#I have to start over with testing and treatment

[drummuso]

this is the hardest part of my life right now. the pain is bad, the fatigue is bad. but being stuck in diagnostic purgatory, constantly being doubted by others and doubting my own senses? that's the worst.

people presume that if it was as bad as i say it is (it's actually much worse), then doctors would help me. i can see people's expressions change, as i try to explain why i'm stuck in the situation i am. it's like i can see them dismiss me in real-time.

so i've started to lie. or if it's someone i'll have to talk to again, i give them the same oversimplified story, that isn't actually a lie but is so oversimplified that it doesn't actually explain what's actually happening to me.

but i can't do that with doctors.

every time i meet a new doctor (which is only like, twice a year at *most*, because of the irish healthcare system not functioning) i have to do The Spiel™️. my whole medical history, new symptoms, why i haven't seen the doctors i need to, why i didn't get diagnosed as a kid, how yes i have tried physio, how yes i have tried "just getting over it", why i really believe that this can't *all* be explained by my mental health history.

and then if i'm unlucky, i'm told to try harder and stop worrying so much. to just walk normally.

and if i'm lucky i'm told what *should* happen, where i *should* be referred to, what tests i *should* be given, what treatments i *should* be offered.

just for nothing to happen, because if i haven't been linked in with those services since i was a child then i can't be referred as an adult. or because the waiting lists are so long by the time i get the right person to refer me to the right department, the whole system will have changed *again*. or because the person i'm meant to see isn't taking new patients, or they retired and their department collapsed. or that i'm just not worth the time, because there are people who need those services a lot more than me.

so i'm stuck in a cycle of not having a diagnosis > not being able to see any doctors apart from my gp > not getting a diagnosis > etc etc etc etc.

getting tired of this shit. i am really considering moving countries. i don't want to have to wait until i'm bedbound and blind before i can get any medical care.

being disabled without having a diagnosis yet is so incredibly lonely. i’m unable to find community with people who understand what i’m going through and able bodied people don’t take me seriously when i explain what i’m dealing with. they expect you to be able to give them a name and i can’t yet. it’s so hard to get the proper accommodations and the right supports. it feels like purgatory.

[littlebittywildflower]

[lord-squiggletits]

Speaking of Tyrest. A lot of people forget that he treated Pharma with absolute disdain, not only using him as a test subject for a clearly painful mass murder machine, but talking to Pharma like he saw him as nothing but some henchman to order around that was nothing more than a 'diseased cripple' if Tyrest hadn't come to rescue him.

Like it really is an interesting background dynamic with some curious implications, but when you look at fandom posts from around that issue/the years after, for some reason people just saw "Pharma worked with Tyrest" and concluded Pharma is a card carrying bigot ksjfnskxkd. Like yeah Pharma didn't do anything to stop Tyrest but it seems his main beef with the Autobots was with Ratchet in particular and maybe a general disdain for his ex-comrades. As well as continuing to hate Decepticons which like, not even the "good Autobots" are immune to (even in Pharma's introduction, First Aid says in his journal something like "yeah we all hate Decepticons, but Pharma REALLY hates them"). And despite what fandom likes to construe there's really no evidence in IDW1 that Autobots and Decepticons are different "races" or "types" of Cybertronians, so Pharma hating Decepticons really isn't a bigotry/robot racism thing. And instead probably has something to do with, idk, the 4 million year long galaxy-spanning blood feud war, or maybe being blackmailed and tortured into insanity by the Biggest and Most Decepticon-y of Decepticons.

Tyrest treated Pharma like trash, the other Decepticons working for Tyrest (how come no one ever brings that up btw) also hated him, so if anything it seems that Pharma was more of a rogue element only staying with Tyrest bc he was his best option and probably had no way to even escape.

I'm glad that at least in recent years the fandom has acquired a keen reading eye and good taste to finally recognize Pharma as the (accidentally) complex character he is instead of making him some posh, racist Starscream clone SHSJDGSGDH

[jvzebel-x]

🦋

[jankwritten]

first psychiatry appointment done. feeling....weird about it.

(venting in the tags. cw for what might be transphobia but i'm not entirely sure lmao)

[gncrevan]

since we're talking about universal healthcare again, and i see germany coming up quite a bit, i wanna say yes obviously it's better than what the US has going on, but i really need people, fellow germans in particular, to stop romanticizing our system, which is universal in name only. because if you've never struggled you may not know this, but your insurance will absolutely deny everything that it legally can. which means anything that requires evaluation, maybe because it's off-label or it's a specific type of healthcare (like hilfsmittel) or it's rare or it goes beyond the minimum required by law. so as a result, i got my social therapy (soziotherapie) denied nine times because the evaluating body (mdk) didn't even read my file. i got the one drug that could maybe give me a somewhat normal life denied because there aren't any large sample studies (it's a rare disorder, there won't ever be large sample studies) and it's off-label and expensive. my brother fought over five years for his medical marijuana, the only pain treatment that works for him, and all that time he was so sick as a result that he couldn't have a job and had to live with my mom. speaking of my mom, they literally denied her transportation to her cancer treatment at first and forced her to go through objection proceedings while undergoing chemotherapy. it took several attempts to get my grandmothers their respective levels of care, as well as disability aids (wheelchair, hospital bed; the co-pay is still high for these). i have an acquaintance who has been denied a wheelchair as well as surgery because he's on the street and doesn't have the means or literacy to go through the required proceedings. because if you do ever want a shot at individualized care while struggling with chronic/severe illness, you better get ready for a grueling process of paperwork you struggle to understand, appointments with medical consultants that do not care how you get there, the disappointment and frustration and depression of constant rejection, mind-numbing calls with your insurance provider, and (if you're unlucky but not willing to give up) court proceedings you likely can't afford. the truth of the matter is our healthcare system has been altered repeatedly to allow for more and more privatization, more and more profit incentive, and thus, more and more patient neglect. as of right now, this doesn't tend to affect the average "healthy" patient, but it's only a matter of time before they, too, become disabled and sick and old, and it's only a matter of time before our system is hollowed out to the point of affecting everyone.

[deepspacenova]

UNDER PRESSURE

1700 words | banter. tension. jealousy. possessive Sylus.

Prompt: running into your main lads man (boyfriend) while you're out with your second favorite lads man (as a friend) and how they would react.

Note: Written for this round robin/challenge by the lovely @jinwoosbabyboo -- it's open for anyone, by the way, so consider yourself tagged if you're interested! (:

The smell of antiseptic mingled with the earthy scent of Vagrant's Land while the pop-up clinic buzzed with organized chaos. Patients with various illnesses and injuries stood around waiting for the moment they'd be called back and have their ailments treated or cured.

The welcome tent’s fabric flapped in the soft breeze as you let the nurse manning the check-ins know why you were there. When you were shown inside, you noticed the open space had been outfitted with portable medical equipment to create a busy hive of treatment cubicles and testing areas.

