End Of The Line

95

After the disappointment of my first four speculative scripts sent into 'The Other Show' not gaining their acceptance, I decided my problem was 'pushing the envelope' too far with each one I had written. When the show had first started it had some issues and needed to have its envelope pushed in my humble opinion. But by the third season they had finally come into their own and I decided to craft a script that would be completely common place and unthreatening. After typing it up I passed it around to some friends as my test readers and I got back less enthusiastic responses than I normally did: Just as I had hoped. I mailed it off to the agent feeling this was the one that was going to sell!

Jude's and my relationship seemed to be coming to an end. While he had been a great help to me during my time having issues with medical doctors not performing their jobs, he since had little he wanted to do other than find me that 'perfect doctor' to handle my long term needs. Yet when I said I was interested in a doctor who could address my mixed-sex issues, he didn't like that idea at all and I ended up starting to see a different psychologist on the side for those questions. It turned out he knew my new psychologist, 'Samuel', and had good things to say about him and even had a nice supportive chat with him about me. In the meantime Jude and my appointments had gone from being twice monthly to once every few months and I was thinking we would end as I focused on working with Samuel. But at what I assumed would be that final appointment where we would discuss parting, he had some news for me that he was thrilled about. He had found that perfect doctor to serve as my long term primary care physician, 'Dr. Klasper'. The wrinkle was Dr. Klasper was in Florida, but he would be willing to work on my needs over the phone, Jude was certain! I expressed misgivings about this but Jude assured me that he knew this would be just the doctor for me. He gave me the phone number and told me I could call him that evening and check for myself.

When I got home, I decided to give it a try as Jude had been a big help and supporter of mine over these past two & a half years I had seen him. But when I called, I was very surprised. I asked Klasper what specialty he was in, he admitted that technically he didn't have a medical degree, but was just called 'Dr. Klasper' as an honorary title by his patients. In reality he was a personal trainer who worked at a health club in Florida but also did phone consultations. How much was a phone consultation? I asked. He said it was two hundred dollars an hour, no insurance accepted, and his price was firm. As my entire non-rent money supply was about seventy-five dollars a month at that time, it was impossible for me to afford his fee. Thankfully, this gave me a conclusive reason not to take him as my 'doctor' and when I next saw Jude I told him of the phone call and what I'd learned.

Having expected that Jude and I would part amicably at the previous appointment, now Jude became enraged by what I told him of my call and said it wasn't possible and I was lying. I told him he could call and check for himself if he didn't believe me. But he assured me he didn't have to call as he had already seen the 'video tape'. Video tape? Yes, he had been passed a video tape noting Dr. Klasper's skills and extensive knowledge of health problems.

In the early Nineteen Nineties many 'businesses' and 'professionals', whose claims couldn't be legally validated well enough to be touted in broadcast advertisements, had taken up making 'informational videos' of themselves and their claims and then distributed these tapes through a network of supporters. It turned out Jude had been passed one of these video tapes by ''someone he trusted.'' And as he'd seen that tape for himself, Jude didn't feel the need to question anything he had gleaned from it.

When I again assured Jude of what Klasper had told me directly on the phone, Jude told me I didn't know what I was talking about and I should give 'Dr. Klasper' a try. I assured him with the two hundred dollar price tag for each consultation, I couldn't afford him even if I wanted to. Jude felt that surely 'Dr. Klasper' would bring down his price if I told him of my circumstances. I noted that I had and Klasper was very firm on his price. Jude told me it couldn't possibly be true.

Our time was up and neither he nor I saw any reason for a subsequent visit. As our last appointment, it had been very acrimonious and the first time that we had exchanged any cross words to each other. I thought it was a shame, but he felt he didn't need to check the facts himself, I just needed to get different answers.

With this disappointment already in my mind, I soon after received a letter from my agent lambasting me for how disappointing my most recent script had been. She stated I needed to learn ''the basic tenets of good writing'' before I sent her any more scripts. She then concluded her letter by noting that, if I really wanted to, I could of course always submit the script myself. When I called to assure her that I had specifically designed the script to make it as comfortable for the show readers as I could and was sure it would sell, she told me that clearly that wasn't the case as why would they want to buy something so poor? When I asked her what she had meant by ''the basic tenets of good writing'' she scoffed as she thought this meant I didn't know of the 'Man versus Man', 'Man versus Society', 'Man versus Nature' and 'Man versus Himself'' underpinnings of narrative story structure. When I noted that my story fit 'Man versus Society' she assured me it didn't as my story focused on an 'Android' and not a 'Man'. When I told her that the 'Android' in question was one of the major characters of the show and they routinely featured stories centered around him, she assured me I didn't know what I was talking about and it didn't matter as she wasn't going to represent me as my agent with that script. She then echoed in a sarcastic tone what she had written at the end of her letter, that I could always send it in on my own if I wanted to, but she assured me they wouldn't look at it. The call was done. It didn't occur to me until afterwards that given her strict interpretation of what qualified as 'Man versus...' for a valid story, then all stories about women and children would be deemed invalid by her logic as well.

Not only had my relationship with Jude ended, it seemed like my relationship with my agent was over as well.

The next time I saw Samuel and discussed these two occurrences he told me that Jude had gone even further than just having a bad last appointment with me, he had now joined the old chorus of medical doctors disparaging me on the grapevine and claiming I never had any 'real' medical problems... Samuel quipped that it might be nearing the time when Jude would have to renew his medical license and wanted to ensure a conflict-free process with his peers.

