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Sunday 8 March 2015

So close now

Its almost two months until I pack my case, get on that train and head across the Southern England to Brighton.
This week I had a letter in the post confirming my appointment and detailing everything else that needs to happen or that I need to do between now and then.
On Friday I had a phone call from my GPs surgery to arrange for me to go in and have bloods taken and to have my height and weight measured so that my BMI can be calculated and passed to Brighton.
I've done an unofficial BMI measurement using what I know my weight and height to be roughly using the BMI calculator on the NHS website.
I came out as overweight. To get into the normal, not overweight, range I have to loose nearly 10kg or just over  a stone. Since I've spectacularly failed to lose any weight over the last year, despite trying my best, which isn't easy when you have a son that you are trying to get to put on weight, and also currently training for a marathon, its going to be interesting to hear what Brighton say.
To be honest I might be carrying a few more extra pounds but I actually feel fitter than I have for ages. This morning I completed, and yes it was a little bit hard towards the end, a 10 mile run. Two weeks ago I completed a 13 mile, two and a half hour run, along the route for the Yeovil half marathon that I'll be doing at the end of the month. The last couple of miles I even found myself acting as an impromptu run leader because the pace group I was with ended up splitting because two of the runners were a lot slower than the other half of the group so the group leader took them ahead while I brought made sure the last two got back safely.
By the time I get to Brighton I'll also, knee willing, have completed a marathon.
I may not be at my fastest over longer distances at the moment but at shorter ones I'm almost running at my pre-transition pace.

So a week Monday (16th March) I have to see the nurse at my GPs so that she can extract some of the red stuff from my arm and then weigh and measure me so we have my BMI.
The following Friday I'll be back to see my GP so that we can discuss the rest of the letter, particularly me having a drug called Zoladex which will hopefully stop, or at least reduce, any surge in testosterone levels I might experience when I stop my hormones, which will happen on the 30th March.
On the 30th April I have my pre-op assessment, which is being done over the phone so I don't have to travel all the way to Brighton again.
2 to 3 weeks prior to surgery I have to stop any electrolysis, laser and hair removal on the surgical site. That is going to be the interesting bit as I currently have electrolysis scheduled right up until a week before surgery. I'm going to see if I can get away with missing the last two weeks and having my last session 3 weeks out. It does mean that I'm going to have to discuss doubling up on sessions some weeks to make sure that as much hair as possible is removed. Currently it looks like I was going to have 3 of the 30 sessions that I've had funded spare, and fitting those in as extra sessions was something we were looking at already. I'm definitely going to have to discuss the possibility of adding in the extra sessions this week when I have my next session.

The most interesting thing that the letter did tell me that I'd have to do was to stop wearing tight underwear a number of weeks before the surgery because it could cause skin irritation that wouldn't be good. It doesn't say how tight is tight so I'm thinking that a shopping trip to buy several pairs of sexy french knickers might be in order :-)

So with two months to go things are getting exciting, busy, scary and all sorts of other emotions. Next weekend I'm going to have to make a concerted effort to get everything that is on my list of things I need post-op as well as the things I need for when I go into hospital

And for someone that has always had their transition pretty much under control the next few months look like being scarily interesting as things begin to be taken out of my control, including the moment that I have the sleepy stuff and drift off to wake with my body in its wonderfully new anatomical configuration.

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