You glanced around the crowded space until you found him. Taller than most of the room, intent on his work, and confidently in his element, Dr. Zayne scribbled onto the clipboard a nurse was holding toward him. Finishing his last marking, he looked up, cool hazel eyes thawing ever-so-slightly and dented with a happy crinkle as he straightened and dismissed your escort.

"Right on time," he murmured, grabbing two latex gloves, a yellow file folder, and his medical bag.

"Miracles can happen when you least expect them," you teased with a grin.

Zayne started to usher you toward a makeshift examination corner since all the cubicle curtains were closed. "Medical miracles, maybe," he quipped. "But you being on time? That’s a phenomenon even science can’t explain."

You laughed softly, sitting down as he gestured to a folding chair and rested his medical bag on the wobbly table next to him. "Careful, Dr. Zayne, your bedside manner is slipping."

With an amused shake of his head, he reassured, "This shouldn't take long. Just a quick exam, same as always."

You nodded, rolling up your sleeve as he pressed his cool fingers to the inside of your wrist and got started. His touch was warm but impersonal, his attention fixed on his readings. He moved methodically, pressing the tips of his fingers over your heart and chest.

Though the process was clinical, you couldn't help but study Zayne with fondness — the way his brows furrowed in concentration, the way his nostrils flared when a loud noise interrupted him, the way his breath became a tickle on your cheek when he leaned in to adjust his stethoscope.

That was the moment you heard his voice.

“Don't tell me you're afraid now,” Sylus demanded from the clinic's entrance, making nurses and bystanders alike stand to attention, as if they couldn't help but wait for his next directive. “I could put you two into far worse situations.”

Two hooded boys in medical masks shuffled in behind him, the defiant puff of their chests doing little to hide their apprehension. At Sylus' words Luke scowled but didn’t argue while Kieran kept glancing toward the exit like a cornered animal. Giving them a pointed look toward the nurse they were supposed to follow, he took a few steps forward before his eyes landed on you.

The vision of the leader of Onychinus halting in place with a satisfied smirk spreading across his face was unnerving enough to straighten every spine in the vicinity. But he barely noticed as he waved off the boys and made his way toward you.

Then his eyes flicked to the person next to you. To the stern yet striking man whose face was so close to yours he was practically stealing your fucking air from you.

Jaw tightening — the only outward sign of his discomfiture—Sylus strode toward you with deliberate, measured steps, his posture casual but predatory.

A fluttering of wings had taken flight in your stomach as soon as you'd heard Sylus' gravelly voice, but for the sake of Zayne's time and not raising any eyebrows in the semi-public setting, you'd resolved to find Sylus after your check-up. Unfortunately for you, Sylus never much cared about the concept of discretion when it came to you.

Stopping behind you, he placed the edge of his palm on your shoulders, spreading his fingers across your chest in a rather over-the-top display of possessiveness.

Doctor Zayne hadn't even looked up at the interruption and had moved on to digging for a tool in his medical bag when the hand-shaped barrier blocked his access to your heart.

“Well, isn’t this cozy?" Though the words were casual, his tone was wrapped in barbed wire.

"Sylus!" You said, hoping the breathlessness in your voice wasn't too noticeable. Looking up at his sharp features, which managed to be frustratingly beautiful even upside down, you smiled and moved his hands from your chest to your biceps, patting the tops of them twice. "I didn't know this is what you meant when you said you were taking care of some business with Luke and Kieran. Shouldn't you be with them?"

A low chuckle emerged from his throat, laced with both amusement and menace. "I was, sweetie. That is, until someone else piqued my... curiosity." His hands slid slowly down to the crooks of your elbows and then disappeared. Suddenly, the chair next to you was occupied with your boyfriend's imposing form, eyes boring into Zayne's unflappable figure. "I didn't realize doctors from Linkon City made special appointments when they visited Vagrant's Land."

“I volunteer here once a month,” Zayne said matter-of-factly. He didn’t look up as he re-focused on his examination of you, ignoring Sylus' eyes — one, a muted scarlet, the other an angry vermillion — trained on every movement. “It’s a good way to reach those who can’t make it to a hospital.”

Sylus’s gaze darkened, his lips curving into a tight smile. “How noble of you. I see you're very—” His eyes lingered on Zayne’s hand, still resting against your chest. “—thorough with your patients.”

"Sylus," you cut in quickly. "Have you met my childhood friend, Zayne? We recently reconnected when he became my doctor."

But Sylus' attention didn't move from Zayne.

“Any good doctor is thorough,” Zayne replied, turning to jot down notes into your file. His voice was calm, almost bored, as if Sylus’s presence barely registered. “If something's off, it's important to work on her as soon as possible."

“I’ll bet it is,” Sylus muttered under his breath, crossing his arms as he leaned back in his seat.

Recognizing the simmering menace in his tone, you jam your elbow into Sylus' narrowing your eyes in a silent warning. Your string of bad luck continued however, when, after he placed a dramatic hand over his elbow, Sylus went back to watching your childhood friend with the kind of intensity that made most people fear for their lives.

Zayne, of course, was not most people.

“Do you mind?” Zayne asked, flicking a quick glance at Sylus through his lashes. “I’m trying to work.”

“Not at all,” Sylus replied smoothly, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “Don’t let me interrupt.”

Another tense few minutes pass, and the balloon of pressure in your chest expanded second by second as the tension between Sylus and Zayne crackled like static.

You were caught between irritation with Sylus for his uncharacteristically territorial behavior or shock with Zayne, who was acting more aloof than usual, almost like he was... purposefully fueling Sylus' ire.

“So, Sylus,” you said brightly, trying again to diffuse the situation. “Why'd you bring Luke and Kieran here?”

“Do they seem like the guys who'd show up to update their vaccines if I didn't drag them myself?” he shot back with a smirk, jerking his head toward the cubicle Luke and Kieran were in.

“That’s admirable,” Zayne remarked, his tone neutral. “More people should take an interest in the well-being of others.”

“That's me, a real caretaker," Sylus drawled, eyes narrowed. And just like that, any hope for the peace you'd been building toward popped like a bubble. "Though I can't say I'm as hands-on as you, doctor. At least... not in public."

"A shame." Zayne raised an eyebrow, his expression faintly amused. “Hands-on can be very effective when done correctly.”

The implication hung in the air, subtle but deliberate. You groaned internally, feeling like a rope in an increasingly taut tug-of-war.

“Alright, enough,” you snapped, looking down at them with your hands on your hips. “Sylus, this is just a check-up. Zayne, stop provoking.”

Both men fell silent, though the charged atmosphere lingered.

Sylus had the nerve to look almost... chagrined for the first time in his life, which alone worked wonders on your frustration — though from the way he stood and rested his hand on the back of your neck, it might've been more placating than chagrined.

Zayne, who also stood up, simply adjusted his glasses, his composure as unshaken as ever.

“I’m done here,” Zayne said, handing you a slip of paper. “I've updated the schedule according to your upcoming work trips. Other than that, you're fine.”

“Thank you, Zayne,” you smile warmly, stuffing the paper into your bag.

Zayne nodded, then turned to Sylus and held out his hand in a begrudging truce. “She’s in good health. You can relax.”

