A little while ago I wrote this post. I saw the doctor a few days ago and she said that everything is looking fine. The healing is at the stage it should be after eleven weeks. There's still some hardness, but that will likely go away, and even if it doesn't, everything still looks pretty good.

So that's a relief. Nice to know that my nipples aren't about to fall off.

Slight problem on the surgery healing front. Apparently my right side is not healing quite like it should. It will probably only be a cosmetic issue. (Absolute worst case scenario is I lose my areola, but that doesn't seem likely.) I've been given strict orders to stop riding my bike, and I'm trying to be extremely careful with my right side.

What truly annoys me is that the doctor didn't tell me this. When I had my appointment, she made the problem sound not very serious at all, and advised me to cut down on my activity. A few days later, she calls my mom, gives her the horror story "lose your areola" stuff, and tells her that I should be using my right side as little as possible and not cycling at all. This causes my mom to leave a panicked message on my answering machine, which causes me to panic.

One guaranteed way to annoy me is to not tell me stuff. Especially if you go behind my back about it. The doctor was worried that I wasn't concerned enough. Well, of course I wasn't concerned. She made it sound utterly minor. Ugh.

But, the good news is that it seems to be getting better. The pain has almost completely stopped, and I think that it's looking more normal. I'm crossing my fingers.

I am on the verge of losing my mind. The slightest thing sends me sobbing uncontrollably, I'm nigh constantly nauseous from stress, I keep hyperventilating. It's not pretty.

My grades are just a not pretty. I only have one class that I'm doing truly atrociously in, Spanish; but my grades are slipping all around.

It's hard for me to describe just how insane school makes me. I think I'm just worn down by years of stress and misery every damn semester.

I'm also pissed off because the anti-choice group that goes around colleges bringing huge billboards of bloody fetuses is at CU. I really loathe these people. Not only are they disgustingly manipulative (LOOK AT WHAT YOU'RE DOING TO YOUR DARLING LOVELY INNOCENT BABEEEE), they're outright liars. No, morons/assholes , abortion and breast cancer are in no way related. Then again, they wouldn't know a scientific fact if it bashed them over the head. These people make me want to go out, get pregnant, get an abortion, then send them a graphic description of it, telling them that they inspired me to do it. Of course, I wouldn't actually do this. Think of the time and expense!

Another thing I'd like to do is go up to one them and say that we don't yet live in country where women understand that they are dirty, dirty sluts who shouldn't dare do things like make decisions, but I'm glad to see that they're working on it. I also won't do this, as the resulting confrontation would be both futile and annoying.

These people aren't pro-life. If they were pro-life they would be equally against the death penalty, war, putting animals to sleep when they're old and sick, and the use of pesticides. (They claim that the "right to life" begins at conception. Why doesn't a grasshopper deserve life as much as an newly fertilized egg? The grasshopper has higher cognitive functions.)

So, yes, dealing with them all week hasn't made my mood any better.

I don't think that this is connected to the tragic loss of my "I asked God, and she's pro-choice" button, but it's an annoying coincidence.

But, I don't want you to think that my life is one hundred percent misery. There is some pretty amazing news. On May 19th, I'm getting breast reduction surgery. The doctor also seems much more understanding of what I want than last time I met with her. I printed out some pictures from the Title Nine website to give her an idea of what I'm hoping for. She looked at the picture that I like best and noted that the woman had a smaller frame than I do, and that on me that breast size would look very masculine. I told her that I was just fine with that. My mom chimed in, asking the if the doctor was familiar with "butch" and that that was the look that we were going for. When I assured the doctor that there was no such thing as too small, she wrote it down. So, I'm hoping that things will go well. Dude, it's happening in a month.

I'm hungry, so I'm going to see if I can work up the emotional energy to cook (from a box) and then eat.

So, I had consultation for breast reduction surgery today. Good news: I like the surgeon. Bad news: It's highly unlikely (nigh impossible) that insurance will cover it. My breasts aren't big enough for insurance to deem it "medically necessary." Which is annoying, because, as the surgeon explained, it's not about size, it's about how proportional your breasts are to your frame. I have narrow shoulders and a small ribcage, and my breasts are not proportional.

But, despite insurance not covering it, my mom wants to go ahead with it. She actually worked to convince me. Admittedly, I think she's hoping that if I do this, I won't want to get chest surgery (i.e. a double mastectomy) further down the line. That idea really freaks her out.

At first, the doctor and I were on very different wavelengths. She's a plastic surgeon and wants to make my boobs pretty and feminine, and I'm transgendered and want my boobs gone. What we have here is a failure to communicate.

