#moncel

I fought insurance for this procedure and faced three delays. I was supposed to have this done back in January but it became a March thing. I am eternally grateful that my surgeon and the surgery coordinator fought SO hard so consistently to help me, especially the latter doing this day to day while juggling other assignments. It meant the world to me that she did all she did- in fact more than she had to- to give me this life-changing surgery.

The pain right now is probably mostly from swelling, if I had to guess? It's definitely less than a 10, maybe sitting at a 5 at most. This really is.. tolerable-ish? I guess?? But it IS still a major surgery and it is still pain and I AM feeling it and it IS bad. Of course it is. They cut through me. Even in the least invasive possible way, they still really messed with me physically and I am expected to experience soreness and fairly occasional bleeding and breakthrough pain. One of my sides is externally bruised, even.

Instead of giving myself the patience, I've been trying to say to myself "you're going to go through worse and you will hate it more. This will look like nothing when you're there." Which isn't.. the nicest thing to be saying to myself, even if it is true enough. My physical journey is far from over as of now. I still need a couple more surgeries to fix the rest of my physical condition, and those will be much more invasive and debilitating. But it's necessary and I know, always did, that it'll be worth it. All the suffering and pain I go through on this path will be worth it when I can finally wake up in a normal body in an average condition instead of deformed and pained.

The physical pains I'd experienced prior to this surgery were genuinely worse than what I feel now, so I push through by remembering I'd rather this than that. But I do feel discomfort and sensations in places I was never really aware of before and it IS weird. It currently feels like a claw machine came down and dug directly into my gut before pulling said insides out. And what I'm feeling is the leftovers of being in that claw machine. I can move a very good amount, but I need to limit it because my body needs to heal. If I do too much too early, I might risk more harm. And it is frankly uncomfortable to move at this point.

I can't draw like I normally can in this state either. I have to position myself in strange ways to create, but I still try to create. I can't do Much At All for at least a month. But that's okay. I somewhat view this as a training for my future surgeries. The next one will be the hardest to recover from, but it will be the most impactful.

It's funny. I didn't think I would feel any different, pain aside, post op. But I did. As soon as I woke up, I felt a thousand pounds lighter, free-er, happier. I AM genuinely happier and I am impacted by this a good bit. Many of my fears and anxieties have dissipated with this surgery. I feel like I can actually begin to love and accept myself. I'm not 'perfect' yet, but I'm VERY close. And it brings me joy to know I am halfway there. I was almost immediately excited that the roadblocks were gone- that the next time I go under, I'll wake up in the reality I've been working so hard to obtain. The thought of it makes me cry. It's a beautiful thing to think about.

I'm upset that there's more ahead but... I guess I have to grin and bear it. I have at least now been rid of most of what makes me deformed. I wasn't supposed to be born this way, but things happen and sometimes you're dealt an unnatural body that needs extra attention. But I have the power to fix it, and that gives me so much hope and hype for my future. Then I won't have to think about this ever again- I can move on with my life and focus on other things. I'll never be strange in a doctor's office again. I'll never be looked at funny by strangers. I'll never worry about what other people assume about me from a glance. I will wake up completely ordinary. I long for the comfort I will get. I long to get to know the person I'll become.

I'm not actually sure when this last one was written, but it's the final part of the saga. I added it to my poem collection on Jan 10, 2024, so I assume it's from then. Coming back a year later from all the stuff that hurt me made me feel strong. I had realized in October 2023 that I was groomed by the older ex. It was a lot to process and accept. Part of this poem was coming to acceptance with that.

I'm glad to be done with this. It was a difficult thing to re-explore.

Here's a few extra snippets from January 2023 that I felt were artsy.

-Feels like a nice night to fall in love with someone. There's nobody and there won't be, but tonight would be wonderful to just feel that.

Okay THIS is the lowest of low points. I was alone and unable to gauge what was going on and what they wanted. They were really scaring me, and I was just desperate to remember what love felt like. I began to resent my exes. They left me behind. And I was terribly alone with my thoughts. Terribly Alone.

I'm not sure if this is a poem or more so a stream of thoughts. It wasn't meant to be a poem at first. But I guess it reads like one now. I dislike the contents of this one. I feel shame for how I once felt. But my world was so small back then that how could I know what lay ahead? And how could I not appreciate the way the old words read at the very least? If I cannot be proud of the contents but enjoy what way I wrote about them, maybe someone else will appreciate it in full.

Another part of the long ass saga. Including as much as I can. I was happy just to FEEL love, unrequited or otherwise. I was willing to throw myself at the pain of one sided feelings JUST because I wanted to feel those things. I never wish to feel this type of content again.

Okay so I hate this one. It cringes me out. Like a lot. I might delete this part of the saga. Some of these get pretty ugly.. But I'll post it for now for the sake of transparency. I said I'd post the saga so I may as well post all of it.

One thing that really crumbled the relationship we had was my partner's gender identity. For as long as I'd known them, they were my girlfriend. But they wanted to try out new pronouns and it put me in a panic. I acted out in some strange ways. It doesn't excuse any of my poor behaviors, but I didn't take the news well at first.

The problem wasn't an inability to accept this news, or transphobia, but honest to god I was badly comphet. I really thought I was straight. Ignoring that I ALSO had a boyfriend at the time, because I did think he was the exception to my straightness back then. I hadn't thought I'd be attracted to men. Seeing that he was also trans, it caused a lot of tension that I didn't mean to have a part in. (My affection for him had nothing to do with his body or his transness.) I just hadn't had the chance to explore myself much before I got into dating. I was afraid that I would fall out of love if my girlfriend was no longer presenting as a girl. And that love meant everything to me at the time.

I get dumped. They get to hang out together and I am terribly alone. They spend a bit of Christmas day with me. It was nice for me. And I realized then and there that I wasn't at all affected by a change in gender presentation at all. I still loved this person, even if they went by new pronouns. And that's unfortunately how I figured out I was PAN this whole time. Well shit.

The art attached is a 2025 original that I made as a companion piece to the poem. I had a sculpting class with a final project prompting us to capture a memory.

As for the poem itself, I wrote this one a couple hours after the one before it. I wrote a lot that day.

I wanted to share a bonus scrap that I had written. It's not exactly a full poem, I feel, but it said a lot about who I was and what my state was at the time.

"There is nothing to do when you're not around. There is nothing to see when you're gone. There is nothing without you."

This poem is part of a saga. I've got a few poems written between the last one and now, but they're not related to the experience I'm covering, so I'll have to post them another time. You can read the previous one here. (I posted the previous part years ago on its own but I've since linked it to the saga.)

We started dating. The three of us. Together. Me, my partner of then, and our new boyfriend: the groomer. And for a few months, life was bliss for me. But I got unstable. I fell apart. Trouble fell in what I thought was paradise. We became dependent on each other. We barely interacted with others. If I wasn't at work, I was home with them in call, practically 24/7, doing anything and everything together... to the point we had nothing to do together. And yet we still did nothing together.

I can't recall the details perfectly anymore. It's been long enough that my wounds are old and faded. But I still remember that the two of them became angered with me and left me in silence. I was isolated for over a week. Maybe a week and a half.