For a moment, you stared at Sylus' stoic expression and worried all hell would break loose in Vagrant's Land. Then, he linked his hand with Zayne's and gave it a firm, business-like shake, turned you around, and led you back to the entrance to wait for Luke and Kieran.

You couldn’t help but glance back at Zayne as you walked. He'd already moved onto his next patient, but caught your eye when you look around. And you could've sworn that Zayne, Doctor Zayne, your childhood friend, winked at you.

Once you were far enough to feel the afternoon breeze sweep over you, Sylus' gaze softened as he searched your face. “You feeling alright?” he asked, looking at the place where her aether core rested. His voice was quieter now, the edges of his tone no longer sounding so ruffled.

“I don't know. How should I feel after I've been pissed on by my boyfriend at my doctor's appointment?” Though you try to sound angry, it comes out as nothing but pure amusement.

At your smile, the tension in his shoulders eased slightly, and the corner of his lips curved. "Pissed on? I'd never do something so crass, kitten." He leaned down, his breath gliding over the crook of your neck like a feather, and rasped, "You know I'm more of a biter."

[fatliberation]

I saw a comment on your blog that says 'the way you eat does not cause diabetes'...are you able to expand on that or provide a source I could read? I've been told by doctors that my pre-diabetes was due to weight gain because I get more hungry on my anti psychotics and I'd like to fact check what they've told me! Thank you so much!

Pre-diabetes was rejected as a diagnosis by the World Health Organization (although it is used by the US and UK) - the correct term for the condition is impaired glucose tolerance. Approximately 2% of people with "pre-diabetes" go on to develop diabetes per year. You heard that right - TWO PERCENT. Most diabetics actually skip the pre-diabetic phase.

There are currently no treatments for pre-diabetes besides intentional weight loss. (Hmm, that's convenient, right?) There has yet to be evidence that losing weight prevents progression from pre-diabetes to T2DM beyond a year. Interestingly, drug companies are trying to persuade the medical world to start treating patients earlier and earlier. They are using the term “pre-diabetes” to sell their drugs (including Wegovy, a weight-loss drug). Surgeons are using it to sell weight loss surgery. Everyone’s a winner, right? Not patients. Especially fat patients.

Check out these articles:

Prediabetes: The epidemic that never was, and shouldn’t be

The war on ‘prediabetes' could be a boon for pharma—but is it good medicine?

Also - I love what Dr. Asher Larmie @fatdoctorUK has to say about T2DM and insulin resistance, so here's one of their threads I pulled from Twitter:

1️⃣ You can't prevent insulin resistance. It's coded in your DNA. It may be impacted by your environment. Studies have shown it has nothing to do with your BMI.

2️⃣ The term "pre-diabetes" is a PR stunt. The correct term is impaired glucose tolerance (or impaired fasting glucose) which is sometimes referred to as intermittent hyperglycemia. It does not predict T2DM. It is best ignored and tested for every 3-5yrs.

3️⃣ there is no evidence that losing weight prevents diabetes. That's because you can't reverse insulin resistance. You can possibly postpone it by 2yrs? Furthermore there is evidence that those who are fat at the time of diagnosis fair much better than those who are thin.

4️⃣ Weight loss does not reverse diabetes in the VAST majority of people. Those that do reverse it are usually thinner with recent onset T2DM and a low A1c. Only a tiny minority can sustain that over 2yrs. Weight loss does not improve A1c levels beyond 2 yrs either.

5️⃣ Weight loss in T2DM does not improve macrovascular or microvascular health outcomes beyond 2 years. In fact, weight loss in diabetics is associated with increased mortality and morbidity (although it is not clear why). Weight cycling is known to impacts A1c levels.

6️⃣ Weight GAIN does NOT increase the risk of cardiovascular OR all causes mortality in diabetics. In fact, one might even go so far as to say that it's better to be fat and diabetic than to be thin and diabetic.

Dr. Larmie cites 18 peer reviewed journal articles (most from the last decade) that are included in their webinar on the subject, linked below.

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Year - 2023 Edition

Welcome to our special edition newsletter recapping the best news from the past year. I've picked one highlight from each month to give you a snapshot of 2023. No frills, just straightforward news that mattered. Let's relive the good stuff that made our year shine.

January - London: Girl with incurable cancer recovers after pioneering treatment

A girl’s incurable cancer has been cleared from her body after what scientists have described as the most sophisticated cell engineering to date.

2. February - Utah legislature unanimously passes ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy

The Utah State Legislature has unanimously approved a bill that enshrines into law a ban on LGBTQ conversion therapy.

3. March - First vaccine for honeybees could save billions

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has approved the world’s first-ever vaccine intended to address the global decline of honeybees. It will help protect honeybees from American foulbrood, a contagious bacterial disease which can destroy entire colonies.

4. April - Fungi discovered that can eat plastic in just 140 days

Australian scientists have successfully used backyard mould to break down one of the world's most stubborn plastics — a discovery they hope could ease the burden of the global recycling crisis within years. 

5. May - Ocean Cleanup removes 200,000th kilogram of plastic from the Pacific Ocean

The Dutch offshore restoration project, Ocean Cleanup, says it has reached a milestone. The organization's plastic catching efforts have now fished more than 200,000 kilograms of plastic out of the Pacific Ocean, Ocean Cleanup said on Twitter.

6. June - U.S. judge blocks Florida ban on care for trans minors in narrow ruling, says ‘gender identity is real’

A federal judge temporarily blocked portions of a new Florida law that bans transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, ruling Tuesday that the state has no rational basis for denying patients treatment.

7. July - World’s largest Phosphate deposit discovered in Norway

A massive underground deposit of high-grade phosphate rock in Norway, pitched as the world’s largest, is big enough to satisfy world demand for fertilisers, solar panels and electric car batteries over the next 50 years, according to the company exploiting the resource.

8. August - Successful room temperature ambient-pressure magnetic levitation of LK-99

If the claim by Sukbae Lee and Ji-Hoon Kim of South Korea’s Quantum Energy Research Centre holds up, the material could usher in all sorts of technological marvels, such as levitating vehicles and perfectly efficient electrical grids.

9. September - World’s 1st drug to regrow teeth enters clinical trials

The ability to regrow your own teeth could be just around the corner. A team of scientists, led by a Japanese pharmaceutical startup, are getting set to start human trials on a new drug that has successfully grown new teeth in animal test subjects.

10. October - Nobel Prize goes to scientists behind mRNA Covid vaccines

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to a pair of scientists who developed the technology that led to the mRNA Covid vaccines. Professors Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman will share the prize.

11. November - No cases of cancer caused by HPV in Norwegian 25-year olds, the first cohort to be mass vaccinated for HPV.

Last year there were zero cases of cervical cancer in the group that was vaccinated in 2009 against the HPV virus, which can cause the cancer in women.

12. December - President Biden announces he’s pardoning all convictions of federal marijuana possession

President Joe Biden announced Friday he's issuing a federal pardon to every American who has used marijuana in the past, including those who were never arrested or prosecuted.

