At last we are back I Australia after a mammoth journey, and a life changing experience! 5 weeks ago yesterday we left Australia for the biggest event of my life and I can’t really believe it’s all happened and we are back on home soil, in Perth if not back in our beloved Busselton.
For once I don’t really know where to start with my blog today, usually the fire just flows from my finger tips without much stopping to think about the content but I think today is such an occasion that I’m feeling a little disjointed and my fingers will take some time to warm up.
Firstly I’m going to talk about the flight home, Denise had some real concerns about flying with Qatar because of the current unrest in the area due to what to me looks like all its neighbours ganging up against it with claims that Qatar is supposed to be supporting terrorism and groups with links to terrorism. From my point of view I always thought that the airline would be going out of its way to look after its customers and keep its image of one of the best airlines in the world. We have always had good service in the past when we have used Qatar and our homeward journey was going to be nothing different except this time due to me not being able to sit for long periods we decided to upgrade to business class. That in itself wasn’t as expensive as I expected and the benefits of doing it have so outweighed the costs. The second thing Denise did was inform the airline that I have had a medical procedure while being in the US and would need to use of a wheelchair to assist getting me around the airports. This I found a bit daunting, I have never even sat in a wheelchair up to a month ago and was very unsure how I would feel about it, I don’t feel ill and thought deep down I was a bit of a fraud but it was just the best possible thing to do! From our arrival at Philadelphia international airport to being wheeled through into the arrivals area in Perth I was looked after so so well, everything went like clockwork (except for not being collected from the business class lounge in Qatar and having to remind them which was no big deal) I was looked after like a Queen! I can’t thank them enough, amazing service all round and as I have a passion for telling people all about the service I receive whether it be good or bad I will be making a point of passing my appreciation on to all concerned.
Perth is well known for being slow at processing passengers through immigration and customs, I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing to be very thorough with both those things but there have been times when there are several big aircraft landing within a few minutes of each other so the potential for up to 1000 people arriving in a very short time and there being just 3or 4 of the 14 immigration desks being open? I mean, why have all those desks if you’re never going to use them? Doesn’t make much sense to me but then I’m a very practical minded girl! Yesterday’s experience was completely different to anything I have ever had, my wheelchair was waiting for me just outside the aircraft and a lovely young lady then proceeded to navigate me first through immigration where you get to go through a special gate, get dealt with almost immediately with no waiting then to customs wher we were just waved through and straight into the arrival area, job done, she even had time to help someone else during the very short time we were waiting for our “priority bags” to come through on the carousel, just gorgeous.
Josh and Louise were waiting for us in arrivals and very soon we were on our way to Stuart and Andrew’s house in City Beach. It was so good to be back in Australia even if the temperature is not very inviting! The feeling of being home is already making me feel better. Tomorrow we will be collecting my certificate of gender recognition from Jerusha at the GRB office then lodging my official name change application at births marriages and deaths then heading home to Busselton finally.
In ending this blog I just want to touch on something which I will cover later but I am continually overwhelmed by people’s kindness and a sense of wondering why everyone I seem to come into contact with is just overflowing with the stuff, maybe I haven’t been looking before or maybe I just haven’t noticed it but it’s just all around me, everywhere I look there are examples of people’s kindness and I’m left wondering why, I am nothing special, yes I have always been the sort of person who gets more from giving than receiving but (and there are tears rolling down my face as I write this!) why is everyone being so kind to me, it’s just very humbling and I just don’t think I deserve it at all, as I said earlier I am nothing special, I’ve had some shit to deal with just like everyone else in the world but I am continually blown away by how lovely everyone is treating me. I so want to give something back to the world and can’t wait to be fully healed and get on with setting up the transgender support group which I am planning. One example was on the flight from Philadelphia to Doha, I am struggling with my hormones as you can imagine at the moment, my body must be having a very hard time coming to terms with what it now has to deal with and I guess what it has lost after all the years of being Robin so any extremes of temperature however small are difficult to deal with and I had an example of this early on the first flight. We were on a virtually brand new Airbus 350 in the business class area in the centre of the aircraft, the seating in this area is two in the Middle and one at either side on the window side. The problem started when I was feeling a bit warm and started looking for the air vent for my seat, there isn’t one! And I panicked which immediately made things worse and I could feel it coming, once I start to over heat I can feel this fear starting to overwhelm me and the eventual outcome is that I faint and that is not pretty as I usually manage to throw up shortly after that! I got Denise’s attention and told her what was happening, I headed for the bathroom as I knew there would be a vent in there for the short term. A few minutes later, Denise is knocking on the door saying all is sorted and I’m to move seats, I came out and the cabin crew had moved a gentleman out of his seat to one a couple of rows forwards and I was to have his seat, this in itself was big enough but then one of the crew came to me and asked why I had overheated, I explained about the lack of vents and the fact that my thermostat was not working very well due to me having had surgery in the US just under 4 weeks ago and she asked what the surgery was that I had, by this stage Denise was there and before I had any chance to answer she said it was internal and the crew member seemed ok with that. Shortly after, she came back and asked if I was now ok and asked again what the surgery was, I could see she wasn’t going to give up so I just leaned forward and beckoned her do the same and I whispered in her ear “I’m not actually he any more, I’m she!” She gave me a big smile and told me how brave and courageous I was to follow my dreams, held my hand and said to call her if I needed anything. About half an hour went past and the member of the cabin crew who I think was in charge of looking after this side of the business class seating, a lady called Ruxandra came up to me and squat down beside me and took my hand, she said the other lady had told her about me and she wanted me to know how much she admired me for following my dreams and again if there was anything she could do, anything I wanted I just needed to ask. There are two examples of how kind people have been to me, I have not had one single negative comment and with Philadelphia being the main centre for transgender in the US it would be fairly obvious to anyone who looked at me carefully but they don’t they just go about their daily routine and allow everyone else to do the same. I have also had no negative comments from people in Australia, I know we are a very accepting nation but to not have a single negative comment especially in the early months when I was less confident about myself is amazing. Ironically that just leaves our two relatives in the UK, my brother is I’m sure coming round with some help from his wife but from the total lack of contact from Denise’s brother I’m thinking there is no progress there at all. Sorry today’s post is a bit of a novel! But eventually it just flowed out!