Hello again. I intend to quit the Allspark because I quit any forum if I feel at all unwelcome. Understand it's to protect my mind from excess stress. I have major anxiety issues that stem back to trauma I received long ago that I never got over. I have to make my own safe spaces instead of expecting someone else to do it for me.
But I kept thinking back to this topic in particular. You folks didn't make me feel unwelcome. So I might return to this topic from time to time. I also might disappear entirely and probably will eventually. Who can say? I'll reply to this one for the time being. Mostly because I have an anecdote of caution.
My blood test was incomplete again. It seems the clinics and hospitals in my area cannot get this stuff right. And also my doctor didn't order anything for estradiol levels, as it turns out. My other levels are strange, though. My body thinks it's about to ovulate according to some things I've read. Which is cute if harmless, but I don't really know. I only take 2 mg of estradiol every 12 hours. I wish I had an endocrinologist to help me with this. It could be more than half a year before I can get one.
And you might not want to depend on Planned Parenthood if you live in the wrong areas. Mine made a series of mistakes, asked me intrusive questions, dead-named me several times, then refused to prescribe me hrt over the phone, dead-naming me again on the way out as I was crying. Basically one of my doctors' nurses he delegates stuff to disagreed with the hrt, so Planned Parenthood wouldn't let me have it. Screw 'em. I'll help myself. I've learned I can't count on most people anyway. EDIT: I must add this isn't meant to discourage anyone from trying PP. Just don't depend on them as your savior or last hope.
Thanks for sharing.
Sorry you are feeling unsafe on this board, but I’m glad this thread at least provided some reprieve from that. And yes, please do what you need to protect yourself!
This might not help to hear, but I hope it provides some validation of some of your feelings. I “came-of-trans-age” in North Carolina, and my experiences with their medical institutions there were awful. I normalized quite a bit of what happened to me for a long time. Then I moved to Colorado. They aren’t perfect, but they are lightyears better than what I experienced in NC. And it took me moving to CO to validate some of my experiences as medical discrimination.
Specifically, there were many, MANY times they got things wrong for me. Prescriptions, supplies, medical tests, and especially insurance billing. There just always suddenly seemed like there was an extra step that needed to be done, or something I was accused of having not done, except when I did it, they would just gaslight me and not acknowledge that I did it, over and over again. And there would always be a more seemingly-incompetent person that would show up to take the place of an individual I made any progress with in my situation(s), and I would have to start from scratch, over and over again. “They just can’t get things right they’re so stupid” I would tell myself. They aren’t; they’re just transphobes all throughout the system and using the local laws to lord access over trans people to basic aspects of the medical system and throughout it. There were some good eggs helping me along the way, but had I not had the unique access to the people that I did inside the system, I would have never gotten anything l needed. And had I not moved out of state I would have not seen how the entire system over there was set up for people like me to fail.
Anyway.
I also appreciate what you said re: PP. You are correct that they ain’t jive, either. But I did have a couple friends who told me they were able to access needles and hormones from them at one point or another, through what effectively was an underground rainbow railroad of sorts of people that happened to operate within the local PP for helping people who were medically transition get access to basic supplies like needles and such as well as hormones. Of course, not all PP are personnel are equal and part of that network, and I would venture to say most aren’t. My husband, who is also trans, had horrendous experiences with them actually.
I'll try to get another test soon. But I need to hope my doctor actually asked for the correct tests, too. I can't tell.
I wouldn’t feel too envious; I had a whole team of people who helped to put that look together after hours of research, workshopping and planning. Didn’t just roll outta bed like that ya know?
