Blood Pressure

Apparently my blood pressure is slightly elevated, so that when I saw the GP to see if there was anything she could do to shift this virus that's been bugging me for 4 weeks, losing weight was the most important thing - stuff the virus. Given that I'd been pretty inactive for about a month, to find my weight had actually decreased over Christmas...!

But then I think about my life now. If you had told me this time last year that in the space of 12 months I would be a regular visitor to Parliament, I would have been invited to Number 10, I would be talking to the GMC about regulation of doctors and I would have been asked to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry - I would have looked at you as if you were stark, raving bonkers. Yet all of those have happened.

Number 10 is earlier in the blog - still a great experience! Leveson is the call of the moment. It looks as though there will be little advantage in attending anonymously, so I will be in the full glare of publicity, meaning the full hostile glare of the tabloids. Excited, yes - but absolutely terrified at the same time. That fluttery feeling throughout your torso just keeps happening.

In many ways the last twelve months has seemed more and more like a dream. I talk to people about things I'm involved with realising that it must sound as though I'm just making it up. I can't quite believe it myself. I keep waiting to wake up and find it was just an extremely vivid dream - or the psychiatrists come through the door in their white coats and tell me the experiment is over and they're taking me back now. Yet in other ways it's as real as real can be.

People say all sorts of nice things, like how inspirational I am, or how fantastic it is that I'm taking a stand. Let me say it's not me on my own - far from it, I'll be the one with the temporary focus in a couple of weeks time (for the first time), before it reverts to the stalwarts in GIRES, Press for Change and the many other activists in the trans arena. The chance of me making mainstream media is remote - although tangible.

So the fear is not being involved in these things - it's around mucking up a fantastic opportunity to push the acceptance message, when I'll be sitting alone and solely responsible for the words I say (and don't say) and getting it horrendously wrong. It's also about being aware that I need to lose weight!