9 Week Update & Blood Test Results

Hello everyone! Blessings to you this beautiful Thursday morning. As I type this, I am enjoying a frozen caramel latte made with skim milk and extra espresso and flavoring and of course, whipped cream. Yummy. It amazes me that nowadays it doesn't take much to make me happy. A nice frozen coffee drink from my favorite gas station hits the spot.

As many of you know, I had my first follow-up with Dr. Wolfe on May 3rd to see how I've been progressing and to have my follow up labs done. The visit went absolutely AMAZING!

The same nurse who saw me in Feb, when I first went to Dr. Wolfe seeking testosterone, was the same one who examined me at my follow up. All's I did was walk back and say hello to her. She said "You look so happy from when I last saw you. You have such an aura about you. Look at you making me smile and I don't even know why I am smiling."  Folxs let me tell you something, that was literally the greatest thing she could have ever said to me. You see I attribute the happiness and the aura change to two things: living my authentic self as a transgender nonbinary person & the fact that I am working a 12 step program and in recovery. For once in my life, I am infecting someone with good things... Happiness. Me just being me made someone else smile. Because of recovery, I realized who I truly was inside and I am able to be happy. (Side note: Ya'all we celebrated 9 months clean on May 6, 2018)

Dr Wolfe came in and we went over the changes I noticed and liked plus the one I didn't like. The nurse came back in and drew about three vials of blood. You would think after 2 months worth of injections and staring at an inch and a half long needle I could look while they drew the blood. HELL NO! This person looked away AND closed my eyes. I don't think I'll be able to ever get to liking the blood work aspect of this process. I mentioned this to the nurse and she said it's because the injections are something that you WANT to do not that you have to do. They did a CBC panel (normal blood work up), lipid panel (cholesterol, sometimes testosterone can elevate cholesterol) & a testosterone level. Dr Wolfe said that the results for the normal blood work would be in that day but that the hormone levels would take 24hrs. This was on a Thursday mind you, LOL.

This enby is impatient. I called Friday, Saturday and Monday once to check to see if my hormone levels had come back. Each time I was told nope, that was the one piece missing from all my labs. So it's been 5 days since the vampire took my blood (a little humor there). Tuesday I called and the office was closed when I did. What office is closed at 2pm on a Tuesday? Anyways I go about my day and around 5pm I get a call from a private number. I was tempted to NOT answer my phone because if I don't know you or you call from a private number and I'm not expecting your call, it can go to voicemail first. Luckily for me, I answered because it happened to be my doctor calling me personally.

My labs had all come back. My cbc panel was great, my cholesterol was great, my liver function was great. The issue, my testosterone level wasn't where it needed to be. It was on the low end, mid 250's. Standard range is between 500-1000. He told me an average males levels are between 500-600. He said I want to increase your dosage from 100mg every 14 days to 150 mg every 14 days. He said in 6weeks I want you to go have your levels drawn again but do it on the week you don't inject and make it the same day of the week you would inject. So he called in the dosage change to the pharmacy and I got a text from my pharmacy saying out of stock. I guess due to the dosage increase the insurance paid for a new vial of my hormones.

Next Tuesday I will start my injections with the updated dose. Then on the 7th Tuesday after that shot I will go have my hormone level checked to see if we increased enough. Personally I am extremely excited with the fact my dosage was increased. I'm already seeing fat redistrubtion, facial contour, facial hair growth and voice deepening changes at 2 months on testosterone with 100mg. I can't wait to see the changes that will happen as a result of being at 150mg.

There you go folxs! That is the latest in my transgender nonbinary journey.

I pray you are all happy and well!



Brian