KarenPayne

Every twelve months I am required to check in to my doctor for blood work in regards to me continuing on estradiol and spironolactone (anti-androgen). She indicated that there is no need to continue taking spironolactone since this is for blocking testosterone which I don’t have anymore. Had a discussion on dilation, she transitioned 20 years ago so once a day for her. She sits in a warm bath tub and uses baby shampoo for liberation, think I will need to try this for the middle dilation of the day. Also talked about breast implants which I told her I have an appointment with a surgeon in several days. She asked, do you spray when urinating? I did for about three weeks and now everything comes out as it should. On a side note I am very happy about this as it felt strange peeing and having pee on my legs. Now here is something I found interesting, she believes that transitioning is one of the most difficult paths a human take embark on. As we know many want to but do not because of monetary issues or physiological issues. Then there are some who manage to have GRS (Gender Reassignment Surgery) but in one way or another end up a failure which in some cases leads to death. I am fortunate to have many people help me along the way and it help that I had the mindset and the motivation to take the right path on my journey of life. Thinking of "difficult path", I think nobody can deny that at one time or another we entertain our worst nightmares. I will be the first to admit to this were I would go to bed with horrible thoughts that I would never become the female on the outside that needed to happen. I can not even imagine some peoples nightmares were getting to the point they need to be will never happen, not the right support, lacking in funds and no real support from family, friends and co-workers. Then on the other side of the coin we have physical transformation which provides a huge step in "the" journey but also have many downsides. Downsides (my fav) like dilation, w/o hormones your body does not naturally produce them. How about finding a partner to love, that can be a path filled with happiness or depression, a true roller-caster. Neither path is peaches and crème but for me I am truly happy (except for dilation) and welcome what lies ahead and prey that those travelling this path never, ever give up finding their true selves. In closing this in many ways has been an (in a good way)emotional day, this is what hormones do and I welcome them (except when my mascara runs).

There is no right or wrong way to write a blog here, the important thing is to say what is on your mind, how you are feeling. Many times writing things out can invoke a emotion or two from yourself and the readers. Of course we all can learn from a blog or you can learn from us. If you never write a blog then those things may be unrealized.

I went back to work on Monday and had a pretty good idea how it would be as in acceptance with other co-workers. After four days no surprises, everyone I worked with or came in contact with where fine with me. One women whom I use to work with many years ago, still works there but in another section came over this morning and chatted with me. She was happy for me and said I looked great. Another woman who is in my area but I do not have contact with came over this afternoon and started off with that she was fine with me using the ladies restroom as were everyone she had talked too. She was talking to one female employee who asked her “Who is the new employee” talking about me. Then she said that Kevin Gallagher (me) and Karen Payne (me) could easily be related. That was just too funny. Then she goes on to say that she (me) looks great in skinny jeans, I laughed then before I could say anything the woman talking to me says “I agree” and that you have a great butt and look even better in leggings (which I wore today). There were other conversations that we “glad to see you back Karen”, small chit-chat and that was it. There were a handful who walked right by me and thought they did not approve of what I did but four out of five later came over to my desk and said they did not recognize me while the other I only saw once so unsure of them. So the week has ended on a good note as tomorrow I work at home. I am feeling great now.

Hi Veronica, I am getting too old to remember these things :-) I believe I was referring to me not telling her I had transitioned. She is my daughter's age, 28 or 29.

I joined a dating site for fun. My profile says I live in Oregon and the first sentence in "about" indicated I am post-op. I am looking for females only. So I get a message from a man in New York wanting to hook up. Come on, really? I am interested in females, live 3000 miles away, do you really think I will travel to NY for this? Heck no.

Hi Monica, That is how I took it, no transitioning questions only chit-chat like two women talk.

Monica, I give her slack as she has POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome). The funny thing is about two hours later she post a new problem with the door. I again offered assistance and fixed the problem. What was funny about it was I got the impression she simply wanted to talk to me and never once mentioned my transition but other things.

One of my Facebook friends is my daughter's best friend who posted that she closed the front door and the security latch got wedged into the door preventing it from opening and asked for help. Since I knew she lived closed by I replied with "I will help if you still need assistance". She gave me her address, five minutes from my home. Went over, I knocked on the front door and she came around from the back door. When she greeted me (she had not seen me in five years) no reactions or comments on my new look as female. Looked at the front door, figured out I needed to pry the door and by thinking ahead of time brought a pry-bar with me. Took two minutes to free the door then a minute to hammer a metal strip back into place. Turned to her and said "done", she thanked me and I left. When I returned home she had sent me a private message You look great by the way! I suppose I figured out what your trip to California was about and wow! Congrats on looking awesome!! I guess she then scrolled through my Facebook notes and on one wrote You are so beautiful. Really. Just so you know. More validation for me. Perhaps this might nudge others down their chosen path of transitioning.

It is ashame people have to be this why towards their fellow mankind/womankind. I truly hope the days to come do not weight heavy on you because of these people. This might be the perfect time to have some cheese, chocolate and wine while watching a good movie to erase the troubles of the day.

This morning I had a very difficult/painful dilation session. It was painful enough to contact Marci which resulted in sending her a snapshot. I noticed a blood blister, she asked me to pop it. So I serialized a needle and popped it, no pain, fair amount of blood. She then said, I see you still have some stitches, please pull them out. I had tried several days ago but did not put much effort into it. Today I did and got them (four) out. The hard part is working tweezers with a flashlight and mirror, not easy but I got them out thank goodness. Yet another thing to look forward to after surgery. In regards to pain, I am retreating to the mid-size dilator for the morning tomorrow then the next day try it again. Just finished my afternoon dilation with the larger dilator, zero pain. So I am not sure why and neither is Marci why this morning was so painful but she has no concerns.

