It's officially seven weeks since the op and here's the score card.
Pain: none. I get the occaisional muscle spasm when inserting the smaller dilator but nothing unbearable.
State of body: I've still got secretions but the sick smelling liquid is long gone and the volume isn't enough to even bother with napkins over. I've been out clubbing a few times and I have noticed however that the more energy I expend the more mucus comes out. Nature's way of telling me to settle down I guess. I don't feel like I've been overdoing it.
State of mind: ask someone less biased {;-) I feel fine. The depression of the last few weeks has subsided, probably not uncoincidentally with some scheduled paid work arriving tomorrow and generally starting to sort out my affairs.
Horizon: I don't go back to Charing Cross until the second week of June so I have to wait until then to ask my burning questions.
Q) How little exercise should I be doing? I want to run, jump, blade and dance.
Q) What can I expect from my clitoris? Is there normally more sensation than this?
Getting lazy. This is bad. It's only been seven weeks and I'm already starting to slack off dilating. It's not that it's unpleasant, well it's not great either, it's just that I can't sit still. I'm running around the place like a lunatic and I should really just be looking after the body. Dilating calls...
Six weeks and a few days after surgery and I've been weaned off the ring. Funny to think that only a few weeks ago, aving an inflatable rubber ring, the kind that some post-natal women use, was an absolute godsend. Sitting on a hard seat was impossible. Now I'm over it. Once your bits are solid enough to take some sedentary pressure there is little incentive to use the ring.
Don't expect to find the MSN community "Transsexuals are here to stay" using the MSN search engine.
Protests were called after msn.com made their search engine off-limits to those seeking information resources under the term "transsexual."
Instead you will get the message "You have entered a search term that is likely to return adult content" and a page providing a link solely to 'transsexual' at NightSurf.com, a porn site advertising "Sexy TransSexual" and "Chix with Dix" as its top two sites.
Activists have found that only "transsexual" is being blocked in this way. Terms such as "transgender," "gay," "lesbian" are not affected, nor is S&M.
Effectively msn.com is refusing to run the search because of possible sexual content - and then directing the user to a commercial porn site! Nice one.
As a result, msn.com have created a grotesque situation which both sexually stereotypes the transsexual community and denies those seeking support information about gender dsyphoria a means to obtain it.
Protests to msn.com should be made via http://www.msn.com/feedback.ashx as a comment on the Search facility
Last year, similar actions against e-mail provider V21 and the Internet giant Yahoo! both resulted in climb downs.
I wake up feeling energised. I've had my third full night of sleep.
Richard from connect arrives with my laptop. Of course it isn't completely fixed but at least there's an operating system again. I'm not really in the mood for using computers in bed any more - i want to get out in the sun - but it's nice to know if I go through another major surgical event I can now watch DVDs in bed.
I get up early and go to see a man about a morgage. No dice. Luckily I run into Liz in the street and we go for coffee. We're both walkers from way-back so I end up accompanying her on a half hour walk to work.
I catch the train back home by which time I'm feeling energised and happy. I must do more walking.
I stay up late watching Ring 2, cute but creepy, and smoke the last of my convalescence weed.
Do I have a clitoris? That is the question. I had a pretty good day. Sat in front of the stupid macchines and tried to fix problems. Re-learnt how to do basic programming, the cut 'n paste then tweak kind. Even that took hours. And what for? To remove from view one of the only things I've ever done that was on the right track for me.
Don't mind me, the two fingered one-handed typist. With my other hand i'm holding a glass rod up my snatch. It used to be so the hole won't close. Now it's comforting. OK sure I'm not out of the woods yet but I'm feeling better. Sudden sharp switch as some suture pulls loose. the guy's handiwork seems to be holding.
The clit area, under suspicion that it is, has cleared up since yesterday. Not much pus and encouragingly there is a construction which could resemble a sensory organ. We'll see but not quite yet. The thought of inadvertently dislodging my surgery is too much. I'll play it safe like the good little dodgy white girl I am.
A pause for somber reflection, JACK readers may consider how easy it would be to just run on and never experience what I'm going through right now. And they'll bloody love it. Courses for horses or something like that. i'm trying something different but yup, less accurate piss targeting ahead. Here's one to being a boy and what all us MtF trannies throw aside. Enjoy!
Rock bottom. Today I felt like I'm on my way down. Had a tiff with Chris when he arrived and hed stormed off after about five minutes. He came back, we hugged, and I was shaky for the rest of the day. Mich said "Make yourself some lunch, take it easy for a bit and then go to electrolysis." Instead I drank two cups of coffee and restored Chris's email.
Eunice said I looked pale when I arrived at the Beauty Place. She was right. On the tube I'd felt weary and queasy. Ive been spending not a helluva lot of time in bed this week. I'd pretty much forgotten I'd had surgery.
I'm becoming a technology casualty. Mich suggests that I need an acoustic analog life. She's right. It's doing my head in.
Everything I try to do is complicated by some thing or another. Digital perfection does not exist. Digital admin is becoming the bane of my existence.
