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.