Orchiectomy Done

As of about 11AM yesterday morning, my body is only be producing about 5% of the testosterone it was producing.  The only testosterone being produced in my body is by my adrenal glands.  Testicles have gone bye-bye.  As in orchiectomy.  As in castration.  As in medical waste to go in the incinerator.  Surprisingly very little pain and what there is would be no more than a 3 on a 1-10 scale.

Update: 48 hours in and still no pain.  After thinking about what I said, I don't even think yesterday's was even a 3.  It was  really more like a discomfort than pain.

Coming Out to Family

Last week, on April 13th, my wife and I dropped a number of letters off at the Post Office.  The letters were to family around the country telling them of my upcoming transition and the responses have been positive with the exception of a couple of lukewarm but no negative...so far.  Also yesterday, Sunday, I had lunch with my cousin.  He and I are less than three months apart in age, spent a lot of our childhood together and have always been very close.  After lunch we walked out to the parking lot where I got a couple of things I needed to give him out along with the letter and handed it to him.  My hands were shaking as I handed it to him and he started reading.  About halfway through the first page, he looked at me and said, "You know, this explains a lot of things when we were kids."  As he was reading the second page, he said, "Why didn't you do this years ago?" When he finished reading, he hugged me and said, "You've always been a part of my life and you always will be."  Needless to say that was a huge relief to me.  We stood around talking for quite a while and before long, we were laughing and joking like we always do.  I got a second hug and I love you before we headed out.

Lukewarm responses came from my wife's sister who is also dealing with a trans grandchild.  And, to be honest, I was very happy to get a lukewarm response from my brother as I figured I would get a "go away and never talk to me again" response from him.  However, my niece (his daughter) said they called her to come over and read the letter.  She said after she read it, it was, "Okay, so what's the big deal?" and she called me last night just to say she loves me!  We also got a lovely response from my wife's youngest brother but we haven't heard from her oldest (a minister) or middle brother.

Most worrisome, however, is we haven't heard from our son and I'm just hoping that he is taking his time to think about it as I asked.  Time will tell.

We have now heard from everyone.  I got very nice letters from both my wife's oldest brother and her middle brother, both addressed to Bev and saying how they were surprised but understanding.  My wife got an e-mail from our son saying we raised him right and from his work in theater he had been exposed to as lot of diversity.

Decompression Sunday - A Morning Meeting Instead of Church

For the first Sunday in a long time, other than for illness, I didn't attend church.  The reason being last Sunday was the final service at our over 100 year old church.  The Presbytery of Greater Atlanta closed us because we had a small congregation and weren't "thriving" according to them.  And, unfortunately, in the Presbyterian Church, USA the Presbytery owns the property.  The thing I'm going to miss most, other than our beautiful sanctuary, is the acceptance.  That's because this is the church that accepted me as a member in 2000 despite knowing I am transgender.  It's also the church that ordained me as an Elder in 2001 despite knowing I'm transgender.

So today many of us met at a coffee shop around the corner from the church to kind of decompress.  I shared with everyone that we were getting ready to mail my coming out trans letter to family and of course got so much support and love.  I'm going to miss that also.

New Appointment

I have a new appointment with another endocrinologist for evaluation for HRT.  This doctor literally wrote the book.  I mean he literally co-wrote the book Endocrine Therapy for Transsexual Persons.  Hopefully he won't be as conservative as the previous doctor.  A friend of mine who is a nurse and a former patient of that doctor said she's cutting back getting ready to retire and cherry picking easy to manage patients.

On another note, I will be getting rid of testosterone for good.  My appointment with my urologist the other day, he has decided my orchalgia (pain in the left testicle) plus the extremely high cancer risk for my right testicle warrants an orchiectomy.  He does also have a letter from my therapist recommending the orchi.  I also told him at the appointment I had been in touch with a surgeon's office regarding future possibility of GRS.  I explained they recommended a horizontal incision and he thought for a few seconds then said he could understand  that to save the centerline.  The other thing I told him was the doctors office recommended he call them and he surprised me by agreeing.  He gave me his e-mail address to forward what the doctors office sent me.  I said after my first visit with him I really wasn't impressed but I did go back for a second visit and I'm glad I did.  I've been more and more impressed with him and his concern each visit.