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Another "anniversary."
May. 26th, 2011 09:17 pmIn a no longer accessible post last year I posted about having a rough time of things last August because it was two years since I'd begun transition and I felt like I'd had little significant progress.
Sometime this month passed another two year anniversary. I didn't realize it at the time but something caused me to do so today and it wasn't a good thing.
Two years ago this month I first saw my now-former endocrinologist. It would be another five months before she'd even begin to prescribe HRT for me, and now, more than two years after that first visit, I'm still dealing with trying to get it right.
I'm quite tired of dealing with this; of the endo appointments every three to six months (ostensibly every three but that "see you in three months" sometimes stretched to six because there wasn't an appointment available before then,) and me having to argue for the increases, getting told absolute bullshit* trying to convince me to just stay at the level already prescribed, only to repeat this again at the next appointment, and all this is to get penny-ante increases. It takes a long time to get to 200mcg transdermal in 25mcg increments, and the only reason I'm at 200mcg this year is because I made a non-prescription order and self-increased my dose by 75mcg earlier this year.
What I see as the strongest statement of how even my now-former endo saw those doses despite what she said was that only once she had begun prescribing 125mcg to me did she bother ordering Liver Function Test (LFT) as part of my labs before each appointment. It is, IMHO, a clear statement that she saw what she was prescribing as extremely low.
My new endo, who I saw two months ago, was unwilling to make any changes then as the latest existing lab reports predated the 75mcg increase. Some tests were run that day and the result was no significant change. She sent me a copy of that and another lab order, now well and truly buried in a box somewhere in my living room, because she wants to check again to see if a summer appointment to adjust the prescription level is necessary or if she wants to wait until fall.
A lot of thoughts run through my head: where is any sense of concern for the patient's overall well-being - any of the parts that can't be quantified in a blood lab report are ignored at best? Will dealing with GCS prove to be a repeat of this? If I knew three years ago that what is said to be one of the simple and rapidly accomplished things - getting proper HRT - would instead be the most difficult and slowest for me, and would lead to where I am today, would I have still called for that appointment?
The last question is really rhetorical. I know that, in spite of this, it is still the best thing I did. I have learned a lot of lessons I sometimes wish I could go back and inform my then-self of some things. I shouldn't have been as truthful as I was with my therapist. I shouldn't have said that my goal was to be done with transition no later than age 40 (I was 33 at the time,) because, in spite of her assurance that it can easily be accomplished in far less time, she saw it as me wanting to proceed very slowly, and that carried over to the endo via their communication. When I finally got a copy of my HRT letter late last year I found it said as much.
Three years ago I judged people who did HRT on their own and the like. Today I think they have it right. Three years ago I held the naive belief that the primary concerns would be my well-being, needs, and what I want to accomplish. Today I am thoroughly disabused of that notion.
I'll get through this; there's pretty much no other option than the strength to do so. I hope to the heavens and hells that I soon see a day when none of my sisters deal with even this, much less the worse I know exists.
* An example from an appointment last June, in response for me asking for an anti-androgen to be prescribed, was being told that I was "probably" one of the people for whom HRT is ineffective and that an anti-androgen wouldn't likely change that. She did, at least, humor me and prescribe it, and it has made all the difference. I can say with certainty that without it I would today still be at the same point transition-wise, particularly with respect to social transition, that I was one year ago.
Sometime this month passed another two year anniversary. I didn't realize it at the time but something caused me to do so today and it wasn't a good thing.
Two years ago this month I first saw my now-former endocrinologist. It would be another five months before she'd even begin to prescribe HRT for me, and now, more than two years after that first visit, I'm still dealing with trying to get it right.
I'm quite tired of dealing with this; of the endo appointments every three to six months (ostensibly every three but that "see you in three months" sometimes stretched to six because there wasn't an appointment available before then,) and me having to argue for the increases, getting told absolute bullshit* trying to convince me to just stay at the level already prescribed, only to repeat this again at the next appointment, and all this is to get penny-ante increases. It takes a long time to get to 200mcg transdermal in 25mcg increments, and the only reason I'm at 200mcg this year is because I made a non-prescription order and self-increased my dose by 75mcg earlier this year.
What I see as the strongest statement of how even my now-former endo saw those doses despite what she said was that only once she had begun prescribing 125mcg to me did she bother ordering Liver Function Test (LFT) as part of my labs before each appointment. It is, IMHO, a clear statement that she saw what she was prescribing as extremely low.
My new endo, who I saw two months ago, was unwilling to make any changes then as the latest existing lab reports predated the 75mcg increase. Some tests were run that day and the result was no significant change. She sent me a copy of that and another lab order, now well and truly buried in a box somewhere in my living room, because she wants to check again to see if a summer appointment to adjust the prescription level is necessary or if she wants to wait until fall.
A lot of thoughts run through my head: where is any sense of concern for the patient's overall well-being - any of the parts that can't be quantified in a blood lab report are ignored at best? Will dealing with GCS prove to be a repeat of this? If I knew three years ago that what is said to be one of the simple and rapidly accomplished things - getting proper HRT - would instead be the most difficult and slowest for me, and would lead to where I am today, would I have still called for that appointment?
The last question is really rhetorical. I know that, in spite of this, it is still the best thing I did. I have learned a lot of lessons I sometimes wish I could go back and inform my then-self of some things. I shouldn't have been as truthful as I was with my therapist. I shouldn't have said that my goal was to be done with transition no later than age 40 (I was 33 at the time,) because, in spite of her assurance that it can easily be accomplished in far less time, she saw it as me wanting to proceed very slowly, and that carried over to the endo via their communication. When I finally got a copy of my HRT letter late last year I found it said as much.
Three years ago I judged people who did HRT on their own and the like. Today I think they have it right. Three years ago I held the naive belief that the primary concerns would be my well-being, needs, and what I want to accomplish. Today I am thoroughly disabused of that notion.
I'll get through this; there's pretty much no other option than the strength to do so. I hope to the heavens and hells that I soon see a day when none of my sisters deal with even this, much less the worse I know exists.
* An example from an appointment last June, in response for me asking for an anti-androgen to be prescribed, was being told that I was "probably" one of the people for whom HRT is ineffective and that an anti-androgen wouldn't likely change that. She did, at least, humor me and prescribe it, and it has made all the difference. I can say with certainty that without it I would today still be at the same point transition-wise, particularly with respect to social transition, that I was one year ago.
