Threaded & Breathless

I blame H & M.

I am sitting in the Britannia pub overlooking EUSTON station concourse. I have been on my now tri monthly visit to the Charing Cross gender identity clinic and I'm waiting for another hour until the trains are cheaper. I booked an advance ticket but not advanced enough so I have to wait until 7 pm. As usual with me a straightforward day has been writ through with my bumbling. It all started at 11 am this morning.

 
I knew that with my cheap off peak train ticket would come much hanging about. My appointment was at 3 pm and would be lucky to stretch much beyond 20 mins so I needed to be fully armed with distractions. Now my handbag is chock full at the best of times. Like some twisted Parkinson's law the amount of stuff I feel the need to carry, increases to fill the void created as my  handbags become bigger. I shall call this Harvey's law. So, in addition to  my makeup, umbrella, oversized mirror, huge purse, perfume and other detritus, I now squeezed in my camera, my mobile, my blackberry and finally a copy of Andrew Marr's ''A History of Modern Britain'' oh and my slimming world record sheet (for reasons later). Well in the words of Scotty ''She canna take any more captain'' and as my bag passed warp factor 8 the straps have way. It completely served me right for buying a cheap sweet shop handbag from H&M (lawyers note, we substituted sweet for sweat). So I hurriedly searched for a replacement. One emergency bag-ectamy later I had transferred all my contents to my casual purple bag, almost completely  successfully.

Wind forward to 1.45 pm and as we pull into Hammersmith tube station, I start to feel a bit wheezy. This was no big deal as I've been asthmatic since boyhood (sounds weird using boyhood, but it is correct I suppose). I rummaged around in my bag for my ventolin inhaler. It produced a result, the result being I had left it at home in my now ruined old bag. I didn't panic. I hadn't really suffered badly from asthma recently so I thought I would be ok if I took it easy. It was only a fifteen minute walk to the clinic and I had some time to spare. I took my mind off things as I wandered around the shops outside the tube station.  While perusing a concession stand for a new bag to replace my damaged work handbag, a friendly middle aged Asian lady handed me a leaflet. It was for an eyebrow shaping service. Well my eyebrows were a mess. Initially, I had been very diligent with my plucking, but laziness and a sin hiding full fringe had left me relying on the occasional strategic use of a razor (I know that's so wrong). So for £7.50 I thought I would give it a whirl. The technique this lady used was Threading. This involved very skilful use of cotton to rip out several hairs at once. Even with my tough bristly eyebrows from razoring, the process was relatively painless, and in just a few minutes I was done. The lady was an artist and genius. My eyebrows have never looked so feminine and sculptured. I may now consider a thinner fringe in the future.

Thus pruned I set off on my short walk. However my asthma got worse with each step. By the time I was outside the clinic I was a shambling wheezing wreck, so I sat in a bus shelter for a couple of minutes to regain some composure. This was a total failure. So spying a Boots chemist across the road I headed for some salvation. My pal Vicky has told me in the past, that when desperate she has had an emergency. Prescription over the counter at a chemist, so I thought I would try my luck. My request went thus ''Wheeze, can you help me, wheeze, I have left my inhaler, at home, wheeze, could you, wheeze, give me, wheeze, an, wheeze, emergency, wheeze, inhaler wheeze, please?'' The reply was more succinct and distinctly less wheezy ''Sorry , you need a doctor's prescription. Try an A&E department''. I had no more time to argue, so I left and crossed the road to the clinic situated above the Sainsburry,s opposite.

Buzzed in, I took the lift up to reception, thinking I couldn't waste what breath I had left on stairs. Sitting in reception I calmed myself a bit, and exchanged smiling eye contact with my fellow receptionees. We were a mixed bunch. There was a stunning young T girl with flawless dark skin and stunning breasts shown off to good effect. There was a younger T girl, in boy mode with lovely long brown hair, sitting with her mum. How I wished I had been brave enough to tackle my gender at an earlier age and have my mum's support. There was another woman about my age reading a year old Heat magazine, and there were a couple of Trans men chatting away. Most bizarrely there was one girl who had brought a large black builder's bucket with her. I just hoped it didn't contain a sample of some sort. My time came and Dr X summoned me in  with a cheery smile. (I have changed his name to X after I had  web site libel training, and because Dr X sounds more exciting than Dr A).

