Work

Within a week of coming back from vacation, all sorts of things have been happening and mostly at the vet hospital where I work, but also just life in general.

Our tech supervisor gave her 2 week notice within a week of me coming back to work. This of course caused widespread panic and sadness as she did an insane amount of work for the hospital and was loved by all. And we are entering our really busy season with people wanting to take vacations as well. There’s been a scramble on the tech side to cover shifts which means we’re pulling extra shifts. On top of that, the office manager tells us that she will be taking over the scheduling and some other duties which were the supervisor’s. No one is very happy about the scheduling especially since the OM really doesn’t know what goes on in the treatment area not what we really need for scheduling. And she says that if she has holes in the schedule and no one has volunteered to cover them, she will just assign them to people. Really not good for me considering I’m working 2 jobs right now. But the “hospital is the first priority” and I apparently need to forget any other obligations on my time like the second job. I’m considering myself exceptionally lucky that my second job is so willing to work with me otherwise I’d probably have to quit it (which I honestly think that is what the OM is trying to make happen). I can’t afford to work only one job unfortunately. There are several weeks in which I am working 5-6 days a week and she keeps trying to get me to work more so that 3 weeks I work there 6 days. I manage to work 2 jobs without going insane because at least one of my jobs is fairly mindless. That was my intent and it works. Pulling that many days at the high stress job is going to be very taxing. So lovely…

She also tells us that she wants to meet with us all individually to chat for about 10 minutes or so. Nothing bad she says, just a chance to hear concerns and catch up… About 2 weeks after that, another tech gives her notice and so begins the scramble yet again. Morale is low at this point and people are already starting to feel the stress before the nightmare truly begins. And those meetings she’s been having with the tech team? They’re closer to an hour or longer in length and she’s ripping into people. Yeah, as if morale wasn’t already low enough. I think part of it comes from the supervisor leaving. She protected us from a bunch of crap from that office and now that she’s gone we’re ripe for the talking apparently. Before she left, the supervisor told us that she told the OM and the owner of they were smart, they’d give the techs all raises for all the hard work we’ve been having to do as well as all that we are going to have to do. No one has had a raise in years. I haven’t had one since after my 90 days review and that was almost 3 years ago. Perhaps that is why she’s tearing into us so hard. They don’t want to give us raises and are trying to give any excuse not to. Pretty poor way to treat your remaining employees. I haven’t had time to go meet with her yet and I’m really nervous at this point. Based on what the others have said about their “chats,” it’s not going to be good. I don’t know if they’re trying to get all their experienced techs to quit so they can hire new grads for less money but it sure seems like it. I think 4 of the 6 techs we currently have are ready to go on strike or at the very least all call in sick on the same day.

Another problem with work is that the more overbearing, least easy top get along with, stress prone tech seems to be taking over the supervisor position. She keeps taking on more responsibilities and is already starting to snap at the doctors. I’ll very seriously consider looking for a new job if she does become the supervisor as will at least one other tech. I’ll give things until September to get better and then I’ll leave if there’s no improvement.

On top of the situation at work, I’m in for some heartache on the home front. My rabbit appears to have a tumor growing on the side of his face and inside his cheek and on his lower lip. Took him in to work with me to get it checked and we aspirated it to see if we could find out what it is. All we found on the slide was bacteria, which could indicate a multitude of things. Tooth root abscess, abscess, necrotic mass, etc. If it’s a tooth root abscess, there’s not much I can do for him. I could take him to a specialist, have him put under anesthesia, have the tooth extracted, and hope he recovers okay. Rabbits don’t typically do well with anesthesia and most anesthetic deaths in rabbits happen in recovery. His age would also increase his risk. He’s at least 12-13 years old and that’s pretty ancient for a rabbit. If it came to that, I think the kindest thing to do for him would be to let him go. Trying him on a month long course of antibiotics to see if it helps and rule out infection/abscess. After about a week and a half, I’ve seen no improvement so far. If anything, it may be getting bigger. and he doesn’t want to take his needs like he did in the beginning. So at this point, I think he’s on hospice care. I’ll let him keep on kicking as long as he feels up to it and keeps eating. Every moment that I’m home and awake, I’m going to make sure he has time outside of kennel and outside when there’s light. I’m just going to make sure he lives the rest of his life to his fullest extent possible and that he’s comfortable. That’s all I can do at this point. I just wish that I didn’t have to work so much right now and I could spend more time with him.

