#ONE HAD A BLOOD CLOT AND ONE HAD CANCER

[db4yup]

I HATE DOCTORS!!!

[mysongsknowwhatyoudidinthedark]

Okay, here’s my master post on birth control

Opill is an otc birth control. It is progesterone only, so it is safe for people who have migraines with aura and people with a high risk of blood clots. It is not safe for people with a history of breast cancer. You can buy it in 1/3/6 month packs. It’s on Amazon but you can purchase it in stores. If you use a subscription plan for Amazon the first month is cheaper. You can get a 3 month pack for around the price of a 1 month pack if its your first subscription.

Telyrx might or might not ship to your state. They have birth control you might already use + plan b and Ella, which works if you’re at a higher weight. Standard Plan B caps out at 155 pound, Ella works up until 195 pounds. There are several day after pills on Amazon that’s around $15-$16, but I don’t know if it works at a higher weight limit.

Doubling on Plan B is not proven to work. If you do, you should still be fine, but you will have likely feel nauseous and possibly vomit, which could make it not work. You should be good if you vomited two hours or later after taking it. It shouldn’t be too severe.

Plan B can either work up to 3 days or 5 days after your birth control fails. Make sure you read up on what you buy. The ones on Amazon are all 3 day pills.

PlanCPills.org has a list of sites where you can purchase abortion pills. They’re on sale now for obvious reasons. Some are as low as $30. For abortion pill pack for that works up until 12 weeks is not that bad.

The specific website I used is medside24.com. These websites typically require a valid ID. Get one ASAP. Medside24.com had issues with their payment system when I used them today, but it worked out, so please don’t get too stressed. They also will not reship your order if your address is wrong, so make sure your address is right.

Plan B general lasts for four years, Plan C lasts two years because misoprostol lasts two years, but mifespristone lasts 5 years, bc is whatever it is on the package. Keep them away from extreme temperatures as they are very sensitive to temperature changes. Direct sunlight can also damage birth control, Plan B, and Plan C.

The copper IUD can be used with hormonal birth control. Do not use two hormonal birth control types together. There will be side effects in a similar manner to doubling up on Plan B.

You can take Plan B while on birth control but it could cause side effects.

Testosterone is not birth control. Estrogen can make a transfem sterile, but it is not birth control.

The mini pill, also known as a progesterone only pill, has to be taken at the same time each day for maximum efficiency. You have a 3 hour window to take it or else it’ll count as skipping a day and you will be unprotected if you have sex. The Opill counts as a mini pill, so please be aware of that. There is no skip week with progesterone only birth control. You can take the pills in any order, as each pill contains the same amount of medicine.

Birth control containing estrogen and progesterone has a more lenient window. You can take two in one day if you’ve missed one day, but you will be less protected than normal. If you missed two or more, take the most recent pill that you’ve missed and continue taking it as normal. You have to throw out the missed pills. You must take these pills in order because they may contain different amounts of hormones. You can skip the placebo week on estrogen birth control and move on to the next pack.

Feel free to add anything I’ve missed.

[kaijutegu]

So. Now that she's home and safe and gonna be ok, I can talk about this.

I almost lost Kaiju. Christmas Day. I was woken up by a phone call from Allison, who will be referred to a LOT in this story. Allison runs the pet store where I board Kaiju. She called to tell me that Kaiju had lost a LOT of blood. (As it turns out, half her blood volume. Humans die when we lose 40%, just so you know. She lost 50%.)

There were no visible injuries, and she had passed a bloody stool. Or rather, a blood clot with some poop in it. She continued to pass only blood when they put her in the bathtub to clean her up. If I'd taken her anywhere else, that... would have been it, probably.

But Allison is an actual miracle worker and knew an emergency vet who was open- on Christmas Day- and could see reptiles. As soon as she called me, she took her to the e vet, where they gave her fluids and oxygen and got her stable. They did some x rays and found... nothing.

In fact, the e vet actually complimented me on her bone density and how nice her toe joints look. Whatever this mysterious haemorrhage was, it was in the soft tissue.

The immediate thoughts were:

Impaction

Cancer invading an artery

Aneurism

Reproductive issues

However, the emergency vet couldn't figure it out, and my vet was out of the country. The e vet consulted with a lot of vets and it was decided she'd go into Chicago Exotics for care the next day- they were willing to see her on immediate notice. Allison drove her over and they did an ultrasound... and couldn't differentiate the mass they found.

So, exploratory surgery it was.

But... she didn't have enough blood for that. She wouldn't have survived... if Allison hadn't found blood for her. Tegu donors were found, the transfusion happened, and was completely successful.

And what the surgery found was completely unexpected. No cancer. No repro issues. No typical impaction.

Instead? Weird white things in her muscles and a partial impaction that seems to be related to a reduction in her ability to properly digest. There are two possible diagnoses at this point. One is visceral gout. This is very strange because in reptiles, articular gout basically always happens first, and her kidneys are fine.

The other option? Weird, potentially cross species parasite she picked up when she was in the Everglades. Something she's likely had all her life, something that was dormant until recently.

I'll know when the pathology report comes back in a week or so.

Anyways! She is doing very well. She is alert and interested in things. She has an incredible appetite, even though she can't have solid food yet. She's on three meds, including one I have to inject. At her three week recheck, we will add a fourth- either the correct anti-parasitic or a medication to improve kidney function, depending on the diagnosis. Currently she's in a hospital cage and she hates it- she can't have any substrate because of the stitches.

The vet says it should take about three months until she makes her full blood volume. Her pack cell count should be at 35%. It was at 7% on the 26th. But by the 28th, it was at 10%. She's gonna be ok. She's tough. My little girl is a fighter, always has been. You have to be scrappy to survive in the wild.

And throughout this entire experience, everybody has told me how lovely her personality is. Through the injections and cloacal probing and everything, she never bit or even tried to. The vet didn't think she even wanted to bite. Like it wasn't a question of wanting to bite and not being strong enough- it's just not something in her behavioural repertoire. She doesn't bite because she doesn't want to. Because even at her most scared, at her most painful, she's still Kaiju, the best tegu to ever live. Love is stored in the tegu, and it continues to be stored in the tegu. We have a long road ahead of us, but she's out of the woods and is going to be ok. We both are.

Also, consider this a MAJOR plug for Curious Creatures in Chicago. I'm never going to board my animals anywhere else.

[thelittlewarrior98]

Hello!

So I know that this is an absolute long shot, but I wanted to share this here anyway in the hopes that someone in the Phandom could maybe help me coz I literally just don't know what else to do at this point 🥺🙏

My name is Holly-Jayne but most people call me Daisy, I'm 26 years old and I've been a part of the Phandom for over a decade now like D+P have pretty much always been my most favourite YouTubers and humans in the whole entire universe 💜

I've unfortunately never been able to see them live during any of their tours though as I've just sadly never been able to afford it!