I canlt think. I can't type. I can't sit. I can't talk to anyyone. I've got no idea what i'm going to do next and yet I know I've got it in me to be a star if I so choose to be. I've got enough originalattributes to make the exotica grade. I can shimmy in close-ups and be athletic in the wide shots... or can ? When was the last time that I sprinted? Since my tits? I can't remember . I can remember Fiona running full-tilt in grade 5, bouncing them so hard they almost rebounded off her face. How we snickered after she ran past. And how bad did I feel when I ignored her love note that I found tucked in my school locker. Poor thing. How was she to know that it wasn't a simple case of rejection. I wouldn't have known one end of self-awareness from the other at that time. Frantically cross-dressing in every spare minute, resenting the girls at school most of the time without realising it. It was too easy to slip into follow the boy mode back then. I remember taking Anne onto the dance floor alongside Brett and Courtney. SHe like the way i danced, it was the firt time I'd done it. It wasn't like I spent time looking at myself in the mirror apart from wearing Mum's clothers.
I've decided that I am a try-hard but not a particularily effective one. I can't pace myself. I'm good at doing some things and yet I beat myself over the head trying to get things working that would be best left to others.
Oh dear... I hope I feel better soon.
I wake up refreshed, only the second full night's sleep.
Tried to work all day without much success. Thick pus coming from the clitoral area but doubt is seeping in that I've even got one. This thought sends me into a tizzy for the rest of the day.
In a panic I try stimulating myself lying on the bed. I quickly give up, all I'm doing is aggrivating things further. Not a good idea. I'm wondering if I'm going to be a sexual casualty once all ishealed up. For the first time I feel as if I'm left with a stump.
I go to the Strand for electrolysis standing on the tube. The thought of the hard seats is too much. I manage the trip there and back without problems.
I keep fiddling on the computer, somewhat awkwardly as I can't sit for long. We have dinner in bed.
I spend most of the day trying to sort out my laptop. No luck. I can't even find my email.
Dilating is fine but pus is coming out from the clitoris.
Mich and I go out for indian. It's not very comfortable even on a padded seat. I prefer to walk.
Urinary tract infection or something which makes peeing really slow and uncomfortable. In hindsight now i'm not sure it was an infection because I didn't get a burning sensation.
Easy dilating. Not much mucus.
Nostalgia for sexual intercourse as a man. Have I done the wrong thing?
Watched movies all day. Feeling burnt out and useless. Computers conspiring against me.
Wake up worried that my wound may have closed. False alarm. A little tighter but the passage opens up again alright.
Mich and I go shopping. I find Waitrose a little tiring and I'm sore over brunch in la galette afterwards. Too cold to wander around. I lie in bed after that and sleep.
Inserted my first pessary, and my finger. Felt weird to be fingering myself as a girl. Positive thoughts. I've only had a few moments like this. Like going to tuck my dick down after sitting on the loo; an unconscious movement born from living with a tiny, prone to poking upright, impediment.
I'm enjoying pee'ing as a girl. I wasn't expecting that. Isn't that one of the great male privileges? I'm learning something every day.
Fiona comes in at 6am. Sleep in. Wake up for an acupuncture session with Rose. Less tension I feel, "Less stagnation" says Rose. I get two additional needles, one in each hand between 2nd and 3rd knuckles, the stimulation of these points sends my hands numb.
Fiona and I meet Christine,Simon and Bonnie and go to the Cannibus Day festival in Brockwell Park. This is my first major outing. Better than last year, there are slivers of sun. I feel fine on the hoof, and manage a pretty good pace leading a stoned party back home so that Fiona can catch her flight.
I miss my first dilation, the last one of the day. I'm too zonked.
No luck with the laptop. I stress but go out to Piccadilly, first bus ride, to pick up my new glasses. Feeling so good on the way out that I think about going in to DTI next week. A few hours later I'm not so keen. Things are starting to throb again. Chris buys me lunch. I try to get my laptop sorted. Irrational panic setting in. I hate this feeling.
Chris buys me a drink after 5pm. I go out with Fiona and friends to innecto for cocktails. I'mstarting to get uncomfortable so I miss dinner and head home. Watch Bamboozled from an armchair. Either the movie was too intense or I'm healing - no great discomfort.
SRS Lesson 32 - don't fuck with technology at the same time.
I can't believe it. So much for working from bed. I've stuffed up my laptop and can't log in. Dodgy Mcafee privacy service. Then strike two: my email/contacts disappear. I start to have conniptions for all the wrong reasons.
May Day. Didn't sleep well. Bathing and dilating is less of a chore but nothing is coming out of the wound, no string at least.
Felt ok. Spent the morning liasing with Connect linux support. Looks like we may get our admin problems sorted out at last. Bright and sunny. Hobbled out to get a sandwich at lunch. Felt too uncomfortable to sit in the park so went straight back.
Lay in bed with a laptop all afternoon. Reasonably comfortable. Stopped wearing napkins, more comfortable just in panties and weeping isn't too bad now. Walked down to video store late with Mich. Throbbing has subsided. Main discomfort is in the chewed labia again.