A year ago today (3rd June 2015) I was in a hospital having had chest/top surgery the day before.
It felt surreal that the day had finally come, I thought it would never come. After having the date in 2013 cancelled due to being sectioned and then surgery continuously delayed due to my mental health, I thought it would never happen. Eventually the gender clinic psychs saw sense and realised that my mental health is completely unrelated to my gender and I was again given the two signatures needed.
This post isn’t about that day, it isn’t a post about recovery or anything like that, it is about now, about the present. I am very happy with my surgery results, I had a revision in March of this year and that all went well too.
It seems really scary that medical transition is sort of coming to an end. I was discharged from the gender clinic in December and discharged from my chest surgeon in May and it is actually scary. I still have my hysterectomy to come and have an appointment with the surgeon later this month and I get my testosterone injected by the nurse every 3 weeks.
However, since I came out in the first half of 2010 a lot of my life has been about transition, being on waiting lists, waiting inbetween appointments, being amazed at the changes testosterone brought me, becoming distressed at the constant delays to chest surgery, feeling surreal when it happened. I still sometimes forget it has happened.
But now I won’t have these things, the waiting etc and yes that is good, travelling to London every 6 months wasn’t fun and all the waiting certainly wasn’t fun. But things are changing and I don’t cope with that well, but it is also something more.
I feel lost and emotional, something that was so huge for 6 years of my life is almost at an end (yes I am well aware that a hysterectomy is a big deal and will take a while to recover from) I mean being trans in a medical sense is almost at an end and it does make me emotional. I am not going to suddenly become stealth, I have been stealth in some situations and honestly hated it. I am open about being trans, the social and medical sides of it seem separate to me (although also linked in ways) The social side of being trans will continue, but the medical side is almost at an end and that makes me emotional and feel lost. For many it may be a relief, for me it is a loss. Even though I identify proudly as trans and I am pretty confident that will never change, it does feel like one part of being trans is ending and I don’t like that.
I am finding this hard to process. I am honestly glad that I have a reminder of my medical transition every 3 weeks in the form of my testosterone injection. I know many who wish they didn’t have to have a regular reminder of their transition and of being trans, shows we are all different.
Well medical transition it has been a long and hard fought journey, it is nearly the end and I am sad that the end is near.
The Tudors make me tic 
You’re allowed to find it scary. Like you said, it’s been a huge part of your life for so long and it’s a big change to go through. But now it’s even more change because you’re stopping something that’s been a part of life. But you’ve done amazingly to get to this point and I’m confident that you’ll get through the rest. You’ve got a fantastic support network and are incredibly strong, no matter what your naughty noggin thinks at times.
Thank you for the lovely comment.
The word noggin always makes me smile!