Well, that took longer than I expected. I had read about several women reporting “post-surgical depression” after their SRS. As I have a history of pretty major depression, I knew it was something I wanted to watch out for. I stayed at my boyfriend’s place for three weeks of my recovery specifically because I was worried about being alone while I was still physically not up to too much. I figured that once I got to eight weeks post-op, and back to work, and was feeling so much better physically that I would be past the danger-zone.

   I was wrong.

   Just after seven weeks post-op, I noticed an increase in crying “for no reason.” I felt like it had a lot to do with hormones, and at this point I feel very sure that hormones played a big part in my mood freaking out as much as it did for about nine or ten days (I’m still in it, but I’m definitely on the upward slope). I don’t know too much about it from the purely medical standpoint, but I have heard that after SRS the body (specifically the adrenal system) tries to compensate for the sudden drop in testosterone due to the removal of the testicle (singular in my case as I only had one). I’d say I felt some of that, if in nothing else but hair growth; right after surgery my body hair seemed to stage a growing party for several weeks. After about five or six weeks it finally seemed to slow to its normal pace. It seems like my body tried to compensate with testosterone production from other sources, then gradually gave up the fight.

   And then I started crying. While watching Mythbusters. Seriously. I had been feeling the mood coming for a couple days, but when I started bawling so much it was still more than I was ready for. I cried for seven days in a row; not all day, of course, but enough that I noticed each day as a day that I had cried a lot.

   And then I started wondering all the thoughts that one wonders when depression hits: “Where am I going?” “What do I do next?” “What really matters?” “Who are the important people in my life?” These questions are dangerous when you’re in a good and powerful and stable headspace, because they really defy any concrete answers; when you’re recovering from a major surgery and just barely eeking your way back into your normal routine, they’re overwhelming.

   And so I cried a lot. And felt overwhelmed. And drove several people that love me nuts.

   The nice thing was that I never, ever, not even for even a second questioned whether I had made the right choice by having my surgery. I have made many “big” decisions in my life; I have never been so certain of a big decision before, during, and after as I was and am about my SRS. That, at least, kept me pretty grounded even while I was struggling.

   For most of the time while I was feeling those blues I was pretty confident that it was, in fact, “part of the process,” but there were times that it just felt truly never-ending. One of the worst parts of negative moods is that they can feel so completely perpetual. The good thing is that even with my history of suicidal ideation, the worst the thoughts got during the last few weeks was “That’s it, I’m selling everything and moving to Seattle.” Which is pretty obviously just escapist-fantasy-thinking to give my brain a pressure-release valve. So, it was unpleasant, but it wasn’t horrible. Thank God for coping skills and awesome friends. Oh, and God, too; thank God for God; the spirituality that I have cultivated in the last couple years, both privately and as part of The Crossing seemed to help more than I thought possible.

   It just goes to show how even while I can learn so much from other people’s experience as they went through surgery and recovery, it’s all still like everything else in life: you know what comes next by experiencing it.

   I just passed two months post-op two days ago, I’m still dilating three times a day (boring!), and I’m gradually working myself back into my life. I guess I had expected that once I got back to work that suddenly recovery would be “mostly done,” but it doesn’t work that way. I’m still very much involved in the process of my recovery; I’ve made an amazing amount of progress, but I still have a distance to go.

   And I’m trying to just relax and be okay with that. Now that the worst of the hormonal tides seem to have passed (*knocking on wood*) it feels a bit easier to be gentle with myself.