Update: GRS, Therapy, Divorce...

7/24/2014

 
Two months from today I'll be having GRS in Montreal with Dr. Pierre Brassard.  I'm cautiously excited, having been through this countdown one time before.  Last time I would always preface my countdown with the disclaimer "if all goes well" as I knew something might happen to prevent me from wanting to leave the country.  My dad's health wasn't good for the last few months and I thought that something might happen to keep me home, but I honestly didn't foresee losing him this soon. 

We are still grieving but things are much better and somewhat back to normal, well as normal as can be expected right now.  I guess I still have to use my cautionary preface, because anything could happen, but I really feel like this is The Time for me.  In the upper right side of this blog I've set up a counter ticking down the days, minutes and seconds to my surgery.  Actually, we know the date but don't know the actual time of surgery yet.  Dr. Brassard starts his daily surgeries at 7 am and it will depend on what order he takes me, but I will at least be prepped and ready to go when the ticker strikes 0.  Yes, he does about 3 of these surgeries a day, sometimes as many as 5.


I want to give a brief explanation of my cover picture at the top of this page, what it means to me.  I took this photo last winter, as a morning's snow was melting in the afternoon sunshine.  Some of the Camellia bushes were blooming because of a recent warm spell and I held the camera low and took the picture looking up through the flowers to tops of the pine trees.  To me, this symbolizes spring coming out of winter and a beautiful time of change.  This shot represents my transition and rebirth, looking up toward the light.  The flowers are slightly blurred but the focus upwards towards the light is crystal clear.  This is where I am going.  Won't you follow me on my journey? 

*****

This week I saw my therapist for the first time since my father's death.  I knew I was going to cry during this appointment so I was extra careful and light with my eye makeup.  We actually had a good visit, I did cry but didn't mess up my makeup.  I'm going to see her one more time before I go to Montreal and maybe I will take my mom to meet her next time.  Mitchell went with me to my last appointment, when my dad was in the hospital.  I'm really glad he got a chance to meet Kimball and we had a good session. 

Some people ask me why I still go to therapy.  We never talk about gender issues now because it's not really an issue anymore.  They were only issues when I was living my life in the wrong gender.  Outside the first few appointments we never spent a great deal of time on gender stuff anyway, I had so much else going on in my life.  I'm sure we've spent much more time talking about my marriage, relationship to Mitchell and my parents than anything else.  That first year we really focused on my anxiety about coming out to my parents.

My therapist told me this week that I was extremely well adjusted and made good decisions.  I don't doubt that now but I really didn't see that coming just two and a half years ago when I first entered therapy.  I told her she should have seen the decisions I was making 10 years ago and she agreed that I wasn't making good decisions then.  I was not well adjusted then either but I did make one Big decision approximately 10 years ago. 

I was facing my 40th birthday, depressed, on drugs, and saw no way out.  I decided to finally allow myself to start letting what was on the inside of me out.  I stopped fighting the urge to dress and started working on a look that would let me get out of my box.  In some ways that meant getting out of the confines of home as a female, as myself, but in some ways it was much more.  I wanted to get out of my old body and life.  I needed that as I felt like I was dying and it was becoming a very unhappy, slow death.  I'd waited long enough.

Life has gradually come into me over this last decade and I feel the next decade will by far be the best ever for me.  My therapist says that there is a saying that women in their 50's are the wise women.  I don't know if I will be wise, but at least I will get to experience that decade as a woman, as myself.

The therapy, which includes transition, has been very effective for me.  I guess at some point I may stop seeing my therapist or at least only go occasionally.  We meet about every 4 to 6 weeks now and I suppose we will keep that interval for at least awhile after my surgery as I am sure there will be many new things to adjust to, both physically and mentally.  I am very happy now overall, often ecstatic, and most of all I have a positive outlook on life.  That is something I did not always have.

Among my trans friends, I think those that are the most unhappy and struggling are those who resist transition, resist their therapy.  Of course everyone is different but in my case the idea was to bring the body, mind and life together.  To live full time, or to be authentic as some call it, is the best therapy there is.  People just have to remove those barriers and roadblocks to get there, or there is suffering.  It's never an easy road, harder for some than others, but I do believe it is well worth it.  For me, it has made all the difference.

