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zerokogane · 3 years

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I need to scream about certain fics so here are some of my favorite persona 5 fanfics (be warned most of these of not all are going to be shuake and ongoing)

Pt 2 https://zerokogane.tumblr.com/post/652917516478349312/lappel-du-vide-xov-persona-5-archive-of-our

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26995579

Ongoing, shuake, rated M, 300k+

Description:

What do you mean?” Ryuji tilted his head.

“It’s called Just Die. It reduces the SP needed for Insta kill skills like Mudoon or 'Please Die for Me' to zero.”

Ryuji and Ann blinked and blinked again trying to figure out what Morgana is trying to say. He watched as the gears churn in their head and they come to an epiphany, their faces growing horrified at the implications.

“Wait, you are saying. Joker can insta-kill literally everything in this palace. WITHOUT using SP at all?!” Ryuji clarified in astonishment because there is no way there isn’t a catch to this. “Without repercussion?!”

“Yes. That is exactly what I’m saying.”

Or the NG+ au where Akira knows more than he lets on, the Phantom Thieves start to suspect one of their own, and Akechi is in for a wild ride.

https://archiveofourown.org/series/1767610

Series 6/7 completed, no ships, ratings vary per part. 700k+(all 7 parts)

Discerption or first part in series :Forewarned

When Akira Kurusu is ten years old, his parents die in an accident.

One year later, he comes to Inaba. He doesn't expect to find family there, and he doesn't expect to find a hidden world of monsters inside the TV.

He finds both.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21227510

Shuake, ongoing, rated T, 300k+

Discerption:

In the Present...

...Akira and Goro are the famed Detective Princes of Tokyo! They've solved countless crimes and brought justice across the city, gaining allies and confidants wherever they've roamed! As election season approaches in the distance, and ominous warnings are whispered into their ears, will they be able to weather the storm to come?

In the Past...

...two young boys, abandoned by society and family alike, find each other. Will they be able to handle everything else they find, in the years to come?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/23989186

No ships, ongoing, rated T, crossover with bnha(sorta ? jokers in their universe but he doesn’t know why ) 280k+

Discerption:

“Foolish mortals!” Yaldabaoth’s shadow fell over them like a death shroud, “The sin of rebelling against a god is severe. As punishment, I banish you to other worlds unknown!”

Something changed in the air, like the snap charge of electricity after a thunder strike. No, this was more than that. The world shifted and changed and contorted, the weave of fate was unnaturally pulled by the God Of Control, creating fractals in the flow of time and space.

Joker’s teammates gasped as bizarre, otherworldly doors came into existence.

One, a pair of silver doors with alien markings, cracked open just a hair to reveal a large, terrifying eye. Another, a glowing paper door that would be at home in any vintage Japanese mansion. The third, a grand golden gate decorated with eyes and horned demons, bubbling black sludge dripped from its maw like tar. The final one was a fluctuating cloud of purple and black mist.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27656152

Shuake, ongoing, rated T, 250k+

Discerption:

From a young age, Akechi Goro was forced to accept that life is not fair. When the world is full of injustice and seems determined to throw that in your face at every chance it gets, what are you supposed to do? Sometimes you just need to tear the whole damn system down.

Meanwhile, Kurusu Akira just wants his friend back. He never meant to become a delinquent, much less the leader of the Phantom Thieves, but he supposes he’s never been very good at staying out of other people’s business.

(A soulmate au where writing gets transferred to each other’s skin. As a result, they become long-distance friends… until Akechi lets his jealousy and anger get the better of him, that is.)

( if you turned off by soulmate au’s trust me it’s good and it’s not as big part of the story as you would think, or not used in the “normal” way....idk your just gonna have to trust me one this one if the story sounds interesting cause it’s really good rant over)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26781733

Ongoing, shuake, rated M, 300k+

Discerption:

"Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticule, and together, achieving a singular purpose against statistically long odds."

In which Goro Akechi joins the team during Kaneshiro's palace arc instead of Makoto.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30827231

Ongoing, will be polythieves but we don’t know the specifics yet, rated M, 29k+

Discerption:

Yaldabaoth had been told of the Mythical Trickster. He had laid out the plans for his game expertly, all the pieces and threads in place, ready to pull the Trickster into the trial that would determine humanity's fate.

His plan, however, did not account for what he actually received: Twin Tricksters.

No matter... surely, this would not lead the game too astray. Would it?

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19818682

Ongoing, no ships with Akira but there is ann/shiho, rated M, 44+k

Discerption:

When Suou Akira is arrested for a crime he didn't do and sent to Tokyo for probation, all he wants to do is live as quietly as possible and return to his family in Sumaru City. Of course, things don't work out the way he wants them to.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31362848

One-shot completed, shuake, rated T, 7k+

Desertion:

'Akechi takes back his initial thought about this being an absolute pleasure to watch as the man, who was only a few mere feet away from Akira, whips his hand and flinging the freshly brewed two hundred and five-degree boiling hot coffee straight into Akira’s face.

Directly hitting Akira’s Glassless bare face.'

Or the one where Akira deals with a nasty, entitled customer and Akechi is perpetually in denial.

(For Akeshuake Hurt Comfort Week, Day Three, prompt: Illness/Injury!)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30837995

One-shot completed, Shuake, rated T 21k

Discerption: Pretending is part of Goro's daily life, masks hiding his true intentions and feelings are things he uses very often.

However, the idea of lying about his relationship status never occurred to him.

Yet, now he is in a "relationship" with Leblanc's barista to trick his colleague and the therapist who doesn't know that they don't know each other.

And between medical appointments, dates, and his personal investigations, Goro must now manage the storm that is his emotions when it concerns Akira Kurusu.

Where is the line between pretended and true love after all?

A Fake dating couple therapy story where Goro and Akira use lame excuses to date.

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theroyalmile · 4 years

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No Returns, No Exchanges

Disclaimer: I have debated for quite a while whether or not I should post this blog. Social media is such a curated space for joy and happiness, it can feel oppressive at times. There is so much life-changing positivity, from engagements to new jobs; and don’t get me wrong, that happiness is great to see. But on the other hand, all of that positivity makes me feel like sharing any kind of negative information is attention-seeking and an immense overshare. So let’s ask ourselves why I feel that way. Why is happiness celebrated while the sad, sometimes harsh realities of life are thought to be oversharing? More specifically, why do we feel like life-changing news can only be shared when it doesn’t make other people uncomfortable? Our expressions of pain should not be regulated by the comfort levels of the people who surround us. There comes a time when not sharing something begins to feel like hiding something, and hiding something turns to shame. That is a feeling that I refuse to welcome into my life right now. So here we go.

It has been a while since I posted anything… a really long while. It has been rare, these past few years, that I have even felt I had anything much to say let alone write anything, mostly because my life has been fairly normal, fairly unextraordinary, and I am rather blessed to be saying that during such a difficult time for so many. The few moments where I have felt like I had something to say have been fleeting, and after a good 2am word vomit on paper, I have filed these musings under “not to be seen by the light of day” which is probably for the best.

