Sunday 28 July 2013

50\50 chance of death by 18?

This is a stat I heard. My child for being transgendered has a 50\50 chance of making it to the age of 18. That is scary.  My kid has a 50% chance of suicide, getting beat up so bad that my kid will die, or worse.

On Thursday that hit me hard. Very hard. It has now taken me 3 days to process things and be able to talk about it on here.

Thursday was a bad day for B (my trans kid). B was called a girl at school by friends, and teachers at the daycare\preschool refuse to let B get called a boy. This refusal by the the teachers is because the head teacher is Catholic. She feels personally that its wrong. Im not happy by this. But we have only one more month till kindergarten starts.

Things got to a bad part on thursday. Thursday B had acted out, hit, scratched, pushed, pulled fingers. But the worst was B's close friend called B a girl. B got very upset and choked the boy. Teachers had to pull them apart. I found out about this Thursday evening after I came home when the kids were in bed.

Thursday night I called the ped office. We had just gotten in to see a ped about B's anger issues. But the Ped saw the trans issues and started us on that. We had some blood work done to check for chromosome issues. Friday I had not heard back from her Ped who was on call. I called the office her ped was not in and we got an urgent appt with another ped from the practice. I also called our family doctor and he was not in but his nurse told me to contact the ped first and if I couldn't get a hold she would call the doctor at home.

I finally heard back from our ped an hour before our appt with another doctor from the same office. I was having lunch with B in the same complex that the office was in as we had come out by bus and it was about an hour treck to see the doctor down town. Her Ped told us to go straight to the children's hospital and to get them to have someone from Psych to see B.

We went up to the hospital. During intake I let the nurse know that we like to go by a different name then our birth name. And we prefer male pronouns. I was looked at a bit crazy by the nurse. But when the nurse heard what we were there for for B it became a bit better.

We had an awesome nurse name Dott who came in and took us to the "Quiet room" and they had 2 room there to lock kids in who were getting out of hand. We had a nice talk with Dott, I gave full history and B added a few things. One thing B added was then when B is upset and in his room for time out B has been hitting himself. That hurt so much to hear from my 5 year old.

We ended up having a shift change. We got a new nurse who was young and nice. She took me to go get some water after she found a great super hero movie for B to watch. While she was getting some water and showing me where the machine was we talked. She just listened. It was great to have her as a nurse. She told me she had never seen a child as young as B so self assure in there identity. That its good that im here and that we are getting things figured out. She also told me they have a transgenderd clinic for kids at the hospital. She also suggested in getting in the social worker to talk to. I was nervous about that, but she assured me that they could help and find programs. So i said sure Ill talk to her.

The doctor came in and talked to us. The doctor did a quick check up and nothing is physically wrong. She was upset that B had choked a child. The doctor assured me that B knows who he is. The doctor says im doing everything right. They did tell me that the Psych doc wouldn't see her. But we have a urgent referral put through to infant psych. They did not want to keep B in as B is too young to be inpatient on the on floor unit. So now we wait. I was told it could take up to 4 months to get in to Psych. But hopefully since we have an urgent request from emerge it will be sooner.

The social worker came in. We are going to be connected to the local counselling in our area. I don't have high hopes for it because I have been trying to see a shrink for depression for 5 years an I have not been able to get in with anyone. The local social worker office has been notified and we are to be put on there family outreach team. We will see how that goes and what they can offer us.

The doctor at the hospital wants B to only be in the school every other day. That gives B a day off in-between for cooling down, and a few days in-between for just relaxing and following what B wants to do and B being a boy.

So B will be going to school on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. We will spend tuesday and thursday together doing something fun. I think this tuesday we are going to go and paint some pottery up at place near our house, maybe go and get a hair cut. Who knows. Going to go play it by ear.

Thanks for reading so far. I have sent this blog to a few close family members and friends. If your reading this its because I trust you, and I know you are going to be able to support our family, and help us with the journey.

6 comments:

  1. I am so sorry for you and B! I have a feeling that B's aggression is due to the daycare squelching his gender. I wonder why the daycare admin has not noticed the correlation? I am so glad to hear that B will not be in daycare much longer! Let's look forward to K...hopefully the school will affirm B's gender.

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    1. its sad. Daycare refuses to call B a boy because it will harm the other children in there opinion.
      Im looking at putting in a human rights complaint.

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  2. Go for it! Prejudice, forcing her religious views on a child is not right. I'm in the Valley too and see those kind of things all the time. God is LOVE as far as I'm concerned and you have BUCKETS of it for your little boy. That's just what he needs. Unconditional Love, Acceptance,Guidance and Protection! Today there are so many more places for you to get Educated. He is so fortunate to have a Loving Mom like you. xo

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    1. Thank you. I have to fight for him while he is too young to fight for himself

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  3. Hi, I just wanted to let you know that lambda legal has a free helpline you can call. They give legal advice to people with all kinds of situations like yours. In some cases They make referrals. In some cases they may take the case on as one they want to follow themselves Or where they want to represent the people. But that is unusual. Certainly they can give you advice on your situation. http://www.lambdalegal.org/help

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    1. Thank you. I'm in Canada so a lot of USA resources don't work up here.

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