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I was just watching a video on YouTube posted by Phil DeFranco's wife (he's a funny youtuber with a take on the news I often enjoy and watch sometimes) and she is describing a break in that had happened to them, and talking about it made her cry. After we had the break in, I couldn't talk about it without falling to pieces either, and I wasn't entirely sure why, as we were not injured and yes we lost a lot of things, but we were okay and it was over. Watching someone else struggle with the same feelings in a similar situation is really reassuring on so many levels. That my reaction was normal, I'm not overly weak, not overreacting, not alone in having to get through the experience. It's weird to me how wired my brain really is sometimes to find that much comfort in knowing other people react the same way, when usually I think in terms of my emotions are my emotions and they're okay whatever they are. Apparently I have a subconscious or suppressed desire for external validation I don't really think about or address until it comes to me, usually by blundering into it. This happened five years ago, and there are lingerings feelings and behavioral changes from it. Like Nikki has to be home or close by home after dark or I get really freaked out. If he's going to be upstairs sleeping and I"m still awake down here the lights have to be on so I can see and usually netflix is playing on his computer for me so I don't hear every little creak of the house and obsess over what that sound was. i get weirded out when the motion sensor light in the backyard is on, although honestly it's sensitivity is crazy high, and we have bats, squirrels and rabbits all over the yard setting it off. Everyone told me that Ohio would be so much better than New Jersey, but the bad things happened to me here, and not back home. Which just tells my brain no where is safe. Which is true, and it's good to be aware of that, but at the same time, we all want to FEEL safe in our homes. X_X. The wind is blowing something outside and there is a thumping and it's creeping me out right now, even though it's broad daylight and there is no one outside. I know, because I checked. Four times. I guess some things you don't get over, not all the way.

I'm currently heading home after day 1 of a two day training course. The training is in mental health first aid. Not only is it fascinating and educational, but it's also enlightening from the perspective of my own mind. I've learned a lot today. About how to spot signs that a person's mental health may be taking a dip. And that includes my own. Day 2 promises to be just as educational. The trainer appeared to be a little worried that she might have stressed us out and she has sent us home with homework: take an hour when you get home to do something that you enjoy. I'll be getting on my bike. And I'll be asking my husband how his day has gone. And I'll be taking the time to listen to what he really says. I think he's under stress too at the moment. I think I've neglected him somewhat recently. Time to start to put that right.