I had decided not to bring up the transgender thing for a variety of reasons, but I did come out as a lesbian just to stop the idea that I would want to attract men. Also, my mom and I used it clumsily to kill the "you won't be able to breastfeed and there will be scarring." Of course, there are lesbians who want children and want to breastfeed them, and who care about having pretty breasts, but... well, we were doing our best to be understood while not outing me as trans. Not as easy as you might think.

Nicely enough, my mom explained in the car that she understands that I'm not a lesbian, but that she wanted to keep things simple. (As did I.)

Anyway, when I started talking about wanting "athletic breasts" the surgeon began to understand. Though, I'm not sure if she really thinks that I want to play sports or if she figured out that "athletic" was a euphemism for "I'm trans!" It was hard to be all that subtle by the end.

I'm glad to say that everyone has been very supportive. My mom's totally gung-ho, and even her husband, who's a total miser, thinks that it's a good idea.

So, I think I'm going to go through with it. It's going to be terribly expensive, but my mom will pay part. This would be such a change. I've hated my body for years. It won't be exactly what I want, but if I never again break down sobbing in the dressing room while bra shopping just because I hate myself so much, then it will worth the price.

I finally had my surgery yesterday--the one that was going to diagnose and possibly treat endometriosis. I was certain that I had endometriosis. So was my mother. My doctor diagnosed it with 90% certainty.

Well, always look at out for that 10%. As, it turns out, I do not have endometriosis. I have primary dysmenorrhea. Actually, it explains my symptoms far better than endometriosis ever did. Endo could never account for the horrible pain that I got in my thigh, but that's one of the tell tale signs of dysmenorrhea. Vomiting, which commonly happens to me is also a common symptom.

"Symptoms of dysmenorrhea usually begin a few hours before the start of menstruation, and may continue for a few days." Yep, that too.

This doesn't actually change my treatment. Endo can't be cured, so treatment was just going to be pain management, which work just as well now.

I'm feeling pretty okay. Some shoulder and abdomen/stomach pain. The shoulder pain comes from fact that they filled my abdomen with gas in order to see better. This gas rose, as gas does, until it settled at the top of my shoulder. This hurts. It will keep hurting until all of the gas is gone. I was actually told to drink soda to help me burp it out (seriously). It was really bad right after the surgery, but now it's faded to the point where it doesn't feel like much more than a pulled muscle. The abdomen/stomach pain comes from the fact that they, you know, sliced me up and now the cuts hurt.

This brings me to an oddity. After a blood draw/injection/IV removal, the nurse always puts a huge piece of gauze on top of my hand or arm and stick it place with a big piece of medical tape. I usually remove them almost right away. There's never more than a few drops of blood and a little pinprick wound there. After slicing into me? They put a little piece of what appears to be medical tape over the cut and then stuck a plain ordinary band aid over it. One of the band aids had to be replaced as soon as I got home because it was so blood soaked. (The other band aid was covering the cut across my belly button. It seems that most of blood pooled in my navel. Fun.) I don't understand the logic.

I sound rather caviler about the blood draw/IV part, but the truth is that I'm downright terrified of needles. Cutting me open? A little scary, but all right. The long list of possible side effects, up to and including DEATH? I'll just count on that not happening. The intense pain afterward? It will pass. The fact that I was going to need an IV? OH GOD, PLEASE NO. SO TERRIFIED. I'M GOING TO CRY. (And I did.) And the fact that nurses kept pointing out that there was not in fact a needle in the IV; it was a piece of plastic? Not helpful, okay? I'm terrified of the idea of needles. It's an intense, irrational fear.

But the worst part in the long run was probably... ( cut for medical/female body part TMI )

The genuinely annoying part? When the nurse told me that the pain was a good thing, because it meant that I wasn't "a loose woman." Thank you for that sexist sexual judgment. May I have another?

Anyway, that concludes this update. In seven to ten days, I'll have another appointment and discuss treatment.

I've finally beginning to make progress on the endometriosis issue. I was going a little crazy being passed from one doctor to another, but I've finally found a doctor to do laparoscopic surgery, which would both confirm that have the disease and let them remove the endometriosis itself. Now, removing the endometriosis doesn't solve the problem. The stupid shit grows back. So, after surgery I'd be treated with Lupron, which would reduce my estrogen and stop the endometriosis from growing. The major downside is that for about a week or so I'd go through menopause, which would be pretty damn unpleasant, especially at 21. But it's my best option.

I set the tentative surgery date today (early January), and had an ultrasound. Said ultrasound...

( Cut for medical/female body parts TMI )

But, besides that (Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?), I'm feeling positive about the experience. I'm so glad to be finally doing something about this horrible problem that I've had for years.