February 2009
My last update was very upbeat, the reason for the big time gap is that I struggle to write when I'm feeling down. I spent five weeks in Romania without anybody treating me badly at all, then I got to Bucharest Airport and things started to deteriorate for me. KLM (the Dutch airline) ground staff insisted on referring to me as Sir, even when I told them that they were wrong and pointed to the place in my passport where it indicates that I am female. To make matters worse the flight from Bucharest was delayed for so long that I missed my connection and spent a night at KLMs expence in a hotel on my own giving these people even more opportunities to call me Sir. If a thug in the street shouts some random abuse at me I don't find that difficult to take but when I am a paying customer and the person providing the service for which I am paying treats me badly even when I have attempted to correct them I soon become a quivering wreck. On the final leg of my journey I was fighting to hold in the tears. I will not be using KLM for my personnal travel or that of my family in the future, their staff need re-training.
Anyway, in December I was at home during the run up to Christmas and I continued to feel depressed, my main feeling being that my transition was proceeding far too slowly. The gender specialist I see in London had prescribed Testosterone suppressant drugs but my GP refused to administer them on the grounds that his Medical Defence Association had advised him not to take part in procedures with which he is unfamiliar. If he is the doctor present when your life is at risk and to save you he must use an unfamiliar procedure its possible he will let you die to please his Medical Defence Association. Next I approached a clinic in Nottingham with respect to a type of Breast Enhancement procedure using a substance called Macrolane. This has been used in the past to fill out wrinkles on peoples faces but has recently been introduced in larger quantities for breast enhancement without surgery. My Gender Specialist advised me not to go for silicone breast implants until my breasts have reached their full growth, which can take two years. He suggested the Macrolane treatment as an alternative because it is absorbed by the body over a period of about two years requiring periodic refills. By the time my breasts were fully grown the Macrolane would have been absorbed and I could go for Silicone implants if I felt I still needed them. Unfortunately and strangely in my opinion ones breasts can be too small for Macrolane treatment. If the doctor concerned considers your breasts too small he will suggest Silicone implants instead which in my case is not currently an option. So things were not going well and I was surrounded by happy children excited about approaching Christmas which just seemed to make me feel more depressed.
I finally snapped out of it over Christmas and the New Year. Christmas Day was the best I could remember for me. I received gifts I wanted and could never get before. Things like jewellery, make up, clothes and bubble bath. The kinds of things I have always wanted to receive but of course nobody knew that except me. On New Years Eve we had the usual family gathering at our house and by all appearances it appears that my family have now accepted me as I am. I beat Christopher in our annual New Year unicycling race, the first time since the beginning of my transition, bringing the score to two all.
Shortly afterwards my shift at work started again. I was working in Aberdeen, first preparing and then running a Seismic Survey for UKCoal at Harworth Colliery then taking part in a Perforating job (just using my pointing finger) in Penketh near Warrington. My workmates on both jobs ate their meals with me in the same restaurants and drank their celebratory drinks with me after the jobs in the same bars as me without showing any sign that they thought their circumstances odd. My workmates have treated me normally for several months now.
That brings me to the end of my shift and the start of my leave. Right now I am in good health both physical and mental. I am not depressed and I am reasonably optimistic about my future. Long may this continue.