"We all have good days and bad days, but I try to be the most positive person I can be because that best reflects the way I feel inside."    Tammy Matthews

*****

After my therapy appointment on Tuesday, I met Joan in Raleigh to take care of some important business.  We still had a joint checking and joint savings account, although I have since opened separate accounts in my name only.  Our business of the day was to go to the bank and take my ownership off the two joint accounts.  Joan would now have accounts of her very own.

She also deposited the check she got from her divorce lawyer (minus his expenses) into her savings account and got her own debit card.  We were in the bank about 45 minutes overall.  I am not sure what the banker thought, but she misgendered me once (calling me he) and told him one time that we were "splitting up."  Other than that she got all the pronouns right and didn't neglect to call me Tammy.  She tries.

We decided to celebrate another level of separation by going out to a nice dinner in downtown Raleigh.  The Pit is an upscale restaurant that serves old fashioned North Carolina barbecue and other southern style food.  Well, it is upscale for a barbeque restaurant anyway, and is a very nice place.  I wanted to try some of the new restaurants downtown but Joan is a lot pickier than I am so The Pit is what we agreed to.
 

The meal was nice but a little bit heavy, as Southern food usually is.  At least we didn't get anything fried.  Joan got barbeque chicken and I think my choice of spare ribs was influenced by knowing my dogs were sitting home wanting the rib bones, but I had been wanting to try that specialty there.  I even had a sangria with my meal.  Rare is the NC barbeque restaurant that serves alcohol but having a nice drink with my meal is something I've come to enjoy.
 

There is one little aspect of our divorce that remains unfinished, the actual divorce.  As I mentioned in my recent post, Separation, we thought we were going to sign divorce papers recently but they were actually just papers finalizing the separation and agreeing to a financial settlement.  I now have, in my eager little hands, the actual divorce papers that just need to be filled out and returned to the lawyer.  Of course waiting for it to get through the court system will take a little while but this the Last Step that will end the marriage.  I know my readers have been exposed to all of my angst over this divorce, but it will be Oh Happy Day when it's all over.

One part of life ends, and another begins.  It is what I signed up for isn't it? 

Leaving Joan alone and ending this marriage is my only regret in transition, but then again that freedom was something I've really wanted for a long time.  I don't like hurting someone, breaking a promise or leaving her alone but when a marriage is not working it's time to end it.  That would be the case for us, transition or not.  I'm just really happy that we remain such good friends and are involved in each others lives. 

It's been a pretty fast transition so far and I am considered a success story at this point, at least from a transition as therapy or transition as life saving process standpoint.  I'm just so ready to get on with the next phase of transition, life and relationships.  Mitchell and I meeting when we we did may just have been perfect timing.  At the time I felt I wasn't ready for a relationship and wouldn't be until maybe after I was divorced and through with or much farther along in transition.  I have to admit that all of this, especially my separation and divorce, has been a whole lot easier because I have him to love and lean on.  Besides, if I didn't have him maybe Joan would have hung on in a "friendship" marriage.  We had that long enough.

Right now, I am ready for bigger and better things....a New beginning.
   
Life is a beach and the future is so bright I gotta wear shades!

100 Days

My GRS, originally scheduled for June 16th has been delayed for 100 days.  Those of you who read my last post, The Premonition, will understand why, but due to my father's passing last week I decided to postpone it.  The new date is September 24, 2014.  If things had gone according to plan, Mitchell and I would be in Montreal right now and I would be checking into the hospital in 2 days for surgery Monday morning.
     

When my father was in the hospital, besides dealing with the anguish of seeing him that bed and the uncertainty of his recovery, I also struggled with the decision of whether to go to Montreal this month or not.  Honestly, when he first fell and was admitted to the hospital we assumed he would be home in a few days.  As his stay drug on closer to a week, I felt like I had to make a decision. 

Some were telling me that if I delayed surgery I would face a huge penalty.  Indeed there is a 50% cancellation fee, but I always felt like they would work with me if I needed to reschedule due to a family emergency.  This wasn't about money anyway, it was about being home when my parents needed me.  It was only the day before he died that I decided I couldn't go this month.  Before that it looked as if he would be stable enough for me to go away for a couple of weeks.