------

And there you have it – a year's worth of uplifting news! I hope these positive stories brought a bit of joy to your inbox. As I wrap up this special edition, I want to thank all my supporters!

Buy me a coffee ❤️

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

[reasonsforhope]

"Doctors have begun trialling the world’s first mRNA lung cancer vaccine in patients, as experts hailed its “groundbreaking” potential to save thousands of lives.

Lung cancer is the world’s leading cause of cancer death, accounting for about 1.8m deaths every year. Survival rates in those with advanced forms of the disease, where tumours have spread, are particularly poor.

Now experts are testing a new jab that instructs the body to hunt down and kill cancer cells – then prevents them ever coming back. Known as BNT116 and made by BioNTech, the vaccine is designed to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), the most common form of the disease.

The phase 1 clinical trial, the first human study of BNT116, has launched across 34 research sites in seven countries: the UK, US, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Spain and Turkey.

The UK has six sites, located in England and Wales, with the first UK patient to receive the vaccine having their initial dose on Tuesday [August 20, 2024].

Overall, about 130 patients – from early-stage before surgery or radiotherapy, to late-stage disease or recurrent cancer – will be enrolled to have the jab alongside immunotherapy. About 20 will be from the UK.

The jab uses messenger RNA (mRNA), similar to Covid-19 vaccines, and works by presenting the immune system with tumour markers from NSCLC to prime the body to fight cancer cells expressing these markers.

The aim is to strengthen a person’s immune response to cancer while leaving healthy cells untouched, unlike chemotherapy.

“We are now entering this very exciting new era of mRNA-based immunotherapy clinical trials to investigate the treatment of lung cancer,” said Prof Siow Ming Lee, a consultant medical oncologist at University College London hospitals NHS foundation trust (UCLH), which is leading the trial in the UK.

“It’s simple to deliver, and you can select specific antigens in the cancer cell, and then you target them. This technology is the next big phase of cancer treatment.”

Janusz Racz, 67, from London, was the first person to have the vaccine in the UK. He was diagnosed in May and soon after started chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

The scientist, who specialises in AI, said his profession inspired him to take part in the trial. “I am a scientist too, and I understand that the progress of science – especially in medicine – lies in people agreeing to be involved in such investigations,” he said...

“And also, I can be a part of the team that can provide proof of concept for this new methodology, and the faster it would be implemented across the world, more people will be saved.”

Racz received six consecutive injections five minutes apart over 30 minutes at the National Institute for Health Research UCLH Clinical Research Facility on Tuesday.

Each jab contained different RNA strands. He will get the vaccine every week for six consecutive weeks, and then every three weeks for 54 weeks.

Lee said: “We hope adding this additional treatment will stop the cancer coming back because a lot of time for lung cancer patients, even after surgery and radiation, it does come back.” ...

“We hope to go on to phase 2, phase 3, and then hope it becomes standard of care worldwide and saves lots of lung cancer patients.”

The Guardian revealed in May that thousands of patients in England were to be fast-tracked into groundbreaking trials of cancer vaccines in a revolutionary world-first NHS “matchmaking” scheme to save lives.

Under the scheme, patients who meet the eligibility criteria will gain access to clinical trials for the vaccines that experts say represent a new dawn in cancer treatment."

-via The Guardian, May 30, 2024

[psychoticallytrans]

There's this idea, fairly common in society, that mental illness is for teens and up. Children are happy little creatures, generally, right? Sometimes they're abused and the trauma can make them mentally ill, but that's not common.

There are two fundamental problems with this attitude. One, it's incorrect to assume that trauma is the only reason a young kid can be mentally ill. Two, trauma is more common than people think. I'll be covering the first problem in this post through the lens of my particular experience.

Where I live, you can be diagnosed with bipolar disorder at 18 years old. You cannot be diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a minor. This poses a problem because my age of onset was in first grade, roughly six years old. Because of the fact that I was very young and new to the world, this was also the age of my first suicide attempt. Thinking I wouldn't be able to pass a spelling test genuinely felt like something worth trying to die over. So, I ate some hemlock, since I'd read about Socrates being killed with it. Luckily, I ate western hemlock, an unrelated species, and just felt kind of sick.

I'm not recounting that for fun or pity. I'm recounting it because children with mental illness are in genuine danger because they have little to no experience with managing their emotions, have little to no concept of the idea that their life can change and improve, and are dismissed by adults. I told a teacher that the test made me want to die, though not that I'd attempted to, and it was brushed off as little kid hyperbole. If I had used a method that was effective rather than one I thought would be, I would have been dead at six years old.

I would not receive medication that worked even a bit for another two years. I would not receive treatment for bipolar disorder specifically for ten years, and that required my PCP fudging the reason for the medication because she was afraid I would die if she didn't, and diagnosis was still two years off at minimum. I received a formal diagnosis at age 19, thirteen years after onset.

But surely that's uncommon, right? This story is a huge edge case, right? I actually have no idea, because age of onset and age of diagnosis are massively conflated for most disabilities. Policies like the one in my area that restricted bipolar diagnoses by age can artificially raise the age of "onset", in my case by thirteen years. The general idea that children are somehow immune to mental illness can also delay diagnosis by several years, perpetuating the idea that young children can't be mentally ill. The data on when people start experiencing mental illness is inherently skewed upwards, and I frankly don't have a good estimate on how bad that skew is. If anyone does have that data, please chime in.

Listen to children. If they're saying they're sad all the time, that they don't care about anything, that they don't see a future for themselves, those are signs of depressive symptoms. If they say that tests make them feel sick, that they can't do anything because they're scared, that they can't breathe and freeze up, those are signs of anxious symptoms. Many children talk about imaginary things, and that's just fine, but slip in a question or two about them to make sure that the kid is just playing, and not experiencing psychosis.

Children are new to the world and vulnerable, and they don't know what's normal and what isn't. They need people who are more experienced watching out for problems they might be having, and listening when they talk about having problems. If you can, try to be the person who perceives them, and tells them that things can be better.

[nathaslosthershit]

Audacity of Man (CL16)

Summary: Charles was never anything but a compassionate and wonderfully loving boyfriend. You always used to brag about how attentive he was... I guess this is karma? Warnings: suggestive, I call Frédéric Vasseur a cockblock sorry. Part 2: Stupidly Charming

You had flour in your hair and on your clothes. You had even gotten some in your eye, that was fun, so your eyes were red and puffy from trying to aggressively wash it out. There was dried batter everywhere, and you sweat so much you probably stunk. 

Oh the things one does for love. 

It still had been worth it. A beautiful breakfast was laid out on a serving tray, ready to be brought to the beautiful monegasque in your bed.

It was a miracle that Charles hadn’t woken up with all the noise you had made in the kitchen. As you crept into the dark room, you could hear his soft snores as he slept on his stomach, giving you a full view of his back, full of scratches from previous activities. 

With the meal set down on the nightstand, you genty combed through his messy hair, trying to wake him up as nicely as possible.

