Bundle of Shae

( Tumblr can’t do my piece justice at a mere 1280 pixels wide, but here you go. )

Just felt like sharing while I'm in a happy mood. I've never felt much gender dysphoria, and I have always been happy with how I am. But when I realized I was trans, my biggest concern was my lack of hair. I've been losing it since I was 17. While I hate that people feel the need to "pass," this is one area that I felt extremely self conscious about. I never want to wear wigs, so it was a big deal for me to have this done.

I am very fortunate to live in Oregon where my insurance (Kaiser), covers everything but FFS and hair transplants (they cover HRT, electrolysis, voice training, genital reassignment, and even breast augmentation as of last month. FFS is currently being debated for coverage as well). With that in mind I knew an investment into my hair was something I could make work.

The process-

The doctor asked me what kind of hairline I wanted in my consultation. I told him that I was transitioning and wanted a female hairline and all baldness filled in. Speaking of which, he was super cool, and told me he had worked with a few MtF patients in the past. He asked some Frank questions about being trans and made me comfortable to be there.

I emailed him a bunch of images of girls hair that I liked and through conversation we settled on a look. I didn't want him to make it 100% feminized, but close, because as soon as FFS is covered by Kaiser, I'm getting it done and want some wiggle room (thus leaving a bit of a tall forehead. I figured FFS could simultaneously give me a brow lift so I wanted space for that option). Also, it's my personal choice to transition slow. I'll put on women's clothes when I feel my body is closer to what I want, longer hair being one of those things. I also need a urological issue resolved (not SRS), but that's a different story... Finally, I'm only a few weeks into HRT and trying my best to practice patience!

So yesterday I went in at 7:30am, where we triple checked the hairline I wanted, and drew it out on my head. I took some of his advice and altered a few of my expectations. Pre-surgical pics were taken.

His staff was very friendly and the first thing the team did was ask how I wanted to be referred to! "Shae," I replied, and was overcome with joy, as officially I still have to use my dead name on paper.

The first part of a strip surgery means shaving the back of your head. Then they numb the area with a local anastetic. This was the worst part, and for me, a girl covered with a hand full of tattoos, not an issue. I don't know what device they were using, but it felt like a tattoo gun.

So then the cutting begins. The sounds were aweful! Even though I felt no pain (as soon as I started getting sensation they numbed more), I could hear everything they did. It sounded like wood being pulled apart, or like shucking corn. Basically tearing your skin off...yuck. After that they sewed me up like any wound would be. I will have a scar from ear to ear. This whole bit took until around 10:00am.

We broke for lunch (me, my husband, and the surgical staff) and had a good time talking for a half hour or so. I had been given a few Ativan by then so I was giggly. Teehee... Two of the team worked through lunch dissecting the bacon-looking strip into individual hair follicles. 2004 grafts in all.

After lunch, the long haul began. I had to sit upright, which really strained my back with all it's problems (I used to get seizures, resulting in a lot of permanent back trauma). The lead doctor numbed the top and front of my scalp this time, which took longer to kick in and needed to be reapplied a lot during this next bit.

He made 2004 incisions in my scalp. Some of them sorta hurt, but I could handle it. I just wanted to be done sooner than later. I felt like "Pinhead" from Hellraiser, if you took all of his nails out.

For the rest of the day, people took turns in teams of two transplanting the donor hairs from my strip into these inscisions. It felt like FOREVER and a day. I made them stop a few times just to move my spine and neck around. At 4:45pm they finished.

They bandaged the strip site, sprayed my new hairs with saline (they did this all day during surgery), and put a medical cap on me very loosely. They let me pick a bandana to wear, so I picked a Marvel's Avengers pattern and was done up like Rosie the Rivetor.

I took two of the Hydrocodone they gave me for the ride home, and almost threw up. I think I just needed food, as two pieces of toast made me feel good enough for a real meal. After that I was fine.

The only bad thing that happened was two of the grafts getting pulled out when I took off the cap. Oh well, 2002 out of 2004 is pretty good. I joked that they only charged me for 2000 anyway. Lol.

All in all, this cost me $4.00 a hair, so $8,000.00 total. They quoted me 8k - 12k. I had already paid off the down payment of one grand, so the rest was put on a "Care Credit" card that I specifically got for it's promotion, 0% APR for two years if I pay in full by then. Basically just under $300.00 a month.

So now it's another waiting game. I am excited AF to grow my hair womanly long, a dream that's been unreachable for over a decade. This will be the most expensive part of transitioning for me, but totally worth it I think. Besides, I turn 32 in a few days, and always get myself something. :)

Now I just need my tits to grow!

_Shae

Edit:

Duh, I need to give mad props to the talented and open minded doctor and medical team who did this for me.