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New Choices

91

Working with Jude had been very helpful for the first six months as he confirmed the machinations going on about me in the medical community, and provided me pointers in how to approach wary medical doctors I would later see and help them be more comfortable working on my health issues. But once my health was addressed and restored, we were at a bit of a loss as to what we should do with our appointments. He decided to comb through the remaining medical community and find the perfect primary care doctor to help me with my future needs, unfortunately all he could find where doctors willing to meet me, as the one they had heard about on the medical grape vine, but not willing to assure ongoing medical care.

I felt my visits with the new doctor at the community health clinic were productive enough and I'd abandoned the fat enzymes and associated visits to Premier Medical Center after they admitted their role in getting my previous doctor run out of the state. If I didn't see them any more, then they couldn't ask me who my new doctor was and begin to threaten him. Also as I was easily gaining weight again, I didn't need the minor additional benefit the fat enzymes had given me.

A year after I had first started seeing Jude, I broached the subject of looking into my intersexed situation and discovering what options I had. He noted that we had already looked into it to his level of expertise and didn't know what else there was to do about it. I noted that perhaps I should look into being legally female rather than as I currently was, legally male. He felt that was a terrible idea as women had a lower place in society and I would face discrimination if I pursued that. I pointed out the years of discrimination I had already faced for being legally male while not very biologically male. I also noted I was willing to look into being more physically male as well. It was just a case that I wanted to look into my 'situation' further and find out my options.

I had spent my first decade since puberty hiding and ignoring my 'situation', functionally in denial about it even though I was consciously aware of it and wondered about it as the decade passed. Then I spent the past few years focusing on my health problems and putting those issues aside. At the time, there was no need to worry about my 'situation' then as I concluded I'd likely die before I'd have to face it. But now as it was clear I was going to live a full life, unless I was unexpected killed in a car accident, I felt I should look into my mixed-sex situation and address it now, before I entered a life long profession.

But Jude was generally freaked out by the concept and said he wouldn't help me with it, that I should just continue my life as I had been during my first decade since it had cropped up: Keeping my breasts bound, perhaps putting on a fake, more masculine sounding voice, continue to shave only once every few days to let the little bit of stubble make me appear more manly. But I found, after the experiences I had gone through, the last thing I had wanted to do was just return to living a life of denial when it came to the issue.

But he was clear, he would not help me consider and look into my options in that respect, but I could continue with him on my health issues and counseling on doctor interaction issues.

Thinking it over on my own for the next few months, I concluded to find myself a second counselor who would be willing to help me with this desire to explore my options. I was once again to the phone book & physician referral helplines and was back to leaving messages on answering machines, just giving my first name and the area of counseling I was interested in. There were no professionals in town trained to address it so I wasn't surprised that I got back even fewer return calls than when trying to find a counselor for my medical doctor issues. This time I didn't even get return calls from people polite enough to let me know they weren't interested. Then one psychologist called me back and was willing to mutually look into my options as he came up to speed on them himself.

We agreed on a date & time for an initial visit and when I got to the address I discovered it was the same small Victorian house where I had seen the psychiatric nurse four years earlier! I suddenly felt my stomach twisting and debated not staying for the appointment as I wasn't comfortable with the thought of being involved with anyone even indirectly associated with the physician who had originally defrauded me, even if they had later told me they regretted that association. Yet, she was merely someone who worked in the office next to the one I was going to go to so was it really an issue? I concluded to go into the building and walk to the waiting area next to her office door. It turned out there was a new name on the plaque outside and I wondered if she, too, had been run out of town for her barely supportive role in my health issues. Either way, with her gone, my fears of this new counselor and her gossiping about me after each appointment vanished and I settled into a chair as I awaited to be called into the new counselor's office.

I'll call him 'Samuel'.

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Wanting To Work

88

With my health suddenly restored in a matter of months after six years of decline, I could have just found the first grocery store job in town. But as the experience had massively derailed my life, I felt I deserved a more thoughtful return to the employment pool. Talking about this with my counselor, Jude, he too agreed that it made sense and recommended I go to the state's Vocational Rehabilitation office and let them manage my return to work. When I mentioned misgivings based on my experience with them three years earlier, he noted that they had probably forgotten about me since then and let's see what a fresh intake evaluation would find. As VocRehab was just three blocks from my apartment, anyhow, I thought I might as well go and see.

Arriving at their office, it seemed unchanged by the years gone by and I introduced myself to the receptionist. This one didn't burst out laughing at my stutter. Fearing I might be assigned to the same counselor who had vehemently rejected me the first time, I was luckily assigned to a different counselor. I actually walked passed the earlier counselor a few times in the office, but he didn't seem to recognize me. This new counselor, I'll call 'Cindy', was a middle aged woman who lead me to her office and sat me down for a chat. I noted my health history and recent improvement and desired to finish my college degree. She thought we should wait with that option and first look for jobs that I could do today. What was I interested in? I told her of my extensive history in computer programming and while I didn't have a degree at it, she thought she still might be able to find me a job in the field. But first I'd have to be evaluated by their on-site psychologist. Fearing that they had the same disturbed psychologist as before, I noted that I could possibly provide a report for them. She then pointed out that if I told her I was receiving psychological counseling it would probably mean I couldn't be accepted by them for help under their rules. Did I want to say I was seeing a psychological counselor? ''I guess not,'' I said, message received.

