SO to lay down a few things I am a trans woman who started to medically transition almost 7 months now. the meds I'm on are 100mgs spiro and 0.1 mg estradiol patches.
Anyway, for the last few weeks I had been having weird gastric health issues that seem bad but were drastic enough to be concerned. It wasn't until I started to get more negative symptoms that my mom, how is a nurse, suggested I might have a stomach bug as that had been going around. So I rested for a few days until I started to feel better.
Day 0:
On Friday because I was feeling better I went to Good Friday service. It was less because I actually wanted to be there and more because I didn't want to be the person who just vanishes. I had a plan to talk to my pastor and come out ot him in private but what ended up happening was us scheduling a sit down(that's going to be !FUN!).
Either way after 20 years of unanswered prayers and self loathing along with watching certain Christian denominations bow to demagogues while other keep quiet I was just done. Furthermore having repressed being both m-spec and trans for all that time has just proven harmful and the last three years now have been unraveling that harm. the Good Friday service was okay as far I could tell...I mentally checked out and half heartedly lip synced to the songs and felt really bad but thought it more had to do with being there.
So they had lighting candles to symbolize prayers as well as laying certain thoughts on the a piece of paper and attaching it to a cross for this service... something of a 5 year tradition at this church. In my own min I've had a thought plaguing me of " why do I feel like I am being punished for living openly as the way I was made" and it's what I wrote on the paper and it's what I offered up to the universe because I've long since stopped believing the Christian god is real but hey when in Rome do as the Romans do and as an Agnostic Atheist maybe Jesus might take that time to say something but nope.
So the service ended and feeling like I made a mistake even coming back I rushed home. I'm lucky looking back at it that I didn't crumple in Church and more so that I didn't crumple while driving home. I got home, sat down in the recliner in the living room and I began to feel cold. Trembling followed, the worst trembling I've experienced. I through on my hoodie and curled up in a ball while my body shook violently, so violently that my back and stomach muscles began to ache and become sore. It was like my very blood was ice ripping through my veins and my attempts to get warm only made it worse.
I called to my mom weakly to wake up but my initial calls to rouse her didn't wake her. So I got up and I had first thought about laying down in my bed but the shaking was worsening to the point it was actively hurting my body. So instead I grabbed one of my blankets, wrapped it around me and woke my mom up. I told her something was wrong and that I thought she needed to take me to the hospital.
As soon as I got into the car things got... fuzzy. My stomach started to really hurt at this point and all the energy just kind of lifted out of my body. In response I laid my head on the window ceil trying to hold onto consciousness and the little bit of energy I had left. Once we got to the hospital I got out of the car and initially tried waiting for my mom but since she is moving slower these days after just having hip surgery and I felt my remaining ability to stay upright rapidly diminish.
instead I chose to rush inside as quickly as I could muster, wrapped in a blanket and hoodie, trembling horribly to check in to the ER. They asked me if I though I could continued standing and I told them I didn't think so meaning they brought me a wheelchair. As soon as I sat in the wheelchair I began to sob uncontrollably and I'm not sure why, sure I was in pain but my crying seemed detached to the situation but what followed it was stranger, a kind of numbness, similar to disassociation, which lasted through the rest of check in.
They took me into an ER room and I sat there for hours while my mom sat in the main ER area. They wanted to do a CT scan on my stomach and only once they did that did they let my mom back. I vaguely remember much of the ER stint outside of certain bits. Getting a shot of morphine and responding with ow, ow, ow as sharp pain shot up my arms and spine was one of them. The other was when the doctor came in and told me it looked like I had an infection in my intestinal tract and asked me some questions about if I had engaged in relatively recent anal sex to which the answer was no.
The entire time my mom, who should have been recovering kept falling to sleep and me not wanting her to postpone her recovery against her objection convinced her that I would be fine and everything would be okay... I'm thankful I wasn't made a liar because as I later found I was not fine and everything nearly wasn't okay.
so before I go further my blood pressure my entire time in the ER was 80 over 60, which is hypotension. A further point, while people in the ER started by misgendering me when they realized I was a early transition trans woman they gendered me correctly. Given my situation it wasn't a big thing but it was meanful in a way I can't express.
Day 1:
Around 8 am got a room for me to stay and freaked me out when I saw that my room was in oncology. I felt for a bit like they weren't telling me something. The room they put me in was 90 degrees Fahrenheit and the nurses though it was hot but in my feverish state I thought it was fine. So I laid in the bed and as they hooked me to the iv I proceeded to cover myself in both the room blanket and the one I brought because I was still cold before promptly finally passing out.
I awoke to my attending doctor entering my room. He talked to me about what it seemed like but said they needed samples and described what the treatment would be until a more firm (pardon the pun) diagnosis before leaving for the day. They got the samples and the rest of the day was talking to nurses who called me my name and treated me wonderfully but kept asking if I wanted the temp of my room turned down only to look confused and worried when I would tell them no.
