Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Another short stay in the emergency room.. same results as before

Well as luck would have it, not only is my gallbladder gone but now I have kidney stones on the left side.  I was in the ER around 5am on Saturday morning in extreme pain.  I was at my ex's house at the time so she ended up taking me.  This was at a different hospital but I got a few of the same reactions.  The first woman at the desk took my license and was fine until she realized it said "R".  Then she looked at the picture(girl mode) again and said "yup, that's you".  This time I had no earrings in and was wearing guy shorts and a tank top.  No bra, but blue underwear this time.  I also had my toes painted purple and I had an anklet on each foot.  Since it was so early in the morning, they put me in one of the beds right away.  One of the first techs came into the room and actually had to catch herself for a second.  She looked right at me and my hair and then said "oh, ok, R, right?"  I said yes and told her what was going and she was great after that.  There were 3 or 4 nurses / techs that I saw and they all had me figured out.  .  2 of them actually questioned my ex and wanted to know her relation to me.  They all knew I was not a typical male so they were unsure about our status.  Then I went for a CT scan and as the first tech moved me to the table, the main tech in the booth asks over the speaker, "WHO is that?".  The first girl says "R" and then I hear the other one whisper "really??"  Then they both came out and looked me up and down as I switched beds.  They saw my toes and the jewelry and the one tech was clearly not amused.  When I got back from the scan, I was in agony because of some reaction to the meds they had just given me before.   The nurse was really nice and they gave me a second dose and that did the trick. 

I was only there for a couple hours after that and then they sent me home.  It was a short stay this time but still the experience seems to be positive.  It seems that everybody I deal with agrees that I am ok like this.  Maybe it's because I am not 6' and don't have size 11 feet.  It's kinda hard to describe but it is definitely an acceptance on some level and it really seems to be just right for me.