''Good,'' she said and left the room to set up the evaluation appointment with their own guy as I remained and looked around her office. I noticed a photo of what I guessed to be her daughter. A head-shot placed prominently in the room, it showed her mouth in the shape of a smile, but her eyes looked very hurt and haunted. It reminded me of the photo my mother had me pose for, despite my not wanting to, after my high school graduation. Cindy returned and the evaluation appointment was all set.

When I returned the following week, their on-site psychologist was indeed the same guy as my previous evaluation, but he didn't recognize me either. I guessed given the number of faces flowing through the office each year for the past three years, he had long since forgotten me. This time, rather than the giant bubble test to evaluate my psychological fitness, he had changed to what I guessed he thought was a better method of cracking people's psyches: A hand writing evaluation. I was to write a couple pages about myself for him to review. When I noted my problems writing by hand, he gave me an extra fifteen minutes to work on it in his office. He then went on break and I spent the next half hour writing something up. Given the need for speed, I resorted to my old two handed technique where my primary hand formed the printed letters while my other hand's fingers helped to steady the painful tremors.

When he returned and saw the results, he barked at me because I was supposed to have done the sample in cursive, not print! But as he hadn't told me that and he didn't have more time to have me do it all over again, he deiced to work with what I had written and had me next see his assistant for a fresh I.Q. test. A friendly girl, I think this was the highest I.Q. score I had ever received, though in reflection that might have been in part because I had just had my I.Q. evaluated by the neuro-psychologist a few months earlier and it seemed to be the exact same test. Once the I.Q. test was done, and a career aptitude test which showed I should either find a job in computers or writing, I was sent back to the psychologist's office where he glared at me and said he couldn't conclude anything about me from my hand writing sample and suspected I had intentionally disguised my writing in order to hide something. At my blank returned look, he decided not to worry about it and I was deemed fit for Vocational Rehabilitation Services to help me.

With my return visit to Cindy, she was happy with the evaluation results and said she had the perfect job for me! It was a start-up company Data Acquisition Systems and they needed computer knowledgeable people to help get the company going. Cindy told me that the way things worked was they would hire me, and after my first two weeks, VocRehab would reimburse them for my initial paycheck. When I arrived at their office, it was actually the management office of a neglected shopping center and of the three people there, two were in their early twenties and brothers who were 'forming' the business and the third man was another self taught computer professional about ten years older than me. We talked at length about what they wanted to do with the company but beyond picking out the name they really didn't want to define it. It would have something to do with computers because they saw that as the future of business, but what precisely they weren't quite sure. The other computer guy and I were to return the following week when they had things sorted out.

Returning the second week, the other computer guy had decided not to come back. The two brothers explained that ''He didn't get the vision of the company.'' So the three of us spent the day still trying to figure it out and finally concluded that what we needed was to come up with a good motto for the company and from that the two brothers would better know what the company would be doing. I offered ''DAS ist gut'', I think it was a common phase from the old Hogan's Heroes television show, regardless of where I got it from the two brother's got the reference and burst out laughing. By noontime they still hadn't settled on a motto and they broke for lunch. Given that I didn't have spare cash to buy myself lunch based on my income level, I roamed the sidewalked front of the long shopping strip and glanced in its mostly vacant store fronts. An hour later, we reconvened and the brothers had decided we needed to put the motto debate aside and work on the dress code, next. They felt we should all be in suits & ties from now on; given my history of feeling like a cross dresser when in formal clothing, I noted that computer people worked in the back room and so dress style wouldn't make an impact on potential customers... But the brothers agreed amongst themselves that a 'professional look' resulted in 'professional work'. That topic using up half of the afternoon, the older of the two brothers pulled me aside to let me know that I was to report to VocRehab that they had paid me for these two weeks so they could get the state check 'reimbursing them' for it. When I noted that they hadn't paid me yet, and we even hadn't met for two full work weeks either, he knew what I meant but how were they going to be able to pay me without first getting reimbursed for it? So I was told to let VocRehab know they had paid me for these first two weeks and then the brothers would pay me from the reimbursement check, afterwards.

I'd like to say it was this dishonesty which lead me to report them to VocRehab, but in reality it was the dress code and the insistence I lie to VocRehab was an extra reason to end 'the job'. I went home and wrote Cindy a detailed letter about my time with them and what they wanted me to do and dropped it off at the VocRehab office the following day as I walked to get my daily soda. She called me in and, though eying me suspiciously, thanked me for letting her know and told me I didn't need to continue with DAS. She had instead decided to find me a job in data entry and then I could work my way up from there. When I noted the problems I had using my fingers on small repetitive tasks, she was sure it wouldn't be a problem and gave me an appointment with a data entry firm to have me evaluated. When I arrived there the next week, they had me do a half hour 'sample run' which their computer would use to give them my data entry skill level. Once done, they found that I had a surprisingly low error rate, but I only entered in half the minimum data they would need in the testing time frame to consider me for a job. Sorry. I was sent back to the VocRehab office to show Cindy my results sheet.

Cindy didn't know what else she could do for me and I again offered the idea of me completing College then I'd have a degree that would get me into the many computer jobs available in town. She didn't think that was a good idea and placed me on hold and would keep me in mind when the next job prospects came up. I was sent home and didn't hear back from her for four months... At least they were issuing me free monthly bus passes in the meantime!

