My First E3000 Session Results

Dec27

I am home from my first session with E3000, on December 18th. They managed a full facial clear with two technicians in just over 10 hours total (5 hours per tech). Originally they expected a lot more hours so I got off easy. This was because neither my cheeks nor throat were as densely bearded as they initially feared based on the facial photos I’d submitted.

Their current rates are $110 per hour. My bill for this session was $1100, of which they already had part paid for by my deposit.

They use a sheathed needle so that the electrical and heat effects are only applied at the base of the hair follicle and not the length of the entire shaft which can cause more scarring and also damages collagen structures within the skin.

My face was very swollen and also very red in the immediate aftermath of those 10 hours. This is normal and their aftercare handout explains how to treat these conditions – ibuprofen, ice on the affected areas (20 minutes on/20 minutes off) and zinc oxide cream to promote healing.

The swelling goes down on its own over the first few weeks time.

Here is a before/after photo from the first session. The tiny hairs left in the after photo are not normal stubble but are dead hair fragments that are being pushed out by the skin as the swelling drops and the skin heals. Even with those though, it is very apparent that the first session removed massive amounts of facial hair. The picture doesn’t show it but the neck hair was as dense as the chin and about the same grey coloration.

I was informed that in 2-3 weeks I should begin really seeing the second growth wave begin. We’ll see how dense that is. The second session will likely be nearly as long as the first, but after that sessions should begin to be seriously fewer charge hours (probably switching to just one tech from session 3 forward).

You can also see some of the residual swelling (it was way worse three days ago!) and some of the residual redness as the skin heals.

Session1_before_after

 

The photo above was three days after the session, on December 21st. I had not shaved since December 14th. Today, December 27th, was the first time I’ve shaved since the session and the beard growth is very slow and very sparse at this point in time.

I do expect the beard growth to thicken somewhat over the next 6 weeks leading up to the second session, but to be slightly less dense than the first session. Hopefully, each subsequent session will be less and less, until this is all gone once and for all.

 

I don’t exist.

Dec26

It’s the day after Christmas and I don’t exist. I don’t exist to my sons. I don’t exist to their spouses. I don’t exist to their children.

I’m left to ponder exactly what I did wrong as a parent that I could create two such monsters, so cold, so cruel, so uncaring. No card, no phone call, not even an email or a Facebook post. Nothing. Nothing at all.

Of course, they had their mother over on Christmas eve for hours of family fun and companionship. But not me. Not me.

The sun is bright outside on this December 26th but it is cold in here today, and dark. And no, before anyone worries, I am not that despondent. I won’t hurt myself.

My daughter came by last night, to drop off her gifts to me, to give me a hug, and then to leave. I cried, both at the thought that she had to come visit me like some leper, and that my sons had not a single thought of me this holiday season.

I never closed the door on our relationship. My sons did that. Their choice. And I would forgive them in an instant if they wanted to re-open that door.

But I’m also learning that I need to move on, to stop staring at that closed door, to make new friends, to find new family. It’s time to walk away from that closed door, to turn my back on it, to let it go.

Yet even as I walk away, I will continue to wonder, how can anyone be this cold, this callous, this cruel to another human being? I guess I’ll never know.

Letting Go

Dec10

Letting go. It seems I’ve been doing that a lot lately. Letting go of my children, some of whom don’t even want to know me anymore. Letting go of my mother, who died a year ago but whose passing seems as fresh as yesterday. Letting go of the illusions that I wove around myself to fit into the expectations of society.

But one thing I’ve not been able to let go of is my desire to see my grandchildren. Even as that is denied, I continue to hope and pray that the situation will eventually change. Yet even as I hope and pray, I know that I should not expect it in the least, that the likelihood is utterly small, and that I should never expect to see those children ever again.

Perhaps that is what makes this so hard. I had no choice but to let go of mom. Her death took her from us. But then there are my grandchildren. I probably focus on them far too much. I probably think about them more than I should. Little Emma is growing up. Kaiti is becoming a young woman. And I’ve been severed from them both, for no rational or medical reason.

I’m learning to let go, at least of some things. And I’ll keep moving forward with my life. But there are also some things which, for better or worse, I don’t intend to let go of ever.

December Memories

Dec9

A year ago tomorrow, my mother died. It was sudden, unnecessary, and shouldn’t have happened. It was a shock. She’d been ill from a botched colonoscopy back in late September but seemed to be recovering, but a year ago tomorrow she went to her regular doctor’s appointment, closed her eyes “for just a minute” and never opened them again.