Moving forward

I’ve been struggling for a bit with finances for some time now and I’ve been looking for a second job for at least 6 months.  Granted I wasn’t applying for jobs every day but I was looking.  I finally got a job offer this Saturday!  Still need to go through all the drug testing, background check, etc before I can actually start working but at least I finally have a second job. That takes a little bit of stress off my shoulders.  I’ll be working a part-time position as a valet parking runner for one of the hotels downtown and I’m actually kind of excited for this.  All of my job history is in the veterinary field so I’ll be expanding my skill set.  Also, since the parking garage for the hotel I’ll be working for is 4.5 city blocks away, I’ll be getting my exercise in.  This is the first time I’ll be working for tips and I’ll be working outside.  I spend too much time inside I think so this will be beneficial to getting me out in the sunshine and mostly fresh air.

There are only 2 drawbacks that I can see with working a second job.  First, I won’t be home as much.  I don’t worry overly much about the critters because the other than the pup, they’re pretty self-reliant as long as I give them some food and keep the boxes clean.  With the pup, I believe that his mother will spend some more time with him and take him out for a walk while I work.  The second drawback is that I won’t be able to visit with my family for some time unless they come up here to visit with me.  Holidays especially will be more difficult to get away.  Since I don’t work holidays at my primary job, I’ll be pretty much guaranteed a shift at this second job.  I figure that between holiday pay and tips, it’ll be well worth it to stick around.  The way I’ve figured it, for the next 2-3 years I’ll work 2 jobs.  In 1 – 1.5 years, I’ll have all my debts paid off and then I can continue to work a second job to save for surgery.  After I take care of those 2 things, I’ll be doing just fine financially on one job.  I’m young enough that 2-3 years isn’t much in the grand scheme of things.

If all goes according to plan, I’ll be able to pay for my surgery without having to take out a loan once my current debts are paid off and I’ll be able to get surgery within 3 years at most.  And I won’t have additional debts to pay off once I do get my surgery.  This is better than I had been hoping for, especially in the last few months.  I have a more positive outlook on my future now.

Family Progress

So I meant to write this post last week but ended up pulling a 6 day shift at work instead.  Worked somewhere around 58 hours in those 6 days and I didn’t have the energy to write a blog post.  Even just finding the energy to make food was a daunting task some nights.  In any event, my family (minus Dad as he had to work) came up to visit me for a few days starting on July 15th.  They brought me up a car (I had just sold my old truck and needed a more reliable car so we came to an arrangement) and a barbecue because at that time I was just using a little thing you’d take to a picnic.  Since they were coming up during the days I was going to be working, they had made plans to entertain themselves while I was working and we would do something together when I came home.  Made a reservation to go to dinner at a fondue restaurant which was a blast.  I think we spent at least 2 hours there.  One night we had planned to go out to dinner and a movie but due to a headache, we stayed in, ate dinner, played Scrabble, and I introduced them to Eddie Izzard.  That was fun.  Just like old times back home.

The visit was a lot more laid back than I was expecting.  My family is really making an effort.  They are striving to use Em or Emmett and male pronouns.  If they slip up, they corrected themselves.  My mom admitted to me when we talked yesterday that the distance does make it harder since I’m not there all the time.  We generally only talk once a week unless my work schedule goes haywire, so I can see her point.  I definitely felt more at ease during this visit than I have since I decided to start transitioning.  Although, as I’ve been living alone since the 2nd week of June, I had to make the apartment look as best as I could and get used to people living with me, even if it was only temporary.  I wanted to make the place look the best I could just to make sure that my mom didn’t worry about me adjusting to life on my own.  I know she worries about me especially now that I am on my own.  In a way, I’m glad she worries.  It shows me that she still loves me.

