Connecting Dots

Putting the pieces together as I review my medical record from Exutransic era

This photo is from LGBT prom at SJSU in 2012. I'm wearing a binder over a holter monitor, which is a medical device that can capture unusual heart rhythm events. The wires are circled. My doctor had me on both levonorgestrel implant, aka mirena, and depo provera injections. As far as I can tell, outside of gender affirming care, these two drugs are only combined when they're being prescribed for endometrial cancer treatment. I didn't have that, but I had feelings cancer because I wanted to perform manliness, and my female cycles caused a dysphoric mood. The feelings cancer had also emotionally metastasized to my chest.

Shortly after the first injection on top of the implant, I began to have symptoms from the medication combination: heart palpitations, tachycardia, dizziness, light-headedness, worsening chest pain, and a sense of doom, which led to an ER admission. ER referred me to primary who referred me to a specialist who recommended me to wear this monitor for a month.

Even though the symptoms are a known side effect of both hormones on their own, and the fact this was a combination of drugs, no one connected the dots at the time. No one suggested removing the implant or stopping injections or even taking off the binder. Ultimately I was told I had a panic disorder and needed therapy. It was medical gaslighting.

I may have anxiety and panic attacks after everything I've been through, but what I experienced in 2012 is unlike anything I've felt before or since. I genuinely felt that my heart was going to physically rip open, and this feeling would go on for days at a time, multiple times a month, for months, until I finally stopped the injections on a hunch. The tearing pain and racing heartrate improved, but I continued to have a sudden sense of doom and increased physical anxiety until the implant was also finally removed.

The side effects of the drugs were pathologized and attributed to who I was. I internalized that like a good patient. The transition cannot fail. It can only be failed. I had to pay for this medical treatment and testing precipitated by the hormones, which were always free.