As I sat down, he asked me how I was, and I explained that I was great except for the lack of ability to breathe properly. Out of kindness or the fact that I might collapse and mess up his schedule, he scrawled out a prescription on a sheet of A4 paper and said to pop to boots across the road after we had finished. Buoyed by the hope of my ultimate salvation, I settled down for the consultation. After four appointments, Dr X and me had developed an understanding, so we went through our usual roster of subjects; my weight, the NHS, politics (this time with a emphasis on the much maligned John Prescott and Peter Mandelson) my voice therapy, more politics and finally his bête noir, my wonky eye. He persuaded me to visit an optician back home, and get contact lenses for my deficient eye. When I said it would be nice to have stereoscopic vision at last, he informed me, to my chagrin that I would probably only gain binocular vision because my short sighted eye was not corrected in childhood. So it seems I will never see the world as all you lucky stereoscopic-ians do, and I will never be able to use those 3 D glasses or see those once popular Magic Eye pictures. I guess as disabilities go its a pretty trivial one. Appointment over, we decided to resume our verbal sparing  in another 3 months. I should feel irritated that a long expensive trip, feels like a box ticking exercise. But I have grown to like Dr X, and I guess the lack of him probing into my transitioned life means he feels I am psychologically ok. In addition I am always up for debating politics. Dr X is very eloquent and knowledgeable on all sorts of stuff, and is not someone who is familiar with doubt.

The consultation was soon over, so with prescription in hand I bounced over the road back to the Boots chemists. I wish I had layed off the bouncing because I was soon wheezing to the Max. Still I knew, once I had that lovely full blue inhaler in my hands, I would be fine. After 5 mins waiting the pharmacist came back to me. ''Your prescription is ok madam, we have one ready in stock for you. Just one problem, we need a stamp on the prescription with the address of where Dr X practices''. I pointed to a window on the first floor across the road. He is there, look you can see him right now, look that's the back of his head'', I pleaded but to no avail. ''I'm sorry, we do need the details for the computer''. So, I made my way back over to the clinic with absolutely no bounce. I eventually got the stamp I needed after the receptionist had to interrupt Dr X's next consultation. So for the third time that day I was back in Boots and  after waiting another 15 mins, I eventually got my hands on that little blue plastic piece of gold. By now though, I was hunched over on a chair, savouring every drop of air I could squeeze past my constructed tubes. Puff, hold breath, puff, hold breath, puff once more for luck and I was done. If you are not asthmatic its hard to imagine the instantaneous restorative effect of Salbutamol.

Fully recovered, I headed off back to Hammersmith for some shopping, as it was a full 3 hours till my train home. I resumed my bag hunt. Unfruitful after an hour, my last stop was TK Max. As I rummaged through a pile of bags under a clearance sign, suddenly one bag caught my eye like a fleck of gold in a prospector's pan. It was just, so right. Large enough for work documents and handles long enough to be shoulder comfy. To my untrained eye it looked classy. Closer inspection proved it was even more perfect. The leather was soft as could be and inside it had just the right compartments. I had to have it. Then I looked at the price  tag, 50 quid, double what I have ever paid for a handbag before. I figured fate had brought me and the bag together at this particular time and place. So I took the plunge, and she was mine. After any impulse purchase I need to find a rationalisation and this time it was ''what the f****!''.

 

So that is my day so far, save for an event free tube ride to Euston.
I'm now on the train back home to Stoke. While I was standing waiting for my train to be announced, I perused the departures board and briefly toyed with the idea of heading off to some of the exotic sounding places, such as Tring, Llandudno, Bletchley or Eldorado (ok I made one up. There is no such place as Tring) when our platform was announced it seemed somehow fitting that it was number 13. As I joined the rush to the train for the free seats, the doors at the end of the ramp to the platform closed. We all concertinaed together and then a sign flashed up saying this was due to the train being reset. Now I have no idea what this meant but I just hope no one was in the train cab holding Control, Alt, Delete to get the thing restarted. Finally the doors opened and we spilled out onto the platform, the more sprightly of us surging to the front. I got swallowed up mid pack, but still  managed to bag a good seat. So now I'm done with this post, I'm going to resume my day long phone based scrabble game. I've been determined all day to use the word WHELKS and I've  finally found a spot where it will go.

 
Oh, I did mention I would explain the slimming club record sheet. Well I was informed from the start by Dr X that I couldn't get on the surgery waiting list until I was down to a safe weight. When asked at previous appointments I may have played down my actual weight (ie lied) saying I was down to 22 stone. I think I was worried that Dr X would not believe I would lose enough. So this time, I was going to come clean, but demonstrate with my chart, that I was now losing steadily. In the end I was not asked what my current weight was so I never had to use it.