my level of skill, but there was a *minimum* speed limit as well as a maximum. I felt I needed at least 1 and preferably 2 more hours of driving to be totally comfortable. The first instructor concurred, and after a break and a cup of coffee I did much better during my 4th hour with a different instructor. I could have done with an instructor initially who wasn't quite so chatty, as well - there are just so many damn things to concentrate on and remember when driving a truck. Things like the regulations that require you to check both side mirrors every 15-20 seconds while driving, cornering in 3rd or 4th gear, leaning forward to check *every side street*, those things I can handle. Not being allowed to coast to a stop at intersections, not so much. It's a bad habit I picked up 30 years ago learning to drive a car with only two gears, 2nd and top, and no starter motor.
Anyway, so no MR license just yet for the dragon. My training credits will cover the extra tuition and new test, I just have to organise it.
And then the new job, the start date got set back to Tuesday, then on Monday it was set back to Wednesday, and then today (Tuesday) it got set back to next Monday. I'm not overly stressed by that. I've got two days' work at my old job tomorrow and thursday, so I'm ok with that.
Then there was this chance at another job, an evening job - 6:30pm to 10:30pm, 5 nights a week, for 3 weeks. I've got it if I can attend the induction on Friday at 1pm. No attend, no job. ARGH! I had a psych appointment for friday, 12pm to 1pm, in St Kilda, and the induction is at 1pm in Carrum Downs. So after a quick game of telephone tag with the psych's office, that's all sorted out. If I survive the induction on Friday, I also start that new job on Monday next week. At $20 an hour, I'd be mad to turn the opportunity down. I need to make back as much as possible of the almost $2000 I spent from late November to last week on catching up the bills and rent and such at the old house. Yes, Micky's going to pay me back (some) of that, but I need to have the $1200 on hand in case they approve my top surgery. ($1200 is the estimated out-of-pocket charges that I have to cover). TBH, the surgery is already approved - I just need it rubberstamped and a date set. I can't wait.
So, on balance, things are looking pretty good. Now if I can just survive the next 3 or so weeks ... |
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| update |
[Feb. 26th, 2008|01:19 pm] |
ok, that's 2 out of the three places I can think of that need an immediate update on my changed status done.
I did Medicare last thursday, no hiccup and an apology from them.
I did Centrelink today, again no hiccup and an apology from them ...
There's really only two more places that need fixing, and that's with VicRoads and the passport office.
the passport can wait, as I've no intention at this point to go overseas before the late half of next year, when I'm considering going on a backpacking whirlwind tour of europe. (Approx 4-5 weeks, covering Paris (again), Rome, Venice, Florence, and whatever else I/we can fit in)
Can anyone else think of anything vital that I've missed?
Bueller? anyone? |
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| Yay! |
[Feb. 21st, 2008|12:44 am] |
It arrived!
with the proper sex designation and everything, and right on the 10 working days, even with me having to mail off supporting documentation.
I yam a happy panda :-)
and tomorrow (really, today - in about 5.5 hours) I get to go off and learn how to drive a truck.
stay tuned. |
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| Birth Certificate, part the umpteenth. |
[Feb. 11th, 2008|10:40 pm] |
So today I was trying to get myself enrolled in an endorsed license course so that I can drive buses. (as well as cleaning the house in Hallam, and other assorted things)
I got a phone call. "Hi, this is X from the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry, Corrections Department."
Ah.
They want to talk to the doctor who performed the surgery I had in August last year.
Now, I don't know about you guys, but I don't keep a gyno's phone number on speed dial. Call me strange if you must, but there it is.
I offered to go to the doctor's office and ask him to write them a letter about the surgery(/ies) I've had, and they said that would be fine. So I toodled off to the office where I've been seeing that particular doctor since about 1993... and found it full of workmen, who were refurbishing the place.
This is Not Good. Apparently the doc has retired, and nobody knows how to get hold of him. So I call back BD(S)M, and apprise them of the situation. I suggest that I can get my GP to write them a letter and include a copy of the report he received from the gyno after the surgery. Apparently this will be acceptable.