Sometimes in the past I would find myself wishing I had something interesting going on in my life, something worthy of commentary… I don’t know, I was thinking like a cool hobby, an interesting skill, a kick-ass career, or a run in with Tom Hardy like I’d always dreamed of… something.

Well, to whoever is in charge, this is not what I meant, and I would like to request a refund.

Because as its final parting kick in the ass 2020 decided to gift me with breast cancer. This isn’t a bad punch line, it’s just the truth.Let me give you a second to process that one. I certainly needed a few.

The thing is, a little itty bitty 3-centimeter tumor- that’s not something I can give back, as much as I might want to. It’s not a too-large sweater you can return with a gift receipt, and it’s not a bad haircut you can complain about and get your money back (though it certainly will include one in a week or so!)

A lot of you already know this story and frankly it’s not one I can tell with much finesse or humor, so I will keep it brief. It was a dark and stormy 6pm when I found a lump in my breast in the shower back in November. My initial thought was “you’re a crazy lady and a hypochondriac, let’s give it a few weeks since this is probably nothing.” A few weeks, when my imaginary lump seemed to not actually be imaginary, I figured okay, it’s time to see my doctor, it’s probably nothing but we need to make sure. I was in fact so unconcerned about it that I didn’t even see my regular doctor. I figured I just needed a medical professional to feel me up and let me know what to do next. I didn’t even bother mentioning it to my parents. (For context of my laissez-faire, when I was 14 I found a lump in my breast that turned out, after little fanfare, to be a cyst which was unceremoniously drained on a cold metal table by a male doctor in a somewhat traumatizing but ultimately benign event. That’s a longer story for later).

Cue a physical exam, confirming I was not crazy and there was a lump, but it was probably nothing; an utltrasound, confirming the lump was a shape that they did not like, but it was probably nothing; and an ultrasound guided biopsy, in which the probably nothing was sampled. The week between Christmas and New Year’s was spent impatiently waiting for the news, increasingly feeling that my probably nothing was maybe, actually something.

On December 28 around lunch time I received a phone call in the middle of the work day from the radiologist, who while very nice, was someone I had only met once while she shot a needle in and out of my boob. She asked me how I was doing and then told me my test results were in. “I’m sorry to say it’s not good news,” she said.

And believe it or fucking not my immediate thought was “It’s not good news… it’s great news!” My brain supplied this as if on autopilot like some kind of 90s game show host, knowing fully well that I would not be so lucky because we are not living in a Brooklyn 99 episode. It’s weird where your brain goes under duress.

It was one of the most uncomfortable phone calls I have ever had, wherein I found myself trying to reassure a complete stranger that I was okay and I’m pretty sure I even said, “it is what it is.” I was told a breast surgeon and oncologist from my provider network would be in contact and the call ended. Ultimately, I was diagnosed with Stage 1B Triple Negative Invasive Ductal and Lobular Carcinoma. No returns, no exchanges.

I am two months into my diagnosis, and 1/8 of my way through chemotherapy, the first part of a three series treatment (to be followed by surgery and then likely radiation.) This Friday, after my second chemotherapy treatment, I will begin to lose my hair. Anyone who knows me at all knows that the hair loss will be a pill likely far harder for me to swallow than the chemo itself. And while the look may have worked for Demi Moore in GI Jane, I do not have her bone structure, nor her body. I anticipate I will look more like the yellow peanut M&M, which while obviously the best M&M of the bunch, I think we can all agree is not a cute look for me.

I do not say this to be melodramatic, I just say this because I am cynical and pragmatic by nature: I am not particularly surprised that I have cancer. And this is for several reasons, some of which probably deserve a longer blog later. To put it simply, I have been surrounded by cancer, both by choice and by cruel fate and happenstance, my entire life.

Cruel Fate and Happenstance: Having several relatives who have gone through cancer, and a mother with a BRCA 1 genetic mutation (which I had a 50% chance of inheriting, and in fact did) I always figured it would eventually happen to me. The odds this condition dealt me? “About 13% of women in the general population will develop breast cancer sometime during their lives. By contrast, 55%–72% of women who inherit a harmful BRCA1 variant… will develop breast cancer by 70–80 years of age.” That 55-72% is the kind of percentage you want winning the lottery, but the lottery this most certainly is not, and that much I understood. So, I always figured something like this would probably happen. Did I think I would be 28? No. But I figure that just makes me an overachiever.

Choice: I volunteered at a cancer support non-profit from the time I was 12 to the time I was 22, and I wrote my college senior thesis in anthropology on women with ovarian cancer, the cancer that killed my aunt Lizzy when I was 4 years old. I have likely read more books on cancer than your average newly diagnosed person, which I find to be both a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I know some of what’s coming. On the other hand, I know some of what’s coming. Of course I don’t think any of these things gave me cancer but you might say I have been training for this my whole life. I think this joke is far funnier than pretty much everyone I say it to except my immediate family, because the Tenney/Koss folk are very big on gallows humor, in which case this is hilarious. Comedy is our family coping mechanism, and I am guilty of occasionally forgetting not everyone is wired like that.

So where are we right now? Taking it day by day. Do I frequently find myself wallowing in self-pity these days? Sure. But all the same I feel truly lucky. This is a feeling I am trying to hold on to, because I think the other options might be truly unbearable. Why? Well, I found this tumor. I’m 28-years-old, which means I am hardly old enough for a regular mammogram and MRI. My last yearly physical was a TeleHealth appointment (hence no actual physical) and I will be honest, I never made a habit of regularly checking myself like I should have. But this tumor just presented itself casually during a shower. Breast cancer, when caught early, is highly treatable and curable, and I am fairly confident, knock on wood, that is where this particular nightmare is headed. The fact that it was caught early: pure luck.

Another reason I feel lucky is for the most part, I feel like I actually have the stability to handle the oncoming struggle. I have a large and wonderful support system, an incredible and supportive partner, a savings account with actual savings in it, and a job where I am cared about as a human. If this had happened to me three years ago, almost none of these things would be true. There will never be a good time to have cancer, but some times are apparently better than others. Of course, the ongoing pandemic means I can’t have people go with me to chemo, or my wig fitting, or my surgery consultations, and alone a lot of this seems much more daunting and difficult than it might otherwise have been, but I am trying to make a habit of counting my blessings, and despite this terrible thing I’ve been given, my blessings are many.

There isn’t a “right way” to have cancer, but I think there might be a “right way” for me. I am a private person and I find sharing some of these details difficult and more than a little uncomfortable, but I am also intimately familiar with the healing nature of writing and comedy, so I am going to give it a shot.

And now that I think of it… the peanut M&M is going to make a really great Halloween costume.

#cancer #breast cancer #personal #newly diagnosed

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chiisai-fukurou · 4 years

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About my hiatus :)

Long time no see... It has been a while since I published an article here...