I mourned my mother last year but I find myself mourning her again this year. Tears come unbidden at the most unexpected times. The wrong song, the wrong moment… and given how my children have isolated themselves from me, that just exacerbates things. It’s hard to find joy in the holiday season like this.

I miss you, Mom. There’s not much more to say than just that. I miss you.

Thanksgiving? Giving thanks, despite it all.

Nov28

I sit alone at home today and no, I won’t be invited anywhere. I do have friends but they are all away for the holiday or live far enough away that going to their homes was not practical this year. But this doesn’t upset me.

My daughter and her family are visiting elsewhere, or they’d likely have me over. My sons? No, of course not. I am a pariah to them.

And yet today I am amused. I wonder how I could have raised such a gracious and loving daughter yet have raised such vindictive and hateful sons. But friends have reminded me that neither of them grew up that way. One, who was a long time friend of my eldest son, and simply let that friendship slide away, and did so because he watched my son go from being an open-minded, accepting person early in college, to the close-minded, spiteful, angry creature he’s become today after he married into a rigid Southern Baptist clan. So I take solace in the fact that no, I didn’t do that. They did.

My daughter did have me over for dinner the night before last. She wanted to do something for me before she and her family went to visit in-laws for Thanksgiving. It was a wonderful dinner and I got to chat with her, enjoy her hot-lemon-honey-cinnamon drink that she’s created from the lemons from the tree in her backyard, and chat with my eldest granddaughter.

But then I had to excuse myself and went outside and cried. She came out and consoled me, hugged me, and just stood with me. You see, my eldest son is playing a game. He’s threatening to cut off contact with my daughter and my daughter’s children if she lets her children know about my transition. Since my granddaughter by my daughter and my granddaughter by my eldest son are just one year apart, they are close friends. Thus, she’s having to make a choice. And right now she wants to protect that childhood relationship between her daughter and his daughter, which I understand. She doesn’t like this and she has promised that it won’t stay this way, but this is what she’ll have to do soon and for the immediate future. It’s not right now but it’s coming, as I move further along with my transition and things become more and more obvious.

As I told her, this is not an act of love. It’s an act of raw hatred, anger, power. An opportunity for my son to further split our family against me, or at least he believes so. We discussed my eldest son’s wife, a woman who has been jealous of me for years because of the close relationship I once had with my eldest son. She’s done everything she can to break that up and this was the ultimate chance – cut off that competition. And now that she’s done so? She hardly includes my son in anything other than to just let him babysit their two girls. And her? She’s off running with her friends, or visiting her side of the family. She’s ignored my daughter and not been friendly or open to her either.

I had my cry. I was consoled. And I got over it. Today I’m writing about it and I am sadly amused. Sad for obvious reasons but amused because my son’s close-mindedness would deny his daughters a loving grandparent solely for his “superior moral view”.

Let me relay a story about the reality of my son’s hatred. I’ve seen my older granddaughter by my son just once in the last 16 months. It was last spring, the spring of 2013. We had gone to Denny’s for Sunday breakfast because we enjoy Denny’s pancakes, french toast, etc. And it was busy, as usual on a Sunday morning so we were waiting in the lobby. And who walked up to the cash register? My eldest son, who looked at me, grunted a hello then turned to the cashier. Right behind him, I heard a squeal. “Grandpa!” She ran to me and hugged me, saying, “I miss you so much. I love you.” I smiled down at her and replied, “I miss you too, honey. I love you.” And at that moment, her mother snatched her by the collar, dragging her out the door, with everyone staring and my granddaughter having this frightened, hurt look on her face as she was dragged away from me.

That is the reality of my life. That is the reality of my eldest son and his open bigotry, all in the name of Southern Baptist fundamentalist evangelical hatred. So those who wonder why I take a dim view of fundamentalist Christians, this is why. When you and yours openly scorn me, do not expect me to embrace your bigotry. Tolerance does not mean accepting someone else’s bigotry. That is not an act of Christ. That is an act of a Pharisee.

Thus I sit home alone today, debating what to make for myself for Thanksgiving. I have a few ideas and we’ll see what I decide. And I do give thanks, for my daughter, for my close friends, for my siblings, and for my transgender friends, all of whom have stood beside me.

Finally, just for further reading and viewing about trans experiences, here are two links. Neither is what I would call a perfect instance of journalism. The Rolling Stone piece is laced with binary gender assumptions despite its attempt to be generally positive but they do document different aspects of life as a trans person. The video is one trans person’s experience and is valid for her but each of us is unique and though we share so much, we also walk different paths in certain respects.

About a Girl: Coy Mathis’ Fight to Change Gender

I Am Not My Body

Enjoy and may each of you have a happy Thanksgiving and joyous Hanukkah.