6 months postop
2007-12-08 00:54 -
It’s been the happiest 6 months of my life, even with all of the pain involved in the process. I read over my past half-year of blog posts and realized how much progress I’ve made. I like the person I see in the mirror and feel confident and comfortable in my own skin. I feel as if I’m living for the first time, instead of hiding. The next 6 months, and indeed, the rest of my life, are going to be even more wonderful.
On Thursday, Blacker won Interhouse swimming for the first time in at least 5 years. The women’s 200 medley relay team won, and I won the 50 breast (although I didn’t beat the record I set on Tuesday). I’m feeling less bad about the record since Justine, whom I swam with in high school, was only 0.2 seconds behind me in prelims (equivalent barely half of a stroke). Both of us beat the record, and it so happened that I was just a split second faster. The margin of victory was about 25 points. Blacker dinner went wild when we announced that we’d won. As soon as the amount of time I spend on dilation goes down, I think I want to start training again so that in a year and a half when I become eligible to compete officially, I’ll be able to attend Senior+ meets in Pacific Swimming.
Unfortunately, I missed the last waited dinner of term tonight due to a cooking class field trip tonight – there was lots of tasty Chinese food on the field trip, but I think I would have liked to be at dinner. I suppose I’ll have to say goodbye by e-mail. :(
Dilation’s been improving lately – I’m back at ~3 hours of dilation and the pain of insertion is truly getting much more minimal. Still nowhere near being able to finish dilation in 1.5 or 2 hours as I was over the summer, but much easier on my life. I think I might be able to give the medium dilator a good try when I have some spare time over winter break. Reading back over my old blog entries, the soreness after dilation I initially experienced is entirely gone, but I’m still having problems standing still in one place even 6 months post-op. Not as crippling and I don’t collapse immediately – I may just need to be persistent and keep pushing the limits of my strength there.
During dilation lately, I’ve taken to watching Torchwood in order to take my mind off things. I first watched an episode at Salia’s place last weekend, but I think that I’m now a big fan. While the writing is not at the same quality level as Firefly, I do have to mention that the exploration of bisexuality in mainstream Sci-Fi television is incredibly hot and I heartily approve of it.
Oh, lastly, winter break plans – I’m staying at Caltech until the 19th, then leaving for Tulsa to visit my cousin Bobbie, then returning to Caltech on January 3. I have no idea what start dates will end up being possible, but I’m hoping to finish up moving sometime around January 6, have a week to settle in, and to start working the week of January 13. It’s definitely going to be high time to start checking Craigslist for apartments and/or housemates as soon as I know where I’m working and what my budget is going to look like.
I’m going to bed early tonight and dilating in the morning to re-normalize my sleep schedule in preparation for the next few day’s events. That, and I need to work with diurnal people in order to get my ph2a finished.