It's always been one of my biggest ever dreams to finally go to one of their shows and maybe even meet them so I can finally thank them personally for everything they've ever done for me 💜

But then late last year I suddenly got very very sick to the point where I became bed bound and wheelchair bound and could no longer eat or drink anything without throwing up and I ended up losing way too much weight to the point where I genuinely looked like a living corpse and I was soooo so tired and in so much pain all the time and I even started struggling to breathe, but then after going through all of this for about 4 months as well as countless doctor appointments, miss-diagnosis including being told it's just anxiety and is all just in my head and also have to stay in hospital got about a week or so, I was very sadly diagnosed with Stage 4 (Terminal) Serous Carcinoma Ovarian Cancer that has spread to multiple areas of my body and I have now also completely lost my fertility because of it 😔💔

I also apparently had over 2 litres worth of fluid on my lungs which is why I was struggling to breathe and could barely even walk up the stairs without my legs just completely giving way.

So I've had to endure 6 very difficult and grueling rounds of Chemo which I actually finished around 2 months ago and I'm now on a targeted treatment that I have to have every 3 weeks for about a year and I also have to take blood thinners every single day for up to 2 years due to a rather big blood clot that they also found on my lung during my 1st round of Chemo!

I also almost died again during my 2md round of Chemo as I had a very bad reaction to it and stopped breathing for a couple of minutes......

We've had quite a few scares which I guess is just my new normal now, but i now as back to normal as I can be with Cancer and I'm very slowly but surely getting my life back together and just trying to live my life as much as I can for as long as I can as even though I'm terminal, I'd like to believe that I'll still be around for many many years to come and D+P have especially helped with his as watching their videos through all of the dark and scary times have always just completely cheered me up and put a smile on my face and they still give me the motivation and determination to fight and stay as strong and healthy as I possibly can be 💜

So yeah, it's probably been the most hardest and most painful year of my life, plus my grandad very sadly and suddenly passed away last October just before all of this happened and then we also very sadly lost my aunt in May of this year after a 16 year long battle with Cancer and my nan was also unfortunately diagnosed with Leukemia around the same time as my own diagnosis, so 2024 just hasn't been kind to us at all!

Soooo so much grief, pain and trauma that we're all still trying to deal with 😔💔

So yeah, when D+P announced the TIT I was absolutely BEYOND happy and excited like yessssss another chance for me to finally go and see them and potentionally meet them if I can get an M&G ticket and finally just something for me to look forward to after this very crappy year!!

But alas, time and luck once again just weren't on our sides as when the tickets were released for both dates we just so happened to be at the hospital for appointments and treatment and they all sold out before I even had a chance to try and buy them 😭💔

So I tried to use one of my wishes to see and meet them instead, but we've unfortunately just found out that the company no longer have any money and can't fulfill people's wishes anymore!!

But the thing is, we submitted the wish absolutely months ago like back when the tickets had just sold out and we never heard back from them at all until now when our macmillan nurse got in touch with them a few days ago, so they never even bothered to tell us which is really annoying and inconvenient because we could have maybe sorted something else out by now, but now we've only got a couple of weeks left and we're just at a complete loss as to what to do as this could literally be my last ever chance!!

Really starting to lose hope over ever getting to see or meet them now and I'm absolutely devastated as we just don't know when or if they'll ever go on tour again and even if they do, who knows if I'll still be here by then or how my health will be!!

I mean I'm always staying as optimistic and hopeful as possible, but we still just never really know......

So yeah, I just wanted to share this in the hopes that someone in the Phandom could maybe help in any way at all??

Idk how or what could be done or anything, but I thought it was worth a shot anyway as I've pretty much got nothing to lose at this point!

I was hoping for Manchester on the 29th btw as that's the only date that I'm able to do.

Thankyou soooo so much for reading all of this if you've actually made it this far, I appreciate it more than you'll ever know!

I'm in this Phandom business for life haha 🤣💜 @danielhowell @amazingphil @danandphilupdates @danandphilhq @danandphilnews @danandphilsaltsquad

[missmoonfrost]

The one Hope knitted - a wolfstar microfic

@wolfstarmicrofic - December 18: Jumper - Words: 456

“We need to go.”

“Just a moment.”

If Remus hadn’t been so anxious, he would probably have noticed the strange tension in Sirius' voice more. His mother was released from the hospital today and they needed to be there and pick her up.

Sirius finally emerged from the bedroom only to lock himself in the bathroom instead.

”What’s taking so long?” Remus yelled annoyedly.

Sure, they would hardly kick Hope out if they were ten minutes late, but he didn’t want to keep her waiting. He’d done everything he could for her, first with the slowly but surely advancing dementia, then the breast cancer and now the blood clot in her lungs.

Sirius had been a big help through it all. He had driven her to as many appointments as Remus had. He had been his shoulder to cry on for countless nights. He even followed Remus to his childhood home yesterday to discard every bad item in the fringe, restock and put on clean sheets for her to come home to.

They hurried down the stairs and towards the parking lot. Sirius crossed his arms and raised his shoulders in the chilly wind. Remus rolled his eyes and pulled out Sirius’ jumper that he’d made a habit of packing.

Sirius stopped.

Remus looked quizzingly at him.

“T-that’s the one Hope knitted for me.”

“Yes. Do you want to go back after another one?”

“No!”

Sirius grabbed the jumper, pulled it on and started walking again. A sniffling sound made Remus look at him, but he held his head turned the other way.

“Sirius?”

“Hm?” he said in a high pitch with his head still turned away.

“Love?” Remus put a hand on Sirius arm.

“Sorry”, Sirius sniffled and wiped his eyes as he hurried on towards their car, “I’ll get it together.”

“It’s ok,” Remus mumbled a bit caught off guard.

“I should be stronger than this. We’re in a hurry. And it’s your mother”, Sirius sobbed.

Remus caught up to him and forced him to stop by pulling him into a hug.

“I think you have been strong for long enough.”

Sirius squeezed him tightly and pressed his forehead into Remus' shoulder. He gulped and whimpered, with breaths too quick and tears and snot wetting Remus' neck. Remus held him securely, smoothed his hand soothingly over his hair and pressed small kisses to the temple and top of his head.

Sirius cleared his throat and straightened up again. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Remus wiped Sirius' tear-stained cheeks with his fingers. “I should have stopped to ask how you were doing a bit sooner, shouldn’t I?”

“But it’s your mother,” Sirius protested.

“Maybe. But we’re in this together. Now let me drive today, yeah?”

“Please.”

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Hi sex witch!

I have been on the combination bc pill for almost 8 years, and I've been seeing a weird amount of stuff online lately talking about how allegedly dangerous birth control can be? How it increases the risk of some cancers, and how it can lead to blood clots mainly. I never really had a talk with my original prescribing doctor at all about side effects (a pediatrician who was a bit judgy about me having safe consensual sex at 17 and I dumped her ass for a wonderful GP).

