2003-06-01
Let’s examine a step of my husband’s transition from female to male a little more closely, specifically his CRS.
Unable to afford the surgery, he was certain that it would never happen. When I came along, I suggested that he find out if his insurance would cover it. This was one of the many ways in which I would realize that he really didn’t (and never did) think like a female. Most extremely large-breasted women are quite aware of the fact that if their breasts are not proportional to their stature and cause them great duress in the form of back and shoulder pain, that their reduction can be considered medically necessary, prudent and thereby covered by insurance.
This fact had never dawned on my dear 5’4 double D-carrying husband-to-be.
It wasn’t prudent for him to make these calls from work and his schedule was so wacky that he was never available to call his preferred surgeon’s office when it was open, so I took over. I asked the appropriate questions, faxed them everything they needed and then we waited. Within a week, we had our answer: all systems go! He had a surgery date set for a date not two months away. He was stunned. He’d spent most of his life wishing he’d wake up and he’d find that his whole life before as a girl had been a horrible dream. Now, it was about to come pretty damn close to truth.
We traveled to the city where his surgeon was, about eight hours away. I honestly think that when he met the surgeon and her nurse for the consultation the day before surgery that it was the first time they’d actually spoken with him. The staff was quite leery of me at first, believing that I was one of those over-protective cretins that one sees on medical dramas, but they quickly realized that all contact with me was simply circumstantial and were quite warm to me after that. My husband was still in a haze of shock. Still couldn’t believe that it was finally happening. I was just as excited as he was, really.
He wasn’t allowed to eat anything from 10 PM on the night before surgery, and he wasn’t scheduled until 1 PM the following day. By the time we got to the office at about noon, he was not only wound tighter than a watch spring, but starving to boot. “All I want is Whopper and a Mt. Dew,” he kept moaning as he puffed anxiously on a cigarette. To add insult to injury, there were multiple displays of designer soaps in the outer lounge of the doctor’s office. Which wouldn’t be so bad in and of itself…except that they were all scented like luscious fruits and sweets. The air was redolent with them. How cruel.
Then it was time. I kissed my lover good bye. And began to pray. Any surgery has a risk to it. Any number of unforeseen things can go wrong. I became excruciatingly aware of this fact the longer I waited, but I remained calm. Mostly because I’d brought my laptop and was writing a running commentary of my feelings and the updates the nurse would come out and give me for the almost four hours he was in the surgical suite. Finally, the nurse came out and asked me excitedly; “Would you like to see a picture? The doctor was so impressed with his physique that she had me take a picture on the table. His nipples aren’t even back on yet.” DID I???
I scrambled up and she took me into the room where the computer was. She popped in the disk and opened the file. WOW. JUST WOW. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. A perfectly shaped male chest. The muscles he’d developed carrying all that weight around made the surgeons’ job incredibly easy and he was just…beautiful. He came out of surgery a short time later and they sent us back to our hotel. He’d never been under general anesthesia before and his system, not taking very kindly to it, did everything in its power to GET RID OF IT NOW. I think he barfed like clockwork for about five hours and then the chills set in. That was the worst of it; the worst moment for me because there wasn’t much I could do but pile blankets on him and rub his frozen feet. I considered climbing in the hotel bed next to him, but the last thing I wanted to do was disturb his upper body.
to be continued...
