Homecoming

We landed in Melbourne at 9pm on Tuesday. Perching on my rubber donut for the duration of the flight was actually much more tolerable than I expected, due to: 1) there being an empty seat next to mum and I so we had room to spread out, 2) there being no seats behind us because we were at the end of one "section" so we could kick back, and 3) planes being unexpectedly much less bumpy than motor vehicles (which makes sense given that plane food doesn't tend to go flying off the tray as it might do in a fast-moving car).

No problem with customs, though the floral candle the clinic gave me confused the heck out of the officers watching the x-ray screen. They asked us to open the bag and the box to explain what was in it, but happily let us through once we showed them it was a candle. Must have looked rather odd on the x-ray, I'd imagine. The thing has four wicks coming out of beautiful wax roses, and a round coconut shell base with three peg legs, so for all I know it might have resembled some elaborate bomb, complete with fuses.

It's cold in Melbourne. I mean, coming across from Thailand, ya generally expect that but we'd been forewarned by everyone about the heat wave which was apparently occurring back home only to be greeted by 13ºC weather when we arrived. Brrr.

Out of the baggage area, and finally through the doors into the arrival hall where dad and my brother greeted us at the end of a row of people making oh-it's-not-our-folk noises. I think mum and I were both really glad to see them - it'd been a(n at times harrowing) month, after all. We drove home telling them all about the trip, had a light dinner (as in, a small bowl of soup, in my case, just to go with my evening dosage of anti-swelling, anti-biotic, and pain medication), and half-unpacked before collapsing into bed.

Since then I've been taking my time adjusting back to life here with the new elements of limited mobility and a daily dilation regimen. The first dilation on Wednesday morning was, as expected after missing a day due to the flight home, difficult, but by the end I still managed to reach depth with the medium (31mm) dilator. After the midday and evening dilations, it was about as easy as it had been in the hotel in Chon Buri. On Thursday night, I managed to successfully dilate using the large (34mm) dilator by starting with the medium one first. I'm hoping to eventually be able to dilate using the large one as standard, but it really depends on how severe the tissue contraction due to healing will be.

A three-times-a-day dilation schedule is very intrusive into daily life, however. There's no way I can keep this going once normality begins to set in, even with sessions taking about 20 minutes. I'm glad two sessions a day is supposedly okay.

Finding places to sit is problematic. I'm staying with my parents for the time being until I find it easier to cope alone again, but our chairs around the house don't seem very comfortable with a rubber donut on them. The most comfy position seems to be half-sitting, half-recline, which I've taken to doing either on the couch or on the bed in my brother's room with the computer on my lap. It sounds like a minor thing, but it results in me spending portions of my day in very specific places around the house. I tried sitting without the donut but there's still enough swelling that the first part to make contact with the seat is the site of my surgery.

Bleh... I just realised even sitting at my piano isn't going to be trivial.

Bleeding from the revision surgery has just about ceased, which is pleasing. A lot of the little fast-dissolving sutures are coming off too, making things a bit more comfortable. The pain varies throughout the day - it seems worse in the morning, for reasons unknown to me. Subsides to a dull but persistent ache in the middle of the day, and in the evenings like right now, it generally doesn't hurt at all. There are some areas which look like they may become granulation tissue, but ever since Sophie's class this doesn't really worry me (Dr Suporn's philosophy is to let granulation spontaneously heal in time rather than cauterising, unless it is causing too much discomfort).

It's funny but I miss Thailand already. I feel a little bit in limbo, being on the mend but not quite there such that I don't think I could get through a full week of work (or even do many things around the house, really). I guess there was a psychological expectation that being home meant being "well", but I'm adjusting to the reality of recovery. The expected stages of recovery as explained to me don't exactly inspire, either: three months for the internal skin graft to fully heal, six months before resuming rigorous or strenuous physical activity (or heavy lifting, which apparently seems to mean I aren't allowed to carry anything weighing more than an inflated rubber donut encased in a cloth cover, rendering the question of whether a scuba tank and weight belt are okay definitively moot), nine months for all the wounds to be robustly healed and the sensation of having been taken to with a scalpel to go away, and a full year for total healing. Well, I guess I did initially plan my entire transition to occur over three years (the last year being for SRS and subsequent recovery), so on that note, things are going according to plan.

I miss our dog terribly too - the family house feels odd without him around and I keep doing things by habit expecting him to be there, like checking the windows to see if he wants in, or responding to noises which sound like him. When you grow up with a pet as part of the family, and are absent when it passes away, it isn't easy to acknowledge that he's really gone. Even harder when the first thing you expect upon getting home is for him to come greet you. *sighs*