I hope that everything will be all right with your grandson. I haven't been through this with a child that I know, but I'm always impressed with the news stories of how well children do undergoing extensive surgeries. I wish your family the best.

On changes, I relate to this. There is something painful about people changing when we love them. I've experienced this on the flip side recently, because I recently dramatically changed my hair and some people have had a difficult time with it.

But I think it's pretty normal to freak out a bit over changes with the T. Sometimes I wonder if the intensity of your feelings is made more so by your labeling of them as such. What I mean is that sometimes the act of observation (unlinked from a judgment) of a thing, like how you feel about your T, changes the thing itself. Maybe just letting up on the "my feelings are so intense" storyline and replacing it with "there I notice my feelings again" might lead to a different experience with this.