Yep, been there - I actually wrote this in my "diary" a couple of weeks ago, but it seems fitting to post here:
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Wow –
Finally made a call to set up a preliminary consultation today. Wasn’t prepared for the backlash of emotions after the call. (I’ll leave out the doctor name for right now to see if I decide to firm things up with this PS or search for another)
First of all – I called the office and mentioned I had seen the doctors web page and would like to get some more info on the “gyne…..gynemast….gyneco….[the receptionist finishes my sentence] ….gynecomastia procedure?” “Yes, that’s it” I respond
It suddenly dawns on me that even after living with this for 20 years and discovering the name for my condition and the forum a couple of years ago, putting it off for a little bit, getting back on the forums and deciding to go ahead with the plans, I’ve never actually said the word aloud. My lips and tongue just weren’t ready for all those syllables at once!
The next thing is that I once I hung up the phone, a rush of emotion hit. I just sat at my desk for a minute and shook my head…it took me 35-1/2 years to make that call. At first I was bummed out. Then I started to reason a little…OK, gyne didn’t really start to bother me until the age of 13-14. I was taken to the doctor (general MD) and given a clean bill of health. So barring a second opinion, there wasn’t much I could do at 14.
18 years old might have been a different story, but that was pretty much pre-internet time and without just walking in to a plastic surgeon or doctors office and asking “can you cut these off?” I don’t know that there was a lot that could be done. Strangely enough, Kansas really isn’t a hot-bed of plastic surgery, either.
I was pretty much a slave to technology waiting for it to advance and help my cause. My earliest recollection of “the internet” was helping a buddy download some porn pics in late 1994. It wasn’t until that fateful Friday night in 1998 that I fired up my massive 333MHz computer, plugged in the 56K modem and turned on my very own 14” window to the world for the first time. Why it took me almost 7 years to type in the search phrase “male breast reduction surgery” I do not know.
OK – now I feel much better – maybe I should only be kicking myself for not doing this almost 10 years ago! Anyway, off to take some boob photos and send off my preliminary consultation email. We’ll see how it goes.