moms, work and awesome surgeons

tomorrow will be two weeks post-op for my top surgery. i'm going to take pictures sometime tomorrow and post them on my website. my right nipple and areola look great - a bit of swelling and bruising, but overall the right side looks awesome. my left side still looks gross. my nipple and areola are black, but i'm fairly confident that it's a scab. there's a bit more swelling and bruising on my left side than on the right - but overall there isn't much swelling or bruising. i massaged my scars where the drains were tonight for about 5 minutes each - i can already feel the scar tissue, so i want to make sure i take care of them so they heal properly.

i was worried and still am about my left nipple and areola so i was able to speak to dr. fischer today. first off how many people get to speak directly to their surgeon? she assured me that my nipple/areola would be okay and that it is most likely a scab and prescribed some silvadene cream that's used to treat infections. so i'll use the creme twice a day and it should help my nipple/areola. we were also talking about how we didn't get to see each other before i left because when i went to get my drains out she was in surgery - and i told her i wanted to thank her and that the surgery meant a lot to me and what she's doing means a lot to me and many other people. she said my words meant a lot her and she was happy to be what she's doing. she said she feels like it's her calling in life. dr. fischer also mentioned that she's going to court next week to help an FTM get his gender changed on his birth certificate. i thanked her again and she thanked me again. wow, just what a great, inspiring, and passionate person. she's my hero.

today was my first day back to work (i work in retail selling camping equipment). i was a bit worried about standing around for 8 hours, but it wasn't that bad, i was pretty tired and am tired. i told my one boss about my physical limitations and he was cool and my other co-worker was cool with doing some reaching for me today and cool with me sitting down for a bit. but, of course i wouldn't do anything i don't think i should physically do. so mondays are pretty uneventful days and i thought it would be the perfect day to come back. but around 3 pm the ceiling near the main entrance and stairway started leaking water and it leaked for about 30 minutes. and once it finally stopped leaking the paint on the ceiling started falling off. so i had to block off the main stairway and help clean stuff up...it definitely made for an eventful afternoon.

so my mother. ugh. i don't even know where to begin. so i've been wanting to come out to my extended family for quite some time now, but keep thinking there is a better time or get scared. but lately i've been thinking a lot about why i'm waiting and really there is no reason. and how it really sucks being in the closet and not being honest with myself and with those i love. so i told my mom that i wasn't asking her permission to come out, but asking her if she wanted to be a part of this, if she wanted to support me through it. i wrote a letter a few days ago and have been editing it since then and read it to my mom. she told me it was "too graphic" and that there was too much in the letter. i wanted to write a somewhat detailed letter because i know people will be confused about things and want to try to make sure that there isn't too much confusion.

and then she asked if i wanted to tell my grandmas and i said yes, but wanted to write separate, more simple letters for them. she told me that she didn't want me to tell her mom and that if i did tell her the news would kill her. she actually said that, she said that i would kill my grandma. i couldn't believe she said this to me and i told her that i couldn't believe she would say that to her own child. and she replied that she thought it was true.

she went on to say that my dad's family is really conservative and that they wouldn't understand. i told her that i wasn't expecting everyone to be accepting and/or understanding and that it was important for me to be honest with myself and with others. then she told me i'm trying to change people, to which i replied that i didn't think i was going to change anyone, but looking to challenge people, yes. she told me that they didn't want to be changed or challenged and that they didn't care what i had to say. i replied that challenging people was important to me and to human beings because if we're never challenged, we'll never change and we'll never progress if we never change.

she then told me that i'll never see most of these people again anyway, so why did i have to come out to them. i reiterated that it was important for me to be honest with myself and with others. she repeated herself - that i'll never see most of these again, so what's the point? i told her that she didn't know if i was going to see them again or not (what about a funeral - i gave my dad's mom as an example and she told me that she thought that i wouldn't go to her funeral anyway....wtf...) and then she kept repeating herself. i got so frustrated i asked her what she was scared of, what she was so scared of that she didn't want me to come out to people. she didn't say anything and i asked her again and asked her if she was scared of losing friends and family. she said yes and then i asked her if she would really want to be friends with someone who thought her child was "fucked up". she gave me a weary no.

my mom then went on some rant that i hadn't listened to anything i said and that if i was all about preaching tolerance, i wasn't being very tolerant. i reminded her that despite my yelling (i couldn't help but yell, i was pretty worked up, not necessarily angry yelling, i'd like to think of it as passionate yelling) i had listened to what she had to say and reminded her that i wasn't asking permission. i also told her that i was disappointed and discouraged about what she had to say to me. i knew this wasn't going to go over well, but really did not expect the horrid responses she gave me. i told her that she was my mother and i loved her and look up to her, but was really surprised by what she was telling her own child, that those words would come out of her mouth. honestly i am pretty appalled by what she said, i really just can't believe she would say some of that crap. she's a smart woman, but damn she said some ignorant, close-minded and pessimistic stuff. i'm not disappointed in our conversation, but more disappointed in her. i feel like sometimes we hold people to such high expectations and make them out to be people they aren't.

i'm sitting here on my couch topless. i must say it's pretty awesome, no shirt and all. enough for tonight.

peace,
luke