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Eve Chapter 8

by Topsy

Mr Bishop shuffled some papers on his desk and held a report up.

"Eve, I need to know if you were feeling unwell at all before you were brought into hospital?"

"I think so."

"Like what?"

"I was getting headaches."

"What?" shouted mum but Mr Bishop asked her to keep quiet.

"I was getting them every other day, sometimes more often."

"For how long?"

"Since Easter. I thought it was because of the exams."

"So you didn't tell your mother?"

"No, like I said I thought it was exam pressure but I didn't like to say. Why?"

"It could have been a symptom of the tumour."

"Oh."

"Have you had a headache since?"

"Not the same."

"What were the ones before like?"

"They would start near my neck and work up."

"And now?"

I pointed to the front of my head.

"Do you still get them?"

"No."

"That will have been a normal reaction to the drugs you were on. Please tell your mother and your GP if you get another headache. It could be important."

"Yes sir."

"OK, Eve, we took several biopsies during the surgery and have sent these and the tumour for testing. We'll know more after we get the results back from the lab. I must warn you that we may need to use Chemo for a while."

He emphasised the word 'may' but that was cold comfort. He plainly saw my and mum's faces drop. We'd thought the surgery, however sudden, was the end of the problem.

"Eve, Mrs Jones, until the lab returns the results I can't tell you either way. I have told them the results have to be in by Wednesday morning."

I wasn't reassured but knew it would only be two days.

"Eve, there is one more thing. We checked your blood when you were admitted and several times while you were here. The initial results showed a low testosterone level and a raised estrogen level. Two weeks after your operation your testosterone level has dropped slightly more and your estrogen has risen. We will need to investigate this change and I have scheduled a CT scan for Wednesday morning at 9am. You were due to see one of my team at 10am but I will see now you personally. Do you understand?"

I looked at mum and then nodded. "How could this have happened?" I asked.

"Until we have the biopsies and the CT scan we can't be certain. It could have been an existing underlying problem, caused by the tumour or caused by the surgery. But, the blood taken before the surgery shows the same imbalance so we don't believe the surgery is responsible. We'll know more after the CT scan and when we've checked the blood you've just given. You must not eat or drink anything after 8pm on Tuesday night, water only. OK?"

Mum replied for me "Yes Mr Bishop, I'll make sure she only has water."

Mr Bishop then stood and asked me over the the examination table where I sat. He called a nurse into the room and explained to me this was normal for female patients, or those presenting female. At his behest I took off the wig and dipped my head for him. The nurse took off the dressing and cleaned the wound.

"Very nice, it is healing faster than I expected. OK nurse you can redress her wound."

I was acutely aware of the female pronoun and wanted to challenge it but kept my mouth shut as I put the wig back on.

"Right, I'll see you on Wednesday morning. Goodbye." The nurse ushered us back to the waiting area and spoke to the receptionist briefly. We headed back to the main out-patients entrance and found our ambulance crew talking to an orderly. I thought I recognised him as the same one who had taken me to my MRI a few days earlier. After a short delay we boarded and had an incident free ride home.

It was now almost 1pm and we were both hungry. I took off the jacket, hanging it on the back of a kitchen chair. Mum glared at me for that but I was already at the fridge door pulling a cold bottle of water out. I was about to swig it from the bottle when mum stopped me.

"Eve Jones, young ladies do not swig from the bottle. Take a glass off the shelf and use that. Take your antibiotics as well." She microwaved a couple of cheesy jackets and we ate quietly.

She looked at me sternly and reminded me that I must tell her of any future headaches. I then started to clear the table.

"Put them in the dishwasher, I'll put it on after dinner. When you're done, take the jacket upstairs and hang it in your wardrobe. You will not leave clothes lying around any more."

Confused, I pulled an unused hanger from my wardrobe and hung the jacket up. I could understand being called Eve while at the hospital, after all that's what my hospital file said and they had recorded me as transgendered; I was still waiting for mum to fix that problem as no-one at the hospital had listened to me. The doorbell rang and mum let someone in.

"Eve, come down here. Keep your hair on!"

I walked gingerly downstairs into the lounge to see who the visitor was and found a young lady in the kitchen. Mum was making her a cup of tea and told me to sit down. The lady introduced herself as Miss Scott, my private tutor.

"Eve, we'll cover your personal details first. I had these papers sent from the LEA. Can you look over them please."

I looked over the form, name and address were fine. My gender however was shown as Female. I hovered my finger over the errant box but mum shooed me away and said that everything was correct. Am I being pushed into a corner by mum?

"Great, that bit is over. Your school told me that your subjects were Media Studies, English and History. Is that correct?" I said it was.

"How we're going to do this is partly with me, partly from your text books and partly using online learning. Do you have the internet here?". Mum confirmed we did. She asked for my email address and said I would receive a web link and login for an educational site. I was to commit to an hour Monday to Friday online with my coursework set remotely. The rest of the time I was to work on coursework set by Miss Scott and hand it into her every Friday.

"That's good. I'll bring your text books here tomorrow morning. In the meantime I want you to write a review of the main stories in the most recent local paper and a look at the style of presentation on tonight's BBC 6 o'clock news. I'll expect those completed by 11 am tomorrow when I'll see you next. Make sure it's all typed. Here's a memory stick you should save it to."

She handed me a memory stick and got up to leave. after shaking my hand she left. This first assignment could be interesting, I was the main story on the local paper the previous week. We still hadn't seen the edition from last Friday though.

"What do you think of her?" mum asked.

"You mean apart from my sex being wrong again!"

"Your record must have been taken from the LEA files before they said they'd fixed it. There's no point telling her that it's wrong as it's not her fault and she wouldn't believe you anyway."

I put my head in my hands and started to sob. My hair, I mean my wig, fell in front of my face. Mum came round behind me and put her hands round me.

"This just feels so wrong." I eventually said.

"Mum, a few weeks ago I was looking forward to going back to school. Now, on top of the surgery I might have to have Chemo. Life's not fair."

"Come into the lounge and we'll talk about it." She led me gently to the couch and sat next to me as I tried to dry my eyes.

"Honey, can you just accept that this is happening for a reason. On Wednesday we'll have the test results. Until then try not to worry, it could be over nothing. On Friday we'll ask Dr Kumar if you can wear underpants and trousers again. Until then, if we need to go out you have to be decent, I explained all that this morning. We have to do this properly so that there's no way you could look anything but a young lady, the alternative will get you ridiculed, or worse. Remember, it is only temporary and and you can wear trousers or leggings in a few days. Then we'll ask Mr Dixon to get your name changed. I promise."

I had to accept what she said and added that to my growing list of acceptances. I noticed the reference to leggings however, and she hadn't said anything about the wig covering my dressing and bald head.

I sat there on my own thinking for a while, wondering where this was going, when I heard a noise in the kitchen. Claire came into the lounge and sat with me, Annie followed. Annie said mum had asked her to empty my locker at school. Mum gave her my locker key and a note giving permission. Claire gave me a kiss and a hug. Annie put a copy of the local paper on the coffee table, apparently mum had asked her to get it.

"Simon, they've worked out at school that you and Eve are the same person.There was a bit of a rumour that you were having a sex change." Annie suddenly said.

I stared at Claire and burst into tears again. She hugged me tight then pulled my face to hers and kissed me on the lips. My tears forgotten I kissed her back and was lost in her arms. I never noticed the eyes that were watching us, until mum coughed.

"What was the rest of this rumour?" asked mum.

"Oh, that the sex change idea was a joke but that Eve had been pretending to be a boy called Simon."