“Charlie? Baby, I made you something.” He didn’t wake up. “Honey?” your voice started to get slightly louder. “Charles.” You shook him now, but he was still sleeping soundly. “Leclerc!” you yelled, clapping your hands right next to his ear. 

This did the trick. He immediately sat up in bed, reaching for the baseball bat next to his side of the bed he swears he needs in case of an intruder. Luckily, you had thought ahead to move it before you startled him into waking up. 

“Ahhh my love, why would you do that to me?” He asked once he realized what, or rather who, had woken him up.

“Charlie, I tried multiple times to wake you up nicely, you slept like the dead. And I spent all this time making you breakfast, I wasn’t going to let it get cold by waiting until you decided to wake up.” You teased. How could you be mad when even after being scared half to death, evidence of last night still marking his skin, and with the worst case of bed head, he was unfairly beautiful. 

His eyes softened when he saw the meal you had made, and darkened when he saw the messy tank top and underwear you threw on to make him said meal.

It was you who got startled this time when he grabbed you by the waist and pulled you onto the bed, not so gracefully flipping you over so he was on top. 

He kissed you then, softly, despite the look in his eyes, and evidence below his waist, that told you what he wanted to do was not as soft as he was being. 

“You are too good to me,” He mumbled into your neck, instantly finding the sweet spot he knew all too well, “What have I done to deserve such a thing?” you giggled at that, then moaned as he attached his lips to the pulse point on your neck. 

“Charles, what had you expected? Me to not wake you up like this? I would have thought youd have gotten used to it by now.” it was a tradition, every anniversary you would wake him up with breakfast in bed, he would leave the meal untouched as he did other things to you, then when you had tired yourselves out, he’d insist you share the cold breakfast together. As he usually had to wake up before you for work or training, he'd be the one making or buying you breakfast, so it was nice when you got the chance to give him the same treatment. 

Just when he was about to make good on that tradition, his phone rang, successfully cockblocking him for the moment. 

He groaned when he saw the caller ID, “c’est Frédéric,” he reasoned as he picked up the call. He couldn’t really ghost his team principal so he could get laid. As he sat up, speaking quickly to the man, he reached over to grab a strawberry, holding it out for you to eat. Too busy admiring the sight, you hadn’t listened to the conversation, not that you could have really understood much of the inhumanly fast french he spoke with Vasseur. You did catch it when he groaned again as he hung up.

“He asked if I could come in to test something on the sim.” He said. You could tell it was more than a request, as someone else on the team would have called if he had an actual choice. Ferrari was too good, they knew Charles couldn’t say no to his team principal, even though he wanted to so badly. 

“When do you have to leave?”

“I should head out in about an hour… I’m sorry, Bijou.”

“It is alright, but we still have time to continue…” You said, a little bashful at the implication. He just smiled and started where you two had left off. 

Walking Charles to the door, you softly kissed him goodbye as you tried to tame his still damp hair from your shared shower. 

“I will be back a bit before dinner, think about what you want and I can order it.” This confused you. As tradition went, you’d cook a meal together and open a far too expensive bottle of wine you would finish far too fast, then exchange far too expensive gifts after you both agreed not to get each other anything. 

“I thought we were cooking tonight?”

He stilled, but I couldn’t see his face as he grabbed his bag. “I didn’t know you wanted to, my love. I will probably be too tired once I get home, can’t we just get take out and cook another night if you want to?” 

He didn’t remember. It suddenly hit you then. That's why he asked what he did to deserve breakfast in bed, he wasn’t being cute, he was genuinely asking. He also hadn’t said anything about your anniversary. Not this morning, not in the past few days. You had talked about it, or you thought you had, but he was weird during those conversations too. You remembered a conversation from two days ago, one where you had said him having off today was an amazing coincidence. He had asked why, and you had written it off, you both had work on your anniversary plenty of times in the past, you couldn’t even remember the last time the two of you had the full day off. You had answered ‘so we could have more time to make it a special day’ and he had dropped the topic. 

There was a growing knot in your stomach as he kissed you on the cheek before he left. You didn’t say anything, couldn’t say anything, so you just let him go.

Part 2

[thefusioncelestial]

Mix 11: A Transition Complete

Anonymous asked:

Add a hung twink and jock type transman in your list

Life was great for Alex. He was on the basketball team & popular with everyone. You see everything about him screamed a fine specimen of a man. But he had an open secret.

He was trans. But look at him:

You couldn't tell. The chemical treatments were a resounding success. He had ladies all over him.

But there was one part that refused to change: his reproductive organs. He still had his initial parts despite the hormone regimes. Fertility tests showed that if he had sex with someone of the opposite parts, he would get pregnant. This greatly attracted other men to him. They wanted this stud to have their babies.

Alex was fine with this. However, the winds of society was blowing away from him. Transmen & Transwomen were being demonized. He was a political science major & knew that the next election was going to flip to those who hated people like him. He could get surgery and get an artificial man rod, but that meant bye bye to having kids of his own.

He needed a solution.

His close friends, that included Christian and Shun, knew of his worries. They pondered for a bit on what to do. They decided that Alex would join the fold.

After bringing him over, Alex was explained of the solution: He would merge with another dude. Take their manhood, be reborn completely without question as the man he desired to be.

But there was a problem.

They have never merged beings with opposite sexual organs. If it resulted in an true blending, then Alex would have a cross or both. It must be assimilation.

They had a target.

The annoying Fred:

A twink with a massive rod for his stature. He somehow found about about the David & Goliath Society and wanted in. Truth be told he just walked by the dorm while Shun was absorbing Tim. He heard the explanation, heard the process, and ran as Shun walked out the dorm.

No amount of history shifting would make him forget. The prospect of going from a twink to a buff man or at least an athletic one was too much for him to not want in.

He pestered Christian & Shun to upgrade him for a while. They decided to they would grant his wish, but on their own terms.

They were going to call Fred, but he was around the corner, coming to pester them again. He knocked on their door. He was let in.

Christian & Shun had large smiles on their faces.

"Congrats, you are getting your wish," Shun said.

Fred was excited, but before he could start bouncing with joy, he saw Alex.

"Am I about merge with the most desirable dude on campus," he asked in shock.

"Does he have the size I need," Alex asked.

"Size?" Fred asked.

"I need someone with an larger rod than what their body would suggest their body said they should have," Alex said.

They soon explained the situation to Fred.

He was a bit unnerved.

"You are asking me to get eaten by someone else instead of being the upgraded," he said.

"You get to become one with Alex, you know his rep. With your help, he can act out some of those activities. You'll get to feel what he feels, you get to experience a more mature body," Shun said.

He continued: "Tim in still in here, my experiences also flow to him. And he influences my decisions," he finished.

Alex blushed. Prior to this, Alex agreed to have kids with Shun if he couldn't find a partner by 28. A surrogate father. Tim's desire to start a family influenced Shun. Alex was perfect as far as he was concerned. But now his survival was at stake. He would have to become competition in earnest to live. Shun relished the challenge.

People like Fred looked up to Alex. He had everyone swooning over him. He walked out of many parties with people of both sex & genders literally hanging off his biceps. He could have that. He just got to give himself up.

