After the consultation, Clio had to kill some time in New York. About 2-3hrs hanging around the bus stop area, wherever this is. It was cold. She looked at the chrome poop in the middle of the square, ate tacos, drank margaritas, and toured the stupid gift shops full of stupid touristy stuff. (Bought one shotglass for $3.)
Transition Progress at this point: On hormones since 8/1 (7 months); injections since 12/22 (2 months) [13 so far]. Full-time female since 9/15 (5.5 months). Publicly out as trans since 10/11 (4.5 months). Legally female since 12/21 (2.5 months). 2 group speech therapy classes taken at GW Speech Clinic since 2/22. Plastic surgery consults continuing (5 for FFS, 3 for lipo). Have seen endo/primary therapist 5X, and secondary therapists 9X. Weight down to 143lbs (54 down from 197). Hair removal includes 32 electrolysis treatments totaling 25 hours; 30 laser hair removal sessions (51 area treatments: 16/15/13/12/8 mouth/goatee/face/neck/armpits, 7 legs/chest, 6 ears/Brazilian); and bi-weekly at-home IPL on arms since 6/17 (8.5 months). Latisse for eyelash lengthening since 4/17 (10.5 months). 2 dental implants, and prep work for Zoom Whitening For Life. Pierced ears. Dyed/layered hair (no haircuts for 3yrs--since 1/2015). Twice daily hydroquinone treatment on leg hyperpigmentation since 2/14 (2 weeks), and it's starting to peel red now (looks awful). Female wardrobe replacement wasup to 656 items. Total transition expenditures now over $17,400 at this point.
walking.
PETA organization, advertisements, bicycles, billboards, reflection, street, teardrop sculpture.
naked. people. shiny. trans milestone.
Manhattan, New York City, New York.
March 4, 2018.
... Read my blog at clintjcl at wordpress dot com
BACKSTORY: I booked an FFS (Facial Feminization Surgery) consultation with Dr. Bart Van Der Ven of 2Pass Clinic (Belgium). I'm really glad I went, because this was the surgeon I ultimately chose to do the surgery on September 4th, 2018. Skype consults are a thing, but there's no substitute for sitting there next to a surgeon, as he holds a metal ruler to parts of your face. Or his photography equipment for the "before" pictures. I received my simulation videos on the bus back to Virginia!
THE PLAN WAS A BIT CRAZY, THOUGH: We go to the club, then when it close at 3AM, we go home, and Clio then drives to DC to get on a bus to New York, arriving around 9AM, then finding her way to the consultation by 11AM, and back to the bus by 2PM, and back home by 7PM. And then straight to bed until the next day.
TRIP IN SUMMARY:
Failed repeatedly to drive into the Union Station parking garage, or any parking garage. End result: panic, hastily chosen street parking, and 4:35AM running toward Union Station dark and alone in DC .. I barely had water for the trip cause I used it all to run
The Megabus wifi sucked, but it was enough to keep up with things. It was that other non-megabus-bus that I took back, that had the broken wifi that didn't work.
I got there with time to spare - completed my consultation before it was scheduled to start - and had to kill like 90+ minutes before I left, as well. So the schedule was tight, but fine. I saw the empty slots in his booking and knew there'd be nobody before me (unless they booked after I did), so I knew if I showed up early I'd probably earn some extra wiggle room
Uber ended up costing more and taking longer than a taxi, because they charge you if you don't get picked up because you can't see the fucking car even tho the app is showing it go down the street right there and you are reading every license plate and the fucker just isn't there when the app says he's there. $5 each time. ... so it was like $9 Uber $12 taxi but I paid like $19 Uber because it took 3 Ubers for them to pick me up... And I had to fuck around for like 15 minutes ... Time for credit card disputes.
But the Uber BACK to the bus went well
IT WAS A TOUGH TRIP, but I did not keel over, and really was only miserable the last 2 hrs of the last bus trip. Though I WAS under-dressed with a light jacket and no hat/scarf, I don't deal with cold well, and I'm not from New York, so there were definitely a lot of moments where everyone in NYC was acting like a normal person, and I was jogging in place like a crazy person, out of breath, just trying to stay warm. At one point I ducked into the subway and hung out in a pissy area near a unconscious homeless dude because he knew what the fuck was up about avoiding this cold. But eventually I had to go into gift shops because the piss smell of NYC's subways is pretty ubiquitous and overwhelming
Dr. Bart Van Der Ven of 2pass Clinic ( www.2pass.eu ) saw me. He said I only need a Type 1 forehead reconstruction... Though if it ended up needing to be a Type 3, he'd only charge me for Type 1 [for reference: facialfeminization.surgery/index.php/forehead/ ]
But basically, he said I only need a Type 1 forehead reconstruction, not Type 3, because of where my brow bossing is
He measured my nose-to-lips and said I didn't need a lip lift. Dr. Bart simply rattles numbers off from his head, holds a ruler up.. I fell within female numbers anyway for the lip-to-nose distance. Something I've become increasingly LESS dysphoric of lately, as I look at more and more women through the eyes of one learning gendered skull structure knowledge.
He didn't want to do the cheek implants, just nasolabial ones. He said 4 implants has more infection chance than 2. Tho taking them out is rote and can be done locally. So why NOT get 4? Hmmm. [But the estimate came with cheek implants, and I ended up getting small ones, so hey! :)]
Sadly informed that something something lower orbital rim too far back compared to most people, not "abnormal" but uncommon means that something something something maybe that's why he only wanted the 2 implants [uh oh -- I got all 4 implants though. Sure wish I remember what that something something was]
He wasn't into wanting to do as aggressive of a jaw shave as I seemed to want, and ultimately it really wasn't that aggressive, and I wonder if I should have insisted on more, though I'm pretty happy with the results, and at the time of posting this (November 2018), swelling still hasn't gone down yet, to make a final judgment on just how happy I am with things. I'm fairly happy with the results so far. :)
