I just realised I haven't updated my thread in a while and it was about to drop off the first page in the Transplants sub-forum. So let's see, updates...
Paris half-marathon - I absolutely exceeded my wildest expectations in Paris and I finished in a very respectable 1:47:12! I was most proud that my pacing was rock-solid the whole way through, and I beat my previous 10K PB in the first half of the race! I then spent the rest of the weekend self-medicating with macarons.
More info and photos in this thread
Hormones - the HRT patches started off great, but after a month or two, had zero effect anymore, and I found the patches to be irritating and uncomfortable. So the gynae/endocrine doc switched me to
Livial/Tibolone pills, which act in a different way to just giving you hormones outright so she thought it was worth trying. The first two months were rough, I felt really aggressive and stressed (testosterone, yay), but I'm on the third month now and it's settling down, and I'm finally having something approaching a libido, so I'll see if it carries on. And enjoy it while it lasts! At least the "take one pill every morning" routine is easier for me than the patches.
Illness - I picked something up on the flight from Montreal at the end of March/beginning of April, and while I was laid low with a fever, a secondary infection jumped on board and gave me a full body, horrible pox/rash thing that made children cry to look at me (it was either HSV, shingles, chicken pox, or something, but the treatment was the same for all of them - super high Acicolvir dose - so they weren't that concerned in narrowing it down). At the same point, our beloved, wonderful, bundle of joy, our kitty Bosco died suddenly in his sleep from a heart attack, so it was an awful week all told. The spots faded well before the pain of loss has, let me tell you.
In general I'm still way more germ-phobic than the average population - I don't touch anything on public transport, and use a germ-killing spray after touching anything (any buttons, I always hit with my knuckles rather than finger tips, too). In general, I don't get sick very often (less than the guys in my office), but when I do, I go down hard and extremely fast. I'm fairly certain it was touching the hard surfaces on the airplane that did it to me, rather than the recirculated air.
Upcoming - I'm running two 10K races, one at the end of May and another 1 July to celebrate my 3rd rebirthday, and I've made a big step in signing up to run the full marathon in Amsterdam in October, omg. It'll be my first, and I'm terrified, but I've got to see if I can do it, and I've got an excellent level of fitness already. To be perfectly honest, I'm in the best shape of my entire life (I can run way faster and further than I could before I was ill!) so if I don't try now, when will I? And, as with every race I run, I take the memories of Vera, Rob, and David along with me, and I spare a thought to Serkan and Laura and all my other transplant friends, too.