"We could just force you, ask Tim," Christian said.

"Don't get so hasty. I'll bite," Fred responded.

"Show me you have the goods," Alex said.

Fred took out his phone and showed Alex a picture:

He was well hung alright. He revealed that he was a grower & that was it at rest.

Alex coughed at the prospect of getting it for himself. Fred just wanted the Alex experience. Basketball team, parties, people fawning over him.

They both stripped down to their birthday suits.

Christian took the necklace. Explained how it worked and put it on Alex.

To increase the chances of success. It was decided that Fred would hang on Alex's back like a cape. The idea of "pushing out" the old organs, and let Fred's settle in.

Fred was on Alex's back within the minute. Hanging on, excitedly.

The necklace melted in Alex.

Fred began to melt into Alex. Starting from the feet first and then processing upwards. Alex grunted. Fred blushed & moaned.

Then their reproductive organs & butt. Only Fred's upper half remained.

Stomach, chest, and arms followed. Fred, despite that fact that he was being assimilated was very happy. If he has to upgrade someone else, then Alex was his number one choice. Now only a neck and head, Fred pushed in, fusing starting from the back of Alex's skull.

He was gone. What was Fred was now a mix of dna & biomatter floating in Alex.

Alex & Fred's mind quickly merged. Alex did not want to reject any aspect of Fred and cause a feedback loop elsewhere.

Alex let out a large exhale.

Alex's dna hungrily took Fred's. The new dna fired up and the changes began.

Alex stood upright.

He felt his reproductive organs change. He craned his neck & head upwards. He was moaning. If felt like he needed to pee. But instead of pee or a child, the flesh inside liquefied and solidified into male reproductive organs, and at the same time began to push out.

It started as a massive of slightly off colored skin. At first it just hung there outside, then it perked up & began to constrict and form into the shape of a man's family rod. The birth of new neural paths connecting his reproductive organs to his brain were born.

The remaining mass turned into a liquid filed sack. He felt his new veins and nerves go in and intertwine. Two small hard masses formed inside the sack, and as they grew larger they took in those nerves and veins. He had a pair of balls now.

His body shape shifted. It took more ques from Fred. Alex could feel his body stretch. "ugh" He was taller. His chest got smaller, and his nipples sat more straighter, but they became more dense. He didn't loose mass per say, but his body was making better use of how it distributed the muscle fiber. His body did this all over. He took in more & more of Fred's twink traits.

"uhhh"

More squeezing. His arms met the same fate as his chest. Smaller, but so much denser.

Surprisingly, his legs grew instead. A pop could be heard. Alex grunted in response.

As his stomach contracted, his abs reshaped themselves. Fred's eight pack was now Alex. It was like 8 balls slowly floating to the top, breaking the surface at the same time.They were rounder & more uniform.

His neck stayed the same. His skin became smoother.

His began to morph. His eyebrows were from Fred. His eyes a combination of both with Alex's bags now gone. His lips & mouth a combination. His nose from Fred. His ears from Alex.

His hair shifted color to Fred's brown, but the hair style was from Alex only a bit more metro.

The excess testosterone did their work. Facial hair exploded from all over Alex's body. Arms, stomach, chest, and face were all now partially covered. Alex would need a shaving routine now.

Alex let out a deep exhale & opened his eyes. The merger was done.

He ran to the mirror and checked out his new features. He quickly looked at his new man rod and was elated. He got what he wanted. He could work on his muscle sizes, or absorb a buff dude if it bothered him so much.

Christian wrote everything he saw in his little journal. Shun was proud of the new person birthed before him & nodded in approval.

"Just a sec," Alex said. He ran to the bathroom. 10 minutes passed by. What was he doing? The sink turned on, and Alex washed & dried his hands.

"It works."

They both realized what Alex just did. Must be Fred inside him.

"Welcome to the fold," Christian said.

Alex agreed to become a part of their new society.

He was still a star basketball player, still partied, but now wore protection. He could get someone pregnant now. Fred in subconscious made him enjoy & appreciate his life more. He saw & felt through Fred what the other side felt.

Fertility tests were done. He was fertile. He could still have a family. And with the shifting of history, Alex was always born a man. He didn't have to worry about persecution. But he felt bad for those straddling the line. Part of the agreement in joining the group was to help those within the trans community fully transition via fusion if they wanted. Alex was now in charge of that task within The David & Goliath society. Shun would use his money to help those in need as well, no matter what stage of transition they were at or wanted to stay in.

With Fred's memory, he found his speedo from the earlier picture and put them on. Fred's influence opened him up to these skimpy beach wears.

[internetgrandma]

yeah it’s good seeing people talking about building community and putting focus on community care right now but to be quite honest i don’t want to hear shit about “community” from you if you won’t even wear a mask to keep from spreading a debilitating and deadly virus. we’re still averaging ~5,000 confirmed covid deaths a month in the U.S. (the real number is much higher, considering that testing is grotesquely underreported, plus the fact that dying from complications caused by covid doesn’t statistically count as dying from covid). millions of people have long covid and might be living with debilitating symptoms for years, if not for the rest of their lives. covid has destroyed so many people’s immune systems and people are getting sick more often, and getting sicker than they used to. disabled, chronically ill, and immunocompromised people deserve to be able to exist in public without having to worry about catching an illness that could further disable or kill them. kids deserve to go to school without catching a devastating vascular infection over and over and risking their long term health and quality of life. people deserve to be able to go to a doctor’s office or hospital without facing such a high risk of getting covid while they’re there. so many people truly don’t have the option to exist in public life anymore for fear of what this virus might do to them or someone they live with. y’all are talking a lot right now about how the government doesn’t care about us and won’t protect us, and i hate to tell you that that includes protection from covid. the government completely gave up on covid years ago at this point, and they’re not going to change course anytime soon. wearing a mask is genuinely one of the most important forms of community care you can personally, single-handedly contribute to right now. should we also be pushing for better air filtration and ventilation, paid sick leave, free healthcare, and better vaccines and treatments? yes! but those things will take time, and will only happen with a lot of organization. you can wear a mask and do your part to reduce transmission right now though, and that will make a difference in your community, even if it might not seem like it. the point is, respectfully, if you truly care about community and looking out for other people, doing something as simple and effective as wearing a mask is a great way to not only visibly show solidarity, but also make a real, meaningful effort to protect our collective health and wellbeing. you’re gonna have to actually make an effort to care for your community instead of just saying words on the internet, and wearing a mask would be a good start.

[loveanddeepthroat]

Unlucky Thirteen

Summary - Sylus liked the quiet girl with the poorly heart. She was the only kid in the laboratory who hadn’t come and gone before he could even remember what she looked like. When he doesn’t see her for a whole day, he knows that there’s only one place she could be—the Medical Bay. He’d been through it all before she’d even arrived at the lab over a year prior, and felt a duty to keep her company whilst her heart healed.

Word Count - 2.4k

Warnings - Child!Sylus and Child!MC as experimental lab rats. Mentions of child experimentation and non-consensual medical treatments. This theory of them being lab rats is not canon, so keep in mind that I have made this all up!

