Wednesday, September 14, 2005

I shouldn't be complaining... but...

... but my nipples really hurt. Oh my god!

I have this friend Debbie who has two modes. She has 'girl mode' and 'boy mode'. I think the two modes are self-explanatory. I also have two modes, which are superficially the same as Debbie's modes in that in one mode I look more like a girl than in the other. The difference is that I feel I am always in girl mode because being a girl doesn't depend on wearing makeup and a bra. So I guess girl mode is my normal mode, but sometimes when I feel like it is time for a sleep-in or maybe it is just a nice Sunday afternoon I might end up moving into lazy mode. This means no makeup and no bra. No bra.

Well this week is the week of my birthday, and as usually I am taking it off work. Yes, it is true. I take a week off work to celebrate my birthday (and so should you all - mark it on your calendar: Sarah's BDay = Sept 17th). Since I am on a holiday, everyday is turning into a lazy day, so lazy mode shows up a lot. I live on the third floor and so when I want to leave I have to walk down all those stairs and you know what? Walking at a normal pace down the stairs, when I have no bra on, allows what little I have up front to move. Right now after two months and two days of hormones my nipples are so amazingly achy that the tiny vibration caused by walking down the stairs hurts, and hurts a lot!

For those of you out there who may be curious what is happening to me pay attention. On Augest 15th I noticed a sore nipple, and it has been sore ever since. Not only that but the other nipple joined it a couple days later. In fact the left nipple is about two days behind in everything that happens to the right nipple. Soon I noticed that the nipples were always standing at attention, and I guess it was about two weeks ago that I noticed that I was developing a mass under them.* Currently it is about the size of half a walnut from top to bottom, and about half again that distance from left to right. The mass isn't soft, but not hard either. It just feels like some extra dense tissue under the skin. It doesn't hurt if you press it, however if you get too close to the nipple and press there, well then you better hope I am not carrying anything valuable because I will likely drop it in order to punch you. From everyone I have talked to and everything I have read I know this is a normal stage in the course of breast development both for transwomen and for genetic women, however at the same time it is very uncomfortable. Showers hurt, blankets hurt, shirts hurt, and walking hurts. I noticed a crumb on my shirt and I went to brush it off and the pain was off the chart. I would rather be punched in the stomach. I remember one time I fell off my bike and the handlebars twisted underneath me. I had those bar-ends installed, you know the kind that extend outwards at right angles from the rest of the handlebars. Anyway, when the handlebars twisted they were such that the bar-ends were poking straight up, and I ended up landing on one of them dead center in the nipple and it hurt a LOT, but nowhere near as much as it hurts to brush a crumb off my nipple right now.

On the brighter side - I think they hurt less than they did a couple days ago.
On the brightest side - I'm growing breasts!


* Interestingly, this is not the first time this has happened to me. When I was in grade 6 I also had sore nipples and the mass underneath, but I seem to recall that back then my nipples were so erect that I was embarrassed to go to school because t-shirts could not hide it. Apparently the body can only metabolize so much testosterone, and somehow any excess gets turned into estrogen causing
gynecomastia . I guess since that was when puberty was showing up I just had too much testosterone (Story of my life eh?). At the time I was elated and scared because I knew this was the start to growing breasts. I soon found out though that it was only temporary. It lasted a few weeks then it went away. Well guess what? Being temporary was only temporary because they are coming back and this time here to stay.

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