the_fantastic_ms_fox (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
the_fantastic_ms_fox) wrote2008-05-05 10:02 pm
the_fantastic_ms_fox) wrote2008-05-05 10:02 pm
Entry tags:
- embodiment,
- ffs,
- gender,
- medicine,
- surgery,
- trans,
- transition,
- voice
FFS +5 Days
Progress.
Small children stare at me. Men offer me their seats.
On Saturday I went to see Iron Man with Ruby and Scott. Ruby was nice enough to hold my arm as I held the other out in a gesture that could be read as either "My face is too swollen for me to see you beyond where my hand is" or could also mean "Pardon me. I could lose my balance."
Good movie by the way, and my gratitude to Ruby.
On that day, I was slurping my food because I couldn't actually chew anything.
On Sunday, I could close my mouth enough to move food around in my mouth without spilling it, so My Mum and I went out for food. I had soup and mashed potatoes. The possibilities of mashed potatoes will have to form the crux of future investigation.
Today (Monday), I can now eat my food, rather than mushing it. I still can't chew much, so bread has to be soaked in soup. My lower face has de-swollen enough that I can use my voice - the one that sounds like me: it could be female or unisex or maybe like a T-Boi who just shot a little T, depending on who you ask, but it sounds right. I didn't realize how good it would be to have that back, or how hard it would be to use it.
The nerves in my scalp and lower lip are re-connecting.
It's hard to tell right now what the final results will be. I can feel that the bone has changed, but trying to find my face amidst the swelling is not easy.
Small children stare at me. Men offer me their seats.
On Saturday I went to see Iron Man with Ruby and Scott. Ruby was nice enough to hold my arm as I held the other out in a gesture that could be read as either "My face is too swollen for me to see you beyond where my hand is" or could also mean "Pardon me. I could lose my balance."
Good movie by the way, and my gratitude to Ruby.
On that day, I was slurping my food because I couldn't actually chew anything.
On Sunday, I could close my mouth enough to move food around in my mouth without spilling it, so My Mum and I went out for food. I had soup and mashed potatoes. The possibilities of mashed potatoes will have to form the crux of future investigation.
Today (Monday), I can now eat my food, rather than mushing it. I still can't chew much, so bread has to be soaked in soup. My lower face has de-swollen enough that I can use my voice - the one that sounds like me: it could be female or unisex or maybe like a T-Boi who just shot a little T, depending on who you ask, but it sounds right. I didn't realize how good it would be to have that back, or how hard it would be to use it.
The nerves in my scalp and lower lip are re-connecting.
They're numb usually, but can feel cold, prickly, or really itchy (while scratching does nothing because the area is numb - so how can I feel the itch?). Sometimes there's a sharp pain in the stitches that run across the middle of my forehead, like the skin has just worked out some kinks and is only now tugging on them. In the interim, when I hold a glass to my lips, it feels like there's a circular hole in the brim - that's how my brain interprets the lack of sensation in the penny-sized area on my lower lip. My scalp is ringed with prickly, but on top, it feels more like a tight fur-covered hat - this is how my brain reconciles its absence of stimuli - one points to an absence in the object being sensed; the other to the falsity in the object doing sensing.
This is disturbing. I reminds us that our bodies are fallible. It scares me that because my body fails in one way, that it will also fail to change as promised, or at least forecast and strongly hoped.
This is disturbing. I reminds us that our bodies are fallible. It scares me that because my body fails in one way, that it will also fail to change as promised, or at least forecast and strongly hoped.
It's hard to tell right now what the final results will be. I can feel that the bone has changed, but trying to find my face amidst the swelling is not easy.
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I also can't wait to read your bestselling published memoirs of transition, just as soon as you get them published & bestselling.
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