Two Years on HRT, Three Days Post Announcement

Let's now look at how we can use our entity outside of a container. This is particularly valuable for unit testing...
- Robert Patrick et al., Professional Oracle WebLogic
Server

As I sit here waiting for my project requirements and resources to be ready, I have nothing left to do but go ahead and write a blog entry to help keep me awake. I have already exhausted as much of my conscious brain as I could to a technical manual, before threatening dozing off. I tried following the latest news articles next, and finally went back almost 2 days on my friends blogs. It probably won't take me 45 minutes to finish this entry, but I can see spending that much time editting out all the silly typos.

I've reached two milestones I guess at this point: today is my 2nd year anniversary on HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy) and the 3rd day into my work transition between the announcement and the final onset of RLT (the real life test).

I'll tackle the latter first: no news, all's quiet on the western front. I'm feeling calm and ready to trust whatever plan finally emerges. Several of my coworkers are also ready and waiting, and Anil asked me when the party is, meaning the Friday after work moment, when I shrug my guy clothes for hopefully the last time, and let my friends get to meet the new me. He already did, though he still plans to be there. I practically begged Sandra to promise to come help me select from my wardrobe work appropriate clothing, and go thrift shopping with me to fill in enough for a week. I just put my "name" on a seating chart. I was about to tell him that he'll have to change it soon. So, in a nutshell: no plan yet.

Two years of hormone therapy has still left me with the large arms. Even when I did lose weight when I got sick, I still bounded back up to somewhere between 194 to 200. The cut of the men's shirts is the only thing that is keeping the male facade. In the last six months, I have pretty much filled out the B-cup bras, my rib cage has shrunk to 40 inches and I can squeeze into a 38-B elastic banded bra as necessary. I lost an inch somewhere. I am now 5'10" tall and my feet have shrunk a half-size. While my girls are now definitely visible under men's golf shirts (they look like fat because the cut is wrong), they are low and tear-dropped shape leaving cleavage pretty elusive. I can sometimes skip a dose of estrogen for a day before I notice the dysphoria seeping back in, sometimes in headaches, dizziness or just plain exhaustion.

And I cycle. The progestin that I'm taking seems to have me cycling about every two weeks instead of once a month, however, complete with a few days of titty cramps and groinal bloating. The chronic loneliness I used to feel has metamorphed into more of an acute longing which I last experienced a few months ago. It's quite possible that the loneliness was a mistranslation of the inherent longing due to the testosterone in my bloodstream. These days, when I curl up with my cuddly bunny, blanket and a book to read, I am more likely to fall asleep before I get farther that 5 pages. And the muscles, particulary in the back and legs tend to recover much more slowly; Thursday dance leads to Saturday pain that finally ebbs on Tuesday. I had a severe pain in my right shin that woke me up and forced me to walk it out before I could go back to sleep.

My voice is naturally softer, partially from practice, and partially from hormones and attitude. I was surprised that my hair has grown faster and longer in the last 9 1/2 months than someone else who has been growing it out for a year.

And I am happy. I am not happy with what's between my legs, but as long as I can ignore it, I...am...happy.

I'm just sleepy, too.

Hugs and God Bless,
Sophie