Today I had a follow-up meeting with my endocrinologist and things look pretty good, although we talked about some interesting things.
My bod’s changing slowly bust surely with this week’s measurements showing enlargement of my hips and bum (yea!). He ordered more blood tests, as I expected, and he says if my estrogen level isn’t high enough we change my meds a bit. We’re leaning toward doubling up on my estradiol patches, and while I picked up a refill on my patches today if we go that way he’ll write a new script and send it to CVS with the newly doubled number of patches to change twice a week. I’ll be putting the second patch right next to the current one so I don’t run out of room to put patches twice a week.
We also talked about something that surprised me: possible surgeries. I hadn’t figured surgery was even worth talking about at this point since not only am I quite a way from gender reaffirmation surgery (GRS, formerly known as gender reassignment surgery or a sex change operation) both financially and in terms of having my body ready for it. But he also mentioned an orchiectomy, the removal of one or both testicles. I thought that was part of the GRS but he told me that many trans women get it done first. The upside to getting an orchiectomy is that it means I no longer need to get my Lupron shots since that’s just a chemical to shut down the production of testosterone by my testicles. Yes, it’s a pretty drastic move, but it’s not like I’m using my testicles for anything, and I don’t foresee me using them for anything at any point in the future. It would also make my daily tuck-and-tape easier since there wouldn’t be anything to secure up in my abdomen anymore.
My doctor says that most surgeons would want me to be on hormones for at least a year, so I wouldn’t have it until at least September, but it’s an interesting option. The reason he brought it up is so that I could think about seeing if it might be covered by my health insurance. It’s a pretty minor operation as operations go, and much less intensive as the GRS itself, not to mention quite a bit less expensive, so he said it may be covered.
I’ll have to call my insurance company tomorrow since by the time I got home, got dinner and was ready to give them a call they had already been closed for over an hour. I’ll write a post with what I find out, but I wanted to write this post tonight. Now I need to see about taking some flat on my back time since my back and knees seem to be really fussing tonight. I hope it’s partly because of the weather change we’re getting and not just because I walked for a little over a mile and a half today since I needed to get a little extra exercise. I can’t wait until I can go for a bike ride when Hubway brings the bikes back out for the spring. I already have my membership and am waiting for my helmet.
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