A lot has happened and I think I cannot look at my blog the same way I did... I’ve been to Japan again last December and it was wonderful. I’ve spent a lot of time helping my friends and a lot of time visiting a neurologist for some troubles I’ve had for as long as I could think. It took a lot of time off of my schedule that I had to work hard to get back.

For a long time I had to fight with that feeling of being alien and not being able to fit in. For as long as I could think a lot of things just went over my head and I couldn’t fathom some things that happened around me. I cannot share a lot of things people around me think and talk about. There has been this suspicion that I’m autistic for a long time now so last year I decided to bite the bullet and get an appointment for a diagnosis.

It took 7 month of waiting for me to get to my first appointment. I chose a reputable neurologist/psychologist because I’m not a fan of “I think I have XX and just need a doctor to sign the diagnosis I made myself.” because if you want to improve your situation an accurate assessment of your current status is kind of paramount. I had several, hours long appointments that were quite costly but to me it was worth the time and money I paid for it. It was a very interesting experience too. There is a lot of testing and there are a lot of questions being asked to make sure it isn't something else causing you these troubles. There are a lot of things that can cause similar symptoms that are not autism. So carefully getting to the bottom of things takes time and multiple appointments to make sure that a bad or a good day didn't impact the diagnosis. I had to get a MRT too to make sure it is not brain damage that is causing the symptoms. I’m happy to declare that my brain is okay :) I’m however impartial to the diagnosis of autism/Aspergers.

I’m very happy I did this. The diagnosis allows me to get adequate help should I need it and it helps me understand my surroundings a lot better. The neurologist had a great analogy for my situation too: Autists have a different operating system running their hardware. Stimuli get processed in a very different way and there is no filter or automation happening that could help you with even simple conversations... Hence the seeming inability of autistic people to do smalltalk... Imagine the hell that human interaction can be, having to think of every sentence you say because you cannot do it casually or automatically, not being able to read the mood, knowing that you disappointed or hurt people without any chance of preventing it in the future... To many people this sounds weird and like I’m not even trying... I’m and the Neurologist told me I’m really well adapted but there are limits to how well one can adjust. Basically “normal” people have a social autopilot that handles a lot of things for them and autistic people don’t. We can never really relax in a social event because we get battered with details that we can't filter out. It’s tiring and yet I wish it wouldn't be tiring... because I wish to share things with friends and people. It took some time to get things sorted and deal with this experience.

I’m fine and in some way I felt liberated and happy I finally know what is up.

I had to weed out some connections that caused me grief and think of many things that happened in the past. A lot of things make sense now :)

I had an accident too this year breaking my left arm (;_;) and some stuff on my bicycle... I had a strained neck too... the surgeon didn't want to believe how quickly my bones healed (°_°;) The crack that ran through 75% of my Ulna wasn't visible or detectable anymore after 3 weeks... The accident happened while I was riding at 40 km/h on my bicycle and touched a curb with the wheels... It happened after a long long day at work right when the whole COVID19 thing started to take off in Germany. I couldn’t get lunch at work and had spend the whole day on water with a empty tummy... I was tired, hungry and worn out. I just wanted to go home and didn't pay enough attention...

Anyway I’m fine now :) My bike is fine again too :)

However because of this a lot of tasks at work were piling up and when I came back I had to do a lot of stuff trying to get on top of things... Because I work at a company that makes medical devices the current situation kind of overwhelmed the company as well... basically we get as many orders per month as we used to get within a year... This is incredibly challenging as our suppliers often can't keep up with the demand but I’m very happy to report that everyone of them is doing their best to keep up and to stay on top of the whole situation :,) I’m happy i can do my small part in saving lives and I think that a company where people stick together and try to do their best in trying times is incredibly valuable :)

Last year, while travelling through Japan, I once again noticed how awful tourist spots have become (-_-) Japan is close to my heart and I like the country and its people a lot. Many tourists behave badly, not out of ill intent but out of ignorance... Japanese value quiet, peaceful and clean behaviour but a lot of tourists seem to be unable to behave this way... They litter, leave toilets behind that are disgusting, are rude, don’t pay attention and seem to think Japan is a theme park. I like this country and I’m saddened that other foreigners tarnish the image of visitors and are taking advantage of incredibly kind people who welcome you as a guest :,( I felt bad that I wrote all those articles that might have inspired this kind of people to go to Japan :,( I want this kind of people to stay at home. You're ruining it for everyone else. My friends cheered me up a lot. Still the sight of drunken tourists puking on Takao-San in Tokyo or yelling loudly in a group at a shrine, throwing their cigarets and garbage on the streets in Kyoto, running through the streets while yelling or necessitating the fencing in of neighbourhood shrines because some dippshit thought it would be fun to put graffiti on them makes me incredibly sad. I’m sorry for the negativity but this has been troubling me a lot.

I received some questionable messages too... I’m a guy but some people seemed to assume that I’m a Japanese girl for some reason...

Anyway I kind of came to terms with things and will start writing again.

I hope people will become more respectful over time :)

I’m sorry for the rant I put in this article m(_ _)m I felt like I had to get it off of my chest because this has been bothering me a lot.

P.S. if you think autism is caused by vaccines, being autistic is better than being dead or to suffer from the consequences of an otherwise preventable disease. You do not “get” autism, one of the conditions that has to be met to get a diagnosis is that you had to have symptoms right from the start. Things that can cause similar symptoms are brain damage, PTSD, ADHD (you are born with that too and cannot get it) and certain medications. These however are different from autism in that they have to be treated differently. Hence the focus during diagnosis on making sure not to diagnose one of the other things as autism. I showed symptoms for as long as I can think back.

I hope you’ll forgive me for my long absence and won't change your attitude towards me :)

I’m still me albeit more confident and accepting of myself since I don't need to pester myself with questions like “why didn't i understand that.”, “Why can't I do that?”, etc. :)

Thank you to everyone who read through all of this :) I wish you a great time with sweet daydreams (^-^)/

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kelseyshljourney · 3 years

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My HL (Hodgkin’s Lymphoma) Journey

“You have cancer”. I heard these words on a sunny July afternoon in 2020. July 23rd to be exact. I had a chest biopsy that was done that Tuesday, the 21st and anxiously waited for the results. I was not prepared to hear those words ever in my entire life nor is there anything that can prepare you for it. I was 6 months pregnant with my daughter, Madison, at the time so you can imagine the emotions I was feeling were heightened because of the pregnancy. Let me start at the beginning. Welcome to my cancer story.

My cancer journey started during my pregnancy with my aforementioned daughter. I found out I was pregnant with our first child in February 2020. I’ll make it clear that I had a wonderful pregnancy (cancer stuff put aside) and my daughter is happy, healthy, and living her best life. We were wonderfully blessed to be on this journey of pregnancy and enjoying every part of it. Although, I would not recommend being pregnant during a pandemic. Now being in 2021, there’s more that we know about COVID-19 but the beginning was rough. During the first trimester of pregnancy, my midwife brought up information about genetic testing that is available to pregnant moms for their babies that can be done through a simple blood test. It’s a carrier screening test that’s optional but does check to see if I am a carrier for 3 genetic abnormalities (Down Syndrome, Trisomy 18, and Trisomy 13). I almost didn’t do this blood test because whether or not I was a carrier for the 3 different abnormalities, it wouldn’t change the outcome of the pregnancy. If I ended up being a carrier, my husband, Rob, would also have to be carrier in order for it to be most likely passed down to our baby. I decided to do it because it was covered by my insurance and it was a quick visit to my clinic to get my blood drawn. No big deal.