I was always under the assumption that it 1. Was an extremely low risk. And 2. Was only really concerning if you had other risk factors (ie smoking), but I've been seeing a lot more scary shit about different birth control methods online lately (namely that and implants like nexplanon). Is it just fear mongering, or are these just medical risks we have to be willing to take to avoid pregnancy (another huge medical risk)?

Also follow up question, and I assume my current doctor would've said something if it was of concern, but you never know. Is it okay to be on the same hormonal birth control for as long as I have? Is there really a limit to it if you're only seeing benefits?

Thank you for all your work! o7

hi anon,

what a great question!

the risk factors affiliated with birth control and breast cancer are, indeed, extremely low. in many cases it's difficult to prove any correlation for certainty, and even in cases where some differences have been found between people who have taken hormonal birth control and those who haven't, the difference for those who have is still extremely small - even for folks who have been taking it for over ten years.

for the time being, the only people generally advised against using birth control for cancer-related are usually those already at high risk of breast cancer. it's also worth noting that hormonal birth control actually seems to slightly decrease the risk of ovarian, colon, and endometrial cancers!

the blood clot situation is similar. while some type of hormonal birth control can make blood clots slightly more likely, it still doesn't make them likely, and it's generally not a cause concern unless someone already has a preexisting issue with blood clots.

while there may be some very, very slightly increased risks in the long run, the same is true of any medication, and those risks don't generally compound enough over time to be cause of concern in the absence of any other complicating factors. if you and your healthcare provider have decided this is the best treatment for you, then by all means keep doing it!

fearmongering around contraception isn't new, and the goal behind it has always been restricting the options that people have to prevent pregnancy and control their bodies. one of my favorite (read: most hated) new variants are the crunchy woowoo influencers who try to claim that hormonal birth control is bad because it changes the natural rhythms of your body and fills you with toxins or whatever, to which I say alt spirituality wellness bullshit is barely a step away from healthcare misinformation and vaccine conspiracies and we really shouldn't be giving these people our time and attention. birth control is safe, it's effective, and it's necessary healthcare.

[lynnsenpai]

My ten year anniversary of beating cancer

On October 2nd 2014, I - a trans woman - was diagnosed with testicular cancer. I wanna talk about that a little today. (((Probably obvious trigger warnings, but I'm going to talk about cancer, mortality, and transphobia.)))

It was a crazy time, because that morning, I was just going in for my yearly physical with my doctor. I planned to talk to her about taking steps towards bottom surgery that day, and then I was just excited to get home and count down the hours until Smash Bros for 3DS would release the very next day. But the appointment went an unexpected direction during the physical.

I'd always been told by doctors my whole life to check for lumps, and as much as I hated that part of my body, I did as I was told. So when I never found lumps, I assumed that meant I was okay. Then my doctor told me one of them felt oddly hard. She left the room for some time (I assume to check some things) and when she returned, she explained she had some concerns and was sending to another specialist to confirm some things. She said she felt very sure it was a sign of testicular cancer, though.

At the time, my brain wasn't ready to hear that. My doctor was visibly shaken. My spouse was on the verge of tears. And I was deep in denial like, "but I mean there's a chance it might not be, right? So I'm not going to sweat it." In hindsight, I'm sure I was frustrating to listen to for not taking it seriously. But it wasn't like I was trying to be obstinate, I just was that strongly in disbelief. I didn't feel sick. I wasn't in any pain. Things were going well; this couldn't possibly be happening now.

And yet, a few days later, I saw the specialist, and it was confirmed. I had cancer. Any optimistic doubts I had, shot down in an instant. The specialist wanted to take care of this as fast as he could, so I was scheduled for surgery at the end of the month, and he gave me a stack of prescriptions for various tests I would go to - basically one a day - for the next few weeks.

I had lots of blood drawn. I had x-rays done. I had CT scans. I had an incredibly awkward, uncomfortable ultrasound. And at each appointment, I was seeing some new doctor, nurse, technician, or otherwise professional who probably looked at my chart and, despite my legally changed name and gender marker by that point, saw that the person in front of them had testicular cancer. “And such a person could only be a man.”

I feel like it must sound so petty to be worried about pronouns when you're dealing with something like cancer. But I want to stress that I was nearly a year in presenting full time as myself by that point. I hadn't been called a man in a very long time. And up until earlier that very month, I was on cloud nine and ready to take the next step in my transition. This whole ordeal, on top of being horrendously scary, also took huge strides in regressing all the progress I'd made with confidence and self-love over the previous two years.

And it got worse too. Insurance refused to cover the surgery because I changed the gender marker. Because "why would a woman need to get surgery to remove a testicle. That's just silly!" And there was no convincing them otherwise. Insult to injury, I had to change that gender marker back to an M in their system so that they would approve this surgery. It was a surprisingly easy change to make happen too (which was technically beneficial for the surgery, but also sucked in its own way).

Oh, and then I had to go off all my HRT meds in preparation to reduce the risk of blood clots during surgery. I never felt lower.

All the while, I had plenty of time to think about my mortality. I was only 30. What about my spouse who I love more than anything and might be leaving alone forever? What about my ongoing webcomic, my work of passion which at the time was only nearing about the halfway point, and was at risk of being left unfinished forever? And what about my own future that not so long ago felt so bright?

It would not be an understatement to call October 2014 one of the darkest, heaviest, scariest periods of my life. But not in that good fun "Halloweeny" way.

But the big day came. On October 28th - ten years ago today - I went in for surgery for the first time. I was in the OR for maybe an hour, and the cancerous testicle was removed. As suddenly as it started, it was over.

Recovery was a long and painful (without dragging out the story longer than it already is, the surgical site got infected, so healing probably ended up taking longer than it should have). But the good news, all things considered, was that they successfully removed it, and I wouldn't even need chemo because it was caught so early.

There's technically more to the story. I would later see an oncologist who encouraged a second surgery, to remove the other testicle, as well as lymph nodes around the kidneys, all as a preventative measure to make sure it didn't come back or spread. I didn't love this idea, but she seemed confident that this was the right choice, so I went along with it. And just four months after the first surgery, I went and did it all again. (This time went much more smoothly, but was a much bigger incision, and was still a very long recovery.)

The whole thing, start to finish - including recovery time - was only about 7 months long. I would go for regular oncology visits and testing and blood draws along the way for years to come, but it never showed up again.

In 2016, I finally got back on track for bottom surgery, and then had it done later that same year. My gender marker is back to being an F (where it should be) on everything. I also have two wicked cool scars to show that I conquered cancer.

Unfortunately, I don't think I ever fully mentally recovered from the emotional stress of that first month, as doctor visits still evoke way more anxiety for me than they used to. But I don't get misgendered anymore, at least.

