Thanks for folks at the My Husband Betty forum for helping me take a step back — it’s easy to get wrapped up wanting to potentially move too far too fast.

I did an email consultation with a second surgeon — sent him photos and he sent back his assessment and recommendations, as well as a Photoshop’d picture showing the sort of changes he’s envisioning. Unlike the first surgeon, he didn’t draw up a laundry list of everything he could do… in fact recommended against getting a brow lift simultaneously with rhinoplasty, since he thinks the swelling from the former can interfere with the former, and then went on to say that I should think about skipping a brow lift together (he’s concerned about visible scars, and my brows, while on the low side for a female, are within the “normal” range of where they’re positioned.

Help make me realize that I’d gotten a little obsessed about wanting to do them. I still would like to raise them and arch them a bit, but it’s definitely worth weighing the costs and benefits of doing so.

Meantime, I sent pictures off to a third surgeon for an assessment, and scheduled consultations with two more in the Bay Area — although one is so booked that the first opening that they had for a consultation alone was mid-June. A little tough thinking about waiting that long to at least start with rhinoplasty, but OTOH gives me more time to really dive deeply into learning as much as I can about the various procedures.

Also set up a consultation to potentially start hormones — although that doctor is booked until mid-April. Just as well, I’m not quite sure I want to start just yet until I get past the more painful parts of electrolysis, and it’s more time to give thought to pretty significant decision.

Speaking of electrolysis… my electrologist has been hitting the upper lip pretty hard and it looks like we’re pretty close to clearing it. Most of the patch she cleared last week remained clear and this session she got most of the remaining half-inch stripe. I suspect she’ll need to hit the stripe again more than once, but the end is in sight.

And tonight, I began my first of what will be weekly sessions with a speech therapist. Mostly intake, baselining and goal setting, but we did get to do some work, and we immediately made progress on something that has been bugging me. It’ll take work to perfect, but having someone to provide feedback was valuable in helping me figure out what to do.

It’s also good to feel like I’m making progress, even if there’s much to do — so, so much to do — and it’ll take a while to go there.