I know. I know.
I’m way late for updates. I have to admit work has been busy and I’ve been focused on that recently. It also had me traveling a bit so that added more to my challenges. It’s been fun being able to go to a variety of places for work. Recently, I’ve been to Orlando, Austin, Minneapolis (that gets almost as cold as Ottawa!) and San Jose. And now, I get ready for my most fun trip yet: Sydney, Singapore and Beijing! I’m truly excited about this and buying extra flash cards for the cameras (I’m going to bring both my Powershot and my Canon DSLR with me). I’ve managed to add in a few extra days in Sydney and Beijing to try to do some touristy stuff. Basically, I get 3-4 days in each city (2 days of teaching and 1 day of travel). What will be interesting is how being a transsexual might be viewed or challenged on these trips. I’ve gotten oks for travel for Sydney and Singapore (Australia requires a visa and Singapore I don’t need one) but Beijing is the one that worries me the most. I’m waiting for that one to return an ok on my visa (along with passport and my H1-B visa). I should know by tomorrow.
I finished my taxes early and because of my move and the way that my pay got changed, I’m getting a sweet tax return. Because of this (and some money I had set aside for what I thought I would have to pay) I’m probably going to get a new MacBook Pro for myself along with a couple of other computers (so I can build a home lab environment). And, finally going to do something that I’ve wanted to do for a long time: top surgery. Even as a kid, having “moobs” was never something I liked. I just had no connection to them. I went to a couple of consults, asked a tonne of questions and finally decided on a surgeon. I put down a deposit of $500. I’m hoping that insurance will cover some of it (if it’s 50% or more, I’d be thrilled but any amount is better than nothing).
For me, this is the step I want most. Once done, I will decide afterwards if I want any bottom surgery beyond a hysterectomy (I want that simply because of the risk of cancer increases as I continue to take T and if I get that surgery, then my dosage can be reduced). I so want a summer where I don’t have to wear a binder — and perhaps even go topless. I still have my big bike trip for next year planned, although I need to get my training plan back into some kind of order. I’d like to be able to do this without wearing a binder.
Speaking of health, the training plan got shelved a bit after I threw out my back something fierce (sitting, standing or lying down was painful). I’ve finally got to a chiropractor and have been getting regular treatment to address this long term. The surgeon I saw said that likely this surgery will help with my back pain as he feels I’m overly “top heavy”. I suspect he’s right since I’ve had upper back pain all my life.
In other health fronts, we’ve been wavering on our eating and our vegan lifestyle. This is something that I definitely want to get back to. I have found that when I’m just vegetarian I feel listless and tired but when I’m vegan, particularly raw vegan, I have more energy, focus and direction. I think I need to re-read “The China Study” and re-watch “Earthlings” to remind me of the things I do not want to do and why I don’t want to do it.
Overall, I have to say that my transition has been amazing for me. There is one thing, however, that still saddens me and that is the loss of my dad. He’s around but just doesn’t seem to want to talk to me. In some ways, I understand why (he’s a very right-wing Catholic) but it’s still a bit sad. I suppose since we never really had contact when I was growing up it’s not that big of a deal for me (I’d be more devastated if my aunts, uncles and/or my grandmother refused to speak to me) but still..
Ah well… so that’s all my news for now. I’ll probably do some updates when I’m on the road over the next few weeks (I, oddly enough, leave on my 41st birthday — a week from today!) as I suspect it should make for some interesting reading.