This was all ten years ago I wasn't sure I'd still be here on this day back then. But I got through it. I'm still here for my spouse. I finished that first webcomic after an 11 year run, and have since started a second. And… I'm doing okay. I'm doing the best I can everyday.

It was a terrible time in my life - an especially terrible way to start my 30's - but I think it helps to talk about from time to time. And the ten year anniversary, feels as meaningful a time as any.

So thank you for reading all that. Please make sure to take care of and check yourself. Even if it's a part of yourself you don't want.

Stay safe, stay happy, and stay healthy everyone.

[maaarine]

The Story of the Lost Child (Elena Ferrante, 2014)

“Gasping for breath, she cried out that the car’s boundaries were dissolving, the boundaries of Marcello, too, at the wheel were dissolving, the thing and the person were gushing out of themselves, mixing liquid metal and flesh.

She used that term: dissolving boundaries.

It was on that occasion that she resorted to it for the first time; she struggled to elucidate the meaning, she wanted me to understand what the dissolution of boundaries meant and how much it frightened her.

She was still holding my hand tight, breathing hard.

She said that the outlines of things and people were delicate, that they broke like cotton thread.

She whispered that for her it had always been that way, an object lost its edges and poured into another, into a solution of heterogeneous materials, a merging and mixing.

She exclaimed that she had always had to struggle to believe that life had firm boundaries, for she had known since she was a child that it was not like that—it was absolutely not like that—and so she couldn’t trust in their resistance to being banged and bumped.

Contrary to what she had been doing, she began to utter a profusion of overexcited sentences, sometimes kneading in the vocabulary of the dialect, sometimes drawing on the vast reading she had done as a girl.

She muttered that she mustn’t ever be distracted: if she became distracted real things, which, with their violent, painful contortions, terrified her, would gain the upper hand over the unreal ones, which, with their physical and moral solidity, pacified her; she would be plunged into a sticky, jumbled reality and would never again be able to give sensations clear outlines.

A tactile emotion would melt into a visual one, a visual one would melt into an olfactory one, ah, what is the real world, Lenù, nothing, nothing, nothing about which one can say conclusively: it’s like that.

And so if she didn’t stay alert, if she didn’t pay attention to the boundaries, the waters would break through, a flood would rise, carrying everything off in clots of menstrual blood, in cancerous polyps, in bits of yellowish fiber.”

Screencaps: My Brilliant Friend (L'amica geniale) 4x04

[bullshit-tqia]

Your psychiatrist and surgeon do not care for you.

They want to make money off of you.

They are willing to get you exogenous hormones that can give you higher rates of depression, cancer, cysts on your clitoris, PCOS, liver, kidney, and heart disease, blood clots in the lungs, strokes, polycythemia and hyperlipidemia, thrombosis, brain tumors, acute coronary syndrome, malignant hypertension, anemia, a worsening of psychosis, hepatitis, and to briefly mention dizziness, nausea, and chronic headaches. This is from hormones alone. They do not tell you this because your doctors make money off of you and don’t want to dissuade you from giving them hundreds of dollars.

Long term studies admit that they lose a large portion of their participants, but they assume that those participants are happy.

What is becoming more likely to me is that these participants died. And their deaths will never be considered or remembered. How can we be sure that transitioning is good long term if we have no record to even begin to consider that being true?

Gender Affirming Care is not regulated or approved for being a good solution to gender dysphoria.

When was the last time we thought that removing parts of the body was a good solution to helping mental problems? Oh yeah, with lobotomies.

There is no proof of “gendered brains.” The amount of white matter between women and men is so slight that it’s as defunct as race science. They overlap so heavily with little evidence of proper structural distinctions that it is dishonest to pretend there is any major pattern. There is no proof that even these “differences” observed in trans women vs. cis men are because of gender dysphoria, or are the effects of hormones. We have no understanding of how gender dysphoria manifests or how it works.

You are being experimented on.

If hormones can worsen your mental health because they are exogenous, how are you being treated? Even if gender affirming care lessened gender dysphoria, it is being exchanged with depression and possible psychosis. You are exchanging one bad thing for another. This will not help you long term.

Gender Dysphoria will still manifest through your memories, your knowledge of chromosomes, and the fact that you have a secret

It cannot go away as long as you are aware of your own transition. It is not helping you. You have to continue to delude yourself that it is working for it to work. That is the definition of a placebo.

Why was the first drafted solution to gender dysphoria hormones and surgery and not therapy?

Why? Nobody has given me an answer to this. We have never even tried to see if any antidepressants or therapies work to help gender dysphoria in a way that won’t make you targeted, bullied, and fearful for our lives. That is fucking cruel.

Listen to detransitioners, listen to the trans people who suffered as a result of surgery.

It may not be rare. Recent studies have shown that every trans person that was put on hormones had a negative effect to their health. EVERY. Why is the assumption that we must suffer to be happy? Why can’t we be nonconforming without giving up the rest of our lives to be on hormones and having surgery after surgery? Why? Genuinely, why?

There are trans women who had colon vaginoplasty, where they use part of the colon to create a vagina. These women start to shit through their vaginas. And these surgeries often follow a previously failed SRS procedure. It is a last ditch effort and it is horrific to your body.

While having complications, many detransitioners and trans people were ghosted by their doctors.

They don’t give a fuck about you. They want to make money off of you. As trans people and detransitioners were suffering after their surgeries, their doctors abandoned them because well…they didn’t have to do anything to help them. Because gender affirming care is not approved or regulated. There is no proof that it even helps beyond a few surveys that may not have honest answers and exclude detransitioners and those who killed themselves as a result of their failed surgeries.

I transitioned, and now I may be suffering dire consequences of it, because I bought into this idea that experimenting on my own body would be worth it. But now I feel the same as I did before I detransitioned and after. Nothing has fundamentally changed. I was still dysphoric but I was making myself deeply unwell to satisfy society’s perception of what a woman should be.

You can grow your hair out, you can wear makeup, you can be feminine. You can cut your hair short, you can ditch makeup, and you can be masculine. You don’t have to hurt yourself to fit into this standard when it is logically possible for you to accept how you were born.

It cannot be impossible for you to be happy.

These greedy doctors are preying on vulnerable people to make money.

[lastoneout]

CW: Discussions of weight loss, fatphobia, eating disorders, and cancer.

I still cannot get over how when I dropped 30lbs in part because I had a massive IBS flare for like two months that was so bad I was going to get multiple tests to make sure I didn't have cancer and yet I could not and STILL can't even mention it to a doctor(or most people) without them congratulating me. Like there are a few things a doctor can say that piss me the fuck off but congratulating me for dropping 30lbs during a period of my life where I thought I might be DYING instantly makes me hate them. I'm STILL having to say "I got really sick and lost 30lbs" to make people shut the fuck up. I was getting skinny so fast it was scaring my family AND me but whatever I guess being skinny is SO great and I should be thankful I went through hell that permanently changed my body in a way that I genuinely don't like!

