<p>It occurred to me that it’s been a while since I’ve said anything about how I’m doing. So, in case anyone was wondering, it’s mostly “no news is good news.”</p>
<p>I’m still eating pretty much all day long, and have already gained back about 10 or 11 of the 17 pounds I’ve lost. I’ve probably used pots and pans and other kitchen objects (not counting the microwave) more in the last couple of weeks than in the last year or so put together. Once I return to work that won’t be so easy to do, but I’m promising myself that I’ll make an effort.</p>
<p>I started walking around outside without a cane the other day, and even though I haven’t been able to go more than a quarter mile or so yet without wearing out, and my legs still aren’t really strong enough to stand easily from a squatting position without holding onto something to pull myself up, I’m certainly heading in the right direction.</p>
<p>My second visit to the certified nurse midwife last week went well; the antibiotic seems to be working, even if the infection hasn’t completely cleared up yet. (And now I finally know what a speculum looks like and how it works; I don’t think I ever actually saw one before. You learn something new every day!)</p>
<p>My plan is to try to return to work next Monday, six days from now. I’m more than a little nervous about how I’ll manage the daily commute, and spending a full day at work, but I’ll have been away for a total of six weeks (yikes!) – basically, 3 weeks in the hospital and 3 at home – and I really, really need to get back. I just hope nobody acts like I’ve been trying to avoid work, because I haven’t. I genuinely didn’t think I was up to going back this week, even though that was my original plan (before I knew that things were going to get so complicated!). </p>
<p>Mostly, I’m very grateful, all the time, that I made it home – after all, there were a few days along the way when I really didn’t think I ever would – and am well along on the road to recovery. And I’m doing my best to remember how far I’ve come, and not get too discouraged about things not going perfectly. I won’t pretend that there aren’t some things that are upsetting, or that they’re insignificant, or that under normal circumstances I wouldn’t be freaking out a little. </p>
<p>It’s not particularly fun to be visibly confronted, several times a day, with the presence of an unhealed open incision that’s going to have to stay that way for months until a doctor can be found to get it fixed. But a few months, or six months, or however long it’s going to be, isn’t forever, and I’ve been assured that it shouldn’t get any worse as long as I’m careful about hygiene.</p>
<p>It’s not particularly fun – I’m not sure I even mentioned this before – that having the nasal-gastric tube down my throat for 9 or 10 days (and/or the fact that the doctor in the ER in Montreal had some trouble getting it in to begin with) apparently damaged my voice. Even though the tube’s been out for more than two weeks now, I still can’t talk for more than a few minutes without my voice getting extremely hoarse and raspy, or even disappearing entirely. No matter how many hot beverages I drink, or how much I rest my voice – which isn’t hard to do, because for the most part I talk only to Ziggy in person, and to James and a couple of other people on the telephone. (This is something else that’s going to make things difficult at work, what with all the meetings and phone calls all day long.) But I’ve been told that it’ll get better eventually, even though it may take some time. (It had better get better; my voice has always been one of the ways I’ve been very lucky with my transition, since I didn’t have to work on it or alter it at all, so it would be kind of ironic if my GRS ended up indirectly resulting in my losing it!) Still, eventually is better than never, and I’m still hoping that one of these days pretty soon, I’ll wake up and realize that my voice is back to normal.</p>
<p>As much as anything else, it isn’t particularly fun that I’ve already started to get adverse side effects from the prednisone/cortisone I’ve been on for almost a month now, first by iv and now orally, for the Crohn’s Disease flareup. The worst is the famous prednisone “moon face” – puffy round face, swollen red cheeks (there go my cheekbones, one of my few other other fortunate features!), rosacea, etc., etc. I haven’t had that happen to me since I was in my 20’s and was on prednisone for 7 years before my first major intestinal surgery, and it’s not a happy reminder.</p>
