Week 3 - Slow Week
Been a bit busy this week with life stuff. Some family drama had me dropping my plans to go help my parents out with their hoarding issue, for two weekends in a row. I’ve bought a few clothes items, but I’ve spent way too much mons in the last couple weeks and need to slow down a bit. I’m shopping around for laser hair removal as that’s my priority. I’m really struggling to keep my face and neck hair under control, even with daily shaving. I don’t even want to attempt to pass until I can have a smooth face for more than a few hours. I’ve been practicing with makeup, but even with that, it’s still pretty obvious up close. Like, I would pretty much need to shave mid-day to keep up appearances.
I’ve reached out to my insurance. They’re weird. I really hate the way they function. For most insurance, they will tell you, hey, you can go here, not there. This is because different hospitals and doctors charge differently. They work out deals in advance. Sidecar instead makes you do that work. They say, ‘you can spend this amount on x thing, and it will be covered.’ You tell the office you’re self-pay and pay for it with their card. If you spend less, it becomes a benefit amount that can cover another thing, or be paid out at the end of the year. Suddenly, I’m having to shop prices for everything. Except, no medical institution actually posts their prices for any procedure. I swear they just make them up. They also won’t respond to emails asking about prices. Since they’re pretty unique as an insurance model, they always have questions. So when I have to call, explain how my insurance works and ask for the price and if they have any discounts or coupons. Which is obnoxious when I’m shopping several vendors. I think people largely blame insurance because that’s what they’re used to dealing with when it comes to medical finances. As much crap as people give insurance, hospitals are worse. Negative price transparency. Largely they operate on, we do it, then charge you whatever we feel like after. I had an ectocardiogram that ended up getting charged double what I would have been because they wouldn’t apply the self-pay discount.(I even checked the price prior to doing the procedure) I had to pay out of pocket.
Thankfully, my insurance covers my therapy completely. So I don’t have to worry about that. Still waiting to hear if they’ll cover any laser hair removal under any circumstances. Medication is also pretty straightforward, though I have to shop pharmacies, which is a bit tedious. Ideally, I would just get all my prescriptions from Amazon, but they won’t ship controlled substances. So I can’t get my Adderall XR there, and even more annoyingly, I can only get 30 day supply, so I have to get it once a month.
I typed most of that up on Tuesday but didn’t end up posting as I got busy and didn’t finish it. So, additional stuff to add on. I’ve found a laser clinic that’s decent price, but I still lack mons to really get into it yet. I’m going to discuss options with my doctor and look at getting into a dermatologist. I finally heard back from my insurance. They cover gender affirming care, including SRS, but do not include cosmetic. The line between GAC and cosmetic is a thin line that isn’t well defined. While I’ve got some pricing for LHR, that is somewhat affordable, I want to explore solutions that might be, even partially, covered by insurance. In the meantime, I’ve picked up an IPL to start with. I plan to use it on my body and focus on LHR for my face. LHR tends to have an 85-90% reduction, where an IPL has anywhere from 60% to 80% reduction. I could live with that for my body, but I want the greater reduction for my face and neck.
As per the recommendation of my therapist, I’ve also started to present in subtle ways. Wearing a bra, a necklace. I did some naked nail polish for the week last week. My voice hasn’t been clocked as different yet, but I can tell it’s different. I still need to build the confidence to raise my pitch in public. I’m going to try something a little more obvious this week, but still subtle. Going to add my padding into my bras, a less natural but still subtle nail polish. Also looking into getting my ears pierced. I also picked up some TPU filament to try printing some accessories.
Quick little voice check-in. Haven’t done as much practice as I’d like, but my voice is getting there. It’s mostly drilling in the muscle memory, and getting comfortable with using my voice in public. Currently, I’ve been both consciously and subconsciously boymoding my voice. Like, theoretically, I shouldn’t have a problem using it around people I’m out to, but I still do. Whereas I consciously do it around people I’m not out to yet.
Anyways, I’ll write again soon, assuming I’m not too busy. Happy Father’s day to any father’s reading this!
-Kat