So tomorrow is Coming Out Day at work.
At the moment, I’m oddly calm about it, although I was alternating between that and major freak outs during day. Now the nervousness is more of a “first day at school thing,” e.g. what do I wear? I’ll still be presenting as male tomorrow, but yeah, if lots of people are coming up to me, I’d like to look nice, and a bit femmy. Probably going to do my standard jean, but with a women’s sweater (albeit it’s subtle enough the men won’t probably recognize it as such) and smallish hoop earrings (I’ve only worn stud earrings to date.)
It may be thanks to the pinched nerve, but I just don’t have a lot of energy to stress over it.
The good news on that front: I was able to get into to my primary care doctor this morning and he’s trying to fast-track getting it dealt with. Immediately started me on the specialized non-narcotic pain medication that worked well last time, got me in to do an MRI earlier tonight. The rehab specialist wasn’t available for two weeks, but I’ll be able to see the rehab specialist’s physician assistant Thursday morning. Not sure if she’s got the authority to refer me to surgery — an epidural steroid injection — herself, but I assume that worse case, she can have the neurologist himself do it.
Whether I can get in for the epidural before the 31st may a challenge though. However, I if can’t do it through my medical group, my physical therapist knows someone good — he’s the guy the PT would go to if he ever needed one — and said he could probably pull some strings there to get me in.
But yeah, dealing with that on top of transition is even more stressful, and the non-stop pain is draining at a time when I’ve got an ever-expanding list of things that need to get done. (If you ever played sports and got a “stinger” is like that, except that it’s 24/7.)
Meanwhile, my therapist asked me to at least consider coming to work as a woman before the end of the year. Originally the plan was to continue presenting male through the 23rd, when I take vacation time for the holidays and then go on medical leave. In large part to make a clean break between “old me” and “new me” who will return next year. Also just not sure I’ve got sufficient work wardrobe built up yet — and realistically I should look my best, since I’ll be under extra scrutiny those first weeks. OTOH, her thought is that it would be a powerful boost to have my gender affirmed by my co-workers before I take time off.
We’ll see…. Got more immediate fires to do deal with. Like actually rehearsing the number I’m doing Friday when I make my solo debut at the “big” Hubba show — the venue holds up to 800 people. And getting my legal name/gender done on Wednesday, and then getting all the other ID changed, And…