So back in 2010, for about the whole year, I was feeling this weird pain in my left testicle. I wasn't really sure what was going on, I was self-medicating, I was going to doctors, no one could really figure it out. And nothing really happened that entire year. I just had this weird pain that would come and go randomly, I couldn't really explain it. Then New Year's Eve of that year I was at work, in a small bodega grocery store and I was on the register, and I just doubled over in some of the most intense pain I've ever felt, I had to pull myself off of the floor, and just like, take a break.

And that was scary. I didn't know what was happening in my body. So I went to my doctor two days later, because you know, New Years. I went through the whole battery of tests again, and it finally after weeks of testing, they still couldn't figure it out. But they saw something on my right testicle, not my left, that they just went ahead and did an orchiectomy, which is removing the testicle. And I would then go through weeks of having a yes and no diagnosis. I caught it so early they couldn't really tell what it was. And I was struggling a lot with that. Not that like my testicles are part of my identity.

But at the time in 2010, I was still struggling with the masculine versus the feminine of myself. Around that same time I bought my first set of heels, I was very excited. They were pink and like six inches, love those heels. I still have them there in the boxes in my closet. I wore them out. I was really struggling with masculine masculinity versus femininity. And I'm like, Oh, great, I've got one ball now. Like, I'm immediately going to be outcast from the gay community. And that's ridiculous. I could have had a prosthetic put in, I didn't want to like I didn't think it was worth getting cut again and going through that again, just for aesthetics, I was going to deal with it.

Then after that, it became weird when I had to actually go through radiation therapy. I set up all the meetings with my doctor about this.

But around a year or two after that happened, I had a lesbian couple approached me asking for my sperm. They are very close friends of mine, I went to college with both of them. They asked me and I was willing to do it, but couldn't. And that was hard.

Because I could have helped them, I could have been the solution they were looking for. They spent so much money and were so heartbroken and came to me kind of midway through the entire process of all the things that they've gone through. And I couldn't help and I felt terrible about that.

That I couldn't be there for my queer family when they needed me to be there for them. And that was a hard thing to deal with. Now they adopted a precious little baby boy and he is so sweet. And I'm happy for them. I often go back to if they blame me for anything, I don't think they do. I know that they were heartbroken but I had to tell them like, you know, I didn't freeze my sperm. I went through radiation. I'm shooting blanks at this point like I can't help you. And I want to, but I'm happy for them.

About a year. Two years after that. I had my appendix burst. And it was pretty late, like it did burst. I lived with the burst appendix for nine weeks, basically.