The following is an article that a friend sent me, with which I really resonate with. "Wondering what relationship stage you're in right now? Here are the nine relationship stages that all couples go through, not how love starts." "Relationships are unique. No one experiences love in the same way." "You may have been in several relationships in your life, and every relationship is unique. But there are a few traits that are in common with every relationship." "Relationships, just like life, have their own stages. It starts off with infatuation/limerence and goes through several stages. These stages are like tests that check your compatibility with each other. Go wrong anywhere along the way, and your relationship will take the brunt of the fall." "Have you ever met a couple who seemed like they were going to stay together forever, but ended up breaking up a few years later? Perhaps, in all probability, they went wrong in one of these stages of the relationship." "Are you in a new relationship? Or are you in a seasoned relationship with someone you've been with for several years? It doesn't matter how long your relationship lasted because all relationships will fit in one of these relationship stages." "Find your own relationship stage here, and it'll definitely help you understand your own love life better." "Stage #1 THE INFATUATION STAGE. This is the first stage in every relationship. It almost always starts with an intense attraction and an uncontrollable urge to be with each other. Both of you may be intensely sexually attracted to each other, or both of you may just love the cuddles and each other's company. In this stage, both of you overlook any flaws of each other and only focus on the good sides." "Stage #2 THE UNDERSTANDING STAGE. In this stage, both of you start getting to know each other better. You have long conversations with your partner that stretches late into the night, and everything about your partner interests and fascinates you. You talk about each other's families, ex's, likes and dislikes and other innocents secrets, and life seems so beautiful and romantic." "Stage #3 THE STAGE OF DISTURBANCES. This stage usually forces its way into a happy romance after a few months of blissful courting. Do you remember the first fight or angry disagreement you and your partner had? For the first time ever in the relationship, both of you confront each other over a conflict, even thought it's sorted out quickly." "Stage #4 THE OPINION MAKER. In this stage, both of you create opinions about each other. As the months pass by, both of you know what to expect from each other, and you make an assumption about your partner's commitment towards the relationship." "When these opinions and expectations about your partner differ now and then in real life, it can either leave you ecstatic OR depressed." "You don't expect your mate to buy you flowers, but they do. You feel ecstatic. At the same time, you expect them to pick you up from the airport on time. But they arrive an hour later because they forgot all about picking you up. It depresses you." "Stage #5 THE MOLDING STAGE. You have your own expectations from an ideal partner. And in this stage, both of you try hard to mold each other to fit your own wants in a perfect partner. This stage is a lot about give and take, and both partners constantly try to subtly convince each other to change their behavior towards the relationship. This can be a power struggle, and one that can end the relationship if both partners are domineering." "Stage #6 THE HAPPY STAGE. If the relationship survives past the MOLDING STAGE, both of you may have changed equally for each other and understood each other's expectations. In this stage, the relationship cruises along perfectly and both of you may be blissfully happy with each other." "Almost always, this is the stage when both of you feel like an ideal match. You may even decide to get engaged or get married. This happy stage is also the stage of attachment when both of you truly feel connected to each other and love each other intensely." "Stage #7 THE STAGE OF DOUBTS. It has been several years since both of you have been in a relationship with each other. And somewhere along the way, doubts start to creep in. The intensity of the doubts depend on how happy both of you are in the relationship." "You start to think of your past relationships, your ex's, and other prospective partners. You tie your happiness in life with your relationship. If you're unhappy, you blame it on the relationship." "In this stage, you start comparing your relationship with other couples and other relationships. Would your relationship survive this stage? It definitely could, as long as your relationship isn't monotonous and repetitive." "Stage #8 THE SEXUAL EXPLORATION OR BUST STAGE. This is the stage when your sex life starts to play a pivotal role. Both your sex drives may change or one of you may get disinterested in sex." "In this stage, you either give up on passionate sex or constantly look for ways to make sex more exciting. If sexual interests start differing here, one of you may end up having an affair. But on the other hand, if you find creative ways to make sex more exciting, your relationship could get better and bring both of you a lot closer." "Stage #9 THE STAGE OF COMPLETE TRUST. This is the happy stage when both of you love each other and trust each other completely. But at the same time, the unbreakable trust in each other could also turn into taking each other for granted." "In this stage, both of you know the direction of the relationship and both of you are completely happy with each other and find it easy to predict each other's behavior and decisions. But with stability in love comes the urge to take each other for granted." "As pleasant as this final stage of love may be, it's still no excuse to take each other lightly or stop appreciating each other, because love is an intense emotion that can be rekindled by anyone else at any time if you fail to express your romance to your lover." "If you're in a relationship for a while, you may have experienced all OR most of these relationship stages. And if you're still in a young love, don't let the dark side of these relationship stages scare you." "Instead, look at these nine relationship stages as stepping stones into a better future, one that's filled with a lot of love and happiness, just as long as both of you remember to keep love alive all the time." --- Denise S. And, now, I would love to hear from you, my fellow TGGuide members, whether or not you resonate with this article, or which parts you do and which parts you do not resonate with. Your friend, Monica

We'd finally gotten settled with a good doctor, who knows about Nikki's issues and has been great with both his and mine, and the main office is closing our town's location. ARGH! Finding the right doctor and getting a comfortable relationship going is HARD. *headdesk*

It's actaully not that uncommon for epilepsy to be undiagnosed for a period of time. There isn't really a specific test for it, epilepsy is a diagnosis of exclusion. When everything else is ruled out, and that is what is left, that is when you get the diagnosis. If it's not a severe case that rarely triggers, even decades isn't that surprising. I know what you mean, my parents just accepted that my dietary beef issue was something 'in my head' and I was a hypochondriac, no one had looked at my diet and figured out it was dietary. Once the mystery was finally solved it was really a huge relief.

Waiting for my hair to dry out, and then I'm putting the one thing about my physical form I feel good about into...Nikki's hands. He's going to first bleach it, then dye it deep emerald green. I'm finally going to have my dream hair, my favorite color, green. I've been trying to do my part to help find the balance between Nikki's two sides, and have invited him as far into the girl world as I go, which isn't far really, when someone online is judging me purely on behaviors and interests they usually assume I'm male until it comes up and I realize it and say um...nope, sorry. I guess I'm horrible at being girly, so I just go for being me and not giving a crap. But sometimes I wonder if my lack of girlness is not helping right now. But anyway, my hair. So instead of going off on my own or calling one of my girlfriends I put the stuff in Nikki's hands and said let's do this. I think he's kinda excited about that, and mentioned that he'd like me to do his (he's eyeing this lovely black shade with deep shimmery sapphire highlights we saw when I was picking up a processing cap for the bleaching). I'm super excited! I think it'll look great on him. I"m extremely nervous as despite all the color play I've done with my hair, I have never bleached it before. I always just went with the subtler shades if I was lightening it (often used a blond dye in the winter to get my dark hair to something close to its summer red) or hennas. Fairly gentle to the hair itself. If my hair wasn't so dark I wouldn't do it, but it's really dark and gets darker with age and I'd like more than the really really subtle color it would have if i didn't bleach it. So wish me luck! And, hopefully, Nikki will have a blast. Or at least not blind me with bleach in my eyes.