Then she called me sounding very excited. I was given a date & time and arrived at their equivalent of a cattle call where we were all clients that VocRehab was 'helping to find a job' and we were brought to a large conference room and told to take a seat. There we were introduced to a bespectacled man who told us he was forming a business with his partner who we may have heard of, Frederic Neal also known as 'Curly', recently retired from the Harlem Globetrotters. He was co-founding a business with this new man and they needed to hire people fast. And they wanted us! When asked, he explained that 'Curly' was a very busy man and couldn't be here himself to talk to us, but he truly was a partner in this new business and we'd meet him in a month after we signed on. One of us here for the presentation stood up and told us that she had heard of this guy and he was a fraud with whom Frederic Neal had publicly disavowed any business relationship. She picked up her things and left the room, the rest of us looked to the VocRehab counselors standing by the walls. They seemed momentarily rattled, but Cindy vouched for him and so the man was allowed to continue his sales pitch. Once he was done and asked for who wanted to sign on, the counselors were very insistent that we all do. So I gave my name as did most everyone else and he then decided to pick about fifteen from the pile of names. Cindy intervened and thought it'd be better if I joined later and so he said he'd get back to the rest of us and bring us into the business once it was established.

A month later I saw Cindy again and heard that the guy turned out not to have any connection with Frederic 'Curly' Neal and after having the fifteen clients sit in an apartment with next to nothing to do for two weeks, he had pressured them all into reporting that he had paid them for those two weeks so he could get the reimbursement for them and then, he told them, he would pay them after the fact. Most of them did as they were told and VocRehab cut him a check and when they returned for the third week, they found the apartment was now vacant and available to rent. The people who had fallen for his request to falsely state 'he had already paid them' were kicked out of the program for lying. Wasn't it good that I hadn't fallen for that? Cindy said after she told me this story. I agreed it was, but kept to myself my opinion that VocRehab seemed to be, at least, partially at fault as well.

The state seemed to agree after this and many other incidents and changed the rules so VocRehab would have to be shown a paycheck stub from the business itself, so the client was no longer on the hook and the 'business' would have to explicitly commit fraud rather than coerce the clients into doing it for them.

Raring to go back to work after my health was restored, by going through the state's Vocational Rehabilitation Services, I would spend the year job free without getting a step closer to my goals...

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Run Out Of Town

85

Two months after my doctor at the community health clinic, Betsey, had placed me on antibiotics, I had started to dramatically improve and I returned to Denver's Premier Medical Center to pick up my three month supply of fat enzymes. While there I noted the improvement in my condition and the reason, and my doctor there told his supervisor and apparently all hell broke loose. It was at my subsequent visit to PMC three months later that I found this out as my doctor there, whose only contact with my health care was to copy a prescription note during the past year so their pharmacy would supply the fat enzymes to me, sheepishly spilled the beans as to what had happened.

It had been the general medical consensus in Colorado over the past three & a half years that my health concerns should not be addressed. Reasons for this were wild and varied when I would hear about them. Most, if not all, of the reasons were not based on reality, but on the ego of the imaginative doctors involved. The one medical doctor who had taken my health issues seriously three years earlier, Dr. Smith, had been run out of the state. In part it was because he was one of our state's first practitioners of 'Clinical Ecology', a field with the focus that many of our health problems were due to allergens and intolerances in our daily environment. Even though, in practice, he was little more than a souped-up allergist, it was a new concept that the Colorado Medical Community didn't want to see take root. As a result, Dr. Smith's existence in Colorado had been controversial but after he treated me and confirmed that some of my medical concerns were based in reality, the medical community had to get rid of him less some more respected doctors who had been poo-pooing my health concerns might have their competence questioned. So three months after treating me, Dr. Smith decided he had to leave the state rather than fight to retain his medical license in Colorado.

For the next year & a half, the medical community of Colorado was happy as my health concerns were once again being ignored and thus their reputations were not being brought into question while they, in turn, continued to trash my own. Even Betsey had spent her first year with me by ignoring my health concerns to the point of sending me to a psychologist to address a bulging spinal disc. Why had she bucked the establishment and prescribed me antibiotics in the Fall of Nineteen Ninety? Had she begun to have some doubts of her own? Had my single appointment with her since seeing Jude, my new counselor, made the difference with my using the comforting & pondering tone I learned from him when discussing my health issues with her? Had he called her up and vouched for me after his discovery that my fears of being persecuted by the medical community had turned out to be true? Or had it simply been a case that she truly thought my headache that Fall really was a sinus infection which required an atypical treatment of five hundred milligrams of Cephalexin four times a day for a whole month? Then to be extended for a second and third month despite the fact that it wasn't addressing the headache pain itself?

It was now clear why Betsey had gone into a flurry of having my medical concerns looked into by other doctors at the start of the year, as I now knew she had been threatened by the medical establishment of Colorado once they knew she was treating me seriously. And while two of the consults had affirmed my health concerns in the neurological area, the gastroenterologist review of my intestinal issues had found nothing. Was it because the problem could not be found now that I had been on four months worth of antibiotics? One thing we did notice was that if the antibiotics were discontinued, my intestinal problems began to return. So Betsey had concluded to keep me on a maintenance dose indefinitely to allow my continued improvement.

