Medical

admin on February 26th, 2011
the-operation-one-year-on

One year ago today, I was rolled into the operating theatre in Aikchol Hospital, Chonburi, Thailand for a life changing operation. I fell asleep under the anaesthetic with two lovely nurses holding my hands and the whole team standing around me smiling (a memory which still brings a tear to my eye). Dr. Suporn, one [...]

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admin on March 7th, 2010
the-neurological-effects-of-hormones

I am no neuroscientist (I’m glad enough I can spell the word properly alone), but my transition has taught me quite a lot about how my body works, especially how hormones affect ones brain. I had two neurological issues which I’d battled with for years disappear with my change in hormones and having stopped hormones [...]

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admin on February 22nd, 2010
the-operation-day-1-well-im-off

So, here goes! It’s 9:30 and in an hour, my taxi will come to pick me up to take me to the airport. Luckily, I didn’t book my flight with Lufthansa, so I shouldn’t be impacted by the strike their pilots are having. Funnily enough, having booked with Air France, I’ve been worrying about them [...]

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admin on February 16th, 2010
stopping-hormones

There’s one thing that I can say about having to stop hormones in the run up to the op: It’s rotten! I’m lucky in that Dr. Suporn only requires one to stop two weeks before the operation. Many surgeons require four weeks, as did Dr. Suporn some years back, and that must be quite horrible. [...]

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admin on February 5th, 2010
all-go-for-thailand

I feel bad for having written so little here, lately, but I’ve been running around like crazy trying to wrap things up at work and getting everything ready for leaving for my surgery. One of the things which was out of my hands, however, was the referral letter, without which there would be no surgery. [...]

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admin on January 20th, 2010
phew

The last few days, I have been in what amounts to a state of complete and utter panic, which is why I’ve not managed to write ‘Big Smile Post No. 2′. I’d had a few health problems at the end of last year (including one rather dramatic episode which ended up with military intervention! Yup, [...]

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admin on January 16th, 2010
big-smile-post-1-a-potential-hurdle-remover

As you may have noticed from my last post, I hit a bit of a trough when my psychiatrist didn’t want to write me the referral letter. I was really rather sad with that. She seems to really believe in me and did make it clear to the gatekeeper at the hospital where she works [...]

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admin on January 13th, 2010
yet-another-hurdle

So, I spoke with my psychiatrist this morning, all very nice and pleasant, but she won’t write me a referral letter because she “doesn’t believe in mixing the therapeutic and the gatekeeping aspects”! She’s been kind enough to push the two gatekeepers we have here to write me a referral letter, backing me up very [...]

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admin on January 11th, 2010
mad-rush-preparations

As you will know if you’ve read my blog for the past months, I’m due to have the big operation at the end of February and that means I have a lot to do between now and then (and the countdown at the top of my blog shows just how little time I have!) Between [...]

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