Three days left in Thailand, or rather three nights, and I do feel well enough, thankfully, to get up and go walkies on a pretty regular basis. We've seen very little of the local area, still, but that's mostly because the climate itself is inhospitable, and there really hasn't been much of interest that we've wanted to find in the area.

Actually, that's a misleading statement. We've both been very keen on the idea of finding clothing in the local style, but doing so in our sizes is no easy task. We easily tower over most of the natives, and the typical Scandinavian tourist looking for Thai clothes visits one of the numerous "quick tailors" that pepper the island, and apparently the country. Finding one-piece swimsuits—the specific item for which Jessie and I have both been searching—that would fit us ultimately took us to the local Tesco's, the British version of WalMart, where we found one item that would fit our needs.

Speaking of Tesco, we've been doing most of our shopping there since we got out of the hospital. It's not American by any stretch of the imagination, and yet in the short time we were staying with Chloe, we both felt so comfortable and at ease that Tesco's here has quickly become "a taste of home." Jessie's fallen in love with the store-brand ginger nut biscuits, and I don't start the day without a box of pre-mixed Milo, complete with hypodermic straw. It's a small comfort, but one that's helped keep us sane while we've both felt
trapped in this strange country.

Dilation is now at twice a day for about an hour, less often than suggested but for longer periods of time. I couldn't face doing it three times in the same day; if I did, I wouldn't be able to get anything else done at all. It's
not like I have anything to do but dilate, granted, but there's a limit to how often I'm going to do this to myself. There's still something debasing internally over spreading my legs and forcing hard plastic objects into myself to see how much I can take for a given timespan.

Dilation really isn't the big problem I have now, actually. When I went into surgery, I had long before resolved the self-image issues, but learning to actually adjust to my new physical arrangement has taken some effort. It's not that I didn't really want it. Far from it, in fact. The sensation of Jessie's finger within me, rubbing against the inside walls of my sex, has made it all worth it. However, everything has been repositioned, and stimulation that goes to one location might set off old nerves in my mind. Plus, arousal right now hurts, or it did for a while, while the tissues were still healing, and it's not helped that Jessie's been even more sexual than normal.

Everyone that's said I've been so lucky to have a mate that's been with me through the whole of the transition hasn't seen this side of things, I suspect. Healing after the surgery takes time, and it's only been two weeks, tops. Every time I've gotten aroused, it's caused me a great deal of pain. There really isn't any blunter way to say it. And with Jessie being more active than usual, it's been a lot of stress having to say "I can't do this right now." Turning down my mate, saying that zir advances have been physically distressing in ways I don't like, has really been upsetting. This is the sort of thing that I've never heard discussed, and I'm not sure myself how to handle it. I'm doing my best, and as always Jessie has been nothing but understanding, but that only makes the situation manageable; it doesn't make it go away. Only time and recovery can do that.

I heal quickly enough; I can only hope that this holds true this time as well.