'Cuz that's the other thing, I don't like how I look now. I gained like ~8lbs when I was in bed with the blood clot and ngl I started actually liking the way my body looked again. I don't like how I look rn, my fiance does(he loves how I look 100% of the time and I appreciate that endlessly) but even he admits I looked happier and healthier when I weighed 160lbs and now I kinda just look like I'm exhausted. When I got up to 143lbs I was looking in the mirror like "oh, I almost look like myself again, I forgot what it felt like to be happy with my body" like I looked healthier!! But nah the weight is already falling off because 135lbs is my new baseline and there's nothing I can do about that. (Also I hated how I had to get new knee braces made because my old ones don't fit anymore and I had to buy new clothes because the ones I enjoyed don't fit anymore and augh the only thing that is making me like my body rn is dressing butch, if I didn't have that I'd be going insane.) And I still have to deal with people acting like this thing that has legit ruined years of body positivity work is a good thing. Because at least I'm skinnier.

Society is so sickeningly "skinny positive" it legit disgusts me. And like this isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to what fat people go through, and it's why I'm so fucking passionate about fat liberation, I've watched tons of people I love completely destroy themselves to look more like me and I have to sit here and not only feel awful because I love them and don't want them to have to go through this but also because I know even looking like me wont be enough. Doctors still tell me to lose weight because I'm like a couple of lbs outside of "healthy" on the BMI scale, which is insane I weigh less than 10lbs more than I did when I was SIXTEEN atm and I can't say anything because I know they won't listen if I explain that even just being this thin is making me hate myself and feel like shit.

Fatphobia is so fucking evil. It absolutely destroys people. I genuinely baffles me that most skinny people can't see it because it's being used against us too, just in an affirming way and to me that is genuinely repulsive. Every compliment on my weight loss makes me want to punch through a brick wall. Knowing my story is going to be used to bludgeon other people with my condition becuase I lost weight without doing anything so "everyone" should be able to makes me so angry I could cry. It actually makes me feel sick to be praised for this, to know I'm a "success" story, to be lumped in with people who hate the people I love for the way their bodies naturally are, who want my loved ones to destroy themselves, who think I'm better than them when I am absolutely not.

Fat liberation is what we need to work towards, not "skinny positivity" or whatever, this is a systemic issue just like sexism and racism and homophobia and ableism and it must be dismantled if we want to create a better world for us all.

[formula-fun]

What is the chance of us getting another snippet from the if i had words sequel? I recently reread both charles and max’s povs and was reminded of what a great fic it is🥹 your writing is absolutely incredible

hiii thank you so much <333 i have no idea anymore what ive posted and what i haven't, is this new??

In January, Max woke up with a jolt. 

It was one in the morning. The clock beside the bed said as much, the bright red almost painful to his eyes. He woke up like this sometimes, and usually it took a minute for his half-asleep brain to realize what was wrong. Not today; not this morning. The air smelled thick and coppery, and within a breath he was wide awake, panic clawing at his chest. 

“Charles,” he said, his voice too rough and too loud. He reached across the mattress, and for one terrifying moment his hand felt nothing. Then it felt a body, and for an even worse moment the body felt cold beneath his touch. “Charles,” he said, louder. His voice wobbled. 

The sheets shifted. “Quoi,” Charles groaned, his voice muffled against the pillow. 

Max’s hand found the back of his neck beneath the sheets—warm, his hair fine and downy there, his scar a thin ridge beneath Max’s thumb. With his other hand he flicked on his reading lamp, and Charles groaned again and pulled the sheets over his face. 

Max pulled them away without a second thought, cupping Charles’ face and raising it from the pillow. He looked fine. His cheeks were flushed from the heat of their winter comforter, and he smelled like the warm, contented heaviness of sleep. His eyes drifted open into a glare. 

“What?” he grumbled, then his face cleared as he registered the panic in Max’s eyes. “Max?” 

Charles smelled content and warm and sleepy. He also smelled like blood. 

“You—are you alright?” Max asked, scenting him. Charles let out a confused purr, one short burst of sound, more a soothing noise than one of contentment. 

“I’m fine,” Charles says, bewildered, then shifted upward. His eyes went a little wide, and he sat up all at once, kicking the blankets away. “Merde.” 

There was blood between his thighs, tacky and half dried. There was blood on the sheets—not a lot, but enough to make Max feel sick.

“It’s fine,” Charles said quickly, because Max’s scent must have been doing scary things. “I’m fine.” 

“Did you cut yourself?” 

“No.” 

“We’ll go to the hospital,” Max said, his head spinning. Blood clots, internal bleeding, cancer—they’d had sex last night. Had this been his fault? But it had been slow and gentle, and this had never happened before. 

“No, sometimes…no. I have heard that sometimes people miscarry in the first week if their body is not ready to have a baby. Probably I have had this.” At Max’s look of horror he offered him a weak smile. “It is not even a miscarriage, it is more like a rejection. A few days, a week—there is nothing there.” 

“Did you know?” Max asks, his voice small. 

Charles shook his head. “I would have told you. It isn’t even anything at a few days.” 

“Last time you kept saying that, too.” 

“No, I mean it. A few cells. Literally a few. I’m okay,” he insists. “I will go see the doctor tomorrow, but it is probably just this. There is nothing to worry about.” 

Max let out a huff, nuzzling at Charles’ throat until Charles threaded a hand through his hair. He smelled sleepy and safe, not an ounce of fear in his scent or his voice. Max took a deep breath, trying to force his heart to calm. 

“It’s okay,” Charles said, then kissed his cheek and pulled away. “I need to shower.” 

Max nodded. “Go,” he said softly. “Give me your clothes. I’ll do the laundry.” 

Half an hour later the sheets were changed and Charles was curled up in his arms in soft joggers and one of Max’s more threadbare shirts. He smelled like sunburns and long days at the beach and Max’s favorite soap, and he purred when Max squeezed him close. 

“I’m okay,” he said quietly as Max turned the lights out again. 

“I know,” Max insisted, but he held him even closer. He pressed his nose against the top of Charles’ head, soaking up his warmth, cataloging every bit of him that assured Max that he was alive and healthy and happy; that he was fine. 

Charles’ purr faded into nothing as he drifted off. Max laid awake for a long time, just listening to his breathing. 

[featherwurm]

Wound healing progression from an emergency removal of a portacath port due to abscess.

OK SO: I am not a doctor, I am relating my experiences as a patient to the best of my ability and knowledge. My overall medical experiences are now quite varied (ask me about PET scans), and I am relating this as a matter of reference and giving my experience as a single patient to possibly help others wealth of information found online. This is a very spesific cause of a wound, but wound treatment and healing is more broadly applicable.