Of course my GP is a busy busy man, and the only appt I can make with him for this entire week is wednesday at 11:20.
Not. Happy. Jan.
Luckily, I can kill 2 birds with one stone - I need a report from my doctor on my medications before I can finalise signing up for my MR license.
Some stupid bloody politician once said "Life Wasn't Meant To Be Easy". But surely things weren't meant to be this damn hard either. |
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| a bit of excitement |
[Feb. 8th, 2008|11:34 pm] |
Yesterday (Thursday) I had an appointment with my psych.
afterwards I took the paperwork to the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registry place and lodged all the completed forms and identification papers to have my sex officially changed on my birth certificate.
The hard part of all of it was getting the second doctor to sign - I couldn't just go to any random doctor because the ticky-box on the form specifically says that the doctor has to have been treating me in connection with my transsexualism.
Now comes the waiting part. Apparently I should hear back in 5-10 working days. |
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| grrr. |
[Nov. 20th, 2007|02:52 pm] |
Just about the only thing you'll hear from me on the subject of the election.
I mean, it's not like I was really intending to vote Liberal anyway. I think John Howard is a shmuck of the lowest order and I wouldn't trust Costello as far as I could spit a dead rat. So no, I wasn't going to vote for this candidate anyway.
But especially not when they simply can't get simple forms of address right.
Because I received mail from him today addressed to "Ms Alexander T...". I know for a fact that I'm registered with the AEC as male, but no, the Liberal Party insists that I must be female, and evermore shall be.
So, sorry buddy, but you cost yourself any possibility of a vote with this letter. c'est la vie. |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 21st, 2007|11:10 am] |
in just over a week it's my 1 year anniversary, 12 months on T.
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| I still aten't ded. |
[Aug. 28th, 2007|10:45 pm] |
I meant to post this last week, and the week before. but seeing as how I still aten't dead, I'm posting it now.
( TMI stuff about surgery. you have been warned. )
In other news, my work-for-the-dole project finishes this week, and in theory I am being offered paid work at the same place I have been working, which makes me happy. I like working there, and there's a possibility that they will sponsor me in getting a qualification that will make getting similar work in other places much, much easier. Initially I will not be getting very many hours-per-week, but it should improve with time.
Thursday this week marks my "10 months on T" anniversary, and the changes are still coming in. I'm turning into a right hairy bastard, I even have hair on my chest (and if anything is going to make you dysphoric, having hairy breasts will do it). My voice drop seems to have levelled out, though it still breaks or goes husky if I talk too much, or if I try to go too long between T shots.
Life continues to run away with me - I've been hit in the head with a football (in the changing rooms, oh how embarrassing), so I've got my first football-related injury. Our team lost in the semi-finals, unfortunately, so I don't get the excitement of seeing everyone all wound up for the grand final. thank goodness. :-) I'm not sure it's a safe thing to go from a total neophyte in at the deep end with this sport thing, and I'd like to play it safe a while longer.
I'm losing weight still, slowly but surely. I have 2 kilos to go to reach my doctor's "suggested weight" of 75 kilos. I may try to continue to drop from there to the top of my official weight range (72 kilos), but if I can stay at around 75 kilos both my doctor and I will be happy.
And that is pretty much the state of the dragon at this time. Photos will ensue shortly, so "watch this space". |
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| 9.5 months ... where has the time gone? and surgery |
[Aug. 13th, 2007|02:04 pm] |
Last week I was going to make a self-pitying ranty, whiny post about how it was all so *unfair*.
The day my "remove the remaining female plumbing" surgery was to have been done was cancelled. The public hospital system, for reasons of funding, sometimes decides that certain days they will not use their operating theatres for elective surgery. The date selected for my op was one of those dates.
My doctor, who only performs surgery at that hospital twice a month, kindly rescheduled my op , from the 26th September to the 24th of October. Which, unfortunately, is the very day before I go to tasmania on a holiday which is booked and paid for and cannot be changed. So I trundled off to talk to the receptionist at the doctor's surgery, and got a date of the 19th of December.