I got the test done in April and then didn’t hear anything right away. I didn’t think much of it but I realized that I never got my results back on the test so I called my clinic to get my future appointments set up and then spoke directly with my midwife. She asked me if I heard anything from the lab about my results and I told her that I hadn’t. She ended up calling them and then called me right back. She said that my results came back as “inconclusive” as the lab could not determine if I was a carrier for any genetic abnormality because a lot of my DNA strands are incomplete with parts missing. My midwife said that out of her 30+ years of doing this job, she has never heard of this result before. Great. I was concerned about what this meant for the baby and concerned since my midwife didn’t know how to handle this. My care was transferred over to a Maternal & Fetal Medicine (M&FM) doctor who I saw for the rest of my pregnancy as I was now considered to be high risk. During this same week (the week of May 18th), I had a visit over the phone with a genetic counselor who told me that the result of the genetic test could be the cause of something as simple as being anemic (not getting enough iron) or something more serious like a tumor (whether benign or malignant). I was told that the least likely of it to be would be a tumor (I can laugh about this now but the irony). I also had a breast ultrasound at the hospital to make sure there were no lumps that could be causing this (there weren’t – I was clear).

At this point, I was feeling stressed but overall still feeling good and excited about my pregnancy despite this hiccup (or what I thought was just a hiccup). I had a few visits with the M&FM doctor and had more ultrasounds than a “normal” pregnancy so that they can check to make sure that Baby E was growing as she should and didn’t show any outward signs of a genetic disability. I had a lot of blood work done but it all came back clear and showing no signs of anything going wrong in my body. For a while, I felt like a test subject and with every test that was ordered and prick in my arm I was getting annoyed that I wasn’t getting to enjoy a “normal” pregnancy with all the visits that I had. I say “normal” because every pregnancy is different for every woman. When my doctor told me that the last thing she wanted to order for me was chest CT and an MRI to confirm there was not a tumor in my body, she promised she would let me enjoy my pregnancy and not order any more tests. I almost almost declined the MRI and CT because I felt like I didn’t want to go through that and be exposed to possible radiation and on top of that, I felt fine. God was really watching out for me and leading me in the direction to get the diagnostic tests done.

On July 8th, I had the MRI and CT done. I was with Rob when I got the call from my doctor that afternoon to go over the results. The MRI was unclear because of the baby moving but from what they could see, there was nothing that came up. However, the CT scan showed a mass in my chest that was the size of a distorted hockey puck; measuring at 7 ½ cm by 7cm by 2 cm and was located between my heart and my lung. I was watching Rob tear up and all I could say to him as soon as I hung up with my doctor was. “I’m going to be okay” over and over again. I think I was in complete shock over hearing that there is a tumor in my chest that could be cancer. We had my family over that night and I broke down several times throughout the night. I remember saying that I want to watch my child grow up (since we didn’t know the sex of the baby at the time) and I was scared that I wouldn’t have that chance. I went to bed that night thinking that I was going to die during the night because of the tumor. To be very clear, I wasn’t having suicidal thoughts or anything but when I was told that I have a tumor in my chest, the first thought that went through my mind was that I wouldn’t live to see the next day. This sounds dramatic as I’m writing this but it's the truth. In reality, I probably have had this tumor for a year, two years, or even longer. No one truly knows.

Between finding out about the tumor and getting the chest biopsy done was about 2 weeks. I can tell you that it was the slowest 2 weeks of my life. During this time, Rob and I were busy packing and getting ready to move into our house. So on top of being in the middle of a pandemic, being pregnant, having a tumor in my chest (without knowing if it was cancer), we were moving too. These two weeks were filled with prayers and spending time with friends and family. I had many breakdowns but Rob helped by feeding me all my favorite foods (I was pregnant after all). We moved into our house on July 16th. It was a wonderful day and we are thankful for the friends and family that helped us move into our new space. It was an exhausting time but so worth it. As mentioned at the beginning of this, I had my chest biopsy on Tuesday, July 21st. They couldn’t put me under because I was pregnant but my midwife prescribed me something that would be safe to take while pregnant but will help calm me during the procedure. It was a surreal feeling laying on the procedure table seeing a needle sticking out my chest and moving with every breath I took. Without that medication, I would have probably freaked out since I knew that the needle was close to my heart and lung.

Me in post-op.

2 days later is when I got the call from my doctor telling me the life changing news: I have cancer. God works as wonderfully as he does because that day my mom and grandma happened to come over for lunch, a rare occurrence during the work week so they were there when I got the call. I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (HL), which happens to be a very treatable cancer. My doctor told me that she has already been in contact with the oncology team at the hospital to have someone get a hold of me to get an appointment set-up right away. I called all of our family who came over to process the news with me. There were many tears shed between all of us and I couldn’t eat or drink anything because I was so stressed and worried about what this means for my future and Madison’s future. That night, I got a call from Dr. Anderson who became my oncologist during this journey. We met with him the following day at the hospital to go over my CT and MRI scan images and to go over treatment options. He discussed that the general treatment plan for HL was chemotherapy and possible radiation. He also discussed the staging (HL is staged from stage I to stage IV) but because I was pregnant, they were limited in what tests they could order to determine a true stage until after I give birth. For example, they would normally perform a PET scan to confirm where the cancer is in my body but weren’t able to because it’s not safe for the baby. I was originally stage I but borderline stage II because of the size of my cancer and they knew that because of the chest CT. One thing he suggested was to get a bone marrow biopsy done to confirm that the cancer hasn’t spread to my bone marrow (which is a common place for HL to be).

I can tell you now that doing the bone marrow biopsy rivals the pain of childbirth. I was 6 months pregnant when I had the bone marrow biopsy done and it is a very painful procedure. I had the biopsy done on August 5th and what they do is take two samples from my pelvic bone, a liquid sample and a solid sample. The thing is, they could only numb the area where the needle was inserted into my body but there was no way to numb my actual pelvic bone so that is where I felt the pain and it was one of the worst things I’ve ever experienced. I’ll be honest, I cried during it but I luckily had a wonderful nurse who held my hand and talked me through the pain the entire time. Fortunately, the results came back confirming that there was no cancer to be found in my bone marrow. I was still considered to be stage I at this point in my cancer journey but that changed once I gave birth. I’ll get into that a little later.

This was the day after. I was very sore. Peep at the zubaz.

