Ep. 77: A Personal Update: My Top Surgery, Scented Joys... etc.

It's been about six months since I put out an episode of Ink Medicine. I am back. Hello. May this new year of 2025 bring us some unexpected joys. 

I got chopped. I concentrated on healing solely for a while. Now I am slowly getting back to my regular life. Including this. 

It's good to be here. I will talk to you next week. 

You can connect with me, Micah Riot, as well as see my tattoo art on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/micahriot/

Micah's website is www.micahriot.com
Find the podcast on that same website as well as everywhere you listen to podcasts. 

Transcript

Personal Update and Future Plans

Micah Riot 0:27

Hi darlings . It's been a while , micah . Here I'm a little bit out of practice , but what are we going to do ? Get back into it . It's a new year , 2025 . It's January the 10th and I'm not having the usual enthusiasm about starting a fresh year , probably because the state is burning , california is burning , you know who's about to become president and things feel uncertain . But what we really got to do is stay present , certain , but what we really got to do is stay present , love the people we love , do the things that make us feel good and support each other and support artists , feel ourselves in ways that are good for us . We're going to need that strength for whatever is coming next , and that's where I'm at . So I want to start this thing back up . It has been about six months and it was a good break . It was a needed break , and I do not have it in me to upload an episode every week , as I did the first year . It was a really good exercise and I was really happy that I did it , but I do not think I'll have it in me , but I want to be here , I want to make episodes . I love the idea of talking to you and you listening and I have some episodes planned with interviews with really interesting folks , and I'm sure I have some things to teach you about tattooing , tattoo culture , share some thoughts of mine about tattoos and tattoo culture and also nothing to do with tattoos at all as well . I wanted to give you a little update about me . What's been coming up with me for the last not so much six months that's going a little far back but the last couple months and so the last couple months I was healing I finally , after about 20 years of thinking about it , got top surgery and for those unfamiliar , it is a double mastectomy done for the sake of mental and physical comfort .

Micah Riot 2:51

It is gender related . It is um for me . For me , it was elective . It's not elective for every trans person out there . A lot of trans people need to have these physical modifications to feel like they want to be here , like they want to live .

Micah Riot 3:07

For me , it was a choice based on feeling like I , too , deserve feeling comfortable , but I did not feel like I couldn't live without it for me personally , and still I decided to do it . I decided I didn't need to compare my desires and wants and degrees of need to other people's , so I decided to do it and 20 years ago , when I first was thinking about it , I just never thought that I could afford it . Back then , insurance wasn't covering the surgery and also I was working putting together less than minimum wage jobs to pay $500 rent and buy a few groceries , and I just didn't think that I could ever set aside enough money or have enough money to do this , because besides the surgery fees , there's also the living expenses that one incurs while healing , because you cannot work for I would say , at least a month , but more like six weeks . Yeah , it's taken me a long time to get to this place where I could feel like I could actually make it work logistically . And here we are .

Micah Riot 4:25

I'm on the other side of that . I'm back to work . I'm feeling really good Every day when I put on my clothes or put a t-shirt on work . I'm feeling really good Every day when I put on my clothes or put a t-shirt on . I feel really comfortable . I love not wearing any type of bra or layering if I don't want to . It just feels so good and liberating and I just feel like now my body is all mine , like there's nothing kind of attached to it . That's not mine . It's not that I feel like it's all perfect now . You know like I still have my little complaints about things , but overall it just feels more mine . There's , as I said , nothing extra . It's like more streamlined . It's so nice , it's a nice feeling and I think yeah , I think my partner said is several times . She said she's never seen me this happy with my body , and that's it's a nice observation to receive from someone who has been with me for the last six years and has seen me struggle in different ways .

Micah Riot 5:25

A couple months before that , I was getting ready for the couple months that came after I did a little fundraiser . I felt really loved by the support I received and the money people gave me and the food people brought me and the lovely messages checking in on me . It felt really good . I tried to work as much as I could leading up to it to also save up a little bit more money . And then I had my surgery and you know I was so nervous about the surgery part and that day , yes , I was so nervous , but it was sort of the easiest maybe day because we arrived early in the morning . I think we arrived at like 6.30 , 6 o'clock or 6.30 . And I felt very calm going there and my partner was able to come in with me and be with me until they wheeled me away into the operating room and they , you know , ask you a bunch of questions and there's the final conversation with the surgeon . But they also gave me Valium to help me with my nerves and so by the time I was talking to the surgeon it had started to kick in and I was just like really happy and just being like , just make it look good , it's all good . Good thing . He knew what I wanted . We had discussed it before , the Valium on board . I was happy and it all happened and it was really fast and I did not wake up in the middle of surgery like so many of us are afraid would happen . And then it was over .

Micah Riot 7:01

I think that , yeah , we got there before 7 am and I think that I think Liz picked me up around 11 . So 7 to 11 . It was really fast . And then she took me home and on the way home I was in pain but I also got some drugs when we got home and then the pain went away and then I just didn't really feel a lot of pain after that . That was kind of the only time I was feeling badly , so , pin wise , everything was pretty smooth . You know it's uncomfortable , not really a lot of pain . The hardest part was probably not being able to do much and having having to ask people to help me and just , uh , feeling frustrated when people couldn't read my mind . And sleeping on my back , although I did get one of those pregnancy pillows If you're going to get the surgery , I think this is a really really awesome piece of equipment that you need . I actually didn't use any other special equipment besides this pregnancy pillow . Sleeping with it kind of curled around you , you just kind of feel cocooned and you can't roll and your arms feel really comfortable . So I recommend . So that's kind of what I've been up to . I also read a lot of books this past year and I'm going to be putting out an episode about all the books that I read . This will be the next episode coming up next week .

Micah Riot 8:27

And I also have been really obsessively getting into perfume . I mean I've always been into perfume . Um , getting into perfume , I mean I've always been into perfume , but I sort of fell away for a few years because I just felt like nobody around me was into it and I just thought I would be annoying to people around me with my perfume and then I just decided that I wanted to smell my samples again and I pulled them out , started smelling . I somehow got onto a perfume talk on TikTok and it just fueled my obsession . It's looking at notes , ordering samples , smelling things , testing things , talking about perfumes , listening to people talk about perfumes . It's been the other thing I've been busy with while I've been healing and I've also been making stickers . I made a bunch of new stickers for folks who donated money to my healing fund and I'm now busy giving out the stickers and some other things I made for those folks .

Strawberry Scent Obsession Happiness

Micah Riot 9:30

That's kind of where I'm at . That's what I've been doing . Thank you for listening . Kind of where I'm at , that's what I've been doing . Thank you for listening . I appreciate you still being here , or being here again or being new . It's good . It feels good to be back . May this year bring us many more joys that are unexpected and if you're anywhere near LA , stay safe . What's the thing that's been making me happy lately ? Perfumes , smelling perfumes . One of my perfume friends has a big strawberry scent obsession and she just sent me a box of scent mail with a couple of bottles of perfume and also a bunch of samples of some of her favorite strawberry scents , and that's what's making me happy lately . I'll talk to you next week .