So I was feeling rather ranty and whiny about all of that, about having to wait an extra three months, about the likelihood of the surgery date being cancelled, about how my doctor is retiring from surgery in the New Year, so if it was cancelled for that date I would have to find another surgeon and start the whole process over again.
Added to that was the feeling I got from the plastic surgeon who will (most likely) perform my top surgery. I felt that he was treating me with no concern for the aesthetics of the inevitable scarring, and that made me feel extra ranty and whiney.
I held off on the rant though, and now I'm quite glad I did.
As luck would have it, I told the receptionist booking the surgery for my gyno that if a cancellation came up, could she let me know? She said she would.
so last Thursday, another patient cancelled her surgery. And now I get to have mine done in her place - this Wednesday morning.
So all the things I was wanting to rant about last week? All pretty much worked out for the better. Except the whole "finding the money for my top surgery" bit, but that's hopefully going to happen soonish. All that perfectly good worrying and stressing, and things worked out any way.
As my grandmother is fond of saying, "it's a funny old thing, life, isn't it?" |
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| cool things. |
[Jul. 5th, 2007|11:34 pm] |
Thursday being one of my days off "work", I spent a good half of it chasing around doing Medical Stuff.
One of the things I wanted to achieve was getting a new doctor to supervise my grandmother's medications/medical treatment. I've not been happy in a long while about the way her current doctor is treating her - turning up for a bare couple of minutes and simply saying 'continue the current medications' is not adequate, IMHO.
After a couple of false starts, I think I've managed to locate another doctor who will hopefully be willing to do a complete review of her medications, prescribe an antidepressant for her and hopefully bring her asthma treatment into the 21st century. I _know_ she's nearly 96, but dammit all, it's about quality of life at this point. I don't really mind if prescribing her a continuing dosage of prednisolone shortens her lifespan if it makes the remaining time more comfortable because she can breathe adequately. Anyway, that's a story that will have to wait to be told, till after I speak with the new doctor.
Somewhat heartened by the eventual success, I decided to take the opportunity to go to the hospital where in just 12 weeks I will be having surgery. After my doctor had set a surgery date for me, I received in the mail a package of information and a patient questionnaire to complete and return "in two weeks". Well, I set out to fill it out, and one of the first few questions gave me problems.
Normally when confronted by a questionnaire asking "Male/Female" I tick Male. It comes quite naturally to me now, and is (I feel) the honest answer. But because the nature of my surgery is gynecological I could just imagine some office drone getting it and cancelling the whole surgery because 'males don't have that kind of surgery'. On the other paw, if I ticked female I'd almost certainly be addressed by female pronouns and addressed as "Ms", or even worse, "Mrs". I was also concerned about causing distress to other patients if they still had single-sex wards. So I've sat on that questionnaire for probably a month while I thought about it all.
I took the questionnaire in with me, and showed it to the admissions person at the desk and explained my dilemma. Luckily she took it in her stride and sought advice from a superior.
The outcome of it was that I'm no coded into the hospital system as "I", for which they used a different word but meaning intersex. The superior explained that normally "I" is only used in the case of ambiguously gendered infants, but it's quite valid to use it for adults as well, particularly those in my situation. Interestingly, when she queried their system I was already listed in it as Male, but I'm not sure why - unless the Monash Clinic had something to do with that. However. Medicare will be much happier paying up for my surgery this way, which suits me fine.
In four weeks I have the consult with the plastic surgeon about my top surgery - I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will all work out. |
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| another wtf moment, brought you by the letters F, T and M |
[May. 28th, 2007|11:10 pm] |
on IRC tonight I mentioned that my (new) girlfriend and I had spent the afternoon babysitting my granddaughter, and that as a consequence I was feeling kind of wrecked.
the following conversation ensued:
<Lonita> azzie, you are single-handedly blurring every gender and preference barrier I know of.