Monica, Thanks for your insight. I have even discussed with one lady her results with a surgeon I was going to use and checked that one into the trash so I am doing due diligence :-)

For the past week or so have been doing research on surgeons in my area for performing breast implants and finally found one but they are booked until May for consultations. Went to there office, made the appointment and took home several pages for them like anytime one sees a new doctor. I thought it was interesting but not surprised that surgeons and doctors have a list of people who had surgery recently as after giving the receptionist my name she pulled up my address and phone number. If all goes well hopefully I will have a surgery date before the end of this year which will complete my physical transformation.

I agree what would be crappy. Does your identity cards indicate female?

Quick note on shoes, I had a few pairs were one was too tight on one foot and used KIWI shoe stretch spray which works great.

Funny in regards to a constant weight as I was steady at between 150 and 155. In 1990 I dropped to 120LB which was great but around 1998 I developed a thyroid condition and the doctor said that the former drop in weight had something to do with the thyroid. I started gaining roughly five pounds a month and topped out at 180LB but without any belly, things were proportional. Of course the down side was moving up in size. So for the past 15 years I have been at 180LB were I never weigh myself but rely on getting weighed for my annual physical. Since GRS I have toyed with the idea of losing weight, maybe 10 or 20 pounds but is not a real concern now. Hormones have not increased my weight to for the time being all is good. BTW You look great in the first photo :-)

Thanks for sharing MikahTheShark, as with you I have devote Christians in my workplace and several friends too. Two of them, friends outside of work said it took a bit to come to terms with me transitioning but did come around. I really appreciated them telling me that just did not accept me but thought about it. In regards to restrooms, my workplace does not have any gender neutral restrooms. Never did care to use them before GRS and happy to be away from them.

I started the process for my name and gender change the last week of last November which took five weeks. The gender part in short (I did write about this before) is allowed before surgery by a therapist on a special DMV list. In the month of January I did my social security card, all my credit cards, bank checks (did not arrive till after I returned from California) and PayPal account. Today the final card arrived, my insurance card. Wish I had this card before surgery simply because there were some additional fees billed to me by the hospital because they had no insurance listed and had to make several calls to get things right. I have two doctors, one for primary care, one to assist with HRT. Two dentist, one primary and one for deep cleaning, an optometrist also. All of these needed to be updated. Oh, my electrolysis and hair stylist. Those all were in person. Dang, one more, the electric company who wanted me to do the change at their office. The electric company closed out my current account and opened a new account. By closing the old account I got a check for $272.45 but gave that to my daughter. All in all it took just about three months to change all the documents. It could had taken longer but I was driven, when an opportunity presented itself I would take a day or half day off to do what needed to be done. Really despised weekends a lot as they slowed me down, so did two weeks in December for the holidays. If I had not been driven my guess is I would still be doing name changes. So I am 99% sure all remnants of my old make identity is gone. Soon as I hit the publish button another one will surface.

I have been working on a good method to work on dilation with the largest dilator which I was having not so great luck with. As mention before I need to dilate three times a day for 15 minutes. Small and medium dilator were fine but the larger one I only could manage a few times with then tried 15 minutes with the medium then gave up after five minutes with the larger size dilator. Last night I believe I have found a simple method to start with five minutes with the medium dilator then 15 minutes with the larger dilator. So I am going to work on this for today and tomorrow, if nothing changes I will post what I found to work. Also, I purchased a dildo that I could fit the entire six inches in where the width is about the normal width of an average penis. My conclusion is that to have penetration with a somewhat wider width penis it is indeed best to use the larger dilator so that entry is not painful. At this point in time I am confident to be penetrated by an average size penis but as we all know fate will be when I do try this I will end up with a larger size penis and will not be pleasant so persistence is needed to keep going with the larger dilator. I surely hope by next Saturday I am hope to use the larger dilator w/o first using the medium size one. Crossing my fingers. UPDATE: I am sure now that by placing the largest size dilator inside my vagina very slowly then for the first three to five minutes rotate the dilator side to side that the pain is reduced by 90 percent. If I do not rotate the pain is unbearable after five minutes. Without rotating I can force myself to go 15 minutes but that is really pushing it. Marci said I may have started the larger one prematurely but it's now under control. I did tell Marci what I did and she was fine with it.

I am still on sick leave but went into work yesterday to try out my new username for signing into the local network. Talked to my boss, told him that I most likely would not be back next week as Marci's office has not given me a letter to return to work yet. He was fine with that. He then said, could you please write something up for your business partners whom do not know about your transition. I told him that I already did this. He then asked if I would write something up for our IT division, I replied, no problem if you would send the message out which he agreed too and did before leaving, asked him to review it, he said it would work. I did include a paragraph on the topic of me using the female restrooms in that I symphonize with those who might have issues or concerns and that I did get approval from human resources to use any restroom I felt comfortable with. I could actually still use the male restrooms but not going there and sticking to female restrooms only While there I talked to a few people that knew of my transition but had not talked with them yet and they treated me no different than before transitioning. One thing I am having troubles with is that some call me ma'am which to me feels old so my thing will be to ask them to simply call me Karen. There is one employee whom I have been working with for 20 years and saw him yesterday talking to other people, waved at him but he did not wave back and I thought he was not okay with my transition but about ten minutes later he came over, shook my hand and said "Hi Karen", when you have time I want to talk to you about a guitar I am buying and said yes. I spent about one hour talking with my team members (three of them) about things being worked on and that they ran into an interesting problem that they could not find a solution for then remembered I gave a code sample two months ago, from the code example they easily figured out how to remedy the issue at hand which made me feel good. Joked around a bit also which showed me they really have no problems with my transition. Looking forward to when I can get back to work.