April 15 Ain't Just for Taxes Anymore

Two years ago on April 15 2014 I had a terrible headache.  It was not like any other headache  I had ever had.  I was resting on the couch ad actually did go back o sleep.  When I got up to go to the bathroom the telephone rang.  I went to answer it, and that's the last thing I can remember.

Jim remembers it from there on.  I did not answer and he left a message.  When after about 15-30 minutes he called again and left another message.  When I did not call back he realized something must be wrong. Unlike most couples we are very close and are never disconnected from each other, so he told his boss Julie he had to come home to see what was wrong, and she just saint, "Go!"

He got home in record time, then looked around the living room.  He was about to go upstairs to find me when he noticed MacDhui was on the table and Mr. Hata on the floor by it, also looking in the same basic direction.  That is when  he saw me.  I was sitting against the wall on a Rubber Maid container.  He tried to communicate with me, but I was out of it.  He immediately called 911 and go t paramedics on the way.

Almost a month later I came home on May 26.  I had been in the hospital, Evergreen to be precise, for a month.

I had had a stroke, the hemorrhagic variety.  There was no certain reason for the stroke, my blood pressure had been high, but just the Friday before I had had it read and it was fine.  If I had to guess it would be that it was my being on testosterone for my gender transition that may have caused the stroke.  That is, after all, what the class action lawsuit has been about with men who want a return of their virility.

Jim told me that Mr. Duck was so enamored of the paramedics that Jim had to put him in the garage, and he was pissed!  The men asked me and Jim some questions.. I was starting to fall to sleep, but they kept me awake.  The checked my blood sugar and it was fine.  It wasn't until I was in the hospital and had an MRI they knew I had had a srke
.  As I said it was a hemorrhagic stoke and affected my caudate nucleus.  I had to have surgery to allow a stint to be put in to drain the brain fluid.

For Jim that began two weeks minimum of anguishing fear.  He had to watch me sedated and in bed, hooked up to oxygen and various other monitors. on paralytic drugs and not all that sure who I was, where I was ad who he was.  I told the paramedics at home that Jim's name was "Sheriff John", a TV personality from my earliest years in La Puente.

Jim spent the time I was unconscious mostly at the hospital.  He would go home long enough to feed cats and scoop their litter box and to d some laundry and sleep a little.  The rest of the time he was at the hospital with me.  They had me on the paralytic to keep me still and unconscious, unable to pull at my tubes or the ties to the hospital bed.    He would do what he could to help me... He rubbed ice into my scalp under the bandage because it itched s badly.

He told me he read to me while I was barely if at all conscious.  He read of all wonderful things AN INVOLUNTARY KING, my first novel.  ht must have been a precious knowledge for me, as it is my sentimental favorite, my earliest set of friends.

I don't know how he stayed sane or sober for that matter.  He didn't know if I was going to die.  He didn't know if when I finally woke up I would be able to speak or understand or reason at all.  I could have been at best incontinent and at worst a vegetable.

I apparently started to wake up once after two weeks they had moved me to the Ambulatory Rehab Unit, after I had spent the first two weeks in the ICU and a couple days at a midrange rehab nt.  I don't remember anything much before the next Friday.  That would have been  about May 2.  The next day Laurel came to see me and I met Tiffany for the first time.  She and I had a grand time discussing my dreams about Julian Assange and some notion I had that one of my nurses was named Marianne and was somehow connected to the French Revolution. 

I had two very memorable dreams while I was still pretty out of it, though conscious.  I dream I was on a merry-go-round in a park listening to Julian Assange, then a dream about wanting to go to a nearby clinic staffed at night by two of the nurses who looked after me.  One of them was Rasi.  I wanted him to let me stay at the clinic so I could seek more drugs, and he was going to have to fill out a lot of paperwork.  I remember I had peed on my night gown.

I will continue this narrative with Jim's help over the ext coupl of days.

 

The Latest News on Me

I just got this email from a delightful friend who lives in the Midwest of the USA.

"I haven't heard from you in a long time.
How is everything over there?
"Hugs Hugs
"Gabbo"

My reply should update everyone.

"How lovely that you want to hear from me!  I know I want to hear from you.

 "I don’t even remember when we last exchanged emails.  Do you?  I could launch into a narrative, but it would be nice if I knew where to start.  I am pretty sure you didn’t know I had to have spine surgery, but I am healing now and expect to be finer than I was before it in about a month.  ANGEL EYES, my novel about the Mexican War has been out for five months.. I have not done the marketing I should, so I need to do that this fall if I expect to sell any books.

