Joan - Chapter 5 By Andrea Ribeiro Many thanks to Stanman63 for editing.! Previously:After they leave the room I close my eyes and then suddenly I remember the strange dream I had. Was it really a dream? What did she mean about a gift? Who is she?

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I awaken from my daydream as a nurse come into the room, “Hello dear, how are you feeling?” she asks me

“I’m feeling better, thank you, Miss.”

“Call me Chrissi, Sweety. Are you hungry?”

At that exact moment my tummy decides to rumble loudly and I look at it and blush. The nurse giggles and that starts me off in another giggle fit.

“I guess I just got my answer. I’ll be back in a few minutes with something,” she tells me with a smile.

“Thank you, Chrissi.”

“You’re welcome, Sweety.”

A few minutes later she comes back with my breakfast, it was; a few slices of toast, jam, piece of melon and a glass of orange juice.

“Thank you,” I said and start eating.

It wasn’t very good, but I think its supposed to be that way. They want you out of the hospital as fast as possible and I think they look for the healthiest and worst tasting ingredients to make you want to get better just to run away from it. I ate it all, as I hadn’t eat anything in two days.

After I finished eating, a doctor came in introduced herself, “Hello Joan, my name is Elisa Towers, but you can call me Lisa. I am the hospital psychiatrist.”

“Hello, Doctor Lisa. Are you here to talk to me?”

“Just Lisa, please, and yes, it’s protocol to talk to a psychiatrist in cases like yours.”

“What do you mean?” I ask her in confusion.

“In attempted suicides, we need to make sure that you are not at risk of trying it again. Also in your case there is the gender issue too.”

“Oh...”

“We could start talking about what happened to make you take such drastic measure if you are up to it. I know it can be hard.”

“I... it’s ok. I think I need to talk about it.”

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I then told her all about that day, how it started: the bullying, the beating, my bike and finally what happened at home. When I finished I was crying my heart out, and I think I saw some tears in her eyes too.

After that, she started to ask me questions about my life at home. I was uncomfortable at first, but she had a way of making me feel safe tell her things, so I did.

I told her how my father had been pushing me to do ‘manly’ things even though I had no interest in them at all and I would then spend a lot of time in my room reading or on the computer. I also told her how my mother was distant back then and how my sister seemed to avoid me.

At that point, she interrupted me and asked. “Hmm... have you thought that maybe your mother wasn’t as distant as you thought and sister wasn’t the one avoiding you?”

“W..what do you mean?”

“From what you told me, it seems you are the one that was isolating yourself from them, staying in your room avoiding them, isolating yourself from them.”

“I... I... I never though of it that way before.” I look down ashamed. “I... guess you are right. I think I was the one that started to isolate myself from them. I was jealous of my sister’s relationship with them; how my father treated her in such a caring way and the way that she and my mother would do things together all the time.

"I wanted to do those things too, and it hurt me to see them doing those things, leaving me out.

"I wanted to be able to hug my dad like my sister did and for him to look at me with the same way he looked at her, NOT with the look of disappointment I use got from him.”

“Have you ever thought of telling them how you felt?”

“I... couldn’t, my father always seemed to be bigoted against gays and transexuals, every time some news appeared on TV or the paper, he would start calling fucking queer and faggots and how much he hated them.”

“I know what you mean, I talked to your father yesterday for a long time.”

“You did?” I asked her surprised.

“Yes, he was having trouble dealing with what happened to you.”

“What did you two talked about?”

“I can’t tell you that. The same way I can’t tell your parents exactly what we talked about either.”

“You meanie,” I pouted and she laughed.

“I can see you are a feeling a lot better.”

“Yes I am, Lisa.”

“I heard you are taking some more tests later today, so I would like to talk again after you get the results, OK? “

“OK.”

“Good bye, Joan. See you later.”

“Bye bye.”

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After she left the room I hear a knock on the door and I sighed. Can’t I have a minute of peace today? I thought and looked at the door. When I saw who was at the door a huge smile appeared on my face. “JENNY!!!!” I screamed.

She ran to the bed and hugged me to death.

“I... can’t.... breath...” I told her.

And then she said giggling, “If you can talk you can breath.” but she eased up the grip a bit.

“How are you feeling?” She asked me.

“It seems that’s the question of the day, everyone asks me that,” I said giggling. “I’m feeling better, Sis.”

“That’s great to hear. You scared us to death. Don’t ever do that again.”

“I’m sorry. I really am.” I started to cry again.

“Shhh.... it’s ok, it’s ok.” She said hugging me. “Are you up to one more visitor? There is someone else that was worried about you that came with me.”

“Who is it?”

At that moment I look at the door and see my sister’s friend Mindy and called her in.

“Hi Mindy.”

“H.. hi Joh... Joanie. It’s nice to see that you are OK,” she says shyly.

“Thank you.”

My sister then stands up and says. “Joanie, we know how awful the hospital food is, so we smuggled a little something for you. Mindy, if you care to do the honors.”

