one of the more dubious rites of passage to womanhood; Lambert House happiness

[sistawendy]

It finally happened: I think I have a mild UTI. Dr. Bowers (a.k.a. Dr. Snip) did warn me that my new, shorter urethra would leave me more susceptible to urinary tract infections, just like a cisgender woman. I'll cope - and get my hands on some cranberry juice. I can't help but wonder if pigging out on pastries at work yesterday contributed to the problem; I don't do that as often as I used to.

And speaking of that, I've encountered a drawback of losing weight that I wanted to lose: clothes that I love don't fit quite right anymore. Moar belts.

Oh: Monday night was time to do the quarterly report to the city for Lambert House. Our newish volunteer manager asked me to run some extra queries to see how many kids his outreach efforts in the schools have brought in. The answer is: quite a few. That's most satisfying after a couple of bad years prior to this one.

Even better, we've done the quarterly report the same way for two (or is it three?) quarters in a row now, so I'm thinking it's time to hand it off if Ken the director will let me. Sure, hanging out with Ken is fun & all that, but getting enough sleep is important. There's always the danger of capricious municipal bureaucrats changing the reporting requirements again. Ken informed me that there's a tight deadline on the annual report; I envisioned myself running SQL queries with a New Year's hangover.

Better still, we now have a third trans person facilitating the support group meaning I get more Monday nights to myself. She's another facilitatrix, and she's in her twenties so the youth will surely find her much more relatable than me. It would be a good thing to have another trans man or better yet an enby (non-binary, for those of you who aren't hip to the queer lingo) in the rotation.

Comments

[leenerella]

You might already know these things, but here's a list of stuff that should help, in case you didn't. (My advice about the vacuum helped, so maybe I'm feeling bolder about unsolicited advice. :P )

-make sure your cranberry juice is not sweetened at all. (It'll be gross. Maybe dilute with water and chug it (more water is never bad) or get some of the cranberry powder pills.

-cotton-crotched (or crotchless) undies/hose, etc. You need to be able to breathe, so to speak.

-peeing after sex to clear out anything that's hanging around urethral opening. If this isn't enough, you can consider feminine wipes or use a cotton round with a dash of witch hazel.

-peeing when you need to go, and not holding it for a long time or repeatedly

-wiping front to back and never the other way around

-making sure you don't use a sugar-based lube (glycerine being one of the main offending ingredients) This was a huge revelation for me... Ugh.

Hope you feel better in short order!!

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

I'd heard all of those except #4, which is common sense whenever. Thanks. :)

[staxxy.livejournal.com]

What Leeny said!

and yes - too much sugar can trigger a UTI.