Sylus couldn’t find the girl with the poorly heart.

It was the third and final free hour of the day in the laboratory’s Playroom, and she was nowhere to be seen among the children.

Again.

The girl had been missing a few times before now—usually for further experimentation. But for all three of their free time breaks from observations and alterations meant only one thing.

She had to be in the Medical Bay.

He didn’t know much about the quiet girl, other than the fact that she had problems with her heart. There was always a big, white bandage over her chest that just peaked out over the neckline of her plain white gown, but he would never ask her questions about it. They only got to see each other during mealtime and free time, so discussing the things they were put through in between was something neither of them wanted to commit any time to. She didn’t want to talk about her heart as much as he didn’t want to talk about his eye.

In fact, they didn’t talk much at all. They just had a common denominator that seemed to draw them to each other.

Sylus had watched kids come and go from this place for a few years, hoping that one day it would be his turn to leave. That futile hope had been short lived, and it became clear that he wasn’t going anywhere when all the other kids around him dropped off like flies. 

When she came in with a new group of kids around a year ago, he thought nothing of it. She was just a face he’d forget after she would undoubtedly be released. But as those weeks turned to months—the few children she had arrived with long gone—her face had remained a constant for Sylus.

He wasn’t stupid enough to believe that she’d finally been freed today. The people in the lab coats were far too interested in her as of late, and she was starting to look more withdrawn each time he saw her. Much like he had when he woke from an operation he didn’t know he was having.

The more he thought about her condition, the more he hoped that she was in the Medical Bay—rather than somewhere more sinister.

He’d grown a bit of an attachment to the girl. She was the only friendly face that hadn’t left him. Even in their lack of conversation, he enjoyed her company. Felt comforted by her. They often read in silence side by side, always in whichever back corner of the Playroom was free of other kids. The less significant test subjects always delved straight into the toys and games, but the two of them had no interest in joining in.

Sometimes, if the lab coats had prodded around in his eye too much, the girl would quietly read aloud to him. He liked it when she read to him. So much so that he sometimes played on his eye problems just to hear her read for an hour.

He was used to her being absent for one or two of the three free hours they get, but this was too much for him. 

He had to get into the Medical Bay.

His head had purposely been rested against the electric heater beside the bookshelf for a few minutes as he made himself appear as clammy and feverish as possible. His cheeks burned as he pinched them repeatedly, and he put on his best nasally voice once he approached the Playroom supervisor with a little book tucked under his white t-shirt, rubbing his good eye for added effect.

“I feel sick,” he whined to the stone-faced woman in all-black clothing.

She barely threw down a glance at him, raising a lazy eyebrow. “You were fine during dinner.”

Damn.

Plan B came into quick effect. He rolled his eyes back a little, swaying where he stood. The hot skin of his forehead bumped against her hipbone as he stumbled forward dramatically, and she quickly bent down to his level, steadying him with her firm hands.

“Oh for goodness sake,” she mumbled, her frown deepening when she pressed the backs of her cold fingers against his head. She pulled out a little radio device that was tucked in the chest pocket of her shirt, speaking into it frankly with a push of its button. “Patient S013 is feeling unwell. Feverish. Permission to move from Room 11 to the Medical Bay?”

Sylus held his breath, willing whoever was on the other end of the radio call to grant the cold woman the permission he didn’t know she would need. He’d only ever been to the Medical Bay once before, and hadn’t ever wanted to return. Being examined and tested by strange scientists everyday was bad enough. He had no interest in spending time with the nurses who tended to him after his surprise surgery.

“Permission granted,” a male voice affirmed through the radio.

The stern lady grabbed suddenly at his shoulder, pushing him lightly out of the noisy room and down the silent halls. He liked when they were silent. He’d heard enough screams from children to haunt him for life.

The walk to the Medical Bay was short, and Sylus remembered to throw a few sniffles and pathetic coughs into the silent trek to keep up his charade. He must’ve still looked red faced and sickly, the nurse on duty handing him a gown to change into straight away upon his arrival.

He changed as quickly as he could behind a curtain that gave him only a sliver of privacy, tucking the book he’d smuggled from the Playroom into the inner fabric. The nurse checked his vital signs In the small triage room with nothing but a blank look on her face for comfort. Nobody around here tended to smile or show any true emotion towards the children. 

It didn’t affect Sylus at all. He didn’t know any different. Didn’t remember a time when someone smiled at him. Or when he had smiled at someone else. 

He wasn’t sure if he ever had.

The small, sterile Medical Bay was empty as he followed the nurse inside—save for the tuft of the girl's hair he could see peeking out above her blanket. He almost audibly sighed with relief to see her, but the fact that something was wrong enough for her to even be in the Medical Bay struck alarm bells in his head.

“Patient S113 isn’t feeling good, so try to be quiet,” the nurse told him. She pulled back the covers of the bed next to the girl, hurriedly ushering him to get in before giving him a syringe of medicine to take. “I’ll check on you in a few hours.”

He nodded, waiting for her to turn around before he took a look at the sickly girl a few feet away. The skin on her face was shiny and damp in the stark light of the strip lights above them. She didn’t look well at all, and had the thin, white blanket pulled right the way up to her chin.

The nurse administered a dose of something fluorescent yellow to her in another syringe, pressing her hand to the girl’s damp forehead with a tut. Sylus could’ve sworn that the nurse sighed a little in concern.

“That medicine should make you feel a bit better soon. Try to sleep,” she murmured to the girl quietly, moving the strands of hair that were stuck to her skin before leaving the room. 

He didn’t know what to do once the nurse closed the door behind her. The quiet girl looked so…deathly. Her colouring was a good few shades lighter than it usually was, and there was a greyish tinge to it too. Whatever was going on with her, it didn’t look good.

“What happened?” he blurted quietly.

She slowly turned her head towards him, blinking a few times to focus her eyes. They widened a little when she realised it was him.

“Hi,” she whispered, her voice small and croaky.

The sound hurt something in Sylus’s chest. “What happened?” he repeated again, sitting up a little further in the bed to get a good look at her.

The girl lifted a shaky hand, pointing straight to where her heart was. “I think it’s broken,” she replied.

Sylus frowned a little. He didn’t know that hearts could break. Bones could break, he knew that much. He’d seen broken bones quite often in this place. Her heart wasn’t like most people’s—he knew that too. 

But it couldn’t break. Right?

“Are they going to make it better?”

She blinked at him a few times, and he really studied her. This was the most they’d ever said to each other in conversation, but it didn’t feel strange or wrong like he thought it might. It felt natural. Almost like they were both still here in the wake of so many other young patients’ departures for a specific reason. 

He found himself wanting to know more. He wanted to know everything about her heart—including how to fix it.

Her weary eyes glanced around the room for any listening ears, and she shifted the blanket down from her chin so she could see over it. She eventually whispered back to him, “I’m not sure that they’re even trying to fix it.” She took a shuddering breath in, wincing a little bit. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

That’s when he noticed it.