Dr. Troy Fallon in Tigard, Oregon, USA.

To all women out there, I must say I am sorry. I never realized how hard it is to lose weight with female hormones! But I feel you now.... :) The day I started Estrogen, my weight loss progress totally stopped. I found out at one point that I needed to change my fitness app and monitor my BMI as a woman, not a man, which I had defaulted to before. Now am am losing weight again, albeit slower than pre-E. That said, I am down from 205lbs to 181.9! Yeah, take that! Short and sweet, week two has been a bit lackluster. This post comes a few days after the two week mark. No crazy changes yet, but some small things. Speaking to the weight loss, the only places I am not losing it are my breasts and hips. It’s fun to see my body forming sort of an hourglass figure. I would take a pic, but uh, I look a little ‘effed up. I bought an epilator with good reviews, and used it on my front torso all over. Four days later and I STILL have red marks and irritation on my chest. I will just stick with the waxing salon for now; the woman who I saw last time was very queer-friendly, although I don’t have the courage to tell her I am transitioning just yet. I’ll wait until leg day... The other thing that has me unhappy with my appearance right now is head hair. I have gone back to the cheap buzz-cut, wanting to maximize my anti hair-loss regimen in the final weeks before my hair transplant. I have the surgery on September 7, where they will fill in my bald temples and the bit of recession I have via Strip procedure (I opted for more pain and healing time so I could have a cheaper bill and slightly better odds of hair growth afterwards). I am excited, nervous, and ready for it to happen! But yes, my hair looks so manly right now and I hate it. Fuck you receding hairline! I’m coming for you... I think the hormones are also confusing my pores; I am getting very soft skin, but have terrible dryness due to the Spironolactone. Bath & Body Works was having a sale so I bought a bunch of exfoliation products and lotion that makes me smell like Tangerines, my favorite citrus smell. Yummy. I have gotten into a better routine of drinking water as well, and it’s getting better. Because of this, I am experiencing bouts of gender dysphoria for the first time, or at least recognizing its existence in my life. I understand how others in transition feel when I read their stories. As in, time could not go fast enough! I want hair! Not to mention, I still have a month+ before I can see the urologist for yet another surgery. I have spoke on it here and there to some people, but without too much detail, I have some benign stuff in my junk that needs to get an ultrasound and eventually removed. Nothing that is killing me, thank goodness. But because of this, tight pants and more androgynous clothing are not currently options for me, and it really feels shitty to be restricted to super male fashion choices. Or even worse, the chance this problem persists as I am become more of a woman physically. On the flip side, I told myself that I would take my MtF transition slowly. While I want to learn to apply makeup better, or start changing my clothing, I don’t want to do it until my hair starts to grow up. I don’t want to do it until the “man issues” are totally resolved and skinny pants or skirts will fit properly. Many other things too, like voice lessons (thankfully, my love of singing has allowed me to easily access a more feminine voice when I want). I know a lot of trans people may find that hard to understand, but I can accept it for now. I’m trying to be patient while still being myself. I’ll make changes as I feel comfortable with it. Last weekend, my partner and I went to my grandmother’s 80th birthday celebration at my parent’s house in CA. It was a ton of fun and I got to see a lot of extended family that I never run into. Many drinks, much slurred speech and singing with uncles and aunts... We only were there for a few days, but I did get the chance to spend a few hours with my good friend Jenn. She is one of my favorite people in on the planet, hands down. She taught me a lot of what I know- design principles, typography, living as a queer person, and how to have fun without going all out. I never thought I would be such good friends with someone who has about 20 years on me; I turn 32 in a few weeks. She asked me some fun questions and very politely, without being awkward, figured out how I prefer to be referred as “she or “they.”  I have kept to my promise of no smoking, however I did enjoy an edible before meeting up with Jenn. I am happy I did, because it made me realize how over it I am. Don’t get me wrong, I laughed a lot that day and had a wonderful time. But at the peak of my experience, I was in the bathroom looking in the mirror, and just shaming myself. Things like, “You will never pass as a girl,” or, “You just look like a homo in makeup who is trying too hard.” I kept hearing everyone doing a great job with calling me “she,” but I was totally being judgmental of myself as it was happening. I didn’t like that feeling at all. However, being the self-aware, ‘shrug-it-off’ lady that I am (and spent years finding), I was able to center myself, look at how happy I am overall, and realize that the cannabis was making me feel this way. It made me realize just how good of an idea quitting smoking was, and you know what? Fuck it all together- smoking, edibles, all of it is totally unnecessary. I have never felt as alive as I do being sober, and I never wan’t to feel shame again. Thank all the gods out there that I learned meditation after my divorce... that shit really helps me center myself when I need it.  Sidebar: Everyone deserves to read Noah Levine’s “Dharma Punkx.” That memoir helped me to no end. Another punk from the real 80s punk scene, who found sobriety through Buddha. It’s bad-ass and enlightening, and for me relatable without being too preachy. Anyway, I sobered up and went back to my parents’ house with no issue. We finished up our mini-vacation, and I texted my oldest cousin from that side of the family about my transition. I figured there was no reason to bring it up during grandma’s 80th birthday party. That side of the family is a tad more religious anyway. Nonetheless, I filled my cousin in and said she could tell the rest of them. Done deal. 

