Setbacks as a test.

It's been a season of challenges for me, but it seems to be working out. I guess a quick refresh is in order first.

June 2018 - After years of waffling over my identity, the death of my wife and a lot of counseling, I decided it was time to start hormone therapy but found I couldn't see the Doctor until September.
September 2018 - After a few months of reflection and finally getting the chance I started hormones with no worries. Each followup appointment was seen as a chance to evaluate and do a full stop if warranted. I kept going.

I was out to my immediate family, but at the start of hormones I began, very slowly, to socially transition.

Social transition continued and I built my circles of support and gained strength and confidence to where by the fall of 2019 I was mostly out to those who know me. I stopped limiting the crossover between my two FB pages, welcoming those who wanted to see what my other side was like.

May 8, 2020 - With Covid restrictions keeping me home and seeing no reason to present as male any longer I began living full time. Through the summer I refinanced my house and crossdressed that one time as a guy since that was the name on the mortgage.

October 11, 2020 - I came out widely and without limits on who could know.

Starting in the Fall and as Winter progressed I started the process of my name change. So far I have the court order, a corrected birth certificate, a new driver's license, all my credit union accounts and several utilities changed over. I'm waiting on Social Security and Medicare so I can change my other insurances and medical accounts. Some things moved easily and others are bizarre in the process I need to follow, so patience is a virtue here.

Things were moving along swimmingly, but evidently too well.

I scheduled Facial feminization surgery and a breast augmentation, then I went to the E.R. with difficulty breathing. They said it could be my lungs but I better see a cardiologist. The cardiologist scheduled tests and the Echo suggested I had a blockage in a coronary artery and needed an angiogram. It was scheduled for the day after my planned B.A. which I had to cancel. The Angiogram results came back and my heart was fine, it was a shadow of my diaphragm that showed up on the previous scan. But I'd missed my B.A. and started having trouble scheduling a new one. The FFS was only a few weeks out so as soon as I was cleared by the cardiologist I called to check in only to discover it had never been a solid date and I couldn't get in until mid summer.

I've been going about things in a pretty matter of fact way, almost mechanical in some sense, taking one step and then another. I haven't been expressing much emotion over the process, but evidently I've been saving all that emotional energy up for just such a disappointment. I had the money and the time and the support and the plan; everything but my spot on the schedule and I felt lost and betrayed. For the next hour my vocabulary was reduced to a single, very expressive and flexible, old English word and sobs as I let out all the emotion I'd been storing up.

I guess I didn't realize how much this journey to become the woman I see in my mind actually meant to me on such a basic level until then. I knew it was important. Every time I'd questioned my path or was challenged I renewed my desire to move forward and couldn't imagine reversing course, but this was different. I can no longer deny or waffle or claim I'm just testing the waters.

I've made the calls and my B.A. is scheduled in just over a month, and the FFS will happen in early July. Other procedures will probably follow. I accept they will never replace a lost youth, make me short and skinny or improve my singing voice, but I'm not just back on track, I'm confident at last, this is the correct track.

Thanks for giving me a chance to lay the story out and share it. I've not put it all in context yet and this, like almost all my involvement in this forum, has been a continued benefit.