#day 1512

I Who Say Goodbye to this Crumbling World / Miku Hatsune

a coat oh so beautiful, /

January 21, 2016

There are a lot of things I need to talk about because it’s been since October since my last entry.

On November 12th, 2015, I came out to my parents via letter, and uploaded it here on the 14th. At first, the reaction was not positive. Mom still isn’t 100%, I don’t know what dad thinks, and my brother is half-way out of the loop anyways. I didn’t want to come out so close to the holidays, but really had no other choice because of the pressures I was feeling and the pain I was keeping inside. Things have progressed positively since then. Mom bought me what she labels as “men’s deodorant” for Christmas and kept the items she gifted to me gender-neutral. The only gift I got that was “feminine” was from my grandmother, who has stopped asking for lists and just buys jewelry. Mom even called me a dude the other day, which brightened my mood and made me feel a little bit better. Our religious views are different so she won’t 100% understand, but she’s trying, and so far it’s been a good thing. I’m avoiding having a deep discussion about this with her, though, because religion is heavily involved in it with her and that would just upset her too much to hear my belief.

Over the weekend before college started (Jan 9-10), I went to south Georgia for a job interview as a camp counselor for my second year in a row. Unfortunately, I did not make it again this year, but that’s okay. I’m going to get myself in shape this year and try again next January.

College picked back up again on the 11th, and it’s been a blast. I have five classes on Mondays and four on Wednesdays (five total, my stats class only meets on Mondays). I’m connected with my friends again - and when we have a holiday like that again, we are gonna hang out. I missed you all way too much @alliemuses @tooktoolongtogetthis97 @apple-n-cinnamon @applecinnamonchemistry @akas-world.

We adopted another dog over Christmas break - literally the day after Christmas, and she has been the best puppy I have ever experienced. She’s practically crate trained and super smart. It’s amazing, because she sleeps through the night now, and I actually get decent sleep. She’s growing really fast, too. I posted pictures of her a while back when we got her. More will probably be uploaded soon.

When school started back, I got the package @fuuuuuuuuuuck-me mailed, and it’s helped me a lot with confidence and just being myself. (For those wondering, it was a STP packer.) I can use it, minimal issues (because the clothing I have), and it’s great. The only weird thing is practicing with it. My aim is great and all that jazz, but for some reason, I was really nervous about peeing in the shower? I have no idea why and I’m still trying to get over that and figure out how to care for the packer before I start using public men’s rooms.

But today I got some news that upset me. My grandfather (mom’s dad), 81 years old, had surgery today for what they believed was a cyst on his pancreas. From the procedure, they learned it wasn’t a cyst, but a hard mass roughly 3cm in diameter: most likely cancerous. Because my grandpa smoked for a long time and didn’t quit til he was in his 70s, his lungs are very weak from COPD, and he has a hard time coming out of surgery/anesthesia. Based on the information I have been given, it looks like Stage 1B pancreatic cancer, which means the cancer is in the pancreas and the tumor is larger than 2cm, but hasn’t spread elsewhere. Survival rates with pancreatic cancer depends on survivors going through surgery. My grandfather can’t go through surgery because his lungs are so weak. They were just looking at the mass today and had trouble getting his breathing back to normal, so surgery is out of the question. Final results on what exactly the mass is comes in on Tuesday, so I’ll probably post another thing then.