<p>When I was in my last year of law school, after I first got sick, I had a so-called friend (more someone who was part of a group with me and people who were my actual friends) who used to laugh at how I looked, and make fun of me and my fat red cheeks. Which he knew perfectly well had happened because of medication I was taking. (I admit that I wasn’t all that surprised, years later, when I heard that his wife had divorced him on grounds of domestic abuse. Naturally, he’s a wealthy partner at some huge law firm now.) After I got out of law school and started working, the facial swelling was so demoralizing and embarrassing at times when the prednisone dosages were high (I never was able to taper off it completely without getting sick) that I used to stay indoors on weekends, and sit in my office at work with the door shut all day. (I always thought I was the only one who was that self-conscious, but out of curiosity I recently looked on the Internet and found message boards with hundreds of posts by people who have exactly the same reaction when they start getting that side effect. It’s a life-saving drug, but it comes at a great cost. Especially with some other side effects that can be a lot more serious, and permanent, than facial swelling.) </p>
<p>So this brings back some very unpleasant memories of my 20’s, which in all sorts of ways were the most unpleasant, saddest, decade of my life, beginning with my mother’s death when I was 20. I wasn’t expecting the swelling to start happening again this quickly; I guess I’d forgotten how soon those side effects begin. It isn’t as if I’m particularly in love with my “real” face, but it’s mine, and always has been, and it’s disconcerting to realize, every time I see a mirror, that it isn’t quite the same now.</p>
<p>Still, though, I understand that I probably notice the difference at this point considerably more than most other people would; I’d have to take prednisone in high doses for some time longer for it to get as bad as it was for me 25 or 30 years ago. So I’m trying not to get too down about it; I am tapering off, and hopefully will be able to switch to something entirely different in another few weeks. The swelling will go down eventually, and in the meantime I’ll just have to swallow my embarrassment and let people assume when I return to work that my face looks like this because I’ve been gaining weight! (Which I have been doing, as I said, but that’s not why my face is swollen. Although one side-effect of prednisone is a ravenous appetite, which I’ve certainly had. Another thing I’m not used to, but I’m not complaining about it right now.)</p>
<p>In any event, even though I’m sure I sound like I’m complaining about everything, I’m trying not to lose sight of what’s really important. Which is that all of these things are temporary (I hope!), and will get better, or be fixed, in due time. Recent events are still close enough in my mind to prevent all of this from overwhelming me. I understand very well how fortunate I am to be here, and to have come as far as I have, after everything that’s happened in the last five weeks.</p>
<p>And I don’t have to probe too deeply to realize that fundamentally, despite these setbacks, I’m happy. Mostly because I’m getting better. And also because it’s finally starting to sink in that, wow, even if I barely made it through, I really, truly, did have surgery, after all those years when I was so sure that I never could, because of all my medical issues. (Not an unreasonable concern, obviously, but eventually, once I got medical clearance from my doctors and had been in comparatively good health for a couple of years, I decided that I simply couldn’t continue indefinitely without trying; it was just too difficult for all sorts of reasons.) I haven’t exactly been in the frame of mind to appreciate it that much, but it’s certainly already made a difference in how I feel about myself.</p>
<p>I’m sure I’ve mentioned before how strongly I’ve always believed that GRS, by itself, isn’t what “makes you a woman”; all the surgery in the world won’t do that if you aren’t one already in a very real sense. It’s only part of it. If anything “made me” a woman (apart from always feeling so strongly, from earliest childhood, that that’s what I should have been), it was transitioning socially and medically, and living in the world as a woman for the last 4+ years, and being uniformly seen and treated as one, and interacting with people as one, and understanding what a woman’s life (or, more correctly, one woman’s life!) is really like, on a firsthand basis. What this surgery did, I think, was really much more for me, and my own peace of mind, finally allowing the outside to match the inside by removing a final incongruity (as much of a cliche as the “woman inside” concept is, there’s some truth to it), and helping me to feel more “right” in my own body without being reminded all the time of my history. It doesn’t feel like something new that I have to get used to; it feels like it always should have been this way. So this had nothing to do with anyone else, or anyone else’s perceptions, and has no effect on my interactions with the world except in terms of my own self-confidence, and, perhaps, in removing the last vestiges of self-doubt. Now, I don’t feel that self-doubt anymore, not at all. And I’m very happy about that.</p>
<p>Donna</p>
Maybe you can continue to rest your voice and participate in meetings?</p>