 

"I was working on a sequel to WHERE MY LOVE LIES DREAMING but had to stop since my doctor only wants me to sit at the computer for a half hour at a time and then get up and change position.. I am using my new Amazon Echo to time me.  So I will very happily get back to that in about a month as well.

 

"I had a real low point about two weeks ago where I went to my husband to tell him I was feeling suicidal, but I know that was my smart way of getting myself back on track to the usually cheerful person I am. I think you and I are similar in that way.  I am just overwhelmed with all the challenges in my life due to disabilities but most of the time I don’t even think about them or find ways around them.  I am either stupid, crazy or really really smart.

"So how is your stupid, crazy or really really smart  life treating you?  What is new?  Did I not mention anything you might have wanted to know about?

 

"Kit"

Much to Think About

An email from Lori L. Lake:

Kit - Luca and I have talked a lot about gender and sexuality lately. (And we’re watching TRANSPARENT – have you seen that?) I read this email of yours below to her, and we’ve been puzzling and pondering. Neither of us likes the kind of female culture you describe: giggly, manipulative, selfish, passive-aggressive, whiny, male-approval-driven, skinny bitch mean girls. Neither one of us likes the macho, knuckle-dragging, thoughtless, beer-swilling, mean-spirited, selfish, entitled aficionados of the rape culture either.

But in our world, those sorts of people don’t really exist – I mean, they’re just not welcomed in. I have an amazing group of lesbian friends – my butch “brothers,” I would call a lot of them. We like sports and cars and building things and learning stuff generally considered part of the male realm – and we like cooking and crafts and writing and talking about feelings – and we like laughing and seeing movies and discussing politics and gender and queer rights – and we talk about sexuality and sex and all kinds of personal stuff. I also have lesbian “sisters” who range from high-femme to generally femme, and we do things together or talk about a lot of the same stuff except what’s considered more in the male realm (football or soccer or car repair) and I try mightily not to get trapped into talking about “Say Yes to the Dress” and makeup and which stilettos are more comfy. <major eye rolling here>

In other words, the lesbian culture that I embrace and that my friends are part of is definitely a female culture, but it’s like nothing that heterosexual, male-oriented, suburban soccer moms would find comfortable. Everyone exists on a spectrum for every aspect of their personality, practices, dress code, etc. It’s not how people look or even what they know or do – it’s who they ARE that matters. What are their values? How do they treat other people? What level of intelligence do they operate with? Are they kind???

With the way men are raised (and often by women who inculcate them with the WORST attitudes and behaviors!), I wouldn’t want to be a man in this day and age. And yet, I feel a real affinity toward many men who have been in my life: coaches, teachers, neighbors, powerlifting peers, family members, etc. I was “one of the guys” when I was a powerlifter. After living through the sexism of the 60s, 70s, and into the 80s, by the time I was in my late 30s/early 40s, men and boys had changed a lot. The anti-woman, sexist, anti-girls-in-sports men had either softened their hardline stances or gone away, and the younger men and even my contemporaries had a different attitude. From age 39-42, I was coached by a 27-year-old sweetheart of a guy, Troy, who helped me break all the Minnesota women’s powerlifting masters records. During the same time, I coached and trained with a 22-yr-old kid, Nick, who completely accepted my knowledge and expertise and bragged about my good coaching. Wow---what a change from my teens and 20s! Pretty much every guy at the gym was supportive to me in my quest to be strong and break records, and some of them spotted for me or I for them, and we all talked a lot about lifting, sharing ideas and techniques. It was a great experience. I’m still crushed that I herniated a disk and could no longer lift. I miss those guys to this day.

But I could find more of them in other realms. For every asshole (like the one who relentlessly sexually harassed my ex and me at a Twins baseball game), there are several other men willing to act like human beings and be respectful to women. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that!

Same goes for women. There are a lot of them whose behavior I just don’t like, and I avoid them. But I have a lot of straight women in my life – and so does Luca, who also has a lot of straight men in her life.

And as far as Luca and I go, we both have all kinds of male and female energy, and we just put it to good use. Luca LOOKS femmier than me, but I can honestly say, she has a LOT of male energy. I may look more butch, but I’m actually more tender-hearted and easily wounded. We’re both a giant amalgam of disparate aspects and variety and it’s all good.