Mindy then opens her backpack and take a paper bag from it and says, “Your sister says that this is one of your favorites.”

She then open the bag and take out a double cheese burger and french fries.

“Oh my gosh!!!! Thank you Mindy.”

“You’re welcome.” she said extending her arm to give me the burger.

I reach my hand to grab it and our hands touch. At that moment I felt a tingling sensation all over my body and my brain turned mushy....

“.... ..... ....”

“Are you both OK?” my sister ask us. “You seem a little flushed.”

“I... I... I’m fine I said.” after my brain finally rebooted.

“I’m fine too, Jenny.” Mindy says

“What happened?” my sister asked.

“BSOD” I told her.

“BSOD?” they ask in unison.

“Yes, Blue Screen Of Death. It seems my brain locked up and needed a reboot.”

They both then started giggling and my sister says. “You are such a geek.”

“Guilty as charged.” I tell her, giggling.

I then started to happily eat that fabulous sandwich. But Jenny and Mindy kept stealing fries. I didn’t mind. I never felt closer to my sister than now.

A few minutes later, my parents arrive and they looked a lot better.

“Oh oh, it seems we are too late.” My father said to my mom.

“Too late?” Me, Mindy and Jenny ask at the same time.

“Yes, too late. We brought you one of your favorite sandwich, but you are already eating one,” He said producing a brown paper bag with another double cheese burger and that set us off another giggle fit.

“I wouldn’t mind eating it. I’m hungry,” said Mindy

“You are always hungry, I have no idea how can you be so skinny eating so much,” my sister says.

“Good genes I guess.” she said and showed her tongue to my sister.

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A little while later, just after Jenny and Mindy left, nurse Chrissy came back with a big jar of water and said, “You need to drink all this water in the next hour for your ultrasound. And don’t go to the bathroom.”

I look at the jar in shock and said “I’ll never be able to drink all that in one hour.”

“Just do your best, Sweety, the more you drink the better the images.”

“OK. I’ll do my best,” I told her and drank the first glass.

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An hour later, I was still trying to drink the last glass when she returned to wheel me to the exam room. I thanked her for that because if I had to walk I would certainly pee in my hospital gown.

A few minutes later I’m laying down the exam table, the technician said, “This will feel a little cold.” as she spread some ice cold goo all over my belly.

Right after the exam, I went straight to the bathroom and peed for what seemed forever and wondered if there was a world record for time peeing and giggled at the thought.

After that, I wanted to take a shower but wasn’t sure I could do it with the bandages on my wrists, so I decided to wait and ask nurse Chrissi, later.

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A few hours later, Dr. Simpson came back to my room.

“Hello Joan, how are you feeling?”

“Bored, I hope I can go home soon.”

“Well, I have the results of the ultrasound here and have some news for you.”

At that I held my parents hands tightly. ( They'd returned after my exam.)

“And...?” I asked her expectantly.

“It seems you have a completely formed set of female reproductive organs. I would recommend surgery as soon as possible as you can start menstruating at any time and right now the blood doesn’t have anywhere to go and that can be very dangerous.”

“Surgery?” My parents asked her.

“Yes, to open the vaginal canal. Also we discovered that your penis is nothing more than some flap skin shaped like a penis and we can reshape it and the scrotal skin to form the labia and clitoris.”

“You mean I really am a girl?” I ask her starting to feel a little dizzy.

“Yes Joan, that’s what I’m saying.”

“Mommy!!! Daddy!!! Did you hear what she said?” I asked them excitedly.

“Yes sweetheart, we heard it.” My mom said with a smile on her face.

My father looked a little shocked but then hugged me and said softly. “I’m sorry,, Pumpkin. I never knew. How could I have been so blind?”

“I don’t blame you, Daddy. I know you thought I was your son and you did what you thought was right.”

“Still I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard. I guess I turned into my father. He was a very strict man, and I promised myself I wouldn’t be like that when I grew up. It seems that along the way his ideas made their way into my thick skull.”

“Don’t worry, Daddy. I’m glad you changed your mind.”

“But I had to almost lose you to see what I was doing and how wrong I was,” he said between tears.

“Don’t cry, Daddy. I promise I’ll never do something like that again,” I told him, crying.

“Who said I’m crying? It’s that damn air conditioning that makes my eyes water,” he said trying to look tough.

“Yeah, right,” Mother says giving my father a stern look before she starts to giggle and that starts me off again and soon we are all laughing at my father antics.

A few minutes later we were able to recompose ourselves and Mother asked the doctor, “When can you do the surgery?”

“We can schedule it for tomorrow morning. I already checked with the surgeon and we have a spot open.”

“You mean that after tomorrow I’ll be a normal girl?”

“You are a normal girl, Sweety, you just have a small birth defect that will be corrected.”

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! I can’t believe it,” I said excitedly.

The doctor then said, “Joan, you better not get too excited or you might faint again.”

But it was too late because as she said that my vision became blurry and right before everything went dark I thought. ‘There I go again.'

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To Be Continued...