Waiting game

    It's tempting to sit and whine incessantly about one's situation, but after eight years of it and with little changing, there's not much point really, is there. So it seems like an age since I last posted here, in fact it's about two months. I didn't say so back then, but at that point I'd had another surgical referral sent off, and this is where it gets rather complex. 

    The surgeon I want is the most experienced of the UK surgeons who would have been my choice all the way through as he used to be the NHS's main surgeon. He now operates privately, but can see NHS patients through a contract with another NHS trust as he doesn't have his own NHS contract. And the NHS trust have started being awkward about it and want their own surgeons to do the work, so people aren't being referred to him. My referral is unusual, coming via a gender identity clinic that they don't see often and with very insistent wording, so things seem to have gone slightly awry. People whose referrals went in at the same time as me are now getting their dates for surgery with the trust's surgeons, while I've not heard anything. 

 

    That's a dense paragraph, but the result is that I think I may be about to have another setback if I don't do something about it. I've been here before, they stick you on the pile and forget about you for six months, then tell you they can't do it. Not this time, is all I can say.

    So what's to be done? Kick up the mother of all fusses, of course! I feel that over eight years of this have given me the justification to be very prickly indeed, so it's off on the round of ringing up and kicking butt. Gently, but insistently where necessary. And I'm quite happy to turn on the muckspreader if I get bumped out of the system again. I shouldn't have to do this stuff, but nobody else is going to fight my corner for me. Pain in the arse, isn't it.

Getting out there at Maker Faire UK in Newcastle.

   Meanwhile, life goes on. April was spent on the road for Hackaday, a fantastic conference in Dublin followed by a round of smaller events and finally working a show up in Newcastle. There was a time when the gender psychs asked for evidence of your being out in the world, well I think standing up in front of several hundred people and talking about microphones probably qualifies. Flying overseas was a first since transition for me too, 

    All of that plus the referral stuff has left its mark though, I've been increasingly burned-out since the beginning of the year. So I'm on a couple of weeks holiday, not writing and trying to get my sleep patterns back. I started this blog years ago when I was sitting unable to sleep in the small hours, it seems as though I've come full circle.

    The summer looks promising, a couple of hacker camps to go to, plus all the usual highjinks. If all goes well I plan to have the surgery in October, but who knows whether that'll turn out. One thing's definite though, this won't become one of those minute-by-minute surgery blogs that you get from enthusiastic speed transitioners who don't appreciate the meaning of the word "triggery".

    Blogging was a thing, back when I stumbled fro the closet. It may not be so much of one now, but I still like writing as a format.