Of course it's not goodbye

When we turned up today for the op, we had no room, the private hospital had been taking in emergencies, and we had to prepare in a temporary room, it was very clean and bright and well equipped, all the nursing staff, with their varying degrees of English were exceptional, but it did mean that I could not unpack or go and buy essential supplies, such as straws, medicated shampoo, rubbing alcohol. bruising cream, as I had planned. I was also very hungry and wanted a cup of coffee, to feed my caffeine addiction.

With a post it note on her willy saying (wrong procedure)Angela went down to theatre about an hour ago, she had been crying on and off all morning, and was extremely frightened, (a certain amount of drama queendom doth prevail) but it is scary and the procedures are without a doubt quite alarming. I would not like my face, sawed, and chipped and screwed back together.

In one spell of distress this morning, she was sobbing and saying, "Why does this have to be me facing this"... I comforted her, "we are the truly lucky ones"
and all I could think of was all the transgirls, out there working as sex workers or only being able to dream of the luxury of Facial Feminisation. It's a harsh reality when intrusive aggressive theater is the the only recourse to your gender dysphoria and each step seems such an extreme.

I am sitting in this empty room, listening to the Spanish nursing staff chatting brightly and speedily, and Angela is somewhere in the building getting her face taken apart, I feel afraid, and the next 6 hours seems like a long stretch and the future seems like The Russian Steppes or a great vast prairie where I know there are borders to other countries but I cannot see them, yet.

We were well prepared, we know, the next couple of days will be dark, we have spoken to other previous patients and done a lot of background research we know the team is of a high standard and she is in safe hands. She spent the last 48 hours writing a long letter to her daughter, just in case the worse things happens....which we know won't happen, but t doesn't stop the fear I suppose...

I just don't like to think of Angela in pain, she is my best friend... I have a two bride wedding blessing to arrange and I want her to look like the happiest woman in the world. I want her to look in the mirror and say

"Look that's actually me".