thoughts and things written into the void
a friend is visting for a few days :)
i've started drawing and sketching a bit - i always forget that i like drawing. so far i've only made some small things that i can cut out and use for collages, but it's nice to get back into it, even if it's just tiny stuff.
the amount of pity, concern, "oh no"s and "i hope it gets better soon!"s i get from people at work when they see me in a wheelchair is a bit exhausting. i know they mean well and i don't hold it against anyone but i always say that i'm ok. it seems to be hard to understand that i can be both in a wheelchair and feeling well. i don't want to explain my entire health situation to everyone (so i don't), but it's really not as easy as that. i've been at work without any mobility aids and felt miserable, i've had them with me and felt fine. the amount of (visible) mobility aids doesn't translate into how i'm feeling / how intense my symptoms are / etc.
updated the to-dos, wips, ideas, projects, etc. thing (i probably forgot some things i wanted to do) and added "paused" to head/sidebar of paused pages.
finally(!) managed to get my prescriptions for the wheelchair and pull device on two separate papers and sent them to the medical supply store. according to the letter tracking it arrived there today, so hopefully things will start moving forward.
updated the metoidioplasty page. nothing new happened, just collected some thoughts.
tl;dr - i don't regret the surgery. lots of stuff sucked, but i have less dysphoria. also things are continuing to heal well, i still need revision surgery of course, but i don't have concrete plans yet.
i'm officially three years post top-surgery! hell yeah.
it's so normal and "natural"1 at this point that i forget it wasn't always like this.
small art
here are some (half-assed) photos of the small sketches i've been making. the pen is for size. i'm not good at drawing things out of the top of my head (maybe because of aphantasia? idk) but i'm decent at copying things / drawing with a reference, mostly copyright-free pictures i find online.
at the moment i like using highlighters to get the basic shapes and shades down and then going over them with a fine black pen for the lines. i'm trying to stay away from graphite pencils, because then i get very perfectionistic and erase a lot, so this method is useful for quick, low-effort things. that was not the case for the skeleton hand and the cathedral - those were a bit and more effort respectively.
another wheelchair orga update
slight content notes for (internalized) ableism and medical system stuff i guess?
the insurance wants more documents from me so now i have to get a doctor to measure the strength and mobility of my muscles and limbs. i don't know how many of my problems are objectively measureable because (as far as i know) things like fatigue, pem and subjective muscle weakness don't show up in a one-time measurement.
i'm also not confident that the insurance people or the md2 are aware of me/cfs in general and pacing/management strategies specifically. like, there are days where i need mobility aids to walk in the sense that i can't walk without them, which they would probably understand. there are also days where i need them, even tho i could walk without them, but i need the mobility aids to save the energy/avoid symptoms/not get too exhausted. i fear that might be too much for the md and insurance to wrap their heads around.
sometimes that gives me brainworms and i feel like an imposter who doesn't really need (or "deserve", as if it was a moral thing) a cane/braces/a crutch/a wheelchair, which is the sentiment/vibe a lot of official medical institutions and doctors give off. obviously that's ableist bullshit, but it gets in my head. currently i'm mostly stressed and annoyed tho.
we'll see how it goes. while i hope that they approve of me getting a wheelchair (and if i'm really lucky, a pull device), i expect bad news. partly so i'm not too disappointed if that happens, but mostly because that's how it often is when you're disabled (discrimination, yay /s3). i wanted to try the official route, but simultaneously i'm saving up and planning for buying a wheelchair second-hand.
finally scanned and uploaded thematic collages and added small card collages to the collage page.
made a new cover and changed the credits in the colophon accordingly. also linked the old covers in the middle's archive section.
FOOTNOTES
1 "natural" is not the best / correct word, but i can't think of a better one right now. if i do, i'll replace it.
2 "medizininscher dienst" in german, roughly translated to "medical office". it's an official organisation which advises the public health and long-term care insurances when it comes to the services/benefits they provide. from my (limited) interactions with them, they mostly come into play when the request in question isn't super standard, like gender-affirming surgeries, or about lots of money, like wheelchairs. if the md is involved, i expect a lot of paperwork, short stressful deadlines and being denied at least once.
3 /s = sarcasm