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  • 26 Jun 2011
     It seems ages since I was last here. And it is. I was kinda shocked when I saw I was last here in September. Almost as surprised as when I realised a couple of weeks ago that it was a year since my op. And though I didn't notice the time passing as is often the case when you are busy, I don't seem to have done very much.  Physically I have fully recovered, which took until the early part of this year - it takes longer once you get older, and though I was 90% quite quickly, the last bit seemed to drag on a bit. So through to Christmas I was still taking this fairly easy, and then it was winter, which is so depressing if you don't like the cold or the rain or just having no sunshine for what felt like weeks on end.  March started better, then the car had to go, it would have cost twice what it was worth to keep it on the road. So it was find a cheap (very) car quickly that was ready to drive. Thank you eBay, even including the tense last few minutes waiting toi see if I had won. I now have an old, very bright red, Peugeot 205. Which does what it says on the tin, gets me to and from.  Also during the whole time work has been changing to accommodate all the cuts (I'm still in local government) and my job has changed with it. It's still the same, but with 'extras', involving training and stuff, but at least we got an upgrade with it. And in six months time when everyone has had their cut, I hope to start feeling the benefits! LOL  And maybe now things have settled down I will start participating here a bit more again. Of course, this will depend on whether I can keep this old laptop running, 'cos I've broken my main PC. Again! It works, but there is no signal to the screen, so I can't see quite what is working. I suspect the main board has given up, along with the video card, so it's upgrade time. The card has been playing up for a while, so I switched back to on-board, but then that went as well. Can't wait to get flashy new board, processor, RAM etc. Meantime, this 10yr-old Dell will have to do. I have to plug in a mouse 'cos the touch pad can't feel, one speaker doesn't speak so there are wires all over my table, and there was no way Windows would connect to the internet, so it's on Linux (Ubuntu 11.04) & Firefox (5.*). All free, and they work. What more could I want? Well, apart from sitting comfortably at a proper workstation...  Anything else? Yep, I now have a cat. A rescue one, now nearly two. She was an 'indoor' cat from a family who lived near a road, and she was beginning to get a bit 'enthusiastic' playing with their small children (and is still very wary of them), but she is generally ok with adults. And I have the scratches to prove it! It's been realy funny watching her take her first steps outside. After about a month she is still tip-toeing across grass, and tends to stick to the edges of our enclosed garden, but getting better all the time.  And that's about all I have done.  Note to self. 'Must get out more'. LOL   BTW, I'm on Facebook, as Susan James
    1814 Posted by Susan James
  • 03 Jun 2010
    One thing I am good at, waiting...Anyway, finally got here yesterday after eight-and-something hours travelling. I hate public transport, especially when the bus implies it will leave from a stop, only for one to find out after a few buses and the expected time had passed that it actually leaves from a stop about half a mile down the road. Was a good girl and ate all my sandwiches and drank my drink and didn't talk to any strange men on the train. I was actually entertained by two very nice children (boy 6 and girl 5) going up to London with their mother for most of the journey, so that helped pass the time.So, yesterday they took some blood to match in case I need refilling at any time during my stay, and filled out the longest questionaire I have ever experienced - and that is saying something! (Remember I work for local goverment...), ticked the boxes on the menu sheet 'cos I can eat up to and incuding breakfast this morning - op is scheduled for 17.30. For the remainder of yesterday I  just lurked. Read a bit, watched a bit of TV, dozed a bit, in between which they came and stuck things on me and wired me up - ECG, not the chair, sorry to disappoint, checked there is oxygene in my blood, all the usual thing they like to know and monitor. Oh yes, my BP is now down to good, not even up a bit like it was only a week ago which had me worried for a while.And so to bed - just before which the night witch told me she was going to wake me up at 5.30 (am!!!) to stab me. I don't do mornings! I did suggest she not wake me, just do it, but all I got was a grin. As it was still only about 10pm, I made a couple of phone calls, then found out that Melissa was still awake a couple of doors along, so went round and chatted there until well after midnight. I have met her before, she uses the same clinic in Newton Abbot.So I finally got to sleep about half one, then woke at twenty past four. Another few degrees and a bit of steam and these rooms could substitute as a sauna. There is air-conditioning...in the corridor, not in the rooms. D'oh! So i tidied up the bed then got the laptop out and got it set up on the free WiFi, and here I am. The lady of the needle did come by and do her duty - I could have stayed asleep, it was nothing, and while I've been typing the BP got done again and they checked I know how to take my regular meds - I think I do by now, been taking them for a while.Now it's the long haul until breakfast, then elevenses, then might as well sleep until they come for me. I am not good at just hanging around. Fortunately, afterwards, even though I will be even more stuck in bed I can top up with painkillers and sleepers and avoid being concious as much as possible until I'm mobile.Sue is booooooorrrrrrrreed already. Hope there are some people online later!
