Thursday, April 30, 2009

Ghetto Devil Woman (originally penned by K so this is a 3rd person account- I am "D")
So, it's been a month and three days since the Moment of Epiphany at Maidenform for D. So far it's been a wild ride, with lots of other shifts and changes that have nothing to do with the transition itself.

Today was D's initial doctor's appointment to get started on T. The clinic specifically caters to those in transition and wanting to commence hormone therapy, as well as being a general practitioner's office. He had a letter of recommendation from his therapist all ready to go, as it's required in order to start hormone therapy.

We give ourselves plenty of time to get down to the clinic in time for his 8:30 appointment. His appointment actually was at 9, but the receptionist, who shall henceforth be called Ghetto Devil Woman, told him he needed to be there 30 minutes early in order to fill out all of the forms. As we're tooling down the driveway of the apartment complex, D. reaches into the backseat for his backpack, where the required letter of recommendation is safely tucked away. But his hand gropes air, and I stare at him as we roll to a stop.

"What are you looking for?" I ask.

"My backpack. The letter's in there. I thought I left it in the car," he replies, his face contorting in consternation.

"I don't remember you coming inside with it," I say. "Did you leave it at the office?"

"Oh, shit!" he exclaims, "I did!"

The office is all the way across town from the clinic. After a moment of deliberation, D calls the clinic and leaves a message on their voicemail about needing to get the letter, and that he might be a few minutes late.

We zoom downtown, narrowly avoiding the morning rush hour traffic, and D. ducks in and out of his office, letter in hand. By this time, it's 8:30, and we should already be at the clinic. But we think maybe we can still make it.

However, there's a problem once we get back across town. We can't FIND the clinic. We know the intersection, and vaguely where it's supposed to be, but now we're rolling around the parking lot of a mall, both of us craning our necks to see if we can make out a sign or something.

Fed up, D dials the clinic and actually gets a human being this time, I.E. Ghetto Devil Woman. I can hear her tsk tsking at D over the phone. Before she will even give him directions, she's berating him about trying to show up "late" anyway. It's still 15 till 9. She rudely complains about his tardiness for precious minutes, and tells D he will have to reschedule, and what was the name again?

"D***," he says, clenching his jaw while his eyes are still searching for this hidden clinic.

"We don't have a D*** scheduled," she spits back.

"A******," he says slowly enunciating his birth name for GDW.

"You're gonna have to reschedule. Our next new patient appointment is May 23rd."

"WHAT?!" D's voice cracks. By now we are pulling up to the clinic, which is hidden in a Chase bank building, of all things. "Can't you fit me in or something? If I come in and wait? I can't wait another month."

"You can come in and wait, but there's no guarantee that the doctor's gonna see you. I'm sorry," she says, not sounding very sorry at all.

"Okay, fine. I'm coming in," he says, and hangs up.

So we go in and take the elevator up. The clinic is dingy, painted in ridiculous cheery colors with mismatching furniture in the waiting room. It smells slightly musty, like a secondhand clothing store, not the at all like the sanitized, deodorized scent of a doctor's office. There are no magazines. Only two tables stacked with different prescription medication brochures. The walls are tacked with extensive rules and regulations about scheduling, payment, and the HIPPA regulations. Ridiculously, there are happy faces plastered here and there to somehow convey the attitude of friendliness.

We wait for an hour and a half, and are pretty much ignored by Ghetto Devil Woman.

She calls him up there by his birth name again in order for him to retrieve the precious letter and his driver's license. At this point, she has just outed him to the two nosy businessmen propped uncomfortably on the cheap couch across from us. For the rest of our wait, they are staring at us and making hushed conversation. After a while I glare at one of them and that stops his conspiratorial whispering.

At this point I snicker darkly to myself about the irony of those stupid smiley faces plastered all over this place, and the halfhearted cheery decor. It seems like a bad joke.

Finally, D. admits defeat and we leave. It's a hard moment, but I decide that it all happened for a reason. I have to justify shitty moments like this to myself because I have faith in the universe in general that when you want something, the universe tries to give you what you want in the best way possible, and steer you from things that may not be the best thing. I know it sounds hokey, but I think the Goddess is watching out for D. on this transition thing.

I want D's transition to have a sense of propriety, rightness, and trueness to it. I want him to be taken care of by people who give a shit about his process at least an iota as much as I do or he does. When we get home D searches online and finds a great clinic that looks like a better match for his needs. He schedules an appointment for next Monday to start his initial labs.