After I had been told about this behind the scenes threatening of her by the medical establishment, I asked her about it at my next appointment and while she confirmed it had taken place, she really didn't want to get into the details of it as she felt medical community politics was not something a patient should have to deal with. By the following month she told me she would be leaving the state to establish her own practice in Kansas. When I asked if it was due to the medical community politics, she confirmed it was. She had wanted me to be transferred to a new doctor just starting at the clinic and gave me his name, but told me that the head of the clinic had vetoed that decision insisting that he, himself, would take over my continuing care. As she felt the head of the clinic wasn't going to be a good choice for me, she was giving me the new doctor's name as there was nothing stopping me from making an appointment directly with him to continue my care. I thanked her for the thought, and kept the name of the new doctor in mind, but told her I would like to see the head of the clinic just to hear from him personally. She understood.

While I had nothing to speak of to thank her with, I did know she was also a fan of 'The Other Show' I liked and had written speculative scripts for, so I printed up two more copies of my latest scripts. I returned to the office the following week, her last, and I offered her the copies in thanks and hoped she enjoyed them and wished her well on her new practice. She thanked me for them and we exchanged a hug.

The following month I returned for my appointment with the head of the clinic. By this point I had over eight months of training by my counselor, Jude, as how to handle emotionally troubled people and that knowledge came in very handy. When the head doctor of the clinic came into the exam room he was all shrieking and yelling, pacing the floor as he did so without even seeming to think of sitting down. He called me many names, disparaged my character, and let me know he knew I had been faking all of my health problems these past many years, regardless of what the neurological consultants had found. Rather than being sucked into his emotional outburst, I sat calmly in place and just observed his behavior and once he was finally done I simply, gently asked, ''Does this mean you won't be renewing my antibiotics for this month?''

His energy having been spent from his tirade, he scoffed and then went to the counter and pulled out a pad and his pen. He threw the renewal prescription slip at me and left the room. On my way out, I scheduled my monthly follow-up appointment with the new doctor who had joined the clinic.

I had met a member of the beast which had been disparaging me over the past three & a half years behind my back and found that, other than bluster and hatred, there was little else there...

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Follow-Up

79

With a few visits to Jude under my belt about how to more effectively communicate my health issues to doctors so they might take them serious, the day had come: It was time for my next big bottle of fat enzymes. This was when I needed to request a prescription from my Community Health Clinic doctor, Betsy, so I could take it to Denver and have it discarded by the Premier Medical Center doctor as he replaced it with his own so I could pick the bottle up at their pharmacy.

Entering the examination room to wait for the doctor I sat down at the chair next to the wall-mounted desk. But this time, rather than sit either straight ahead facing forward or leaning forward at the edge with my arms collected in my lap or crossed, I made sure to sit so I would be interpreted as 'seeming relaxed'. I sat slightly angled to the left so I would be more facing the door than away from it when the doctor entered; had I been slightly turned away the doctor might see my left shoulder first and taken offense that I was giving her 'the cold shoulder'. Seating angle in place, it was time to position my arms. Both along the chair arms might be interpreted as too formal, confrontational, both in my lap might be seen as too pensive, untrusting. Both at angles might also seem to unlikely, as if I were putting on a pose, which I was but I didn't need to telegraph it. So I put the right arm straight along the arm rest with the left forearm balanced on the arm rest, hand facing toward the lap, elbow resting on the adjoining desk. Head held up straight, despite how fatigued I might feel, so I would look bright and engaged when the doctor came in. I placed a mild smile on my face as too much of a smile might be deemed suspicious and none at all, despite how my health might be making me feel, could be interpreted as 'not being open & welcoming' of the doctor as she came in.

I thus would now sit as I waited for the doctor.

At least one major hurtle had disappeared from my life, my stuttering. Apparently with the year's decline in my mental prowess, my mind no longer remembered that I was a stutter when I spoke, and therefore I didn't stutter. This was good as people would too often misinterpret the mid-word changes in pitch and moments of stammering & hesitations as signs of being deceitful rather than understand it for what it was. But now, without that monkey in my mouth, when I spoke to the doctor it would be with a 'normal', more intentionally composed, voice so my words would be taken as 'candor'.

Has anyone else noticed that to be deemed natural & honest I was to be posed & controlled...? I had noted this contradiction to Jude as he had recommended these steps to me, but he explained that to be deemed as being 'yourself' in society, you had to seem like 'just everyone else'.

And so the doctor came in and it was time for the next steps.

She would ask how I was doing, I was to say 'fine' regardless of how I was doing as saying anything else when first seeing the doctor could be interpreted as being 'a complainer' and get one tuned-out for the rest of the visit. It was only after affirming that one was fine, that one could then talk of problems without it being seen as only talking about one's problems. Now I was to lean forward as the doctor sat down into the chair next to me at the desk. While such a position would be deemed nervous & pensive as the doctor entered, now with her sitting, it would be seen as being close & trusting. Whereas if I remained sitting back as I had been positioned as she first came in, my continued position could be deemed as distant & aloof from her. In this way, I hoped to appear to the doctor as her equal, and thus trustworthy.

If my doctor, Betsy, was to make statements about my health, or steps to take, I was to repeat them back to her as if memorizing them for myself. In this way I would show that I cared about what she said and make her feel validated and more open to things I might have to say, afterward. If she was to arrive to the room frazzled and tired, I was to show empathy by noting 'it had been a long day, already, hadn't it?' Or if she expressed frustration that I was back, I was to reflect, 'it must seem like a waste of your time to see me again' without adding the judgmental phrase 'given how little progress we've made on my health issues' at the end.