I started Hormone Replacement Therapy on August 15, so tomorrow marks one week of being in transition from male to female. My goal is to keep a journal each week or so with how I am feeling and to document any changes that I have experienced. Here’s life thus far: My first three days on hormones were the most interesting so far, although I think its coupled with the fact that I have not smoked weed for one month (the longest I have been sober for about nine years, woohoo!). I am taking 2mg Estradiol, 100mg Spironolactone, and continue with the 1mg finasteride (Propecia) that I have always taken for hair loss. I opted for oral Estradiol and take it sublingually (under my tongue to make it easier on my liver). The idea of having to give myself injections wasn’t something I wanted to learn, and I am [for now] too hairy for the patch. During these initial days, I started to have very vivid dreams, something that I have not experienced since I was college (I earned my BFA in 2009). The two dreams I remember were nightmares. The first was like a live-action videogame, something out of Dino Crisis maybe. -

I had arrived at some sort of compound that I knew to be a ‘save point.’ My best friend was with me, and I knew if I were to move around too much from the compound, the game would begin and we would be running for our lives. We found a jeep on location (must go faster), and immediately a bunch of raptors began to hunt us. It was pretty terrifying.

Twice this night I woke up from the dino-dream pretty on edge. I am not used to remembering my dreams, let alone having them at all. The strangest part was that I would go back to sleep and the nightmare would continue. At some point in the adventure, I lost track of my best friend and had become a bird being chased by a T-Rex. It was one of those moments in your dreams where you have something biting at your body- almost getting you and almost hurting. I ended up just getting up around 4:00am and doing work. The next night I had another eerie dream. I was at my childhood house in Yorba Linda, CA during a wind storm. I had affixed two small wings from random junk onto my arms, and was using them to be picked up and carried across the yard by the strong breeze. At one point I wanted to show my parents what I could do, so I got their attention and started to bring them out the front door to watch. I remember looking across the street to Tommy’s Pharmacy, the local pharmacy that my friend (the same person from the other dream) used to work at as an after-school job before hanging out most nights. It was a stone’s throw away. But the store wasn’t there, or at least visible. In its place, a vortex had begun to form and I quickly realized it was getting bigger by the second. Not only that, but it was getting closer... The feeling I had was, “This is going to be very bad and people are going to die today.” I ripped the makeshift wings off of my arms, took my parents, and we all headed to the bonus room which shared a thick wall with the garage. I could feel the house vibrating! By the time we huddled in the corner, the room was spinning like a sequence out of The Wizard of Oz. It was a reckless force that lasted a few minutes. At one point it felt like all had ceased, so I tried to stand up, only to be punished again by a final spin and a WHAM! The house landed like a heavy stone on concrete. I looked around and my family was gone. The whole house was pretty much gone; broken to the point that I could see the neighbors’ houses, destroyed in a wrath of God, through our own fallen walls. I walked outside and everyone had died. Bodies were in the street, Tommy’s was flat-out missing, and the only sounds were the fall of debris still landing around the neighborhood and sirens in the distance. I awoke again, this time crying enough that it woke up my fiancee and I had to go sit in the bathroom to calm down. The feeling that I had lost everyone and everything was overwhelming. I eventually went back to sleep, and the dream came back... FEMA had arrived and were helping to escort survivors to safety. Suddenly it was not just the aftermath of a tornado, but like the whole world was ending. The fucked up part is that FEMA wasn’t helping people for free. Citizens had formed a line in front of a gate which led to an evacuation point, but required us to trade salvageable resources for entry. By the time I got up there, not much scrap was left. I presented them with some cookware or something that I thought was copper, I don’t recall, but was informed that they had no use for copper and needed to find something else. But everything had already been picked clean, there was nothing more to salvage or trade. They shut the doors of the gate on me and I watched as the last planes took everyone but me to safety. More happened in the dream, but it just got eerie and a little harder to remember. I can say that involved Mad Max like scenarios, learning to live in the woods and a whole lot of post apocalyptic survival. At one point my grade school principal had picked me up in a car during a chase (something new was after me), but then realized I was queer and kicked me out. -