Now that the bone marrow biopsy was done, we met again with Dr. Anderson to go over options. I had the choice of starting chemotherapy while still pregnant (it’s generally safe since I was in my third trimester) or wait until I give birth to start. It was a very heavy decision to make. On one hand if I were to start chemotherapy while still pregnant, there are possible negative side effects for the baby: low birth weight, preterm labor (which ended up happening anyway), mental issues, and fertility issues. On the other hand, if I wait to receive chemotherapy until after the birth, am I putting my health at risk and possibly getting worse with the cancer? Rob and I went back and forth, talked to our families about it, and prayed – a lot.

After a lot of thinking, I decided to wait until after the birth to start chemotherapy. I was feeling good overall and not feeling the “normal” symptoms of HL. I was considered asymptomatic (not showing any symptoms) but here are the common symptoms for HL:

· Persistent fatigue

· Night sweats

· Fever

· Unexplained weight loss

· Severe itching

· Painless swelling of lymph nodes in neck, armpits, or groin

I came to the conclusion that whatever decision I made was the right decision. I knew that I wanted to ride out the rest of my pregnancy without causing any possible disruption to my daughter and her growth. In lieu of receiving treatment during pregnancy, I had to go in for weekly blood work to make sure that everything was still coming back normal (for a pregnancy). My oncologist did order a blood test that checked inflammation in my body. This is called an erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and the number was already elevated because of pregnancy but also if it was higher than what my oncologist wanted, it would help determine that there might be something bad happening in my body. The number slowly increased as the weeks went on and as I got more and more pregnant. Fortunately, the number was still low enough to satisfy my oncology team. I also had an echocardiogram on July 27th and lung function test on August 3rd to get a baseline on where my heart and lungs were. Of course being pregnant means that my lung function test came back with skewed results than what would be normal. They get these baselines since the drugs that I will be receiving during chemotherapy can affect the heart and lungs negatively so they want to keep a close eye on it. They both came back fine, my heart is strong and my lungs were functioning as well as they could with the rest of my organs pressed into them (yay pregnancy).

I had my last ultrasound for my daughter when I was 33 weeks pregnant and the last time that I would see the M&FM doctor as I would be seen every week until I gave birth with my midwife. Little did I know, I would be walking into the hospital on Sunday evening, September 13th because my water broke (I’ll never forget Rob’s face when they confirmed that my water broke – it was priceless!) A little worried but ready for anything, I was ready to give birth despite her being 6 weeks early. Since I was only 1cm dilated, the plan was to induce me the next morning and start the process of giving birth. Apparently my daughter Madison had a different plan because I spent the night dealing with veeerrry painful contractions before I got the epidural. Seriously, a game changer. When the doctors came in to check how I was doing with the epidural, they were surprised to find that I was 9cm dilated and told me that I was about to start pushing. Since I was without sleep and very tired and given the epidural, I was ready to do the damn thing. After an hour of pushing, Madison was born on September 14th at 6:51am! She spent 13 days in the NICU but was never needing any respiratory support at only being at 34 weeks but was healthy and happy.

Once Madison was home from the hospital, it was time for me to get started with my official cancer journey. On September 29th, I had a PET scan done and this helped to confirm everything we knew but also showed something unexpected; there was another lymph node that lit up in my chest too. This put me officially in stage II HL. The treatment plan remained the same though; I were to receive a chemotherapy combination of drugs abbreviated ABVD (every letter represents a different chemo drug). This part is hard to write because even discussing these drugs makes me nauseous and queasy (something that I don’t think will go away anytime soon). The “A” in the “chemo cocktail” side effect is hair loss. Something that I have prepared myself for, or as much as I could, but nothing can prepare you for when it actually starts happening. I knew that the hair loss was temporary and I would rather be bald for a short time than have cancer for the rest of my life. We got together with some friends at the end of September interspersed so they can meet Madison and also to spend some time together before Rob and I made the decision to lock down our house from visitors. We also made the decision to limit our circle of people that we will see in the coming months. We did this because we knew that my health was going to decline because of chemo and also with the threat of COVID, my immune system couldn’t take the risk of getting sick. It was a very difficult decision since we thrive on social situations and we love hanging out with our friends and family but it was vital that we don’t see many people. This really affected my mental health as I rely on our friends to get me through hard times and this was hands down one of the hardest times that I will probably go through.

Over the course of the next 6 months, I will experience the ups and downs (a lot more downs than ups) of receiving chemotherapy and the effect that this has on my body. I would never wish chemotherapy and the pain associated with it on anybody. I know that this was extremely tough on my family and friends to see me in such a state. Chemotherapy and the days after it are a nightmare that you can’t wake up from. It was my reality waking up every day and knowing that I still have cancer and have the possibility of getting really sick from it or something worse (don’t worry, I never got into a dark head space but I also needed to make sure I was realistic in all the possibilities). My only other experience with cancer is not a positive one. My sister in law, Beth, passed away from stage IV malignant melanoma on March 26th, 2017. From the time she was diagnosed to the time she passed away, it was about 6 months so you can imagine what was going through my mind when I was diagnosed with this horrible disease.

On Monday October 5th, I underwent outpatient surgery to get an implantable port that was put in my chest. This port is used for chemotherapy and is an alternative to having the nurses inserting a needle in my vein each chemo session because over time, the chemotherapy drugs can negatively affect strong veins. The port uses a special needle during chemotherapy to inject the drugs and connected to the port is a tube (I’m sure there’s a medical term but I’m not medically trained) that ran up to a main vein near my neck that was connected directly to my heart so that the drugs were dispersed quickly through my body. It was never painful during the time that I had it and I looked forward to the day when I would be able to get my port out because that means that I was cancer free and no longer receiving chemotherapy.

Also in post-op. Notice the 2 different spots where they cut open. The bottom cut is where the port rested.

On Thursday, October 8th, I had my first chemotherapy session. Luckily the hospital allowed one visitor to come with patients so Rob was fortunately able to come with me. My mom was staying with us for a few weeks to help with the transition of chemotherapy and making sure that someone was able to take care of Madison in case that I was not able to (thinking of this breaks my heart because I never wanted to be a position where I couldn’t take care of my own child). Rob and I showed up to the hospital early in the morning at about 8am and didn’t leave until a little after 3pm. It’s safe to say that it was a very long, draining, exhausting day. Not all chemotherapy sessions were this long but because it was my first one, there’s more that happens than normal. Walking into the oncology suite for the first time to get chemotherapy was nerve-wracking because I didn’t know what to expect. I also felt a lot of eyes on me from the other people also waiting to get chemotherapy and I knew they were looking at me because of my age. Most of them were a lot older. I did come across someone one time who was just a few years older than me (they usually ask date of birth when checking in so that’s how I knew) and I could tell it was his first time because he looked as nervous as I did during my first visit.