I had been warned against defensiveness. A person who had been falsely accused of things would be defensive as a natural reaction, but that quick leap to one's own defense could be misconstrued as a guilty person trying to 'sell their story', not 'clarify the truth'. So if the doctor said anything about me 'making up' my health problems, or bringing up any of the other negative, bogus rumors that had been spread about me through the doctor grapevine, I was to simply ignore those comments and not break eye contact because even that brief turning away of the eyes could be interpreted as turning away from the truth of it. 'Yet facing the truth of it didn't confirm it?' I would ask Jude before hand and he'd say 'No, by not breaking eye contact, you are staring down the lie.'

Should I feel the need to respond to a judging statement made to me, the trick was not to tell the other person the truth of the matter, but to have them conclude it by making a rhetorical question of it. ''Why would I keep coming back to this clinic repeatedly? Do I have other options without income or private health insurance?'' ''Why would I come here 'because I was lonely' when I have friends I visit with and talk to on a daily basis?'' ''Why would I keep coming here, to the clinic, and bring up my health issues?''

And with all these thoroughly considered & prepared responses, the hope was I would be deemed spontaneous & casual and make this and future meetings with doctors successful!

But if it was successful this time, that wasn't clear to me as she just ended-up giving me my prescription to take to Denver. Nothing more.

Maybe her professional smile had been a touch more friendly by the end...?

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Fall Out

78

 

After my experiences in the Fall of Nineteen Eighty-Seven, with my mother's primary doctor having fabricated notes about me and subsequent doctors having openly disregarded their own test results concerning me, I had fantasized that I would one day find A Champion. This champion would discover that I had been mistreated by the medical community and stand up to the medical gossip mongers who were more interested in passing around imagined stories about me than doing their professional best to look into my health issues and resolve them. The champion would make them feel ashamed of what they had been doing for all these years and they would cower in response. And my new psychiatrist counselor, Jude, had made a phone call to one of these doctors and confirmed the sort of things I had been going through over the years. During that call, he had taken that first step as that champion...

And he decided it wasn't a road he wanted to take.

Still at our second appointment, and after that phone call, Jude was shaken as his plan of revealing to me my delusion of mistreatment had turned out to be his misimpression of professionalism on the part of medical doctors. Trying to salvage the appointment he said that going through medical school was an intense & grueling experience and that when budding doctors reached the chapter about mixed-sex people, they took it as the 'comic relief portion' of their education, at least that was what he had witnessed at the time in his own education. He now suspected that the emotional laughter response his colleagues had at that time permanently colored how they saw people suffering from an intersex condition and that was why doctors had not been taking my other medical issues seriously.

We ended the meeting with him suggesting that, even though the doctor's response had been unprofessional, I should probably not wear my ear studs to future doctor appointments and also take up wearing a three piece suit & tie when seeing them so they would more likely think of me 'professionally'. For the ear studs I noted that I couldn't take them out without them quickly closing up, but I had clear plastic spacers I could use instead. As for the three piece suit I thought that it would likely make me stand out more for suspicion given that I was going to the indigent focused community health clinic. He agreed with that last point and felt the plastic spacers would probably be good enough. We'd talk more about it at our next appointment.

Between appointments, I reflected how my pierced ears had never worked out as I had hoped given how they attracted household dust particles, which I was allergic to, and thus forced me to clean the studs and the ear holes a couple times each day just to keep the itching at bay. I concluded that, since I hadn't been enjoying having ear rings and medical people were using them as an excuse not to provide me treatment, that I would just give up on them. I removed my studs one night before going to bed and by the end of the week they had closed, just leaving a red dot where each hole had been.

At our next appointment we discussed my mother's primary doctor and his need to rewrite my test results in his records. Jude concluded that, as that doctor had laughed out loud upon seeing me at my first physical examination, he had his own issues with my intersexed condition but couldn't bring himself to admit it and thus when subsequently seeing me his mind read 'psychological issue' and he assumed it was a problem I had rather than his own. His need to discard my actual medical test records and to instead replace them with narrative notes showing the results he had wished to see was a defense mechanism which affirmed my health issues weren't 'his problem' but a problem in somebody else's field. The subsequent stories he had been creating about me and spreading around the medical community were just a way of defending his own ego and ensuring that others never reconsidered his own opinions about me and perhaps find him out.

With this information, I assumed we could do something about it, perhaps through the medical board, but Jude pointed out we couldn't as this was just his guess of someone who had never come to him for treatment. Effectively it was the medical community that needed psychological counseling to gain enough comfort to look beyond my intersexed issues and see my other medical needs. While I had hoped Jude could call other doctors who I suspected of disparaging me over the years just so I could directly hear more of the junk they had been spreading about me, he didn't want to do that sort of thing again as he didn't think there was anything constructive that could ultimately come of it.

The best he could do was teach me some techniques I could use, when seeing medical doctors to treat my health concerns, that would reduce any psychologically adverse reactions they might have when seeing me. Effectively, I was going to become their unofficial counselor during my appointments with them so that in return they might be better able to be my doctor during those and future appointments. In the meantime he was going to talk to various people in the medical community, I hadn't yet met, to see if he could find one that might be comfortable enough with the intersexed side issue that they would actually work on my weight loss and bathroom bout issues. With little other option, I agreed to this plan.

As we had now established 'a rapport' he asked if he could order some tests of his own to look into my biological background. Not my weight loss issues? I asked. No. As he didn't actively practice physical medicine he felt that was best left to those who worked that field every day. What he wanted was to order some test to address his own curiosity in my intersexed condition. As I had some curiosity there as well, I agreed. To keep news of these tests from the hospital my mother worked at, I went to 'the other hospital' in town to have my blood drawn for them.

