This day is a tragedy, I practically didn't sleep a wink. I never have a problem with this, I close my eyes and click, I'm already asleep. My partner always laughs when I say, "I'm going to sleep," and 10 to 15 seconds later she hears me start to lightly snore. Unfortunately, today I slept for maybe 1.5 hours in total, divided into several-minute naps. I was turning from side to side, and when I slowly started to drift off, the wind raging outside wanted to tear out our windows and of course woke us both up (only my partner can automatically go back to sleep). In addition, more and more strange scenarios of a very important meeting with a psychiatrist (which is fast approaching) were constantly emerging in my head. Read More »

How can I briefly summarize this year: 

- ADHD,

- Discord/Loforo users meeting in Katowice, 

- ICD-11 HA60,

- Sobriety.

Cafe & Collation in Gliwice

My fiancée found this brilliant cafe near the town square (she likes to test new places). We each bought a pice of cake and a coffee. To be honest I'm not much of a coffe drinker so I went with something flamboyant, gingery flavoured but I liked it. The cake however was on a different level. The Black Sea cake was probably the best thing I've tasted in a long time. It was so delicious 🤤

A very interesting feeling when you finally reach for something you were so afraid of. And even though almost a month has passed, I still feel a mixture of euphoria, fear and disbelief. 

 I know it's just the beginning, but I'm already looking to the future with more enthusiasm

Current mood

Title says it all. The results after surgery came out and I've achieved pCR (pathological complete response). Meaning they found only isolated cancer cells in one of the lymph nodes they took out to test. Chemo killed it off! For now I'm in remission!

Surgery went well. The recovery was going great until I got the drains out 5 days ago and immediately ran 38.9 that is still going. Got sent to urgent care, got a horse's dose of antibiotic on Sunday but it's not better. So I wonder if I actually picked up some COVID? Normally I always have tests at home, but I used my last one the day before surgery itself. So I'll have to wait until tomorrow my partner can pick up some.

It's a double mastectomy, but I have so much fluid build up (the suspected infected seromas), that I basically have an entire new set of tits. I'm at least a B cup now 😂 Not getting too worked up about it, in terms of dysphoria. Mostly I just want to have normal temperature again and my chest not to sound like a half-empty water bottle every time I move (it's the fucking weirdest feeling). Everything else will resolve itself one way or the other. Read More »

Still alive. Chemo finished 5 weeks ago - needed a blood transfusion in order to make the last two infusions (and to uhh keep conscious, because I kept fainting) but didn't have to postpone a round or be hospitalized, so that's a win!

While I still have a palpable hard lump, the scans are pretty good and show much less metabolic activity. Out of 12+ metabolically active lymph nodes in September, now only two remain. Out of 3 tumour lessions, only one is visible on the scans. So that's all pretty good news, after all.

Surgery is scheduled for Tuesday. I had a small cold over the weekend, so I hope that's not a reason to cancel. I'll call in the morning. Fingers crossed! Read More »

The transition from being able-bodied to chronically ill and basically partially disabled has been frustrating, even though I have seen it with my mother and grandmother, so I thought I was prepared for it. No I wasn't. I wasn't prepared how every day all my little energy goes into micromanaging everything, just to keep me functioning. I have to:

- be mindful that I have only about 3 hours of energy around mid-day, so if anything needs doing, that has to happen by 1 pm;

- make sure I eat at precise interval, because when I miss it by an hour, I start feeling shaky and sick;

- micromanage what I eat to be the most nutritionally dense thing in the smallest physical quantity so that I don't get shaky and sick, but also don't get gastrointestinal issues; Read More »

I'm finally starting chemo on Tuersday! \o/ It's going to be rude, ngl. We're going for 4 medications. The first two every two weeks for two months. Then the other two, every single bloody week for three months. If that doesn't kill it off, there is one more we can do as targeted therapy. Side effect of at least half of them is leukemia and other cancers, so yay, I guess.