Background: I have follicular b-cell lymphoma, I was diagnosed unusually young with no underlying conditions (and general good health) at 35 in 2020, and shortly before beginning chemotherapy I had a port placed for ease of access during sessions and to reduce strain on my veins. One of the drugs I was receiving is a very traditional cancer drug and is harsh on the body - by delivering the medication more directly to my superior vena cava, my body was able to better handle it. The type of port I had looks like this, with the head under the skin near the collarbone and the tail going into a major vein:

The nubs make it easier for the nurse to find it to inject and lock in a needle, and the membrane can last for several hundred injections (usually translating to years of use before a replacement would be needed if this is a more permanent installation). Because this type of port is fully under the skin, the patient (me, in this case) can still shower, bathe, swim, soak, etc. with no concerns of contamination. For regular maintenance the port line does have to be flushed at least every three months to prevent clotting, which is done with an injection of a saline solution (you taste it faintly in the back of your mouth same as with an arm injection if you've never had this done before - it tastes like salty water.)

More medical under the cut, if you do not want to see images and diagrams of (clean, well tended) wounds and other medical information, please refrain from reading further:

The configuration of the port under the skin looks like this:

Externally, it is a lump under the skin, and while viably noticeable as a bump, is not physically noticeable most of the time (although mine managed to shift under my skin and loop around the stitch holding it in place, causing some minor discomfort when it did that - this is unrelated to anything and didn't cause any problems except during removal.) I did have some very mild discomfort sleeping on my right side because of it at times - moreso just because there's something there poking me rather than any actual pain.

The port is placed under general anesthesia (meaning I was fully unconscious), and for me it was a relatively short surgery, which I recovered from fairly quickly despite the cancer and chemo. It was able to be used quite soon after placement, although I was still healing up from the incision. I had so much else going on (the symptoms of my cancer fucked me up pretty good) it's hard to say if the surgery was particularly painful, but I was able to manage just fine with OTC painkillers until it healed up in a couple weeks.

For me, the port was very useful for the whole process, providing easier access not only for chemo, but for blood draws and other treatment related infusions (I needed an infusion of iron due to anemia at one point, as well as needing contrast injections for CT scans.) After chemo when my immune system was still recovering I was hospitalized for a week for what turned out to be a severe case of pneumonia with some other unrelated infections - the port was also useful then as I needed multiple infusions and draws at the same time - so both arms and the port were all getting use to get me back to rights... I did fully recover from that, thankfully.

However, two years after having the port placed, and a year after finishing chemo, my port abscessed, developing an infection around it that manifested as a raised red painful swelling. My oncologist ordered an emergency removal, and since I no longer strictly needed the port at the time, it was fine to go without replacement (it had been left in in case of further infusions, but at the moment I am still in remission as of 2024.)

The port was removed under local anesthesia (meaning I was fully conscious) and the procedure was, unfortunately, painful as the surface numbing with a local anesthetic did not go far down my chest enough to fully numb the pain of removal. Thankfully it was a quick pain but it still hurt. My port had also looped around the suture that held it in place, and when it was un-twisted to pull it out, there was pain as well from tugging on something so deep under the skin. The surgeon cleared out the wound of infection, and I was left with an opening that had to heal from the bottom up rather than the top down. The Tertiary intention shown here (sans the suturing):

If the port had been removed normally (no abscess) the wound would have been glued shut and it would have healed as in the Primary intention above. But in order to ensure no pocket of infection is left, the would heals from the bottom up.

This means I was left with an opening about an inch wide and three inches deep, a type of wound which requires regular wound packing to heal properly. Each day the dressing needed changing, and I was thankfully able to remove the packing after 24hrs to shower, allowing water to gently trickle in the wound to clean it out (comically, I would then tip it out before drying it off the skin around it carefully). I very much needed my husband's help at the get go to re-pack things, as the sensation, while not painful, was so strange and disconcerting it absolutely wigged me the hell out. By packing the wound, granular flesh is discouraged from forming prematurely and infection is prevented - critical for a wound after an abscess, as anything left behind could abscess again.

The wound was too small to use a finger to help guide the gauze in place, so forceps were needed to push and pack everything in firmly. Thankfully my husband has a steady hand and constitution and was able to help immensely. It was also slightly difficult for me to maneuver things on my own, I found I had trouble getting the right leverage until the wound was smaller and needed less packing.

Below is the progression of this wound on me:

At two days the wound is still very fresh and you can see the surrounding redness and swelling from the abscess.

At two weeks, the infection is clear and there's some healing around the opening, and things were starting to close a bit. The wound was estimated to be healed up at this point, but as it was slow to close, the surgeon opted to debride the wound with silver nitrate (which stings like fuck, but removes flesh that is not knitting together well and encourages healing.)

At a month in, the opening is narrower and shallower, but things are still not closed. The surgeon opted to do another debriding, and found a relatively loose pea-sized chunk of granular flesh had grown in there that had to be removed - because of how narrow the opening was getting it was difficult to pack deeply, and despite not closing my body was still doing its damnedest to heal.

At six weeks and ten weeks you can see the opening slowly closing.

At fifteen weeks, nearly four months after removing the port, the wound FINALLY was properly closed.

After two years, there is a notable scar and scar tissue deep down, but everything is healed up. As mentioned - I recently worked a knot of stuff loose that hurt to break up but felt better after. As long term care I have been massaging the scar tissue to help break up keloids.

Thankfully this isn't in an area that impacts me much (and, comparatively, it's still a relatively small wound) and I've lost no flexibility or strength from it.

As things were healing I was not able to wear a bra, as the strap rubbed right across where the wound was and put uncomfortable pressure on it. Mercifully, I work somewhere where this wasn't issue. I did not require time off of work to allow this to heal, and I did not have any major weight restrictions, as there were no stitches to strain, I was a little careful of using that side for heavy lifting until things were closed. The wound continued to seep blood and lymph throughout the process (although increasingly less until it fully closed.)

The most difficult part of this for me, personally, was seeing a large open wound on my chest. I am not generally squeamish, and do not have issues with blood or injuries, but this simply felt so weird to interact with it took time to get used to.

Anywho, that's a bit long and all over the place, but I'm not shy about what's happened to me, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Again this is just my own, personal experience, I'm not a medical professional, and I've done everything I can to the best of my ability under my own doctor's orders to ensure I have the care and treatment I, personally, need.

[thefandomlesbian]

So no pressure at all not to answer if you don’t want to. Just if you do know…

*could* House still have his leg amputated? Would it help?

Initial disclaimer: I am not a doctor and I don't claim to be, any misconceptions are my own!

So we know that amputation was originally on the table in 1999/2000 when House initially had his infarction and then brought back into the limelight in 2011 when he committed bathtub butchery. But outside of those two acute incidents, could he have an amputation in the interim?