At the hospital, they have both private rooms and a public space too. We were lucky enough to get a private room and it made things a little easier and helped to ease my anxiety knowing that if anything negative were to happen, I wouldn’t be in a public area where other people could witness it. The first nurse that I had was Jen and she was incredible. I’ll say that every nurse that I had were awesome. Anyways, they stared out each visit by taking blood work through my port. They want to make sure that I met the threshold with my blood work to be able to receive chemo because if I am below that threshold for what they are comfortable with, I would be deemed too sick to receive chemo and it would have to be delayed. Luckily I never got to that point but I came close a couple of times. They mainly check my hemoglobin and my white blood cell count but there’s a few other numbers they check as well. I then had a visit with my oncologist who walked me through what each drug’s side effects are. It also was an opportunity to ask questions. The main side effects entailed nausea, lack of appetite, headaches, fatigue, numbness in hands and feet, and night sweats. To help curb the nausea, there were “pre-meds” that were given to me before I received the chemo drugs that mainly were anti-nausea drugs.

Once my oncologist left, it was just me, Rob, and Jen. Jen started to give me one of the pre-med drugs called Emend. It’s an anti-nausea drug that was given to me through my port. Jen just started the drip from the IV bag when I started to feel my chest tighten and my face got flushed. I asked Jen if it was normal to feel this way and she stopped what she was doing immediately and told me that it’s not normal. She stopped the drip right away, pressed a button in the room, and then all of a sudden, it went from the 3 of us to about 7-8 people in the tiny room. There were nurses, helpers, and a pharmacist that came in the room. Someone was taking my vitals (heart rate, oxygen level, and temperature), while the nurses there checking my legs for swelling. As soon as she stopped the drip, the tightening in my chest went away and I was able to breathe normally. My vitals came back fine but my heart rate was through the roof because having that many people in the room spiked my anxiety and then there were people that were sticking their heads out of their rooms to see what was going on. It was slightly embarrassing because I felt fine and I don’t like being fussed over. The pharmacist explained that they will discontinue giving me the Emend but he also explained that this is not a common thing that occurs for most people so I most likely had an allergic reaction to the drug. Once everyone left my room, Jen gave me a huge dose of Benadryl to counteract the Emend so I ended up falling asleep for most of the session and I was in and out of consciousness so I don’t really remember much from my first session. I woke up periodically when Jen came in the room with the chemo drugs. I think Rob left the room for a little bit to get some food from the café and to stretch his legs.

The drug that always came first was the Adriamycin (A) which had to be administered by the nurse sitting next to me and slowly injecting it in a timely manner. The rest of the drugs, Bleomycin (B), Vinblastine (V), and Doxorubicin (D), were given via IV bags that were slowly administered over a period of time. When 3pm came around, I finished up my last drug and was able to leave. I went home and slept for a long time.

I received chemo every other week. I was considered to be toxic for the first 72 hours after, which means my bodily fluids should not be handled by anyone but me. Rob and I deemed our downstairs bathroom as the “chemo bathroom” so that’s what I used every time. After going to the bathroom, I have to put the toilet seat down and flush twice. If I vomited, I would need to be the one to clean it up but if someone were to help, they would need to wear a mask and gloves. Fortunately I never vomited during my cancer journey (mind over matter). For the rest of my chemo sessions, they were mostly uneventful. There was a point where the hospital changed their visitor policy and I was not able to bring Rob to the appointments so I had to go alone. This really took an effect on my mental health and negatively affected my health knowing that I would have to endure the sessions alone. I felt like my health declined during that time period so for a few months, I was going alone and sitting in the public area. I usually would bring our Nintendo Switch, read, or I would sit and watch Tik Toks. I would have a song in my head on how I was feeling that day so I would usually send the song to my family to let them know where my head space was at that day.

For those that are wondering, a chemo cycle is about a month long (28 days). In each cycle, there are 2 sessions. The plan was to do 2 cycles and then have a repeat PET scan done (which was the end of November) and then most likely 4 more cycles of chemo after that and then another PET scan (which was in March). As I mentioned earlier, one of the side effects from one of the chemo drugs is hair loss. My oncologist prepared me that I most likely will lose my hair. Easier said than done. I didn’t see any hair loss during my first cycle but I knew that it was only a matter of time. When I started my second cycle of chemo, that’s when it happened. It was the week of Halloween and I believe it was a Tuesday when I took a shower during the day. As mentioned before, my mom was living with us to take care of Madison and I am thankful that she was there. This is a vulnerable topic to discuss for me because even though I know the hair loss is temporary, our hair makes us part of who we are as people and you can’t convince me otherwise. When I started washing my hair, I pulled out a huge portion. I kept pulling out more and more hair and I broke down crying in the shower. I eventually made it out and showed my mom what happened. This was one of the toughest days of my journey. I ended up sleeping for about 6 hours after that because I was emotionally and mentally drained. That night, Rob bought me my favorite food from a hibachi place close by our house and that helped my spirits a little bit.

The rest of the week I avoided washing my hair when I took my showers because I wasn’t ready to go through that trauma again because despite pulling out a few handfuls, I still had plenty of hair on my head. I said at the beginning of the journey that I wasn’t planning on shaving my head and that I would just keep what hair I could but I changed my decision on that. On Halloween was when I became bald. I was prepared this time when I went to take a shower as I brought in a few shower beers and had loud music playing. I walked out of the bathroom and showed Rob, who was watching Madison, the hair that I pulled out and with tears in my eyes, I asked him if he could shave my head. I can tell you that afterwards, I didn’t feel sad, I felt liberated more than anything because this was my decision and not something that the cancer could take away from me. I was in pretty good spirits and spent the night playing board games with my brother and sister in law. We dressed Madison up as a Chipotle burrito even though she didn’t like that (she wasn’t in it long). I now am in possession of a few wigs and some hair wraps and hats. My family has never seen me without a hat or a wig on because being bald is the only physical trait that links me to cancer. I want them to always remember me with hair because this is already tough on them that I don’t want them to have that memory of me.

One thing that I didn’t mention earlier but with the Bleomycin (B), this was a drug that caused my loss of appetite, fatigue, and overall nausea after each chemo session. This drug is known to cause negative effects on the lungs so I was carefully monitored by getting lung function tests done. The last one that I did was at the end of my first cycle where they saw a slight drop in my lung function so they stopped giving me this drug so I was only getting AVD for the rest of my cycles. My oncologist explained that it’s better to have some of this drug in my regimen than not getting it at all and it’s about 50% of the time that it’s dropped at some point during the chemo journey. I overall felt better and got my appetite and some of my energy back. I started working out again and felt like I could get through the day without feeling like I needed a nap. I probably would have napped more if I didn’t have Madison at home but I wanted to give as much attention to her as possible. I’ve said this many times to my family, friends, and coworkers, but Madison will always be my dose of serotonin when I’m having a bad day.

After going through 2 successful chemo sessions, it was time to get another PET scan done. This happened on November 30th. I got the results of the scan 2 days later with Dr. Anderson. He explained that the chemo drugs are doing their job and he saw a huge improvement in the cancer that was found in my body. The mass in my chest also decreased in size. He showed me the scans and I was blown away with the difference. Seeing the cancer light up in my body gave me goosebumps and brought tears to my eyes but also seeing the improvement gave me so much hope. The game plan after this visit was to go through 4 more cycles (about 4 months) of chemo and then do another PET scan.

