My Marching Orders for Tomorrow

My marching orders for tomorrow are:

 

Drop my ballot (WHEEE!!!! Another Bernie vote!!!) in an elections drop box so it can’t get stolen from my mailbox

 

Call Medicare to confirm that it will cover my upcoming transmasculine top surgery and that my secondary insurance will cover the balance (I called my secondary insurance yesterday and they said they follow Medicare guidelines, so if Medicare covers something, they will, too…) and to confirm that they need nothing more other than two letters documenting my gender dysphoria diagnosis to approve and cover the procedure. (I have NO idea how long it will take to me get a live person at Medicare: I expect it will take a while. If it takes more than 30 minutes, I’ll see if Katheryn Evans, my health care broker at Sound Strategic Solutions, can get in faster via a broker number and ask the questions for me… She’s awesome!)

 

Call my gender dysphoria doctor to see when I can pick up her letter confirming my GD status

 

Call my primary care physician to ask how many days before I have surgery should I come off Warfarin, and whether bridge therapy will be recommended during that time. (I think they’ve dispensed with that. I didn’t have to do it for the gallbladder surgery a few years ago.)

 

(I can do the above two calls at the same time; the doctors are at the same clinic.)

 

Have my taxes done at 2PM

 

The good news is that all of these can be accomplished (the out and about ones) in the same general area in Lakewood, so if the GD letter is ready tomorrow, I can pick it up then and put it into the binder I’m filling to take to Seattle for my first consult on April 2nd.

 

My GD doctor has been out of the office all month but emailed to say she’ll be in the week of the 24th and I can pick it up that week. so I just need to find out what day. I want to get that last piece of my future into my hot little hands so I have everything I need for my appointment which is still waaaayyy too far away (April 2nd). I wanna get this DONE!

 

I watched a transmasculine top surgery video last night. It had a warning attached: graphic surgery imagery. Viewer discretion advised.

 

But the process was so fascinating that all I felt was an immense sense of “YES!!!” as I watched the surgeon work.  My boobs have never been welcome additions. Seeing big boobs excised and the chest made flat with grafted, smaller man-size nipples (placed where they are on guys instead of females) gave me such a sense of anticipation that I wanted to drive up tomorrow and have it over and done with!

 

Sometime later this year, in under three hours, I will have the chest I always expected I’d have–until it sabotaged me by growing balloons. You cannot imagine the mortification I felt as a nine year old to watch my body betray my essence in that repulsive, impossible-to-hide way…

 

It went against everything I had planned for my future.

 

But we’re here now, and my personal future is looking brighter to me than it ever has since I was nine.  I just hope the rest of what I want (politically, globally, environmentally) follows suit so we can all live happier, healthier lives.  That’s actually looking possible right now, too.

 

But it isn’t a given, by a long shot. It’s something we have to take by being proactive and refusing to let bad actors on all sides usurp the front runner.  I’m in it to win it because Bernie’s in it for us. He always has been. He’s no Johnny Come Lately to the progressive platform. He’s its granddaddy and he has earned this nomination and he’ll be a great President!