Since coming out to my parents in December 2012, my father supported my transition in every way, including having a desire to see me through GRS.  During my first year full time, when his mind was generally clearer, he would sometimes ask me when I would fully become a woman.  That is the way he looked at it.  He did address and treat me as a woman, although occasionally and understandably slipping into using my old name, but he knew there was something else I needed to complete.  


So my decision had been made the day before he passed away.  It had become obvious that no matter what happened I couldn't leave him right now.  Then on Tuesday June 3rd, my world came crashing down when he left it.  These last days have been hard on my mother and me, and Mitchell too because he is a part of the family now.  It's getting a little bit better for us day by day but we need time to heal and time to grieve.

There was just no way I was going to leave Mama alone right now or check into the hospital for this surgery on Father's Day.  Honestly, after this experience I don't even want to see a hospital right now much less enter one.  I am very disappointed that I'm having this delay but I feel that 100 days is the right amount of time to heal emotionally from the loss of my dad, enough to go through with the surgery.

Now that it's just a couple of days away from my original surgery date, I feel a little bad about it.  It's sort of like I am limbo until the beginning of fall, although any sadness about it is tempered by the loss I'm still dealing with.  I do want to thank Suzanne in Dr. Brassard's office for working with me to get the first possible surgery date after the doctor's long summer vacation.

Some things that were almost perfect about the original date were that it was just a few days before the summer solstice and the day I stopped taking hormones for surgery prep was just a little over my two year HRT mark.  Also, had things worked out I would hopefully be over the worst part of recovery by my birthday.  This is one of those "big" birthdays and now I will be "older" when the big event finally happens.

There are silver linings to this 100 day delay.  I will have all summer to get myself into the type of shape I wanted to be in for surgery.  I lost a few pounds over the last couple of months (half of what I wanted to lose) but did not reach my weight or fitness goals.  Everything would have been acceptable, but now I have another chance to truly get in the shape I want.  There is plenty of time.  I am just hoping for plenty of motivation to make it happen.


Now for the BIG NEWS.  I have already announced this surgery delay on Facebook but I have only informed a few friends of this new development......

My mother is going to go to Canada with Mitchell and I this September! 

When I first asked her she was like, No Way, she was not going to go.  By the next day, she'd had time to think about it and said Yes.  Now she is as excited as we are that she will be joining us for this great adventure.  I even took her to apply for her passport this week.

My mother, father and I visited Montreal when I was a young teenager and my main memory of that visit is the people speaking French.  Otherwise it seemed much like many of the other northern cities we visited during the summer vacations of my youth. 

This time will be Much different in a lot of ways.  We will get there a couple of days early so there will be a little time to sight see before I check into the hospital.  You know me by now, I don't want to go to a new place and not take some time to explore, no matter what I am there for.  Mitchell will have someone to talk to during the long hours that we have to be apart and Mama will have another chance to travel and something to look forward to between now and then.

So this big moment of transition is postponed just a little bit.  I am still going to have a great summer.  Actually, I will probably have more fun this summer than I would have because I won't be recovering but I am still so ready to finish this stage of transition and move on that I don't want to think about the delay.  BUT, I still have something to look forward to and it's not that far away. 

100 days.......

Somewhere in Tammy World: An Update

Somewhere in Tammy World....

Six weeks from tomorrow I will be checking into the hospital.  No, not that hospital, the one in Montreal where Dr. Brassard performs surgery.  I'm not feeling particularly nervous or excited right now but maybe it just hasn't hit me yet.  I have been feeling very happy lately, more than usual and often ecstatic.  I'm going to attribute this surge of feelings to my anticipation of getting this part of transition over with and finally having a body to match my mind.  Looking a few months forward, I think it's going to be really great but I have to get past the pain.  That reality hasn't hit me yet and hopefully it won't until I'm in the recover room.  I'll let you all know exactly how it goes, the good, the bad and the ugly. Hopefully there will be a Lot more good than that other stuff....