Now that you are transitioning as you are, you might need some new people to add to your Community – people who will accept and understand and cherish you. And encourage you to grow and change and explore. The Universe has a way of sending people like that into your world if you’re open to it (Hello, Lori! <g>). Keep your eyes open for more.

;-)  Lori

I Go to School: Autobiogrphy of Kit Moss

Valinda Elementary Scchool, La Puente, CA

The next part of this story is my elementary school.  You can see it above.  It sort of looks familiar and sort of doesn't but given it's probably at least 60 years old, that's no mystery.

My first teacher was Mrs. Barcalow, a kindergarten teacher.  I don't remember a lot from that class.  There was a fat girl who used to punch people.  The principal once brought us all real orange juice Popsicles.  I remember there was one of those Brio train sets.

My first grade teacher was Miss Dorius.  She divided us up into three reading groups, Chocolate, Strawberry and Vanilla.  I was pissed when I was not in Chocolate.  I had a crush on a boy, my first time, and once kissed him on the arm.  He had beautiful eyes.  The less said about the teacher's reaction the better.  I remember the Dick and Jane reader with that little asshole Sally.  I did not like them.  I once took my toy Calico Cat and Gingham Dog my mother made me for show and tell.  I brought the dog another time and insisted it was a horse.  I used to daydream my mother was the teacher.

My second grade teacher was Miss Rose Cotton.  She had breasts out to here, and the fathers of the kids loved her.  I just didn't see it.  She also taught the summer school with one other teacher.  We did things with paper plates and sand, but I don't remember what.

I do remember Paul Grenier.  We played Roy Rogers endlessly.  I remember when recess was over we would ride our "horses"  back to class to the strains of "Happy Trails to You".  Joel, the boy who was the bad guy, always rode away when I approached him.  I wish I could tell you Paul once kissed me, but for reasons I cannot divulge, he didn't.   I guess you can say I pretended he did when I asked him on the school bus what he thought I should be when I grew up, and he said "A ghost!"  Paul had had polio, wore a brace on one leg, and I heard he died not long after we moved away.

That summer we moved to Juneau, Alaska.   My father got a job with the Department of Personnel at the State of Alaska.  I remember drawing a picture of what I thought my new home would look like, complete with igloo.

Not my original drawing.

I Am Born: An Autobiography of Kit Moss

U.S. Naval Ammunition Depot, 1952

I decided one technique for accepting oneself as male is to rewrite one's life as a boy and man.  I plan to start this on this blog with the birth of Christopher Hawthorne Moss on January 3, 1952, in Hawthorne, Nevada.

 Kit's parents, Merle and Louis, had one daughter already, Denise, who always was a bit perplexed by her little brother. He was cute but cried a great deal, given that he had colic.  His mother put whisky in his bottle of milk to help him sleep.  Heaven only knows what affect that had on him.

His family moved away from Hawthorne when he was only five months old.  His dad had gotten involved with one of the officer's wives at the Navy facility where the man worked.  They moved back to Los Angeles, California, where his mother had grown up and his father had moved in the late 1940s after his years in World War II.

There are stories I can tell you about Kit before his family moved to La Puente, CA, and I will.  But for now, let's just look at some of the photos I can find of this sharp little boy.

Good Riddance, 2014!

