So now, perhaps we can really catch up. I went for another laser session this past Saturday - it had been almost three months due to them pushing for a two month interval now that the price has dropped (which still agitates me - the interval, not the price - but I've discussed that previously) and some other commitments. Unfortunately since I've been leaving the house more than means more shaving and more irritated face. As it stood I had a couple of spots on my face where I had gotten what I'm assuming were ingrown hairs and it was a concern when I arrived for the numbing cream application. They decided to go ahead with the process so she applied the cream and left me to wait for the hour. Well I had been up about 25-26 hours at that point and actually dozed off once or twice waiting. I'm not sure if they could hear me snoring, but I'm sure I was which was a bit embarrassing for me.
I had spoken to "D" recently and she had mentioned that when she went the last couple of times the laser was set to 41 and 38. I had never asked but I assumed I was probably in the 30's somewhere since it had been hurting even with the cream. Much to my dismay, when I asked I was told it was at 23 the last time. I felt like quite the little baby at that point. I believe she turned it up some this time - it hurt pretty good. Parts of my face/neck not all that bad, but other parts - it was a lot of pain. I'm torn at this point, I can see progress and the price is a little more reasonable these days, but I'm tempted to give that up and do electrolysis instead. I have a lot of hairs still, but they could focus on specific areas whereas the laser gets the whole face but it's more hit or miss as to what it actually works on. I'll have to give that some more thought.
Speaking of giving things more thought - SRS comes to mind. Originally when I (seriously) contemplated transitioning SRS was the "end-game" so to speak. Then as time passed the cost of the procedure, the recovery time, my age, and the "work issues" made the decision for me -- I decided it wasn't important and I could be happy without it. None of those things have changed, including me being happy; however, the single biggest "concern" was the cost, but I've given that a lot of thought this week with the orchi on the horizon. Depending upon where I went the surgery would run about $18k-$30k for the SRS and another couple of thousand for travel, etc. Now I realize I could get it done cheaper by going to Thailand for example but I'm limiting myself to the continental United States and possibly Canada (Dr. Brassard in that case - partially due to him being so reasonably priced and being basically "all-inclusive"). That's still a *LOT* of money and wouldn't be easy to pull off; but I now think it's doable. Not this year, not next year, but perhaps within 3-4 years I could pull it off. The question becomes do I want to make the sacrifices necessary to do that; and more importantly do I want to put "J" in the position to sacrifice things to do that? I don't have the answer to that question at the moment. I think I'm willing and I know she would be willing too, but I'm just not sure I can put her in that position. I'm sure I'll have more thoughts on this going forward.
As far as being "out and about", I do need to update my ongoing series on places I've been and the experiences I've had there - they've all been good ones as they almost always are - but I like to do that anyway since that was one of the two main reasons I started this blog. The other was to share things such as the court process for my name/gender change, what therapy (at least for me) is like, and so on. I know I did a *LOT* of reading going into this, and I still do from time to time and I love to be able to read about specific experiences of people so I have an idea of what to expect for me.
I think with that I'll bring this entry to a close as I have work to do and I'm still not sure if we're going to get our eyebrows done tonight or not - I'd actually rather wait since I've been up for about 24 hours now and if we do that it'll end up being a good 36+ before I get to bed and while that was not a problem 20 years ago; well it's not so easy these days. :)
- m
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