    1379 Posted by Susan James
  • 14 Aug 2010
    Or maybe it's the beginning?Anyway, whichever way one looks at it, I'm done. No more shrinks and doctors, appointments and tests, and all the other crap that goes along with a simple request for a bit of elective surgery. I've had my final check-up (as far as I know, and I can't be bothered going if they ever want to see me again - which I doubt, I am a royal pain in hospitals).Of course they have to cover themselves so no-one can sue the pants off them - hang on, that's what I wanted (not to sue them, but to get out of pants!) - afterwards for doing what they were asked them to do then having to accommodate a change of mind.NO, I am not and will not be changing my mind.I am quite happy with the way things are, everything is virtually back to normal physically, and there was nothing wrong with my mental state in the first place. It was the body that was out of synch.Was, past tense, all fixed. At long bloody last. It was a journey and a half, took over ten years from my first approach to my GP to the final operation, and it's not hard to understand why some people don't make it. I had my moments of total disillusionment, wondering if it was worth the effort and distress and depression and all that, but it was.Ok,I opted for the 'look-alike' cosmetic op, but that only rules out penetrative sex, and that was never high on my agenda anyway. I still have all the proper 'feeling', and that 'works'.It's not been life-changing, I have been female too long for it to affect me that way, and I never expected it to. Some things will be easier, some not, but basically I'm still just me.At that's it. I will still be posting opinions on the site, offering advice whether it's wanted or not, and keeping an eye on things generally.Good luck to those walking the same path, and I hope all goes well for you too. (And more quickly!).XX
    1362 Posted by Susan James
  • 16 Jul 2010
    I have been off now since the beginning of June, and am getting bored out of my skull!So this week I went back to work, mornings only for now, just to get out of the house.Even with the internet, Freeview and a mobile, the walls are too close. I really can't understand how anyone can sit around at home indefinitely, for whatever reason.Admittedly I have been resting a bit during the afternoons, but that is as much because I have got out of the habit as anything else. Mind you, it makes little difference, sitting here playing with a computer as sitting at work doing much the same thing!Otherwise, everything is going well. I have been 'invited' to go for a check-up early in August - another 300+mile round trip for a 15min visit. Do they think we are made of money? Oh well, should be the last one.Then it is all over - no more shrinks, hospitals, doctors, travelling etc. etc.Hoo-bloody-ray!
    1298 Posted by Susan James
Society Girl's Personal Blogs 2,499 views Sep 26, 2010
Scary how time passes
Happy anniversary to me!
Today I have been a member of Katie's site for exactly nine years.
In September 2001 I first went on to the internet, using a TV/Internet box - wires everywhere, dial-up and a rubber-keyed keyboard something like the old Sinclair ZX series. I knew a little about computers and nothing about the net - the box had sat unopened for a couple of months before I dared try it out.
Little did I kow what I was letting myself in for! The instuctions were minimal, to say the least, and at one point I got caught for a huge phone bill - no-one told me you could open a story from Fictiomania then disconnect while you read it.
Around the same time I started to look for tranny stuff online - I had been full-time for about 18 months by then, and beginning to get my act together. There were a reasonable number of meet'n'greet'n'chat sites, and I signed up to most of them.
Oh my, was I naive! It took less than one evening before I knew rather more about sex and cybersex than I could use in a lifetime! Within 24hrs about half the sites were deprived of my sparkling wit and scyntillating conversation, and all but a couple were hit with a delete button soon after.
One of the latter was called Trannyweb. There were less than 200 members at the time, and only about a quarter of those were in the UK. The forums were informative, but it was the chatroom that won me over. Ok, it was less than reliable and did weird things, (including not working at all), but the people were brilliant. Just a bunch of girls (mainly from the UK or USA) chatting about anything and everything. One night it might be football (American or soccer), another it could be shoes and shopping. The next time you went in trans issues could be on the agenda, with comparisons from both sides of the pond.
New members were welcomed and encouraged to join in, and their questions answered - both the internet and being trans were new to many. Sure, we got the occasional idiot, but they soon left when they found out it was not a knocking shop!
Since then the site has grown and matured, been updated and moved with the times. (And moved servers and changed programmers and such, with the accompanying hiccoughs!). The latest was a change of name,to get us out of the clutches of the dreaded blacklists - in many places (like where I work) the only way to access the site was through a proxy by-pass.
The next thing on the agenda is a new site altogether, hopefully doing away with the bitsa this and that we currently have and everything being integrated.
And I will still be here, reading the forums and dropping into chat and generally enojoying what is probably still the best TG site on the web.