This week I went to dinner with my friend Lisa Allyn, who had her GRS with Dr. Brassard in late 2012.  She has a very positive story but she is also very honest with me about all the little things I need to know about going up there.  I'm fortunate to know quite a few friends who have been through GRS, many of them with Dr. Brassard.  A few of them are personal friends so I think I've got a pretty good idea what to expect.  It's different for everybody and never having been in the hospital or having any surgery, I have to admit that even after learning a lot about the experience I have no idea what to expect as far as how I will feel.  It's supposed to be a very emotional time involving a lot of physical pain, but there is a gradual end to the difficult recovery an that's what I am looking forward to.

at dinner with Lisa Allyn....

A quick note about acronyms...

SRS is the older, traditional term for Sex Reassignment Surgery.  Then GRS came along as term denoting Gender Reassignment Surgery.  Now many prefer GCS for Gender Confirmation Surgery.  The evolution of acronyms is sort of like the word transgender replacing transsexual in many cases, as a way to try to remove the word sex from the equation and make it sound better, more politically correct.

In our community you see people use all of these terms plus a few more, sometimes interchangeably.  For me, from now on I am only going to use the acronym GRS because that is what the papers that I received from Brassard's office state.  I am scheduled for GRS, so GRS it is although I think any of the acronyms are viable.  It must be confusing though, for people who know little or nothing about transition.


It Came!

I wouldn't be going anywhere outside the country if my passport did not arrive, and it finally came this week via special delivery.  Mitchell's passport got here a few weeks ago and all I received was a letter stating that my doctor's letter did not have one of the required pieces of information.  So I had to go back to my doctor and get him to write an all new letter.  At least I didn't have to make a special trip as I did it on the same day I went in for my pre op tests.  Speaking of those tests, it's been almost two weeks and I haven't heard back from the doctor's office about them so I have to assume they didn't find anything wrong with me.  I take that as a good sign anyway and have plans to call them the first of the week to see if they have been sent to Montreal yet. 

The final payment for GRS will be due May 16th, once month before surgery.  We are going to make reservations in the next few days, but the plan is for Mitchell and I to fly to Montreal from Raleigh on Thursday.  We will have Friday and Saturday to relax and sight see, then I check into the hospital Sunday night prior to my surgery Monday, June 16th.  Seeing that passport with my picture on it and F for the gender marker made me feel wonderful.  Hopefully I will a letter stating I've had GRS soon and with that I can also get my new birth certificate, which is the only place left that I am still listed as male. 

License to Practice

When I took the class to be a Real Estate Broker back in 2007 I was thinking, maybe this is something I could do as myself one day, although I was more interested in owning/managing rental properties than sales.  The next year, when the fish farm/hatchery I was managing closed down and an opportunity in Real Estate opened, up I went with it.  The first couple of years I made a little bit of money but the market was in a downward spiral.  It was also becoming very difficult to work as my old self.  It felt very fake.  Add that to the fact that I don't really have a "sales" mentality as I'm probably too honest and laid back. 

Doing that business as someone who was going through a crisis of dsyphoria became impossible, so I slowly dropped out but have kept my license active.  The market is very depressed where I live and I doubt I will get into selling real estate again, or make any money with it here in this town, but if I did I know I would do a lot better and be a LOT more comfortable in that field than I used to be. Changing this license is the last piece of the puzzle as far as changing my name and I had to do it before June so that I can take the 8 hours CE to keep my license active. So I am not active in real estate right now (but I can do referrals) and I'm actually very happy to get this in the mail yesterday and place it on my wall.

Pathways

This week this blog reached 150,000 hits and I want to thank everyone for their support and for tuning into Tammy World.  I outreach with a lot of people on the internet and in person and I hear from a lot of people that I inspire them.  I understand that but I don't see why any of them (You) cannot be inspiring as well.  Sometimes we take inspiration where we can get it and if we can see a pathway to get from where we are now to where we want to be it makes the journey much easier. 

If I could have seen a pathway I would have embarked on this journey much sooner than I did, but I am very thankful to be in the position I am now.  We can't look back and regret any mistakes or delays that we think would make things easier now, not matter the situation or context.  Just move forward at a pace you feel comfortable with but try not to suppress doing something you need to do.  That can lead to some potentially major problems.  Wherever you are in life or whatever you are doing, if you are content then be very happy that you are so blessed.  If you are not content then proceed to take the steps necessary to find contentment.