The following visit there had been some curious findings from those tests. The first one was that the lab tests had me noted as being registered at the hospital as 'female'. Had I told them that when I registered? I told him I hadn't, nor had I ever been asked, they must have just looked at me and guessed or concluded it must be the case based on the tests that were ordered. Regardless, the genetic test he ordered showed me with the male 'X/Y' chromosome pair and the testosterone test he ordered had also surprised him. He had expected that to show me with an under performing level of testosterone to explain why I had never developed a meaningful beard, instead it showed that I had a surprisingly high testosterone level, more appropriate for a boy in early puberty rather than a male ten years after the fact. He had originally thought that perhaps he would prescribe me some testosterone to see if it would make my body 'more manly', but given the level I already had in me, that made no sense. He had exhausted his level of expertise when it came to mixed sex issues and we finished up with more discussion of how to handle medical doctors having issues with me.

While I felt we were still months away before we could make any progress with that goal, I left his office at least musing that I had a testosterone level in my body that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger blush!

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Grounded In Reality

77

'Jude's office was at the back of a large nineteenth century mansion which had been subdivided into professional offices of all sorts in the twentieth century. Given the size and number of professionals there, they had a receptionist who greeted me as I came in and asked who I was there to see. She then asked me to take a seat in the living room turned waiting room and called Jude's extension. For the first visit, he actually came to greet me at the waiting room as the trip to his office was through a bit of a maze of odd hallways on the second floor. Once there he let me pick from a variety of seats and then settled down in one across from me. There was some initial paperwork for me to fill out, mostly contact information and insurance numbers, and he spent the moment starting his own file on me. Once all the obligatory bits were done, he wanted to confirm who I was, it turned out he already knew of me but just wanted to make sure I was the same person.

He told me right up front that he had heard about me through the medical grape vine and had in part accepted me as a potential patient on the basis that he was curious about what he had heard. He also knew my mother's primary care physician who had first treated me and wanted me to know that, as well. Would that be a problem? If asked even six months earlier, I would have said ''Yes'' and left to find another counselor. But given that I had already called everyone else, I decided to give him a chance as long as he agreed that our sessions would be confidential and he wouldn't be reporting them to the 'grapevine'. He assured me they would be private... Given my past experiences that didn't mean much, but as I said, I had already called everybody else.

He then let me know he was a 'psychiatrist', not a 'psychologist' and asked me if I knew the difference. I told him I didn't and he explained that 'psychologists' study the mind and try to help primarily with talk therapy, while 'psychiatrist' are trained medical doctors who subsequently specialized in psychological issues and treatments. As such, he could write prescriptions and order medical tests, whereas psychologists couldn't. Given what he had heard about me on the grapevine one of the things he'd like to do is order some tests for me once we established a rapport. I agreed and my hopes even raised a bit as I started to wonder if these tests would include looking into my weight loss and bathroom bout issues, though I didn't express that hope to him. Instead waiting for that 'rapport' stage to develop.

So, in my own words, he wanted to know why I was seeking help from him. I told him of my many issues getting my health concerns addressed by doctors, how they didn't take me seriously or worse made-up stories about me to explain why I shouldn't be taken seriously. I even mentioned the bizarre time when the Premier Medical Center's gastroenterologist had refused to treat me for my fat malabsorption problem that he himself had diagnosed until I ''tested positive for AIDS.'' Then I further went to mention how my mother's primary doctor had been ordering test for me, then discarding the actual test results to instead imagine the results he had wanted and put them into narrative notes in his and the hospital's records. As our time was coming to a close, Jude felt he had a handle on what my issues were and as I'd told him of my medical records copies, he asked if I could bring them in for him to review at our next appointment. I agreed and a follow-up was schedule in two weeks.

For the second appointment I was to check in with the receptionist and then make my own way to Jude's office. There was a chair at the end of the hallway if needed for waiting patients, but as I arrived, his door was open to let me know I could come straight in. He told me he had a surprise for me later in the session but first wanted to start by looking over the medical records, comparing the actual test result pages with the doctor's narrative notes. He told me that what was likely happening was that I was getting confused by how the results in the narrative notes were being recorded and he'd be able to show me how. But after reviewing the doctor's notes versus the various test results he, himself, was at a loss as to what my mother's primary doctor had been thinking.

Unable to explain the factual gaps between the records, he decided to put it aside and then told me he had gotten the direct phone number to Premier Medical Center's gastroenterology wing and had asked to make a call to my original doctor there during our appointment time. In this way I would be able to see that my suspicions of being bad mouthed behind my back were unfounded and that I had imagined that to explain my issue of not accepting medical doctors' advice. He made the call using his speaker phone and asked me to be quiet as he wasn't going to tell the doctor I was listening in, thus ensuring a candid conversation. The call connected and he talked with the hospital wing's nurse who put him on hold while we waited for the gastroenterologist to pick up the line after his current patient was done. When he did, Jude introduced himself and noted that he was starting to see me and wanted to find out about my medical history with him.