    2014 was a helluva year.  It had its high points, writing two books, getting a Rainbow Award runner up for BELOVED PILGRIM, finding a certain amount of serenity at the tender age of 62, but so much happened that has left me reeling I have to acknowledge it.  Or try to.
     I don't have a lot of memory of January through April 15 of last year.  If we read through the diary I'll remember things, but just coming up with the memory off the top of my head is pretty foggy.  I do, or I think I do, remember the moments on April 15 when it all changed.  I remember talking to a couple people on the 14th and saying I had a terrible headache.  Then the next morning I remember being in the gardrobe and hearing the telephone ring.  I think I remember walking to the phone and having some trouble reaching for it.  And that's it.  I think that is the point that I had my stroke.
Jim tells me he called and got the answering machine, then called again a couple times, went to his boss Julie and told her he had a bad feeling and was going home to see what was the matter.  He probably saved my life .
     When he got home he looked around the apartment, then noticed our cats, one sitting on the table and the other one on the floor, looking at me where I sat on a Rubbermaid tub scrunched over.  He went to me and asked me how I was.  I apparently said "Bushy." He called 911, and the ambulance arrived in about five minutes.  They did all the paramedic stuff they do, asked if I could have taken too much insulin, then took me away on a gurney or whatever those are called.  They took me to Evergreen Hospital.  Jim went upstairs and printed out my prescriptions list and went to the hospital too.
     Now if you ask me the next thing that happened it was almost three weeks later. Maybe it was less.  I just looked at the calendar for May  and I can't tell you what day it was, the 2nd or the 9th.  Jim of course can remember every excruciating detail.  He remembers my being taken off to surgery right away to have a hole cut in my skull to drain off fluid that was collecting in my brain.  I had a ventilator put in so I could breathe, and I was given powerful sedatives to keep me from suffering from the ventilator.  I was out entirely for a almost two weeks.  Jim kept coming and spending most of the day and night with me in the ICU, trying to comfort me, to talk to me, to read to me, while I itched.  I did not really seem to know him at first, but after the ventilator was out he brought a list of questions about our lives at the suggestion of  the speech therapist.  He read them to me.  At first I answered pretty much everything with "January 3rd, 1952, no matter whether a date was called for.  I identified myself as Nan Hawthorne.
     Slowly I began to answer other questions.    Jim showed me a picture of the cats and asked me about them.  I said that Mr. Hata was "a nice kitty" and was pleased when he told me he was my kitty.    I finally answered every question, although by this time I had been moved from the ICU to the PRU and again to the ARU (Acute Rehabilitation Unit).  It was in the ARU that I remember anything at all.  He told me I had the most trouble remembering my mother's full name and I think the name of my high school or  college.
     He was very worried this entire time while I was dreaming about Julian Assange for some bizarre reason, but more on that next.  He worried I would be brain damaged, incontinent, and would require constant supervision.  In a word, he thought he had lost me.  The cats were at home alone, even after Jim took Mr. Hata to have teeth pulled, and he told me he sat on the bed one night and wept.  It breaks my heart to think of him so alone and scared.  He got  hardly any support.  It makes me realize how isolated we have made ourselves, but I honestly don't know what to do about it.
     About this time I started to be more conscious.  As I said, I dreamed about Julian Assange.  I remember in one dream  I was climbing on some sort of merry go round in a kids' playground in a park.  Assange was talking to us all, whoever "we" were.  That so impressed me I would talk about him to Jim and everyone else, including Laurel and Tiffany when they came to visit me at the hospital.  I also had a dream that I went to an urgent care clinic where the nurse Rasi made me fill out a long form because he was afraid I was exhibiting drug-seeking behavior.  I remember I was in my hospital gown and had peed all over myself.  I remember how Tiffany and I talked about someone named "Marianne"that I thought was significant somehow, as I think one of my nurses was a bitchy one named that, though I also remember that her real name was Elizabeth.
     At any rate I became more aware of my surroundings in the ARU and recall the therapists and my nurses.  I couldn't work the remote for the TV which also called the nurses if I had to get up from my bed,which had an alarm on it if I tired.  It was awful.  That's why I kept wetting myself.
     The glorious day came when I was allowed to come home.  I saw my cats, got to sleep in my own bed with my darling husband, and though I saw rehab techs for a couple weeks at home, I started getting better.  Jim has been astounded at  my progress.
     Of course he doesn't really know what goes on in my head.  That's one reason I decided to write this "end of the year" post.  Apparently what I had on April 14th and 15th was a bleeding stroke.  A blood vessel broke and I bled into my brain damaging my caudate nucleus.  That is apparently where ideas connect and are formed into memories in one's brain.  I was lucky and most of the blood drained into ventricles which kept it from damaging my brain worse.  These two things are what leaves me where I am today.
     Of course I am myself amazed and grateful to Jim.  He took a lot of time off from work, time that later resulted in some problems with contracts that he could not have prevented being gone, but he also can't give this as an excuse, that not being constructive.  He worried about me, took care of me, chided me to  take better care of myself, and generally he suffered.  If I wasn't completely smitten with him the first 32 years I most certainly am now that we have had our 33rd anniversary.  I fussed at him about drinking for a few months, but I think I am beginning to get some perspective on that and am leaving him alone about it.

So what is life like now?  I think it may be useful to enumerate the issues.