The oncologist wore a Pride pin (my gaydar was screaming already when I saw her photo on the hospital website) and was deliberate that she would do her best not to misgender me or use my deadname.

CW: cancer

Month and a half in post-diagnosis, I haven't started treatment, because the hospital forgot me and I fell off the planning. :/ Now it looks like I'll start treatment in November. Meanwhile I'm chillin' with a tumor that a month ago was 12 cm at the smallest part and it keeps growing. More than 12 lymph nodes affected. Stage 3c. I don't know what is going to happen with me. Every bruise makes me fear it has spread to the bone marrow. Every lightheadedness makes me fear it's moved to the brain. And I've lost all hope for ever starting medical transition.

Things happening right now.

I started university again (still working, but trying to study for fun next to it).

Got covid for the first time (Hopefully nearly at the end, but it still takes so much energy. so being awake late feels like a win).

Started antidepressants and feel like I've missed out on life so much the last years. Bc omg this is such a different experience right now!

I WANT to do things with family and friends and for myself. Not just bc I know it would be good (doing all the things therapy tought me to do) but bc I actually look foreward to it and enjoy doing it.

And I don't panic anymore - even if I don't do things right away. I can deal with having to do stuff and I don't hate myself if I mess things up. It's not "all too much" and "will it ever end" as soon as Read More »

Roses are red,
I'm a bad dancer,
which is all irrelevant,
because I have cancer.

Something I just realised: while I normally speak or think of myself, I use he and masculine grammatical structures. However, whenever I am criticising myself, I switch to she, feminine words/grammar, call myself fem-coded slurs, I use my deadname. Basically, my inner voice not only bullies me most of the time, but also misgenders me routinely. Rude! lol

But there is a positive. I've always had trouble realizing when I'm being unreasonably critical of myself and shutting down that irrational voice. Now I have a pretty clear cue to tell me that my self-criticism has gone beyond what is proportionate to the situation and has gone into beating-myself-up territory. Read More »

CW for mention of suicide and grief.

I've said often that I'm a clamshell, that I never open up to anyone. Not IRL anyway; journaling is different. After nearly two years of therapy, I finally opened up about a huge trauma that I've never discussed with anyone. About the suicide of my best friend after years of enduring abuse, and the guilt I've felt for that. Something I've carried unprocessed for nearly 25 years, and which directly related to two attempts to take my own life.

I had been building up to tell that story for months, but I always got so scared, that I always found an excuse not to. Finally this week I did it. I packed all my feelings, put them in a locked box in my brain, and forced myself to at least get the facts and chronology out. It still took more than an hour and I barely got the minimum out. At the end of the session the therapist aked me how it felt telling this, and my truthful answer was that I wasn't feeling anything yet. That I had intentionally put up a wall in front of my feelings, so that I can tell the story. Because I couldn't cope with both telling the facts and feeling the emotions. So I shoved them away for another time. Read More »

I want the girl, I want the girl, I want the girl!
*dramatically throws himself face down on the bed*

It's been a while since I've had a crush. It's an interesting feeling. It will go away in a week or two, just have to let it run its course. I guess I'll enjoy it in the meanwhile.

My neocortex knows that she was only hitting on me, because she was curious what it's like to do it with a trans guy, but my limbic system is all but lying on the floor, paws up, licking her palms and begging for metaphorical belly rubs.

*sighs* At least the whole experience has made me even more secure in my bisexuality.

I've been going to a dance workshop for a few weeks now. And the hardest thing for me is allowing myself to feel my body.

I have had a bad history with myself and ignoring my body to some extend seemed to be the best way to live a normal life. I'm still not sure what part is trans body disphoria, what part is eating dissorder and if they are even separated. I only know that it took me to some dark places in my life that I don't want to visit again.

As someone who overcompensated with sports and such, I have missed the connection to my body, so I am slowly trying to reconnect.

But it is highly triggering and I have to constantly remind myself that I am allowed to eat. That my body is okay the way it is (not good, not bad. Just existing and doing a good job in keeping me alive). Read More »