The following is scary to say the least. Ten days ago I was there for a male to female having reassignment surgery. The surgery lasted too long in my opinion and that the reason was the surgeon caused a rectovaginal fistula. A friend of hers was told (but not me) that she had gas coming out the vagina on Friday and the friend got her to call the hospital who said they would get back to her but never did. I did not hear about this until this morning, she text’ d me and said she was concerned. I went over and got her to take pictures and send them to the surgeon. Now this is 10 AM this morning, he said to come in a 5 PM. seriously, this is one bad thing after another. I learned that while she was in the hospital the care provided was unprofessional from assisting her keeping clean (they would not clean her breast or bottom) to providing sedatives for pain (I had sedatives pushed into me non-stop). Just the other day I learned that OSU, the hospital here in Oregon had a bad reputation for how transgender people were treated and that they were in a transition period to overcome the bad reputation. Any ways, just received a text from her, they are keeping her tonight. I did not inquire why but a decent guess is because of the rectovaginal fistula. Now with all this mentioned, she had no real choice being on social security, out of work, never being able to afford surgery. Couple this with extreme dysphoria and a surgeon who has done six reassignment surgeries prior is a recipe for what happened. It really is a catch 22 per-say, boxed in with a one way pass to live with the dysphoria or roll the dice with a surgeon with little experience. One last thing, when I arrived at her house she was drinking some dark drink. I said, it’s close to 100 degrees outside, you are just out of surgery and need to stay properly hydrated so I went out and purchase a 24 pack of bottled water and insisted she drink this rather than chocolate milk. One must realize that after a major surgery such as this the body is in recovery mode for many weeks to follow and must treat your body well. Lesson to take away, if you don't have the funds to obtain reassignment surgery you may very well be in the hands of people who may perform a bad procedure and as with this person have poor aftercare. If this is you, pay attention to your body after surgery, don't dismiss even the little things, call them out to those who are taking care of you and this might simply save your life.

I really liked this one. She was easy and comfortable to talk to and was great when they thought that lump on my ovary might be A Problem. I don't want to start over. *whiny Bree* Gonna get yelled at today by my Gyn too, in all the confusion and resorting of life and focus on Nikki, I sorta forgot to get a mammogram done, adn since I'm 44 now they want me to be doing these things. *headdesk* Sometimes I am a bad Bree. So Nikki and I are looking into finding a new regular doctor, there is one in Bluffton that is a D.O. we're considering. We like them in general, here's hoping she's a good fit. For those that don't know, that stands for Doctor of Osteophathy, and what it means is that they did a lot of extra training and are required to do continual training for the life of the time they have that title, but that they handle everything(up to major surgery general, really big surgeries require a lot of practice). We used them until our last one moved to Florida when her army husband got relocated, and she was wonderful. I didn't need a small army of doctors. Bree usually has to have a general, an asthma specialist, an allergey specialist (as my body keeps chagning how it decides to react to things), a gyn, and a neurologist for the language center thing to make monitor the defect. And I might need a podiatrist, starting to have symptoms like my aunt when the bones in her foot started to grow randomly into little spikes. X_X Having one doctor that reliably cares for all of that (and has no problems referring to second opinions either), is wonderful. The problem is doctor's aren't one size fits all, whether it's a surgeon, regular doc, therapist, whatever. I hated my surgeon last year, his surgical skills were really good, but his ability to take my questions seriously and aftercare not so much for example, and I went to my regular doctor to deal with the side effects. (and I had picked up a nasty infection in the incision as well as back pain like I can't describe from the abdominal clencher brace I had to wear post surgery). I'm already shy with authority figures thanks to my upbringing, and Nikki's worse, so it's hard to find one we can actually talk to and be comfortable enough to answer embarassing questions. I know nothing medical should be, but my silly brain feels what it will feel.

Thank you very much. We often get mistaken for siblings for some reason. I once made a girl I worked with cry when she asked me for 'my brothers' phone number so she could hit on him! The manager's face was priceless when she said that, and manager was laughing SO hard when I told her she didn't stand a chance with MY husband. Nikki has always been super faithful and very attached to me, that is one thing I can absolutely count on. : ) Sometimes we're hilarious, sometimes only we get the joke and everyone else is looking at us funny!