1. My brain is generally in  a sort of vague fog.  Almost every day I spend some time a little confused.  My rehab doctor has pointed this out to me many times, and I am now starting to believe her.  I find that most of the time I have to do things in a methodical way.  For instance, I was just in the shower and had to wash my hair, choose soap to wash my face, then another soap to wash my body, then rinse everything off one by one.  How can I describe just how carefully and deliberately I had to do all that?  Because I am alone and not sharing every thought, I appear completely competent.  Only I know that nothing is going that smoothly.  The fact is I manage it all safely so it doesn't matter, except that it annoys and worries me.  I don't like feeling incopetent.
2. My short term memory is rather wobbly.  I am involved in too many things and even taking notes on it all doesn't seem to prevent forgetting something I said I would do.  I utterly forgot about Times Rainbow, for instance, making me seem foggy and vague to Lori Lake who is doing the anthology with me.  I also committed to do the Gender Odyssey blog but don't seem to be able to regulate when and what.  I know I should not have taken these things on, but it's too late now.  Until someone fires me, I will keep muddling on.
3. At one point when I was in the hospital I told Jim that "something tells me that gender is  important".  That is, that I am not Nan Hawthorne but Christopher Hawthorne Moss.  Being transgender just slipped my mind.  But it doesn't make it not so.  After seven months I am slowly coming to some new conclusions about my own gender.  I know I am not a woman in the sense I am coming to understand.  I now believe there is some truth to a difference between the sexes, how we think, how we act.  I am decidedly not happy with what that means when it comes to my being female.  I don't really like women as a group.  Whether or not they are truly the way they seem to me now I don't know.  I just know I do not want any part of it.  Sexually it's more uncertain.  I find both men and women sexually attractive but in different ways, and I find at nearly 63 and on the medications I am on, I am not really all that into sex.  I like to think of myself as a gay man, but I really am some sort of middle thing, genderqueer or whatever.  I changed my name and my identity and there it is going to stay.
4. What about surgery or a mustache?  I think I will bag the latter.  I actually don't think one can even have a mustache transplant or I just don't want to for discomfort.  But shouldn't I look at top surgery the same way?  What difference does it make what gender I appear to others?  Do I really want to go through it?  Some days I say yes.  Some days I am not so certain.  I live most of my life in my mind anyway.
5. And speaking of that, what about my writing?  Since I went on Ridalin I am much more focused.  I finished Angel Eyes and even wrote A Fine Bromance.  I can see myself continuing to focus on one book after another, though right now I to need to turn my attention to Time's Rainbow.  My progress is as methodical as I mentioned about my shower, but it works for writing, though I actually am worried that my work is not up to my usual excellence.  Nevertheless, it feels more productive and satisfying.  I sent Angel Eyes to Dreamspinner Press wondering if they will find it wanting in terms of HEA (Happily Ever After), but I know A Fine Bromance will please them.  I just need to get the teen-speak down.  I feel I can keep at writing unless I am completely mistaken about my ability.  I am prepared to do nothing but write. 
6. And now to health and longevity.  I honestly have no idea how long I expect I will live.  I sometimes wonder if I will make it out of 2015.  No reason, just an impression that I can pretty easily dismiss.  I do want to improve my health, lose weight, fix my blood sugar and lessen the impact of my spine problems.  I am pretty sanguine about living.  The main reasons I want to live a good long time is for Jim's sake.  I no longer even feel like I need to live to write all my books.  But Jim needs me here and cogent. 

     I am sure I will remember other things I want to comment on.  For now I feel like I did a good job here.  I am tired and want lunch and want to get up so my butt doesn't hurt.  So for now I will call it good.  

    

 But for now I say goodbye to 2014 and welcome the promise of 2015.  I hope this will be a good year.

Web Sites on Transgender History

The following are random web sites I have collected to use primarily for research for blog articles for the three blogs at Gender Odyssey, Gender Odyssey Family and Gender Diversity.  There will be several such lists on different topics.  These lists may change as we find and add more resources.  From time to time we will add notes about the resources, and you are welcome to comment on them.  Drop us a note and include the name of the resource about which you are commenting.   There will be a date stamp at the bottom to let you know when the latest changes were made.

Transgender People in History

Scholarly articles for transgender history

Timeline: A Look Back at the History of Transgender ... - glaad

History of transgenderism in the United States - Wikipedia ...

GLBT Historical Society

Transgender Timeline - Transgender History ... - Library

Transgender History: Trans Expression in Ancient Times ...

Transgender History: Into the Modern Age (1700s - 1932 ...

A brief history of transgender issues | Society | The Guardian

Transgender Americans: America's Next Great Civil ...

A Look at African-American Trans Trailblazers ...

Last updated  12-10-14.