Been Awhile…

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated here. So here goes…

I’ve been doing pretty consistent video update videos on youtube… No idea if people are actually watching them and liking what they’re seeing but oh well. It’s been interesting being able to see how my facial features are changing and hear my voice dropping as well. That was the intent of the videos after all, for me to be able to see changes over time. Granted I can see changes little by little, but until I am actually looking at the past videos, I don’t fully realize all the changes that have occurred. I’m going to continue to make videos and will probably be updating here less frequently. Just a refresher for anyone who wants to know, I’m labradork1 on youtube.

In speaking of changes, I’m seeing the changes while on the cream. It took awhile for me to start seeing/feeling changes on the cream. When I had my first (and only) injection, I didn’t really feel any different but my body was loving it, especially the increased sex drive. After the T was out of my system, my sex drive dropped to nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a blip on the radar. Took being on the cream for about a week, week and a half before I started getting any semblance of a sex drive again. In terms of physical changes, my face is becoming more angular. Definitely not as round as it was prior to starting T. I’m becoming a hairy beast as well. I’m shaving at least once a week. Getting fuzzy on my cheeks and growing a pretty good little cluster of dark hairs on my upper lip. Arm and leg hairs are getting darker and more noticeable. Also growing hairs on my stomach and back. My voice is continuing to drop and crack some as well. Binding my chest can be a little taxing sometimes. It feels difficult to breathe deeply and just makes life a pain in general. I look forward to never having to wear a binder ever again but as I don’t know when I’ll be able to afford surgery, I enjoy the days I don’t have to go anywhere so I don’t have to wear the binder. I think that’s it on the changes front…

On to the rest of life…

I just got laid off from my job this past week. Not due to my transitioning in the slightest. Everyone was pretty damn supportive of my decision to transition. The company was going through some rough financial times (stupid economy) and I was the last one hired in my department… I left on a good note and it seemed that everyone was sad to see me go. For now I am applying for unemployment and will be looking for a new job. We may be moving up Portland. More opportunities for me up there in so many ways. There are more job ops for CVTs and the community is better in general. Found a job that sounds really good. Planning to update my resume and cover letter today and email it to the contact person. We’ll see how things go.

Last time I talked with my mom, I asked her if she had told my grandparents. She had and apparently things went fine. My grandfather was of the mindset that if I was going to be happier because of my decision, then so be it. We had a family friend that lived with my great-grandmother when she was alive. She was a depressive alcoholic and eventually died due to liver damage. My family believes that she probably had an underlying gender identity disorder and that contributed to her state of being. My family doesn’t want to see me go down the same sort of path and just want me to be happy and successful.

This is my life at the moment. Check my youtube channel for more frequent updates.

It’s been awhile…

Alright, so I got caught up in studying for the test and life in general… Plus I couldn’t really come up with something to make a blog post out of. Still having a difficult time with that so this post will mainly be a catch-up sort of post.

First off, the vet tech test is finished. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for the results to come out, which will be in another 4-6 weeks…

Second, my girlfriend and I had to euthanize our old girl on the 27th of June. Her pain meds weren’t really doing much for her anymore and we could tell it was time. The day we decided to let her go was one of the better days she had had for quite some time. Amber spoiled her with food that day while I worked (have to work a half-day on Saturdays) and when I came home, I played ball with her and cuddled with her. One of the vets I work with came out to the house so we didn’t have to take her into the clinic where Jonna always stressed. We gave her some sedation so everything would go really smooth and the sedation kicked in very quickly… Quicker than sedation given in the muscle usually takes. We figure there must have been something else going on with her like a mass somewhere. We said our goodbyes and held her as she passed away. After she was gone, we let our younger dog, Piper, come out and see her so he would know she was gone. He was pretty depressed the next morning and wanted cuddles the entire day. We’re all doing better now and it was for the best.

