still alive

[pauraque_bk]

Thank you for the kind thoughts and comments. I'm hurting and bleeding from places you don't normally bleed from, but I'm actually very alert and didn't get nauseated from the anesthesia at all, which was what I thought would happen. I also thought I might die, but that didn't happen either.

Some curious details.

When I was getting ready to leave I realized I didn't have any clean socks, so I went up to my brother's room to borrow a pair. He was not there so I had to peek in all the drawers of the dresser, a dresser which belonged originally to our mom. One of the drawers was completely empty except for a few random non-clothing items which clearly had been hers. I was surprised because I thought I had dealt with all her possessions.

Among other things were a handwritten note from a priest thanking her for her kind donation to the church (dated 4/3/04, four months before her death), and a set of rosary beads.

My mom was a professed -- even an obnoxious, Dawkins-like -- atheist all my life. She was a very private person, but from what I could piece together, she had been raised Christian, but disavowed it when she got older because she felt the other people in the church were hypocritical, prayed for selfish things, did not truly believe, etc. By the time I was self-aware, she was vehemently opposed to all organized religions, and even to personal spirituality. (I distinctly remember when my older cousin was having his Bar Mitzvah, she would not let me go, even though my dad and a lot of his secular Jewish relatives were going. Even supporting a friend in his religious rites wasn't acceptable.)

I guess my conclusion is that it was never really that she stopped believing or wanting to believe, but that her early experiences made her so angry that she didn't just reject her church, but God in general. But when she perceived (correctly) that she was dying of cancer, facing her mortality led her back. I hope she got some peace from it, though she may just have been feeling fear and desperation.

I have no idea how to pray using a rosary and would probably not attempt it, but I took it with me to the hospital.

Got the socks too.

*

My dad picked me up from the hospital because he is the only person I know in the Bay Area I know who has a car and doesn't do anything during the day. (He teaches evening classes.) They won't let you go home by yourself, even in a taxi.

I had given his number to _hannelore to call if she wanted to check the status, and when she did, he managed in the span of a conversation that probably lasted less than minute, to say one of the most offensive things he possibly could, which was to call me by the wrong gendered pronoun.

When I found out about this it simply confirmed what I already suspected, which is that he normally only uses the correct pronoun for me when I, or someone who will tell me, is in earshot. Since he had never talked to _hannelore before, he forgot. I've been presenting as a guy for um... eight years? That is a long time to keep a charade like that going.

I wasn't even really upset. I just feel sorry for people like that. I mean, the entire medical staff I dealt with in the hospital? No problems calling me "Mr. [My Name]", even in medical-type situations where they could hardly ignore that I am trans.

My little hospital bracelet has an M on it! The nurse gave me the usual rigamarole about how I should not take it off because it speaks for me when I can't. Maybe I should leave it on for a while.

Don't make me tap the bracelet.

*

I won't know if the procedure "worked" for a couple of weeks. Also this mood icon is a bit ironic because peeing REALLY hurts. Wait maybe that part should have been under a cut.

Comments

[kaptainsnot.livejournal.com]

-hugs- I'm relieved to hear you are doing okay. And regret to hear about that thing with your dad. I can see how as your father he might slip up -- but eight years is a long time, and I guess feeling sorry for him would also be my response.

Hear's to you feeling better and no longer bleeding from places. <3

[pauraque]

Everyone slips up at first, but after a certain point you've either internalized it or you haven't, you know?

/hugs

[kaptainsnot.livejournal.com]

I hope that he's come to accept you as you are -- and just has problems with the specifics. Even if he's treated you like shit here and there, you know? Some of us are just walking disasters, and I am kind of speaking from experience here.

But you know him best, and I know you are not the kind of person to think badly of someone casually.

[kaptainsnot.livejournal.com]

(by the way? If you ever feel like dropping me your address, feel free. I'd like it if I were able to send you a drawing here or there. It's what I do best, and I don't mean that the way it sounds.)