The Day After Amber's SRS

6:50am – Amber woke up around 11pm last night – probably the consequence of being asleep much of the afternoon and evening. Her throat was still quite sore (most likely from the intubation) and dry. She also seemed to be going through a little worse nausea. I think I got about 5-6 hours of sleep on the fairly uncomfortable fold out chair. When I asked her if she got any sleep, she said “not really.”

Last night, though, after eating dinner across the street at Oregano’s and seeing too many young beautiful women, and as I was looking through the pictures of me that Amber has taken with her camera, I realized something that I think I’ve known for quite a while. I’ll never truly be happy. Yeah, hopefully I’m at a place where I’m comfortable being me, and I “pass” as female to most people, but I don’t think I will ever “pass” to myself. Inside – my soul, energy, essence…whatever…is female, but the physical aspect of transition can be difficult, especially as I grow older. True, I’m young in the MTF world, but some of these girls in their teens and twenties will get a far better reaction to the hormones than I. I’ve done OK so far, but I have a streak of perfectionism in me that comes out on things dear to me. Sometimes I have unreal expectations on things, such as how much I can get out of the hormones, but sometimes one has to set their goals high…and be prepared if they don’t reach those goals. It’s OK, though – transition has taken away most of the GID – left me numb to feeling most if its ill effects, but I’ll never fully be who I am. Yeah, I’ll have SRS because it’s the best viable option to living any type of life in the future – and always hope that something better becomes available in the future. Perhaps I can hope that one day I will be happier – until then, though, I’ll manage along.

8:11pm – Over the past few days I’ve come to see all of the maintenance and problems involved with SRS. One can have yeast infections, UTI’s, etc. – then there is dilating and douching for basically the rest of my life. It’s easier having a penis. I just mentioned all of that to Amber and she said, “yeah, but it gets in the way of a lot of things.”

“Yeah,” I said, “it gets in the way of life.”

Well, Amber’s done pretty well today. She’s been alert for most of the time that I’ve been around. I’ve run back to the hotel to exercise and shower this morning, escaped with Elisa for a fruit smoothie next door, grabbed a sandwich for supper in the same shop, and have run down to some of the other rooms to say hi here and there, especially when Amber gets a call or needs some private time.

I was here, though, when Dr. Meltzer stopped by a little after noon. They went over a few of Amber’s questions and concerns, including a very sensitive clitoris. Dr. Meltzer seems like such a nice guy, and his aftercare, along with his staff’s attention to the other items, makes me comfortable in my decision to have him perform my SRS.