Third, my mom and sister are out of the country and I will be picking up my mom from the airport tomorrow (sister doesn’t come back for another month). This will also be the time that I tell my mom that I am transitioning… We’ll play it by ear and see how things work out. If there is a good time to do this in person, I’ll do it then. If there isn’t a time before she drives back home, I have a letter that I will slip into her suitcase for her to read when she gets home… Either way, I will be coming out to my mom this week. Here’s to hoping everything goes okay… Also, probably going to be starting T within the next month or two. Just need to make an appointment with the doctor/nurse practitioner couple my counselor recommended. Amber just went to them for a routine visit and while she was there, asked them if they would be able to get me started on T… Turns out, they’ve helped other FtMs in the past… Things are looking good from that prospective.

We went rafting with a group of my coworkers and their significant others yesterday and had a blast. I was a little bit nervous as I have not come out at work and was going to be wearing board shorts and a muscle shirt. I stopped shaving months ago and the female coworkers are very feminine and straight in every sense of the word. Things went well though and I was in a raft with my one male coworker (excluding the vets), his girlfriend and sister, sister’s friend, and Amber. We all had so much fun, especially when we decided to splash the other raft. Damn I’m glad I wasn’t in that raft… You would have thought those girls came to the river to stay dry… Had so much fun that Amber and I are thinking of going out in a smaller raft sometime soon.

I think that is all that I have to talk about for the moment. Looking back, I guess I had more to write about than I thought… Now that life is calming down, I’ll try to update this blog more frequently.

Life at the moment…

Wow, it’s been a long time since I updated my blog… Oops… Life kinda got in the way.

Since I last updated, I filled out the patient questionnaire and received an estimate for top surgery by Dr. Brownstein. I was quoted $8650 for a double incision chest reconstruction surgery. Ouch. On the plus side, I won’t have to fly out anywhere as San Francisco is about 6 1/2 hours from where I live. I am having trouble figuring out how to finance the surgery. Just applied to SurgeryLoans.com about 2 weeks ago… Got a letter from them yesterday saying that they were unable to give me a loan because they were unable to verify my address or phone number. Why won’t places accept that there are actual addresses that have 1/2 in them (such as 555 1/2)… They do actually exist! I live at one of them! Going to have to give them a call to dispute this… So right now I am unsure whether to schedule surgery and work on getting a loan secured before the surgery or wait. Top surgery is the one thing that I absolutely without a doubt want to do. If someone came up to and told me I could only do one thing in my transitioning, I would choose top surgery with no hesitation. Sure I want to take T and at some point get some sort of bottom surgery but I would be willing to wait. My chest is the one thing that is preventing me from passing as male well! Sorry for the mini-rant… I feel very strongly about my chest…

In other aspects on my life… I was bit on my wrist by a cat at work a little over a week and a half ago. Damn thing swelled up rather spectacularly… Actually went to see the doctor for that one. In less than 24 hours, it was well swollen and I got some purulent fluid out of it… Didn’t want to play with that one considering how close it was to my joint. I had to get an antibiotic injection and a tetanus shot as well. I was put on massive doses of antibiotics that knocked me flat on my ass. For the first 4 or 5 days, I was in bed by 9:30pm which is very usual for me. Usually I am up until 10:30-11:00pm. Wrist finally stopped swelling 4 days after the initial injury. The time that it was swollen sucked. Of course the cat had to bite me on my left wrist (my everything hand) and make everything almost impossible. Made it through that trial and the wrist is almost completely healed.

Haven’t made an appointment to see the doctor/nurse practitioner couple who may be able to get me my T… Wanted to wait until I was completely healed to go see another doctor… I’ll probably give them a call here soon to see if they will even be able to do that… Money is a little tight right now so I don’t want to waste my money.

I have another counseling appointment on the 28th of this month… I’m supposed to write sample letters that I would send to my parents and grandparents. I’ve been thinking lately that it would be easiest to write a letter… I’m very afraid of losing my family and don’t want to be right there if they decide they don’t want to have anything to do with me. Definitely want to send a letter to my grandparents since my grandma is so difficult… Guess I will have to sit down and write those this weekend.

I think that is all for my life at the moment… Posts may be sporadic until after the 19th of June. I’m studying my ass off for the test I will take on the 19th to become a certified technician. Hope everything goes well.