On December 30th, I was starting my 4th cycle and I wasn’t scheduled for a visit with my oncology team that day. I had my routine bloodwork done and then I was sitting in a private room waiting for my pre-meds when my nurse for the day came in. She told me that it was taking longer to get the blood work back because my white blood cell count was so low that they had to individually count my white blood cells. Individually. Count. Meaning, I was almost at the threshold of being too sick to get chemo and inevitably delaying treatment. The nurse warned to be extra careful and to avoid leaving the house since I could not risk getting sick now. I only left the house to go to chemo at this point so I wasn’t seeing many people anyways. I remember calling my mom and telling her the news and breaking down crying because I was scared. It’s hard for me to admit that and I felt scared during this process more than I let on to my family and friends because I hate feeling vulnerable. I was able to still get treatment that day but I also didn’t feel very good during that visit. This happened one other time, which happened to be my last chemo session that I had.

One scary event that happened was when I suddenly couldn’t breathe. I was in the middle of my workday, Madison was being watched by my sister in law at my house, and I was in the kitchen walking back to my computer when I started having a hard time breathing. I sat down and tried to take a few calming breaths. I calmly told Briana that I wasn’t able to take a proper breath and I then told her that I’m going to call my oncology team to see what they would recommend. I spoke with a nurse who told me to come in right away. She said she spoke with my oncology team who recommended getting some tests done to see what is going on. I went to the hospital and had an EKG done and also a chest CT. My oncologist said the EKG came back fine and so did the CT. They thought possibly that I could have a blood clot but that wasn’t the case. They recommended taking it easy and to take some ibuprofen when I got home, which I did and I started to feel better and was able to take a deep breath again. This happened on February 2nd. I didn’t have that feeling ever again.

On March 10th, 2021 is when I completed my 6th and final chemo cycle. Despite having a low white blood cell count, I was in pretty high spirits hoping that this was going to be my last chemo session ever. I had the last PET scan on March 22nd and went over the results with Dr. Anderson on March 24th. I was a bundle of nerves and holding Rob’s hand when my oncologist walked into the room and what he started saying was ominous. He started out by saying that the scans look good but aren’t perfect (okay?) but they didn’t want to leave anything to chance (alright, what does that mean?) He proceeded to show us the recent scans and then did a side by side comparison and was showing us the improvement. He then started going over the follow-up protocol for when I would get future scans, visits, etc. I had to stop him and ask outright, “is there cancer left in my body??” and he laughed and said that he probably should have started out the visit by saying that I am cancer free. CANCER. FREE. Even typing this, I’m tearing up. I started crying tears of joy, relief, etc. He said that I am officially in remission and in 5 years I will be considered completely cured of cancer. I’ll be getting CT scans done once every year and visits and blood work done every 6 months.

Dr. Anderson explained that the mass in my chest decreased in size to the point that he’s comfortable with not recommending radiation. He said that I have the option of speaking with the radiation oncologists but that he doesn’t feel the need for me to get radiation done. He knew that I was very against getting radiation if I could avoid it but of course I would listen to medical advice if it was strongly recommended. This was a huge sigh of relief since radiation would take a toll on my body. We left the hospital, I cried some more, and we went immediately to our families the life changing news. We spent the rest of the day at my parents house where Madison was and celebrated by popping a bottle of champagne and ordering sushi. I took the rest of the week off from work to relax and enjoy being cancer free. I got my port out on April 1st. It was such a wonderful and freeing feeling. I was looking forward to this day since I got it put in.

Again, post-op. I think my face says it all.

I can’t describe the feeling that when I check my next visit, it’s not until June. From May 2020 to March 2021, I’ve had a total of 47 visits that were cancer related (not even counting OBGYN visits). To provide a comparison before 2020, I would maybe have 4 visits during the year. We slowly have been spending more time with friends that we haven’t seen since before starting chemo and it’s been an amazing feeling. I’m looking forward to my hair growing back (and my eyebrows which slowly disappeared). If anyone asks me what my future plans are, I tell them that I plan to travel this year and focus on being a cancer free 27 year old. I’m also hoping that by sharing my story, it helps to spread awareness to the fact that it’s vital to get yearly check-ups by your doctor because you never know what might be happening without your knowledge. Also, if something doesn’t feel right, speak up.

I want to send a huge thank you to our friends, family, coworkers, our church, friends of friends, and any others that have prayed for us, brought meals and gifts over, or thought of us. I also want to thank Dr. Anderson and his team at Regions and for all the nurses that took care of me during my chemo sessions. I’m overwhelmed with the amount of love and support that I have felt during this entire journey and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I’m emotional writing this. Thank you.

Follow me on instagram! kel_sey5

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ninthfeather · 5 years

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Ninth, I am trying to watch M*A*S*H, but Hawkeye and Trapper are just... teeth-grinding... Can you recommend me some of your favorite episodes?

Ok! So, if Hawkeye and Trapper are teeth-grinding for you, first of all, that’s understandable–a lot of their jokes about women are not really that funny, and they often go way too far while making fun of the rest of the cast, especially Frank, but also Henry and Radar in earlier episodes. While Hawkeye remains a main character until the finale, Trapper’s actor left the show after three seasons and was replaced as Hawkeye’s partner-in-crime by BJ Hunnicutt, a practical joker who’s also a happily-married man with a young daughter. You might enjoy that dynamic a bit more. So, I’m gonna try to focus a bit more on some later episodes, and on ones that focus on side characters:

S1 ep 12 “Dear Dad”: The first of M*A*S*H’s many “Character writes a letter home as a framing device for several unrelated incidents at the 4077th” episodes. I like this one less because it’s Hawkeye narrating and more because of the stories, most notably Klinger mailing a Jeep home piece by piece and Hawkeye performing surgery in a Santa outfit.

S1 ep 15 “Tuttle”: This is the one “Hawkeye and Trapper shenanigans” ep I’m gonna recommend. The two of them make up a doctor as part of scheme to get supplies to the local orphanage, and the lie balloons until this fictional man wins a commendation, at which point they kill him off and the camp has a funeral for him. The spiral of continuously escalating nonsense is wonderful.

S1 ep 19: “The Long-John Flap”: Hawkeye gets a pair of long-johns from home, and in the middle of winter in Korea, they’re the envy of the camp. Under duress, lends them to Trapper when he’s sick…and soon, the things have been traded around the entire main cast. One of the first really good ensemble episodes, and excellent in terms of characterization. Basically, it works on the same principle as the “Who broke the coffee machine?” bit from Brooklyn 99, using a petty squabble to bring out interesting facets of all the characters.

S1 ep 20: “The Army-Navy Game”: During a much-anticipated football match between the army and the navy, the 4077th comes under attack. First, they call for support from their own forces–and then for a different kind of help, when an unexploded US bomb lands in the middle of camp. This one is a “Let’s mock the US military” episode, and it balances humor, drama, and suspense really really well.

