I Am Alive

My name is Alan; I am normal; I am special. I am also lucky to be alive. Coming home from work after finishing a second shift a drunk driver ran a stop sign and plowed into the driver’s side door of the car I was driving. The drunk driver was killed instantly; I lived a bit longer.

The damage was too much. The doctors had to make difficult choices. My lower body was crushed beyond repair. Without immediate reconstructive surgery I would die. But the doctors performed a miracle. After 17 operations over six months I was alive and ready to leave the hospital.

Alan died in that fiery car crash so many months ago. The doctors saved my mind, but my broken body was hopeless. They were able to give me a new body, a beautiful body. It is easier to build a female body the doctors told me. I am more functional, as the doctor’s put it, as a woman; as a male, my anatomy would be non-functional.

They started calling me Ruth, after the Biblical Ruth, since the Biblical Ruth rose about adversity as have I.  It took time to accept my new body. The healing process made it easier. The first thing I remember after the crash was months later. By that time I was already a functioning woman. The next three months were rehabilitation.

Slowly I reentered my old life only as a woman. Friends and family accepted me and were grateful I was alive. It was hard for some of them to hear stories of my past coming from the mouth of a sexy young woman. People adjusted to the new reality. I am alive and lucky to be so. It is hard some days, but I have come so far. So far, in fact, I have a boyfriend. The first time I went down on him was strange. Soon it became normal. Our wedding date is in eleven months. I am so happy to be alive and in love.