The Medics And Me

    It sometimes feels as though I never have the chance to sit down and write a personal blog piece, so much of my time being spent chasing tech stories and writing about them. And increasingly these days standing up in front of audiences of hardware hackers, and talking about stuff.

    I've just returned from a walk up the village on a warm Autumn day, past brambles bearing ripe blackberries, past leaves just showing a tinge of russet brown. I've caught the afternoon collection from the post box, and my single envelope should be on its recipient's desk on Monday morning.

    You see, I've just pressed the nuclear button. 

    What I sent off was a formal letter of complaint to the chief executive of the NHS trust whose endocrine clinic has provided my HRT over the past three years, detailing my 2.5 years on HRT, most of which were on a placebo-level estrogen dose, and almost a year of which was on effectively zero testosterone and estrogen levels. I'm within six months of surgery and am still only about two-thirds the level I should be, and I've sacked the clinic in question and found another provider who is competent. 

    The final straw came at the start of last month. I'd had a blood test which gave me 75 pMol/litre estrogen (it should be around 500), and the doctor tried to tell me that was an acceptable level.

    I acidly suggested that if it was so awesome, she should try it for herself.

    That and their losing a blood test meaning I had to have another completely unnecessary one was the final straw. I have been as understanding as I could have been, but after six months of having to badger them all the way for inadequate progress, I'm done. Their house needs to be put in order, and I hope the formal complaint will go some way towards that happening.

    The sad thing about all of this, and being discharged from my GIC a few years ago, is that I have completely lost trust in gender medics. I now go in expecting to have to fight, expecting to be messed around, and questioning everything. I've started with a counsellor at my new GIC, she's a psychiatrist in her own right, and I'm going to have to tell her I can't trust her entirely because my past experience has been universally of people like her taking things away. When I wake up eventually from my surgery, my first thought will be "Finally, they can't take this away from me!", which it shouldn't be. 

    Thanks medics, this is what seven years in the system has done for me. One thing's for certain, when the dust has settled I'm going to write about it.