Hiya Bree. The Bar where My Photograph was taken, is The Attic Bar, which also has a chill-out area, and also a Pink-Room, where You can do Your Make-Up, Re-Style Your Hair, and so many People use The Pink-Room, for taking selfie's. L.O.L. Your Photo's in the P.M. area Bree, are Lovely. You two ARE such a Lovely Couple. I bet You'll Both have fun, with the hair-dyeing again. For Nikki's first time of Bleaching Your Hair, Wow ! He has done a Superb Job. Nikki - Well Done ! Bree and Nikki, You are Very-Well-Loved here at TGGuide, Both of You. You have Both come such a long way, since You first joined, and You have supported so many other's already. Good on You, and Thank You Very Much. Bree and Nikki, I Know that You have Both, got Great Senses of Humour as well. Take Care, Keep Smiling, Big Hugs, And My Very Best Wishes, Love Stephanie. xxxxxxxx

Step two picture is going to have to wait, it's Nikki's first time and he streaked it badly. LOL We're going to have to get more dye nad redo step two.

I had to pick a different picture, for whatever reason it wouldn't attach the one of me and my cat, but I found one where my hair isn't doing a squid impression with Nikki in it as a bonus.

I am trying to send you a natural hair and scary blond with face photo in the private messages, but my photobucket account is being difficult and not attaching the photos properly. X_X I swear computers live to annoy me prior to 2pm. They just never work right becuas ethey KNOW I'm not a morning person and it's a good time to get me. LOL Or it could be that I"m half awake and confused. Okay, I lost count three times but I found it! That's a nice dress! And it looks like a fun party, I wish we had something like that in our area, but the closets there is is 2 to 3 hours away. But it would be fun to have a place like that for date nights with Nikki's girl side!

Hiya Briannah. Your Hair, is Lovely. It Would be so Nice, to see Your Lovely Face though. Briannah, If You would like to see a Photograph of Me, taken Last Friday. Go to www.pinkpunters.com Then Press Menu; Then Press Galleries; Then Press Photo Gallery; Then Press Friday, 16th. September, 2016. Then move the Photograph's, 78 times, to The Left. I Am wearing a Maroon-Red Flowery Dress; Black Patent-Leather Ballerina Shoes; White-PearlNecklace; White-Pearl Ankle-Bracelet'sAnkle-Bracelet's; Red Lipstick; Dark-Brown-Hair. Pink Punters, is the Lesbian/Gay/Bi-Sexual/Transgender/Nightclub, at Fenny Stratford, near Milton Keynes, in Buckinghamshire, in England, in The United Kingdom. I have been going there, for over a Year now, on and off, on Friday Night's. I stay at The Campanile Hotel, which is 3 minutes Walk, across the road, from Pink Punters. Briannah, I hope that You and Nikki have done Okay with Your Hair. Briannah, Take Care Honey, And My Very Best Wishes to You and Nikki, Big Hugs, Love Stephanie. xxxxxxxx

Right now I'm scary blond. Here's what it looks like all bleached out and waiting to finish drying so that we can put the green on it. I haven't been this color since I got married the first time, when I was 19, and it was an accident. It does NOT do wonder for my skin tone and I"m glad it's not the finished product! I think Nikki did a good job for his first time ever bleaching out hiar. Keep in mind it was REALLY dark black to begin with. I like the accidental ombre shading from the light top to the darker ends too, I think that's going to look wonderful in the finished look. And he managed to control the goopy bleach (It was bright blue, that was so weird, BLUE BLEACH!) and keep it outta my eyes and other places it doesn't belong!

Hiya Briannah. You and Nikki WILL Both look Great, I Am sure. Briannah, I have been growing My hair long, for 2 Year's now. ( At the beginning of September, 2014 ; I had a Grade 2, all over. ). Since then, My Hair has been getting Washed and Blow-Dried, and Combed-through, and in the last 16 Month's, it is left loose, or the front held out of My Face, using clip's, or My Hair gets put in a Pony-Tail. I absolutely adore having long hair, and putting a Pretty-Pink scrunchie in My Hair. Combining having My hair in a Pony-Tail, with wearing Make-Up, helps Me to feel more Feminine, especially when wearing a Pretty Dress !! Briannah, let Us Know how Your Hair, and Nikki's Hair goes. Take Care, And My Very Best Wishes, Big Hugs, Love Stephanie. xxxxxxxx

​Slow recovery at this time, still in a recovery center this week.

Latest update, they went in and did a revised surgery this morning. She will be in the hospital for at least four days or more.

The more thought going into the events leading up to this and her attitude are recipes for what happen. What I had not mentioned before is she is dyslectic and has issues getting information down on paper so myself and another person drilled her for issues and came up with at least six things that we felt the surgeon should know and wrote them down for review.