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Hi again, I wanted to post some more now that I've actually had my surgery (YAY!!!!), especially for anyone thinking about or planning the surgery themselves - everyone's experience is different, but this might give some things to consider: Monday, Dec. 26 - I arrived in Philadelphia and checked-in to my hotel. Went to a Target Express nearby to load up on food and beverages for the days after surgery when I'd be at the hotel, knowing that getting out for food would be tough. Around noon I started bowel prep (Magnesium Citrate and Dulcolax, and a couple of other prescriptions). That went on through the day, culminating in an enema at 4 a.m. I unpacked and tried to set things up as much as I could to be ready for when I got back - then I packed my bag of stuff to go to the hospital (including Cinnamon, my new stuffed bear). Tuesday, Dec. 27 - I had to be at the hospital by 10:30 a.m., and it's only a few minutes away from here. I was still up early - nerves no doubt. My brother called to check-in and asked if someone could call him when the surgery was done. Around 9:30 I got a call from the hospital asking if I could show up early, Dr. Rumer was running early. So I left and got to the hospital before 10 a.m. (Hahnemann University Hospital - it's affiliated with Drexel University). I went through check-in - a bunch of questions standard for any surgery. Got changed into the gowns they gave me. Then the anesthesiologist came by and put in the tube (or whatever it is they put in). I saw Dr. Rumer and her PA quickly - people kept asking if I had any questions, but really I didn't. Got taken into the operating room at 11:09 a.m. (they call it when the patient is brought in), and got moved to the operating table. Next thing I know I wake up in another room. They had called my brother at 1:40, so I know it took about 2.5 hours in total. I called him around 4:00 when I was more coherent I spent the next 2 days in a hospital bed, unable to get up or move much at all. My only real complaint is that the bed had about a 2" mattress, which I think is way too small for being on bedrest for 2 days (I told the PA about that later). The nurses were nice, but it took a long time to get almost anything. I do know that I couldn't do their job, and they don't make enough money (I don't know how much they make, but it can't be enough). So my new vagina is still packed, and has 3 tubes coming out of it - 1 going to a Foley bag (urine) and 2 going to smaller containers collecting blood. The nurses periodically emptied them. I had no hunger, which was good because the food was truly awful (how do you make scrambled eggs not good!?!?). Thursday, Dec. 29 - I got discharged - yay!!! It took forever, but it finally happened. Before that I had to actually get up and start moving, which was so much harder than I expected - I did fine with it, but there was light-headedness and nausea. They sent me back to the hotel in a taxi - and I've been here since. Pretty much staying in bed except to go to the bathroom (including emptying the bags) and getting food. I don't really feel any pain from the surgery - the biggest pain is my butt from the hospital bed, that's the main reason I've been taking the percocet since then. On Tuesday morning I got for my follow-up, which is when they'll remove the tubes and packing. Then I stay one more night (to make sure everything is ok after they take the stuff out) and go home the next day. Emotionally - I won't lie, on Thursday I had moments when I thought I might be feeling regret, but it was entirely about how I was feeling and knowing that the surgery caused that - as I've started feeling more normal any such thoughts went away and I'm getting back to feeling thrilled about this :-) (I think that will be complete when the packing comes out and I can actually see it) More later! xoxo Chrissy

So was trying to start sleeping a bit earlier so I'm up during the day, Nikki missing me chatting with him on twitter at work, but my body wants to sleep 4 am to noon. And I went to bed at 1 last night, and failed spectacularly to sleep until 3. LOL So while I was failing I had my ipad and was browsing Pinterest, and found the home decor section. Now if you all knew me and my lazy home decorating skills, you'd be laughing right now. Hard. But there were interesting things there, and...projects. And Nikki loves the ideas I presented for the new kitchen look. We're going to take the colors for the cabinets and walls from the laminate, so the room has a sense of cohesion. I think I need to start pricing sanders, I don't see either of us spending hours on hand sanding our counters. Projects that are more affordable to give my ugly kitchen a facelift. My kitchen is REALLY ugly. Other than the nice laminate floor we put in that looks like rock tile. It has one faux wood counter and one white counter. Both are dinged up to high heaven. But Pinterest had a counter makeover using this 'feather coat' concrete stuff. Sticks to any surface apparently, and I can add a faux concrete finish to my counters. Both trendy and solves the mismatch problem. Just a bit of troweling and sanding, no special skills needed. The bag is like $15, and my counters are not big so one bag will do it. If anyone else has a similar issue, or just loves the look of the concrete counters but doesn't have the money, lemme know and I'll post the project link in the comments. AND it had a recipe for do it yourself chalk paint, which adheres better to smooth surfaces like cabinetry but it rather expensive paint, so I can deal with the ugly dinged up cabinet finishes and make the kitchen look cohesive without spending a ton. The one big thing I'll need a couple hundred dollars for is a new sink, we've been looking to find time and money to replace that for a while. Might as well do it when we have to take the old one out to do the counters so there is no 'edge' at the sink anyway. The point of this post: I'd just done...nothing. In my head it was super expensive and out of my reach to do anything about it, so I just dealt with it. But now, really starting to look around at things like this on the internet, I'm realizing that a lot more is actually under my control and fixable than I ever realized. I'm about to turn 45, and just starting to figure life out. It's never too late, and if you're a late bloomer go for it anyway. I'm working on my total life makeover, mental, body, and environment. The hardest part was to get up and start doing it, and not sit around and complain it's all out of my control. I can't have my dream house in Jupiter, sure there are actual limits, but I don't have to miserable with what I have and can do something about making it better in small stages, and then someday I"ll suddenly be there, and realize I fixed things one tiny step at a time. I spent my whole life thinking you had to be able to do the whole thing all at once or it couldn't be done, and that was a trap. I climbed out of the trap, and Pinterest helped. That is SO weird.

Karen, Thanks for sharing this! I've thought a lot about assimilation in the past few months as I've basically been trying to do it myself. Ultimately I agree with you that it's important to be available to help others as we can - for me it was (is?) driven by a desire to adjust my social life - for about 20 years of living as a gay man I had built a social life around that, so it was important to me to shift that now that I'm (authentically) living as a straight woman. Especially since I would very much like to be in a relationship (that would be hard to come by at gay bars). Having said all that, I'm definitely not trying to leave behind the LGBTQ community :-) xoxo Chrissy