<Rakoth> heh
<Lonita> You're like the gender/sexuality version of having both tea and no tea at the same time.
<azh> pan: what can I say to that?
<Rakoth> "thank you"?
* azh bows. |
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| medical updates |
[May. 25th, 2007|12:35 am] |
since my last update, I seem to have spent a large part of the intervening time in various clinics and doctors' waiting rooms.
( medical stuff, possible TMI )
and that is the state of the dragon, at this time.
I'm supposed to be attending a fancy-dress dinner-thing on Saturday, so maybe you'll get a few pictures of that. The theme is "C night", so any costume that begins with a C ... I bought a packet of chenille chicks at easter time, and intend to sew them to a shirt or jacket, and go as a "Chick Magnet". :-) |
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| State of the Dragon |
[May. 17th, 2007|03:51 pm] |
On the 31st April it was my 6 month on T "anniversary". The day itself did not go unremarked or unphotographed, but suffice it to say there has been a lot going on in the background that may or may not have been apparent to those on my flist.
Perhaps the largest news is that my partner of the last 9 months and I split up. This was mostly my decision, and we have agreed to remain good friends, as we were for the almost 7 years that preceeded our getting together. There were many and varied reasons behind my decision to end the relationship, but very few of them were his fault: more had to do with the realisation that I was repeating the same old relationship mistakes all over again. The old saying about "repeating the same actions and expecting a different outcome" comes to mind here. And that's really all I want to say about that.
However, this has occupied my mind and to a large extent prevented me from achieving things I had promised to do for various groups and people. I've not been to support group for over a month, and have been terribly slack on other projects.
Between "work", dealing with my grandmother, working on my own health issues, and trying to keep my head above water financially, I've been pretty much flat out.
"Work" has been interesting. It's going well, and they are offering me the opportunity to take part in in-house training for their computer system, to do a food-handling course, and other interesting projects. As much as possible I am saying 'yes' to all these opportunities, in the hope that it will lead to making me such a valuable "employee" that they offer me a job at the end of my work-for-the-dole contract. I know they have done this with other people, and the new coordinator is definitely on my side. I have come to enjoy working with and being with the various groups of elderlies as well as my co-workers and "fellow" volunteers. (All the other volunteers really are volunteers. I consider myself a conscript)
My grandmother, on the other hand, has been getting ... difficult. At 95, her mind is wandering from time to time. Her health is rarely better than "poor", though she has her good days and her worse days. More troublesome is that either through boredom or possibly as a side-effect from medication she's become more than a little paranoid. Add to this her poor hearing, and she often mis-hears conversations outside her room and gets upset over them. This has lead to her conviction over the last month or so that the staff are spying on her by installing a tape recorder in the next room ("because I can hear it! they're recording what I say"), that staff have sent away to London for information about her, that one particular member of staff "has it in for her", that the nice old gentleman across the hallway has "gone mad with love" for her and calls out to her frequently, that said nice old gentleman has plans to marry her and has been arguing with his family about these plans, and other things too numerous to mention. Needless to say, many of my every-other-day visits are spent calming her fears on the one hand, and disabusing her of the worst of her mistaken ideas on the other. Many of these misheard "conversations" are in fact television sets in use in other rooms, set to a daily diet of terrible soap operas.
Healthwise, I'm coming back to good from a position of being not so good. I continue to take the antidepressant medication to keep my mood as stable as possible, and that is working. My blood pressure is finally back under control and in the "normal" range; I am now on my third different medication for that. My heartrate continues to be high (over 100 at rest) however, so that is a bit worrying. More worrying is that my T levels are way too high, and I'm ordered to cut back on the amount of T I'm injecting each week - I was injecting .5cc (half a ml) every monday, and now I'm to cut back to about .3. The free testosterone level (ie, the usable T in my system) which should be between 250 and 775 was at 1337. No, the significance of that number was *not* lost on me :-) The other relevant numbers are equally worryingly outside the normal male range.
