I Used to do Things, Now I Dilate

I’ve never been great at keeping up with this blog and it has never been my intention to be a daily blogger, but I used to be able to post a bit more than I have lately. I also used to work on a little side project called TransCisTer Radio. Oh and I had started to do some art, remember that? I think I shared some of my art here, but maybe not. I used to do lots of projects around my house also. Occasionally I used to do things like hang out with friends also! Oh my, those were the days, back when I had time.

They weren’t really good days being as that was back when I still had a penis, but I did have more time. So it was a weird existence. I had time to do things, but I hated myself while I did them. I don’t really think that was actually a good way to live, which is essentially why I decided to have gender confirmation surgery (GCS.) Going into the surgery I thought I knew about the after care for my brand new vagina, but I don’t think I really did.

I think I was stuck in a world of make believe and fantasy. Which is a place that many transgender people have to travel to in order to be even able to attempt to transition. Before I made the leap of faith to try transitioning, the thought of trying to live as my true self was so daunting that I never even considered that as a possibility. I was sure it would never happen so I didn’t allow myself to even dream the impossible dream. Inside myself I always knew who I was, but I accepted that nobody would ever be able to see my outside for who I am on the inside. But then one day I knew that in order to save my life I was going to have to try. I began allowing myself to dream of the day in which I would finally be able to be free and be myself and it was a huge dream, a dream of an impossible fantasy that I most likely would never be able to reach.

And in the midst of those fantasies of what the future could possibly be like, if I am truly a lucky and fortunate girl, along comes the looming specter of magical surgery. Surgeries that can take your dreams and manifest them into tangible realities that everybody will marvel at, but most of all they will squelch those nasty inner voices that tell you that it will never work and you will never be good enough no matter what you do. So you know it’s never going to work out, but you have this hope, this dream, this fantasy that maybe this time it might.

So there I am struggling with these massive inner issues and someone says, hey once you have this vagina you’re going to need to dilate her. The response was, yeah, yeah, I’m totally fine with that. Because none of this is really real anyways and ya know it’s probably never going to happen. So if between here and there, somehow magically I do in fact end up with this fantasy vagina you speak of, then sure, yeah, I’ll dilate it. I’ll dilate the hell out of it. But I didn’t really think of that in practical daily terms. Possibly the first real thing was when I was sitting in my surgeon’s office and his amazing assistant Debbie tells me that I’m going to need to take off work for the next four months, primarily so that I can stick to the dilation schedule. Um, wait what? It’s going to be that involved?

And that answer is yes. Yes, one hundred percent, yes. It is going to be that involved. And yes I was extremely grateful for taking off four months of work. You’d think that during that time I could have been blogging a bit right. But um no. Healing is a full time job, and while I was not going to work, I was busy for the entire day. Then at the start of October I went back to work. Um, wow. My life is so stupid full now it is mind numbing.

What am I doing all the time? Dilating. Well not really all the time, but it often really feels like it. I think it feels that way because it really is a lot. The first three months you need to dilate three times a day for a minimum of half an hour. With setup, dilating, and clean-up, it is more like a forty-five minute to one hour event, each and every time you do it. After three months of dilating you go to twice a day, but you move up a size of dilator. So it’s less time, but it’s a larger device, meaning it hurts more! Kind of. It’s not a horrible sort of pain, but it is not a comfortable event. When you are dilating you are trying to push yourself to your limit of tolerance. Doing that with anything can be challenging, doing it with a brand new vagina surgically created using your previous genital skin turned inside out, well, um, yeah, its more than a bit harsh. Oh and hey, right, don’t forget about the time crunch. Because in the midst of all of this loveliness you’ve got to figure out how to live your regularly scheduled life.

Our current daily lives of doing our jobs, buying and making our food, sleeping, loving, hopefully living and enjoying something in between all of the other stuff. Those lives and days that are already filled to the brim with events that can make our days feel so overwhelming that we often struggle to fit in the simplest of new routines. We humans are often overworked, overrun, worn out, tired, and seeking solace from our daily grind, and as a transgender woman who just received GCS, what I want you to do is to find an extra hour or two for the next few months every single day to add in an extra physically difficult task that will push you physically and mentally in ways you have never known.

Whew. Yeah. It’s heavy. It’s hard. During my time off from work I actually doubled my therapy sessions because of how challenging all of this is. I’ve been back to work now for a month and a half and it has been even more daunting. I’m figuring it out, but I am for sure having to make decisions of what really holds priority in my schedule. Things like sitting in the hot tub, hobbies, friends, free time, those things are getting very little play time right now. I’ve got another month of twice a day dilating and I’m fantasizing about what it will be like when I get to go to once a day next month, woo-hoo!

Okay peeps, that’s all I’ve got for today. Oh and by the way, how’ve I been able to write this post? I’m sick, so I’m hanging on the couch for a few days and I’ve found a few extra minutes. Take care of you!

Love you!