Countdown: Two Months Away!

 I'm sitting on my porch on a damp, foggy, Saturday morning. The world feels heavy and wet and still, aside from the birds shaking their wings and the occasional cyclists passing by, their fluorescent jackets bright against the green-gray tree line. As of yesterday I am two months away from metoidioplasty, which is an amount of time that I am still trying to wrap my head around! It feels very close and still quite distant. I'm trying to tell myself that it is the perfect amount of time in this moment - enough to continue planning and contemplating, but not so much that my waiting is really all that unpleasant. There's still plenty of work to do before I have surgery, so let's dive into that for the sake of logistical planning!

Last time I made a post about logistical things was August 26th, so I'm working off of that. At that point I had booked my AirBnB and had just unofficially told my employer that I would need time off of work. Since then, I've secured a pre-operative appointment with my (new) PCP in my area, started the process of applying for medical leave with the state, and bought some supplies for surgery. I also scheduled a massage for myself at the beginning of next month and might schedule another one for the beginning of November - I really want to do everything I can to make sure my body is as physically prepared as possible! I've yet to hear from insurance but it still might be a little early for that, as stressful as it is.

So, currently, my timeline looks like this:

• Friday, October 29th: Pre-operative appointment with PCP
• Tuesday, November 16th: Rapid COVID test
• Wednesday, November 17th: Day of surgery
• Monday, November 29th: First post-operative appointment
• Thursday, December 16th: Second post-operative appointment and retrograde urethrogram

I've had lots of intense mixed feelings with surgery now only being two months away! I feel mostly positively about everything, though naturally I'm also feeling more nervous, more sadness about being away from my home (and really, my cat) for over a month, and more anxiety around my care needs being a burden to others. This last one is definitely something that I'm making up in my head, but as someone who feels a lot of strength in my independence (especially after struggling a lot with codependence in the past) it's difficult to relax into being fully dependent on others. I'm working on making peace with it.

Alright I keep stepping away and not having more to say, so I'm going to leave it at that for now!