The doctor responded by making several personal disparaging remarks including that I was a 'faker' of health issues who couldn't be trusted given my ''history of self mutilation.'' Jude was stunned and glanced at me after hearing that bit and I just shrugged my shoulders and Jude responded by asking ''What history of self mutilation?'' The doctor didn't know of any details, he had just 'heard about it,' but clearly, in his mind, anyone with double pierced ears was into self mutilation. Jude bit back that he didn't think that was the case, and regardless a patient's medical concerns should be addressed professionally even if they did have self mutilation issues. The doctor disagreed laughing back that if there was any suspicion of mental health issues then it was a waste of time to look into any medical concerns as there was no way the patient's word could be trusted for diagnostic purposes. Jude strongly disagreed, the doctor returned that clearly Jude didn't have that much experience if that was what he thought. The call was ended with Jude asking the doctor to reconsider and the doctor noting he had 'legitimate' patients waiting.

Jude was shaken, he eyes betraying a touch of fear. ''Have you ever had a history of self mutilation?'' he asked, hoping to find some kernel of truth to comfort him after this call. I told him I didn't and even offered to let him look over my body for any such scars if he wanted. He didn't feel he needed to.

While the call had been meant to show me how my suspicions were unfounded, it was Jude's own belief in the professionalism of the medical community that was shaken.

I had found myself an ally.

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The Dimming Light

76

I don't now if it was the final result of the cumulative years' worth of emaciation, or perhaps an unrecognized side effect of taking the fat enzymes, but by the Summer of Nineteen Ninety, my brain was just not working any more.

I could still muddle out my stories needed for The Doctor Who Report as well as my editorial bit for the science fiction club's monthly two sheet, but the results were less compelling and more lack luster. While I had been writing code consistently since the age of fourteen, I found it had recently become confusing for me and hard to untangle and I soon gave up trying. I even reached the point where one day I realized I couldn't remember what my last name was anymore and actually had to pull out my Colorado State I.D. to remind myself.

Physically I was doing a bit better, though. I don't know if it was the fat enzymes helping me to absorb calories or the frequent free dinners Daina was taking me to at restaurants, but I had actually gained a little weight during the first half of the year, bringing me to only be thirty three pounds underweight. Where the previous year I had discovered I could wrap my thumb and index finger around my upper arm and have the finger tips touch, I now had to use my slightly longer middle finger to reach my thumb on the other side, meaning my upper arm had increased in circumference by nearly a quarter inch!

While getting the fat enzymes was the first step I had gotten out of a doctor to treat my weight loss problems, ultimately the full issue was still not being addressed by my assigned doctor, Betsey, at the community health clinic. And my attempts to find a counselor to help me understand why this may be and how to correct it, getting doctors to serious look into my persistent health problems, had come to nothing as well. I saw this dimming of my brain as a sign that I was down to my last year or two before my life finally expired.

I reflected that I at least wouldn't have to worry about addressing my intersexed 'situation' given my presumed remaining lifespan.

Though I had gained those few pounds, I now had the persistent burning line of pain going down the back of my left leg, more of my hair had fallen out, leaving me with a tuft of hair in the center of an otherwise balding skull. I couldn't stay awake for more than eight hours at a time, having to sleep before the next eight hours. After a few weeks of this my metabolism embraced the eight hours up, four hours down, eight hours up, four hours down daily schedule. In one way this made me feel like I was living twice as many days as compared to other people. But in reality I hadn't been living a full life in years.

Never having suffered from nightmares my entire life, I started to have little 'night frights' where I would doze off and have a brief impression of my dead body being eaten by little bugs: Sometimes spiders, sometimes ants. I would wake up with a start to realize it had only been a brief, if unwelcomed dreamlet.

During my first year at the apartment I had problems where my belly would sometimes swell out like a taut balloon and all I could do was unbutton my pants and unzip my zipper to allow me the most comfort at these moments while I hid in my apartment until the swelling was over. Based on T.V. ads I concluded it might be intestinal gas problems and went to the local pharmacy to look through their gas treatment options. I finally found one brand that didn't have any additives that I was allergic to and bought a box. While it helped on these occasions, given how expensive it was compared to my budget, I rationed these to the times when I had to have the swelling down so I could go to an appointment or when the swelling was particularly painful.

During the year I also had bouts of shivering during the Spring, Summer and Fall. Once I found out about my body temperature readings I wasn't surprised, but all I could do was wear my winter jacket inside the apartment to help me warm up, sometimes even taking the comforter off of my bed to wrap myself in and make a can of hot soup. During the Winter, oddly enough, this wasn't an issue in the apartment as I could open the heating valve more and bring the temperature in my apartment into the eighties if I needed to. The only issue, then, was if I was waiting for the bus outside in the cold and began shivering uncontrollably. All I could hope for in that case was that the bulky coat would help to hide this from the bus driver and other passengers once they arrived.

Then one day, after another profoundly painful bathroom bout and all of my attempts to find a counselor had failed, I saw no future for myself. I decided to stop drinking anything for half a day to make sure my bladder would stay empty by the next morning and went to bed with the express goal of committing suicide by just waiting to expire while lying in bed...

But a day and half later I was bored of just lying there and got up to check my eMail and play a game on the computer, falling back into the drinking and eating routine while I was at it.

As I had been going through the phone book's yellow pages in search of a counselor, I had crossed out the names of those who had turned me down or didn't work out and decided that I could always call back the ones who had never returned my initial phone call to them. But this just resulted in a second occasion for them not to return my phone call. Then a few weeks later, a psychiatrist I'll name 'Jude' called me and apologized for not getting back to me sooner as he had been on vacation.

Would I like to come in next week?

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