I went to work yesterday to start the process of changing my name which is fairly easy, produce my new social security card and they do they process it from there. They are said (and I should had figured this out) I needed to update my insurance information so I took the forms home and filled them out for returning with them today.

I emailed a co-worker whom I told he could use my parking spot at work that I would be in for HR work.

He said let’s all go out for coffee, which I said sure thing. When I got to work about 10 or so co-workers came over to see how I was doing. I gave them a brief on how things were going and that I will be out for several more weeks (Robin at Marci’s office emailed me today and said I can go back to work around March 2nd).

So six of us took a walk over to the nearby Starbucks, got coffee, came back and chatted for a while followed by me visiting HR to get my name change going there.

I was very happy that everyone came over to see me and had smiles on their faces which meant a great deal to me.

There was way too much paper work to complete today so I will head back tomorrow and give them the filled out forms.

So today I went back to hand in my insurance forms and asked about my badge which is used for getting around as the company has super tight security. I was told to see a woman and went back, told her I needed a new badge. She first asked for my former name then my current name. Next I was given the opportunity to change my picture which surprised me as in the past they would not change your picture (which I never figured out why) and was happy they allowed me too. She took two pictures and gave me the pick of the two.

Tomorrow I am going to lunch with two current co-workers and several retirees. This should be fun and interesting as I have not seen the retirees for several years but over the past week have emailed with them. One told me she knows of two people in her life that are currently transitioning so I figure this will be easy for her.

So other than having some bad mornings over the past few days I have been rolling right along. When I say bad mornings, I get out of bed, make breakfast then get really tired and had just woke up from 6-8 hours sleep. My nap then last about 1 to 2 hours followed by taking pain pills, waiting an hour then do dilation which I start with the smaller dilator for 10 minutes then move up to the medium size dilator for 15 minutes. I did try once (and never again) the medium size dilator and was so painful that I knew never to do this again until I can work with smaller to medium for one or two weeks.

My afternoon dilation is the same as the morning dilation and my evening dilation is just the smaller tool as I am usually to tired to do as I have in the morning and afternoon, it’s just too much. I don’t know what the medical term is but about two inches in there is a very tight spot that I need to gently apply a fair amount of pressure to get by it and that is the focus of pain but once past it the pain goes away in about one minute.

So I can not stress enough that dilation can be painful and one must be prudent to how they approach getting the tool inside you.