It's sort of a multipronged question because amputations, particularly above knee amputations (AKA) are pretty involved, risky surgeries. There's a lot of significant vasculature in the thigh that can be difficult to control. The femur in the thigh is the strongest bone in the human body, breaking a healthy adult femur is the equivalent of cracking concrete. Contrary to what House says when he claims surgeons are going to err on the side of "caution" and take his leg to protect themselves from complications, there are a lot of risks involved in taking a ~70 lb limb from the body. Patients after an AKA are 4x more likely to suffer a cardiac event. It's not just about preserving function if at all possible (though that is a concern). AKA is lower risk than, say, allowing a necrotic muscle to continue to rot inside the body, but if a healthy person with a mobility device walks into a surgeon's office and says, "I would like to have my leg amputated because of chronic pain," many surgeons are resoundingly going to say no.

That is especially complicated by House having had an infarction, a blood clot. Muscular infarctions are rare and almost exclusively happen in diabetics, so for House to have had one as a nondiabetic man in his late 30s/early 40s, he probably has something unusual going on in his blood to cause atypical clotting factors. He should be taking bloodthinners to prevent another infarction from occurring. By definition, that makes him a higher risk patient for any surgeon--he comes off the bloodthinners for surgery, putting him at risk for another infarction, or he doesn't and he's now at risk for hemorrhage.

Add to the equation that House is American in the world run by insurance--no insurance company is going to approve an amputation in a guy who's walking with a cane. Some would probably try to slide it by as a cosmetic/elective surgery to escape any financial responsibility, so he'd be looking at around $50,000 out the gate for surgery alone.

But the question will it help? is one that... really can't be answered. Again, contrary to what the canon displays, phantom limb pain is seldom easily fixed and can become chronic, plus the physiology is extremely poorly understood, so it's much more difficult to treat than standard acute or chronic pain. There's a pretty good chance that, with time and healing after amputation, House would have a fairly normal, pain-free existence, given he'll always be disabled and he'll face the struggles of using a prosthetic/walker/crutches/whatever mobility aid he chooses. There's also a chance that he could continue to live in chronic pain, now less treatable, while healing a surgical incision and learning how to walk again. It could fall either way. (And potential complications, ie a second infarction, cardiac event, no limitations, there's a lot to work with.)

All of that said--this is just in terms of my experience and limited knowledge. I think amputee!House is something that should be explored more often in fandom, from all sides of the equation (1999, 2011, favorable outcomes, unfavorable outcomes). It's worth mentioning that within the scope of the House MD universe, House does believe that he would be a happier person in less pain if he had had his leg amputated.

In terms of fanworks, anything goes! (I mean I literally wrote a soliloquy on how/why Wilson's cancer is considered terminal while simultaneously writing my WilsonLives!AU, so it's safe to say we should all be comfortable hurling realism in the toilet for the sake of Fix It FanFiction.) There are no rules, medicine as we know it doesn't exist, you can do Whatever You Want for the sake of the narrative.

[userlaylivia]

tomorrow is the two year anniversary of when my dad passed away so I'll fill up my queue today but won't be here tomorrow so if you see me posting something it's my queue <3 a little backstory for the ones who don't know, my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer in September 2022 and he had two months to two years and didn't even make it two months and was too sick to do chemotherapy and could only do one radiation he also had blood clots and pneumonia which he never recovered from and as a cancer survivor myself it was hard watching him suffer like I did except he couldn't even move and they caught mine semi early though I fought it for almost four years the only good thing is my dad is at peace now and didn't have to suffer that long even though I'd rather him be with us ofc ugh but yeah it's always hard on the anniversary and his birthday and even mine and my mom's, brother's and daughter's because he's not here to celebrate with us but yeah I won't be here tomorrow just like last year I have to have a day away from here and go honor him and be with my family but ily all so much especially the ones who were there for me throughout it all and you know who are ilysm!!!

[vomitdodger]

There’s the details on the “slight” increase of adverse effects making the airwaves.

As always the details and methods matter. They ONLY looked at 13 specific events. Died suddenly was not one of them. And then they made those events as conservatively interpreted as possible.

And the events are not “slight”.

Link to the actual study is in the article above. Cut and paste of substack article below but the very alarming charts and graphs are not shown

Vigilant News

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Largest Vaccine Study Ever Reveals What the “Conspiracy Theorists” Have Said All Along

Despite claims that the increased risks of developing serious health conditions are “small” and “extremely rare,” it’s best to take a look for yourself.

THE VIGILANT FOX

FEB 23, 2024

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Scientists have found MASSIVE increased risks of developing several serious health conditions post-jab.

But headlines suggest the increased risk factors post-shot are “small” and “extremely rare.”

This study conducted by the Global Vaccine Data Network (GVDN) looked at a cohort of 99 million vaccinated individuals.

The risks of developing 13 adverse events of special interest (AESI) were compared to what was expected based on pre-COVID-19 vaccination healthcare data, or in simpler terms, if you did not receive the jab.

Despite claims that the increased risks of developing such conditions are “small” and “extremely rare,” it’s best to take a look for yourself (image via Daily Mail).

Moderna (1st Dose):

• Swelling of the brain and spinal cord: Almost four times (400%) increased risk

• Myocarditis: 3.48 times increased risk

• Pericarditis: 1.74 times increased risk

• Myocarditis (Second shot): 6.1 times increased risk

AstraZeneca:

• Blood clots: 3.23 times (320%) increased risk

• Guillain–Barré syndrome (could lead to paralysis): 2.49 times increased risk

• Pericarditis (Third Dose): 6.91 times increased risk

Pfizer:

• Myocarditis (First Dose): 2.78 times increased risk

• Myocarditis (Second Dose): 2.86 times increased risk

• Myocarditis (Third Dose): 2.09 times increased risk

Moderna (Further doses beyond the first):

• Myocarditis from the second shot: 6.1 times increased risk

• Pericarditis (Fourth Dose): 2.64 times increased risk

• Myocarditis from the third Dose: 2.01 times increased risk

Most of the above risk factors are calculated based on a single dose. When you consider many people took three shots or more, the results of the study become even more alarming.

Listen to what Del Bigtree, host of The Highwire, had to say:

"And they're not even talking about cancer ... but how about this? You're like, well, only six times the amount of myocarditis. But if you add that six times to the two or three times for myocarditis. And what about the blood clots and stroke? What happens?

"They're not just six by themselves. They all stack up. What are we, like, 20 times the amount of risk for getting totally jacked up by this vaccine? And they're only just starting the list.

"And trust me, the scientists did everything they could to make this as conservative as they possibly could because no one wants to be responsible for, God forbid, say, we need to recall a vaccine."

[all-pacas]

DIAGNOSTIC OLYMPICS, SEASON 2, EPISODES 1-9

S1: part one, part two, part three

Hi! I was curious about who on House (besides House) gets the most diagnoses right. Other folks have already run a tally (it's Chase), but I was curious how other factors would influence the tally — whose ideas get run with, who manages treatment, who screws up… So I thought I'd keep score.