Someone told me when I posted the message below, that I have the ability to talk about transition like it's a regular event.  Well, to me it is a regular event.  To a lot of people it is a strange event they can't understand.  To many it is an event they want or need in their life but they can't see a way to make it happen.  Whatever it is in life that you need to do, just know that you have inside you what it takes to make it happen.  For too long I did not see any possible pathway for me to be myself, even when I got on the internet and saw others successfully making the journey.  I saw too many obstacles, or roadblocks as my friend Lisa Lesher says.  When I figured out that I could do it, things started to fall in place for me.  Believing is over half the battle....

 
It's nice to know that I inspire so many people just by being myself. I don't think I do anything that special really.  It's very easy, trust me.  So now you know that Just by being yourself you too can be an inspiration.  And in your own life it can make All the difference.

Countdown (2 Months)

Two months from today, if everything goes as planned, I will be in Montreal, Quebec, Canada having GRS (Gender Reassignment Surgery).  Today I sent in my initial deposit, about 25% of the total payment due.  So if I pass the pre-surgery physical and nothing happens here at home to delay my trip, my dreams will come true on June 16, 2014.

The plans have been made and stay tuned for further details as things get finalized (hopefully) in the coming weeks.  I guess I still have some anxiety over the physical because I still believe deep down maybe something is wrong with my heart of something else.  I had this same fear about going to the doctor to start hormones but everything checked out ok, so I have to believe it will this time too.  If someone gets sick or there is some tragedy at home, it will only delay my surgery not put and end to my plans.

My plan is to blog about the whole experience from now through the potentially long recovery process.  One of my good friends had her GRS in February, also with Dr. Brassard, and she complained to me today that too many others gloss over the painful details of recovery in their conversations, videos or blogs.  She asked me to be brutally honest in writing about my experience.  That is what I intend to do but I also want to thank her for being honest with me throughout her surgical journey.  it's not always easy but she's been very active almost since the day she got home, so I will take that as a good sign.

Some people I talk to say they had little pain in their recovery, some only taking Advil when they get home and only complaining about having to be inactive for awhile.  Some have a very hard time for awhile or end up with painful complications.  A lot of it is based on individual experience, so honestly I do not know at this point what to expect.  This is one of those things where you have to plan for the worst and hope for the best.  That's the attitude I am going to take going in, but I will tell you this.  I'm going in with a positive attitude and a knowledge that, in the end, I am going to be ok.  I feel confident that I chose the right surgeon. 

Am I scared of surgery, considering I've never had any type of surgery before?  Yes, but I know this is something I need to do to be whole, be complete, to be me.  And therefore I am not going to let fear or anything else hold me back.

Mitchell and I went over the extensive package of information the other day and made our tentative plans for the trip to Montreal.  I am so fortunate to have him in my life, have his unconditional support and especially lucky to have his undying love.  When we went out to dinner that night I just had this feeling come over me.  It was both joy and excitement, but mainly joy.  I told him I was feeling so good at that moment, like everything was finally coming together for me.  These are feelings I've never really had before and even though all through my transition I have had these joyous feelings, this one is somehow a little different.  Things do keep getting better.

When I first started therapy and began to see a clear path to fully transitioning, I would get a grin on my face every time I would think about GRS.  That hasn't changed.  Believe me, the grin was not about lying on an operating table getting surgery.  It was able my life after, the part that I've always dreamed of.  The actual surgery part is the part that sort of wipes the grin off my face because it is a scary thought, I'll be honest with you.  Knowing I will be asleep and it will be over in a couple of hours doesn't completely erase the anxiety.  The recovery will be hard even if it's a best case scenario.  I know that, but still there will be the other side once I get there.  No pain no gain, as they say.  I am just hoping for as little pain as possible and I know I will be ok.

So the journey begins here on my blog.  The road to GRS in Tammy World 2014 begins today I will proclaim, because I sent in my fist payment today.  As someone said, it's now getting real.  Two months from today it will be real.  Stay tuned is all I can say.  I know I use the words "stay tuned" a lot but for this one we are all going to have to stay tuned.  To quote Bette Davis, "Put your seat belt on, it's going to be a wild ride."