Hey y'all, hope you're having a fantastic holiday. I've got a question for you that I doubt comes through here very often.

Basically, I'm a competitive curler on my provincial junior tour, in fact as far as I know the only trans competitive curler in my country and the only currently active one in the world. Curling has been my life for the last decade and I honestly don't know where I'd be without the sport. It's my happy place, you know?

But of course, being an athlete is all about being in tune with your body, and while the steps I've taken in transition thus far have made a world of difference, SRS is necessary for me ASAP. I have been told I should have no problem getting a surgery date immediately after the 2023-24 school year (i.e. mid 2024), so that's the current plan.

To this point, I've been under the assumption that getting SRS will take me out for a curling season. After all, there's a long, difficult recovery with plenty of upkeep that makes it inconvenient to play, let alone travel on a tour schedule. However, I've been seeing remarkably quick recovery results from some of the ladies on here and other trans spaces, and I'm wondering exactly when I will be able to get back to playing.

I recognize as well that the answer may change depending on procedure. My province covers a trip to the Montreal clinic, where I assume I'll have a conventional penile inversion unless they recommend I do otherwise.

While I am a slider sweeper and that requires a significant amount of core strength (google a photo of Ben Hebert for context), my main concern is my throwing motion. My play style means that my biggest benefit to a team is my up-weight hitting ability, so in order to be competitively useful I need to be able to throw hard and accurately. This clip of my delivery , while slightly outdated, should give you an idea of what I need to be able to do. I also need to be able to do that with about three times the power shown there, so I need both my leg drive and balance to be fully ready to play. Curling tournaments are long, often involving as many as 5-6 2-hour games in the span of 48 hours, so endurance and resistance to repetitive motion are also crucial; in those 10 hours of play, I'll throw 80 rocks and sweep another 240 as a front end player.

I don't want to risk any permanent damage to my results (though pain is not a problem, as I have played through many things I probably should not have), but if I am able to get back on the ice within 6-7 months or so, I could take a position as an alternate for a team and still get ice time at important qualifying events. As this will be my last year of junior eligibility, I would like to make that happen if at all possible. However, my safety and quality of recovery both come first.

Thank you in advance for your wisdom (and apologies for the text wall)! I don't expect I'll like the answer I get, but it's nice to be informed. And of course, enjoy your holidays if that's your jam :)