As of today, I have two weeks to go at work and then I begin three months of leave for surgery. On Tuesday, it will be three weeks until the surgery itself.

I find it hard to express just how excited I am for this to happen and especially for me to be on the other side of it. I need this and it's happening!

Admittedly, I am nervous about the regional anaesthetic situation, but I do have a virtual consult scheduled with the nurse there on June 1 and hope that it will put my mind at ease for that part.

Friends, is this good?

So with things looking up like this, even I've found it surprising that I'm also reaching new lows. Like my mind has already priced in and successful surgery and has moved on to other places on my body it finds bothersome.

Like many trans women, I'm not satisfied with my face. Caught as I am between dietary challenges and plain old dysphoria, I have been successful in threading any sort of needle and just settling on it just not being my best feature.

It's my face.

It's what people see.

It's what I see too.

Recently, while out and about making photos, I caught my reflection in a some storefront glass. While it I know that it was at an odd angle, I was repulsed. Like honest-to-goodness repulsed by my own reflection.

And if I'm going to be repulsed by it, then others must be too. :/

So, naturally, when I got home, it was right to a search engine and to the wesbites of surgeons who provide for FFS.

I guess I've made my next surgery decision. Even before a scalpel has been flashed before me.

At least for now!

It's always going to be possible that I pull myself well enough back from this relapse that I return to the weight I was at back in September. Looking at photos from then, I was softer, rounder, and less severe-looking, but also very much at a healthy weight. I won't discuss numbers, but I know that would benefit from gaining. Now to just convince a certain hobgoblin...

This one will be a bigger challenge to face, since I don't have the sort of money one may need to pay for it out-of-pocket and will not crowdfund (there are others who need it much more).

Instead, I will prepare myself fight with my insurance company. While on paper our benefits as public servants include a generous-sounding allotment for gender care, I know of very few people who have been successful in actually accessing these funds. At least not without a considerable fight.

There are most definitely other areas dysphoric feels have attched themselves to, but there is nothing that may be done about them. For those, I will just have to learn to reconcile and work around them.

May 25, 2026