1 point for getting the answer. This is almost always going to be House.

.5 points for Valuable Contribution — stuff that isn't the final answer, but either is thought to be the final answer or is valuable to the solving of the case. Stuff like "noticing something on the MRI" doesn't count; things like "figuring out how to treat" does.

-.5 to -1 for Mistakes — stuff that delays or prevents diagnoses, injuring or killing patients, etc.

ACCEPTANCE DIAGNOSES: Adrenaline tumor

+1 House: The only one who cares about the case, and the only one to do anything to solve it. -.5 Foreman: The patient crashes and he… stands there watching. “We don’t know what’s wrong with him, it’ll just buy him a few hours!” We’re not here to discuss the ethics of treating murderers (that’s for S6); that’s just bad doctoring. -1 Cameron: I can justify delaying telling her patient the cancer diagnoses (although it’s still not great), but the point that Cameron had it 100% confirmed and was shown just chatting and laughing with her new best friend instead of telling her? That’s negligence. By withholding information, Cameron is delaying treatment. She also refuses to help treat the main patient.

AUTOPSY DIAGNOSES: Blood clot

+1 House: While he doesn’t entirely get the diagnostic credit, he very much gets the credit for figuring out how to find and treat the clot. +.5 Team: Everyone kind of lands on “clot” at the same time. +.5 Cameron: Is able to hear the patient has an extra flap in her heart. This impresses House, and gets her the point. +.5 Foreman: Spots the clot when no one else does. +100 CHASE STOP IT: Went back and forth a lot about Chase kissing the patient, and decided finally he doesn’t get a demerit, because the criteria is actions that affect the case and diagnoses and medicine. Being manipulated by a 9 year old is a bad look, but it ended up having no effect on anything but Chase’s spine and conscience. Compared to Cameron’s demerit last episode: her having a fit about Death Row Guy wasn’t a problem (Foreman and Chase did too), it was her refusal to do anything for him that was. Foreman being mean about Rabies Lady last season was an issue not because it wasn’t nice, but because it led to him dismissing her symptoms and affected her treatment. Luckily for Chase’s points if not his ethics, kissing the 9-year-old after she manipulated him because he has a spine made of jello didn’t harm her.

HUMPTY DUMPTY DIAGNOSES: Chicken Disease

+.5 House: Another episode where I would argue his methods fail him. If he had followed up when he heard the brothers arguing about the patient’s job, or revealed he understood Spanish sooner, or interacted with the patients at all, then things might have been solved quicker. He still got there in the end, but his refusal to engage meant it took longer. +0 Cuddy: Her guilty insistence that this was all her fault was sympathetic, but did slow things down. Luckily, it had no real effect on the case: the patient had a reaction to meds she put him on, but it’s not clear House wouldn’t have done that anyway. +5 SHIP TEASE: This episode really seems to launch the House/Cuddy ship, between everyone’s insistence that they must have slept together in the past (something not established until much later), and House actually being sincere and nice to her in the end of the episode.

TB OR NOT TB DIAGNOSES: Pancreas Tumor (and TB)

+1 HOUSE: As usual, he figures it out. +.5 CAMERON: Goes against House’s orders and tests for TB, which the patient is unsurprisingly positive for. She doesn’t get points for that per se, but rather for smartly pointing out they have to rule out which of his symptoms are from the TB and which aren’t, which House agrees with. +.5 CHASE: Notices a small issue with his heart, which forms the main diagnoses theory most of the episode.

DADDY’S BOY DIAGNOSES: Radiation poisoning leading to tumors

+1 HOUSE: Another episode where they have no strong leads and are just chasing symptoms until the last second. +50 for Wilson’s terrible handwriting

SPIN DIAGNOSES: Pure Red Cell Aplasia

+1 HOUSE: Technically, Wilson first discovers the PRCA, but everyone assumes it’s a symptom, not the cause. +0 CAMERON: Spends the episode whining and complaining about the patient being an immoral cheater, but doesn’t let it interfere with her job. She’s learning! CHASE DID IT: First time the assumption for a patient worsening is “Chase messed up,” and it will not be the last!

HUNTING DIAGNOSES: Fox Parasites

+1 HOUSE: We’re really moving away from episodes that are strictly puzzles, which means House gets the win without much else to say. +1 ROWAN CHASE: He co-authored a paper on berylliosis that Chase read and connects to the case. House likes the theory, even if it doesn’t pan out. Roundabout, this is yet another example of Chase being weirdly up-to-date on old fashioned tech and illnesses. Does his dad just write a lot of papers? +0 CAMERON AND CHASE: I mean, we’re not judging on morals, just medicine, but stealing drugs and jumping a coworker/getting jumped by a high coworker and just going with it are definitely losing them both points somewhere. +50 RAT POINTS for Steve McQueen!

THE MISTAKE DIAGNOSES: Like eighteen things spiraling out of missed ulcers.

+0 TEAM: No real diagnosing in this episode; it’s all about Chase’s, well, mistake. -1 CHASE: Sorry, buddy. He had understandable reasons, his dad sucks, but he still killed a patient. On the plus side (or maybe making him feel worse), he genuinely had good rapport with her and her family and did a lot to help and support them. On the other hand: he killed a patient! No coming back from that!

DECEPTION DIAGNOSES: Munchausen’s, but also a bacterial infection.

+1 CAMERON: First correctly “diagnoses” Cushing’s, which the patient had faked the year before, so she wasn’t wrong exactly. Then realizes it’s munchausen’s and proves it handily. Good job Cameron! +.5 HOUSE: Giving him a few demerits this episode. On the one hand: He alone believes the patient is actually sick, and does whatever he can to prove it. On the other hand, he dismisses symptoms and the munchausen’s diagnosis even after it’s fairly obvious, doesn’t take a real history or do the tests asked of him… yes, he’s being an ass intentionally because he doesn’t like Foreman in charge, but he’s still fucking around with patient care. +0 FOREMAN: Once again hates the poor, and decides based on no evidence that the patient is an alcoholic. Even once they think she has a tumor on her pancreas. His second shot at running a case, and it’s still iffy: he’s enjoying being boss and not really thinking about medicine. NICE TOUCH: When House decides to make the patient sick for real, he uses colchicine — the gout medicine that was poisoning the kid all the way back in s1e3

RUNNING TALLY:

HOUSE: 23.5 TEAM: 4.5 FOREMAN: 1 CHASE: 2 CAMERON: 3

Cameron is, surprisingly, pulling ahead! Even with her demerits, she keeps having consistently solid ideas and has now twice come up with a diagnoses: in S1 putting the pieces together a moment before House, and in S2 realizing and proving munchausen's, even if it wasn't the "real" problem.