In other health news, my first visit to the Monash Gender Clinic is next Tuesday, which has me a little nervous. Hopefully from there I will have some idea of a timeline for the next stage(s) of my transition, which will be top surgery (chest reconstruction), which will make my life so much easier. The Thursday of next week also sees me going back to my gynecologist, for a discussion on the removal of my remaining internal female plumbing - oopherectomy and salpingectomy. If he's amenable to doing that for the health reasons I outline, I will then be able to get the documentation together to change the gender on my birth certificate and be considered legally as well as socially male. |
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| well, fuck. |
[Mar. 31st, 2007|04:18 pm] |
fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.
I just picked up my mail for the week from my house.
In it there's a letter from Southern Health, with my appointment at Monash Gender Clinic.
For last Tuesday.
That's right. the mail with my appointment (dated 20th Feb) arrived 3 days after the appointment.
So Monday (or Tuesday, if they are still only doing 1 day a week) I have to ring up and apologise abjectly for missing an appointment I didn't know anything about, and hope they'll not make me wait another smegging month or more till they can fit me in.
How the hell does a letter take five weeks to travel across 3 suburbs of the same city? I wish I knew. |
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| On Being A Bloke, part the somethingth. |
[Mar. 22nd, 2007|06:49 pm] |
Sometimes I wish I had one of those deep and meaningful sort of blogs that people read and think about the thought-provoking material therein. I'd love to pontificate on matters of deep social importance.
But I guess I'm really not that kind of bloke. ;-) Way down deep, I'm really really shallow.
Today I finally admitted to myself that since becoming a bloke, my appearance is really important to me - in ways it never really was when I was pretending to be a girl.
I was looking into the bathroom cabinet as I brushed my teeth, and mentally running over the changes in my skincare routine.
Before, I would kind of splash water at my face in the shower each day and rub it dry with a towel. Simple, effective, low-maintenance. I used tweezers to pluck the odd stray eyebrow(*), and a bit of clearasil to deal with the occasional zit. I haven't used makeup since I was in my 20s, and even then it was very sporadic thing.
Now I have a plethora of skincare items - not that I use them all daily, but they're all there. There's facial washes and scrubs, toner and moisturiser, shaving balm, shaving oil, shaving soap, there's even emu oil (the BEST thing for after-shave moisturising). oh, and there's still clearasil for the now more-than-occasional zit. I consider that I've got off lightly so far in terms of acne related to testosterone use, but it's still a bit of a bugbear for me.
As a girl, well, ok, a mature woman in her 40s, I was used to being pretty much invisible. People didn't open doors for me, move out of my way, or usually even realise that I might have been at a counter or wherever before they were. That's not the case as a guy.
Before, particularly in the last few years, I was happy enough to dress in a clean tshirt and clean jeans. I seldom bothered to iron them unless they were unconscionably crumpled. I specifically bought stuff that wouldn't require ironing. On my dresser I had two stacks - one a stack of black tshirts, the other a stack of (mostly) black jeans. Getting dressed in the morning was a matter of grabbing a tshirt off one pile, jeans off the other, and voila. The nice thing about black is that it's always colour-coordinated, even when it fades.
Now though, I have about 20 shirts. Some plain, some checked, some striped, 1 hawaiian. Some with short sleeves, some with long. Although I mostly still just reach into the wardrobe and grab a shirt, and a pair of jeans when I'm getting dressed. But now they're ironed. And sometimes I try to actually think about what works with what.
I suppose the big difference is that I care about how I look, and how others see me. I used to hate seeing photos of myself, now I don't mind being in photos and sometimes (gasp!) actually ask people to take my photo. When I look at old pictures of me, I don't recognise myself in them. It's a photo of someone else who isn't me.
The best part of transition was the gift to myself of being able to love who I am, and even like the way I look.
(*) "stray eyebrow hairs" - often found on chins or upper lips of women Of A Certain Age. Oddly enough, I no longer find it necessary to pluck them out :-) This alone saves me probably around quarter to half an hour every day. |
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