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It's been an agonizing long time since I posted last, but this year has been crazier than I ever expected possible. Every time I stop and go 'well now certainly things will stop changing' a new thing comes up and I'm usually leaping at the opportunities as they come. It's made for an exciting time for me, but a lot of it is personal stuff and none of it makes for the kind of life space where I felt like I had a lot of energy for writing a blog.
On top of that, my health has been bad. The ostomy life really did not agree with me, I was regularly skirting dehydration despite all my efforts, I had a salt deficiency that you wouldn't believe, my system never really quite regulated to not keep dumping fluid despite everything I tried. That sort of constant trouble meant I couldn't ever sleep through the night, because I'd be woken up 4 times a night to manage my bag, and it kept me from working out because I regularly couldn't make it through workouts without feeling sick due to the overall water loss I was dealing with. The last few months have been exceedingly unpleasant as my focus and my energy all slowly ebbed out of me. I cratered a few weeks before my surgery, truly just hitting bottom in terms of my ability to deal with any of it with the finish line so close. I was just waiting, checked out and struggling to be a person, hoping the surgery could return normalcy to my life.
At 12 days post surgery, I got most of what I wanted already, and the things I don't have yet will come as I heal. I can take a shower and it not be semi-traumatic. I can be gassy with some discretion (I pray you never have to know how loud stomas can be). I have slept through the nights most nights and when i'm woken up I can just roll over and go back to sleep. Even with open wound sites and changing my dressings and giving myself blood thinner shot every day and being on a restricted diet for a little while longer, it's everything I wished for. Every day I move a little easier. I'll heal. And I can go back to a relatively normal life, even if my cancer screening regimen has to be extreme the rest of my life to get here.
Part of this is also transitioning with an ostomy bag has been annoying. My fitness slips, my fashion choices have to accommodate medical appliances I'd like to minimize or hide, you just end up kind of swallowed by large clothing that doesn't really help me feel affirmed in any sort of femininity. Getting there will be a longer road, but the normal one most trans women face of getting comfortable with a personal style and adjusting as my body shifts through hormones. My shape is still changing month to month, I'm still only 8 months into HRT, so ... the adventure continues.
Anyway, as my energy improves daily I wait to see what the new normal looks like, but I'm happier than I've been with my physical condition in months, and I can't wait until I'm healed up enough to resume more of the things I wanted to do. I can't wait to go back to the gym. Can't wait to have the energy to prep meals with good foods I can eat again (I haven't had a real honest to god salad in over a year. soon!). This upcoming week I'm getting back into the podcast recording swing of things, going back to therapy and getting out of the house. So normalcy slowly begins creeping back into life. I have more thoughts about this, but I'll save them. I want to write here more frequently, which probably means shorter blogs so I don't feel exhausted by them.
It's just nice to feel whole again. Not like my old self, who I'm happy to leave behind in the summer of 2024 forever, but a new self that I'm still trying to figure out. So much has happened in the last year. But I finally can hopefully feel equipped to embrace it and not like I'm constantly at risk of being swept away by my health problems.
On top of that, my health has been bad. The ostomy life really did not agree with me, I was regularly skirting dehydration despite all my efforts, I had a salt deficiency that you wouldn't believe, my system never really quite regulated to not keep dumping fluid despite everything I tried. That sort of constant trouble meant I couldn't ever sleep through the night, because I'd be woken up 4 times a night to manage my bag, and it kept me from working out because I regularly couldn't make it through workouts without feeling sick due to the overall water loss I was dealing with. The last few months have been exceedingly unpleasant as my focus and my energy all slowly ebbed out of me. I cratered a few weeks before my surgery, truly just hitting bottom in terms of my ability to deal with any of it with the finish line so close. I was just waiting, checked out and struggling to be a person, hoping the surgery could return normalcy to my life.
At 12 days post surgery, I got most of what I wanted already, and the things I don't have yet will come as I heal. I can take a shower and it not be semi-traumatic. I can be gassy with some discretion (I pray you never have to know how loud stomas can be). I have slept through the nights most nights and when i'm woken up I can just roll over and go back to sleep. Even with open wound sites and changing my dressings and giving myself blood thinner shot every day and being on a restricted diet for a little while longer, it's everything I wished for. Every day I move a little easier. I'll heal. And I can go back to a relatively normal life, even if my cancer screening regimen has to be extreme the rest of my life to get here.
Part of this is also transitioning with an ostomy bag has been annoying. My fitness slips, my fashion choices have to accommodate medical appliances I'd like to minimize or hide, you just end up kind of swallowed by large clothing that doesn't really help me feel affirmed in any sort of femininity. Getting there will be a longer road, but the normal one most trans women face of getting comfortable with a personal style and adjusting as my body shifts through hormones. My shape is still changing month to month, I'm still only 8 months into HRT, so ... the adventure continues.
Anyway, as my energy improves daily I wait to see what the new normal looks like, but I'm happier than I've been with my physical condition in months, and I can't wait until I'm healed up enough to resume more of the things I wanted to do. I can't wait to go back to the gym. Can't wait to have the energy to prep meals with good foods I can eat again (I haven't had a real honest to god salad in over a year. soon!). This upcoming week I'm getting back into the podcast recording swing of things, going back to therapy and getting out of the house. So normalcy slowly begins creeping back into life. I have more thoughts about this, but I'll save them. I want to write here more frequently, which probably means shorter blogs so I don't feel exhausted by them.
It's just nice to feel whole again. Not like my old self, who I'm happy to leave behind in the summer of 2024 forever, but a new self that I'm still trying to figure out. So much has happened in the last year. But I finally can hopefully feel equipped to embrace it and not like I'm constantly at risk of being swept away by my health problems.