In the absence of the blanket, he saw the gnarly tail end of a stitched up incision where he would usually see a bit of the bandage she always donned on her chest. He may have been young, but he knew without having to ask what the lab coats had done to her. They’d done the same thing to him once before. Put him to sleep without warning to poke and prod into the innards of his most interesting body part—his right eye. He had no idea why they were so interested in it, or why they were equally as interested in her heart. But whatever the reason, it was mutually exclusive to the two of them.

“They’ve done that to me, too,” he reassured her quietly, trying to shift that anxious look from her tired face. She didn’t know what was going on, so he felt a duty to soothe any worries on her mind. “I woke up in here with a big bandage over my eye before you came to live here. Couldn’t see properly for a few weeks, but it got better. Like your heart will.”

The girl looked apprehensive, but seemed a little bit more settled to know that he’d been in the same situation previously. They fell into a comfortable silence for a moment before she spoke. “You’ve been here for a long time.”

It didn’t sound like a question, but he answered like it was. He didn’t want to stop talking with her, hoping it was bringing her some semblance of peace. “I have,” he confirmed with a nod. “Me and twelve other kids were the first here. That’s why I’m patient S013.”

“Thirteen is supposed to be an unlucky number,” she whispered.

Sylus cocked his head to the side, wondering if she was kidding. He’d never heard of that before, but if she was right, it would make perfect sense. Patients S013 and S113 being the two most focused on subjects in the lab coats’ top secret experiments did seem a bit too coincidental in his mind.

He sure did have a lot of time on his hands to think about things like that, too. She was the one hundredth kid after him to arrive, and ended up stuck here with him for the foreseeable. Maybe whichever newcomer unlucky enough to be patient S213 would end up in their same predicament.

“We’ll find our luck one day,” he finally responded, exuding all of his confidence into that one sentence. He was determined that he’d fight his way out of here one day, and that he’d be able to bring her with him. He wasn’t strong enough—not yet. But whatever they were doing to him here, he’d use it to his own advantage once he got a good understanding of it. “Maybe we’ll both get out of here, and we can see what the world is like.”

The girl smiled. Smiled at him, even in her state. It wouldn’t have been possible to not smile back, no matter how unnatural it felt for the corners of his lips to curl.

“Yeah,” she whispered. Her blinks were slowing down, and she looked sleepy. “That would be nice. I’d like to see the ocean one day, like I’ve read about in books.”

Sylus suddenly remembered the book he’d smuggled in, still resting coldly against his stomach beneath his gown. He quickly reached down into the neckline, grabbing it out and waving it up for her to see it.

“I could read to you, if you want? While you fall asleep.” He wasn’t sure if it would help her in any way, but the familiarity of a book seemed like the best form of comfort he could think of for her.

Her tired eyes lit up a little, and her smile widened. It struck something in Sylus’s heart, and for a moment, he wondered if he had a heart problem. He’d never felt such a feeling, but he liked it. It felt like a real feeling. Not just the horrible physical feelings of aches and pains.

It was a mental feeling. A caring feeling.

He settled himself back against the plump pillow behind him, opening up the book. It was a children’s fable that they’d read many times before, and the one book he enjoyed hearing her read. He checked on her once more, making sure she was still awake and eager to hear him read.

The idea of a book seemed to wake her up a bit from her fatigue, but even so, Sylus would read the book over and over until it lulled her into a peaceful sleep.

He quietly cleared his throat reading the title aloud the way she always does.

“The Kitten Who Met The Crow…”

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this little story! I think the lab rats theory is so interesting and couldn’t resist this sweet little idea! I’ve been a bit slow on the content recently and I do apologise, but I’m in the midst of moving into a new apartment and the stress of that on top of the way my neurodivergent son is struggling to cope with it has turned my brain to mush. Things should settle soon and I’ll be back on the requests 🤍

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

A Big TB Announcement

Greetings from Washington D.C., where I spent the morning meeting with senators before joining a panel that included TB survivor Shaka Brown, Dr. Phil LoBue of the CDC, and Dr. Atul Gawande of USAID. Dr. Gawande announced a major new project to bring truly comprehensive tuberculosis care to regions in Ethiopia and the Philippines. Over the next four years, this project can bring over $80,000,000 in new money to fight TB in these two high-burden countries.

Our family is committing an additional $1,000,000 a year to help fund the project in the Philippines, which has the fourth highest burden of tuberculosis globally.

Here’s how it breaks down: The Department of Health in the Philippines has made TB reduction a major priority and has provided $11,000,0000 per year in matching funds to go alongside $10,000,000 contributed by USAID and an additional $1,000,000 donated by us. This $22,000,000 per year will fund everything from X-Ray machines, medications, and GeneXpert tests to training and employing a huge surge of community health workers, nurses, and doctors who are calling themselves TB Warriors. In an area that includes nearly 3,000,000 people, these TB Warriors will screen for TB, identify cases, provide curative treatment, and offer preventative therapy to close contacts of the ill. We know this Search-Treat-Prevent model is the key to ending tuberculosis, but we hope this project will be both a beacon and a blueprint to show that It’s possible to radically reduce the burden of TB in communities quickly and permanently. It will also, we believe, save many, many lives.

—

I believe we can’t end TB without these kinds of public/private partnerships. After all, that’s how we ended smallpox and radically reduced the global burden of polio. It’s also how we’ve driven down death from malaria and HIV. For too long, TB hasn’t had the kind of government or private support needed to accelerate the fight against the disease, but I really hope that’s starting to change. I’m grateful to USAID for spearheading this project, and also to the Philippine Ministry of Health for showing such commitment and prioritizing TB.

—

One reason this project is even possible: Both the cost of diagnosis (through GeneXpert tests) and the cost of treatment with bedaquiline are far lower than they were a year ago, and that is due to public pressure campaigns, many of which were organized by nerdfighteria. I’m not asking you for money (yet); Hank and I will be funding this in partnership with a few people in nerdfighteria who are making major gifts. But I am asking you to continue pressuring the corporations that profit from the world’s poorest people to lower their prices. I’ve seen some of the budgets, and it’s absolutely jaw-dropping how many more tests and pills are available because of what you’ve done as a community.

—

I don’t yet have the details on which region of the Philippines we’ll be working in, but it will be an area that includes millions of people–perhaps as many as 3 million. And it will include urban, suburban, and rural areas to see the different responses needed to provide comprehensive care in different communities. This will not (to start!) be a nationwide campaign, because even though $80,000,000 is a lot of money, it’s not enough to fund comprehensive care in a nation as large as the Philippines. But we hope that it will serve as a model–to the nation, to the region, and to the world–of what’s possible. 

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I’m really excited (and grateful) that our community gets to have a front-row seat to see the challenges and hopefully the successes of implementing comprehensive care. Just in the planning, this project has involved so many contributors–NGOs in the Philippines, global organizations like the Partners in Health community, USAID, the national Ministry of Health in the Philippines, and regional health authorities as well. There are a lot of partners here, but they’ve been working together extremely well over the last few months to plan for this project, which will start more or less immediately thanks to their incredibly hard work.