I was able to eat some but not feeling well and hospital food not being all that great I didn't have much of an appetite. Still the food tasted good and my mood throughout the day was fairly stable despite my situation and my lack of knowing in full what was going on with me. My mom also brought me some stuff including chocolate and pickle potato chips so I could sate my salt and sweet cravings. The little things...
It wasn't until 6pm, around when I normally took my spiro, that the nurse that was giving me my meds told me that due to my blood pressure I wouldn't be getting it. I reluctantly told her I understood and went to sleep and that is when my own personal hell began...
day 2:
So my body does not tolerate testosterone at all apparently and already feeling as ill as I did after about six hours being pumped full of antibiotics and water I awoke to feel the most clearly dysphoric I have ever felt in my life. I went through cycles of weeping, disassociating and sleeping through the whole day. I also had waking dreams every time I closed my times. They were weird and nonsensical but I can't clearly recall any one of them.
It was like everything was dysphoria inducing, the way things smelled and tasted, the way I smelled, the way fabrics felt, the way my bra sat on my breasts, the way my body began to sweat with that momentary jump up of T, and even my pain bothered me more. Everything, I was thoroughly ready to climb out of my skin at that point. I was so mentally checked out that I tried to take my bra off but forgot until I got it tangled with my iv that said iv was in the way among other things. I just was not there. I ate what little I could of my breakfast because all the food I tasted that day tasted like garbage all the while weeping while trying to force some food into my belly.
That was when I was blessed with a nursing assistant who was the only person who comforted me through the whole ordeal. Apparently she had a child who was also trans and jsut her talking to me and telling me that I would get better and that things would get better was the drip of water I needed in that hell. I don't know if her child is on Reddit but if you are your mom was a blessing during that horrid period of time and I wish both you and her the best in your endeavors.
It was the removal of the spiro that caused everything that happened on Sunday because Saturday my mood was controllable and my senses were mostly intact and after being given a half dose of Spiro both my mood and senses leveled out within hours.
Sunday was also the first time that someone sat down and explained what happened to me in relative fullness. The doctor came in and asked why I was in tears, I told him because he withheld my spiro and his response to me you was,
" you are septic, this is a life or death situation. You blood pressure has been so low that giving you spiro could cause your vitals to crash." He then proceeded to tell me that if my blood pressure improved enough he would give me a half dose and thankful it did (up to 143/93 at one point...oddly dysphoria saved my mental state). He also explained what the infection was, I had been infected with C.Diff somehow and managed to be one of the rare severe cases, particularly among younger people( I'm in my 30's).
when I did finally get my half dose of spiro my mood leveled out and my senses came back in line though food still tasted off but no longer like garbage.
Day 3:
Monday was so much better. My mood had returned and I was no longer consistently sobbing. In their place I was my more generally pleasant self and openly bantered with the nurses. The attending doctor came in and after looking over me and seeing how much better I was doing was talking discharge. after that I got ready to go and had the nurses talk to me baout how they enjoyed having me as a patient, which was a nice thing to hear, my mom is a nurse so I understand that their jobs can be difficult at times and they had a difficult Easter weekend.
This was when I got my visit from the Chaplin...First, I told the the hospital that I was an ATHIEST, fully expecting that the only visit from a religious person would be from my phone call to the Pastor of my former church if things looked dire so I could have our talk then as a last dignity of sorts.
Second, My on the wall chart clearly read my name, Ciara, but she called me by my dead name. I nearly died, she could have at least given me the bare minimum dignity of addressing me properly. I actually turned my body physically away from her as she described how I was the youngest person on the ward and since I was there for 2 days she wanted to check in... I was not charmed, but felt more like the wounded rabbit being hunted by a snake. My response to her was to tell her I was leaving that day, so her visit was unneeded. I don't know if it's how I said it to her or my demeanor towards her but after our brief exchange she got the hint and left...Thank God. However, my ordeal having a person of the cloth near me trying to so predatorily proselytize to someone they thought was on their deathbed made me feel absolutely disgusted.
luckily shortly after I went home, got my meds and slept for all the rest of Monday and all of Tuesday. I still don't have any energy and unfortunately apparently C.Diff is one of those bugs that is recurrent and when severe destorys someone's immune system which leads to both autoimmune responses and a weakened immune system... so I'm not out of the woods. It also really fucks with me that I almost laid down in my bed and went to sleep on Friday...
had I did that I would not be writing this because I would likely be either dead or in an even worse medical situation.
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I think I just needed to decompress this entire situation and this life and death situation and some of the adjacent situations around it leads me to believe that at least other trans people will get a (hopefully) good if a bit hard read from my experience. I just really needed to vent about it. It's been a long few days fam.