S2 ep 12: “The Incubator”: Hawkeye, Trapper, and Radar get into it with some supply officers after finding out that while an incubator for cell cultures is not on the Basic Equipment List for a M*A*S*H and they can’t have it, they’re welcome to request a pizza oven. A good example of the “let’s mock military bureaucracy” subgenre of M*A*S*H episodes.

S4 ep 25 “The Interview”: The M*A*S*H personnel are interviewed for what is basically a propaganda reel. The episode was originally aired in black and white, so try to find it in that format, if you can! This episode was part script and part improv, and it really feels authentic to how these characters would react to being interviewed.

S5 eps 1-2 “Bug Out”: The camp evacuates their current position in favor of a safer location, but one patient can’t be moved. Pierce, Margaret, and Radar stay behind, while the rest of the camp attempts to retreat in an orderly fashion. An hour-long episode that really hits that comedy vs. humor balance.

S5 ep 9 “Mulcahey’s War”: Please skip this if detailed medical stuff or discussion of self-harm are triggers or squicks for you, but it’s a good episode. Father Mulcahey’s difficulty in connecting with a patient leads him to ask Col. Potter for a chance to go to the front. This is more drama than comedy, but it’s *really good.* Mulcahey is a lovely character and this episode was really good for fleshing him out.

S5 ep 23 “Souvenirs”: During the Korean War, many locals, especially children, made money by retrieving battlefield souvenirs and selling them to US soldiers. Of course, the fact that these battlefields were often full of unexploded mines and bombs made supporting these children ethically questionable at best. As you may have guessed, this episode also leans into drama rather than comedy, but once again it’s good. Also, there’s definitely *some* humor, it’s just in the form of jerks getting their due.

S6 ep 5 “War of Nerves”: This episode focuses on another side character, psychologist Sidney Freeman, and tackles some pretty tough ethical questions in the process. Specifically, how do medical professionals justify healing people and then sending them back into a war, knowing they are very likely to get reinjured? I wouldn’t call this episode uplifting, but it’s cathartic.

S6 ep 20 “What’s Up, Doc?”: Margaret, worried that she may be pregnant, approaches Pierce about a pregnancy test. What follows involves some medical history and is perhaps best not brought up here, but suffice it to say that this episode is an excellent Radar and Margaret focus piece, with a bonus bit of good Klinger content. Not bloody enough to require a medical squick warning, but I will spoil you: no animals die during the episode. I promise.

S7, ep 11 “Point of View”: Please skip this if the medical bits of M*A*S*H squick you out, but otherwise, this episode was amazing. It was an experiment with perspective, filmed from the point of view of a soldier with a throat injury being treated at the 4077th. The unusual POV creates a sense of immersion and also allows the writers to use the limited POV in order to create suspense–whereas in a normal episode, you follow the characters around, this time you’re hearing snatches of gossip during the POV character’s brief interactions with the principals. It’s neat as all heck.

S8 ep 19 “Morale Victory”: BJ and Pierce complain about the same movie running in camp all the time; Col. Potter gets fed up and appoints the two of them as morale officers, challenging them to do better. Meanwhile, Charles deals with the case of an injured soldier who feels his nerve damage has ruined his career as a concert pianist. This episode is some of the best Charles Emerson Winchester III content the series has to offer, and also some surprisingly good (if not perfect) disability theory for when it was made.

S11 ep 1 “Hey, Look Me Over”: Nurse Kellye wants Hawkeye to take her seriously as a woman. This should not take nearly as much effort as it does. You can tell Alan Alda did the writing because it’s a little heavy-handed at times but Nurse Kellye is amazing and we should all respect her.

An additional note: People are and will probably always be divided on Klinger--some people love him, some even consider him an example of early and imperfect LGBTQ+ representation, some people just don’t find him as funny, and other people consider him a harmful portrayal of crossdressing/trans people. If you find yourself wanting to avoid Klinger wearing a dress because you aren’t as comfortable with the way the writers handled him, you should watch later episodes, since he crossdressed less as the series went on and the writers ran out of quality jokes to tell involving his wardrobe.

#tournamentsofroses #M*A*S*H #recommendations

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saelwen · 5 years

Text

The Magic Pencil

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Chapter One

Masterlist

Summary: On one boring afternoon, Y/n finds a magical pencil which will make her wish come true, where the avengers are real and the tragic events from Thanos snap had to happen. (Sorry I'm bad at summaries BUT I promise that the story is better.)

Warnings: None, only fluff. It will be having SMUT on the other chapters

Words: 2,600

A/n: No one died on endgame!! My heart is still hurting!

“Oh! C´mon!” you sigh tired while looking down to all your books spread on the ground which had fallen when someone passed by you in rush, shoving your body to the side.

Bending down, you start picking up all the heavy books, grumbling when you saw one of your precious books on a dirty puddle. Adjusting your glasses, you stand up with your arms full and begin walking on the busy New York streets. All you could hear around you was the sound of hooking of the cars and people yelling and laughing, talking about their awful day.

You´ve lived you´re all live in New York, knowing every corner and the best coffee place in the city. It´s great living here since was so much stuff to do and go but you feel that something was missing. Your dream was to buy a lovely cottage in the middle of the woods, where you could read and write in peace. Not having the sounds of the loud cars and people yelling at each other's to distract you, and feel the fresh morning air, smelling the lovely smell of the trees and humid grass.

A shiver runs down your spine as a gush of cold wind passes through you, making you bury your cold face on your fluffy old scarf around your neck. It was early October, so the ground was full of orange and yellow leaves, making the streets beautiful.

As you were about to turn the corner, you see the huge poster from the new avenger's movie. The gigantic poster made you look in awe to the heroes that you read their Bd when you were a child, growing up with their adventures.

“It´s so sad that Bucky had turned into dust,” you whisper to yourself while walking towards the small cozy book store which you work on. Bucky always was your favorite character, along with Loki. Not just because of how charismatic and expressive the characters were but also from how handsome the actors were. They were your little crush that nobody knew about.

The tiny bell ring as you enter the book store, making the white-hairy man look to you with a warm smile.

“Y/n! How good to see you.” Robert, the owner of the book store, said with a tired voice.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Robert!” you said while putting the heavy books behind the counter, putting your name tag on your black turtleneck shirt.

“I will need to get out early. I have a medical appointment today,” he said, rubbing his rough fingers on his wrinkled face while letting out a tired sigh.

You look up to him, your e/c eyes full of concern. “Are you okay, Mr. Robert?” you put gently your hand on his arm and squeeze softly, rubbing your thump on his wrinkled hand.

“Yes! It´s just that I had a painful headache all this month and I want to check it out,” he said gently, sitting slowly on the chair behind the counter.

It´s true, it´s been some time that he complains about his head and sometimes he has dizziness which makes your worry terribly.

“Do you need to accompany or help to go to the doctor?” you said, your voice full of concern.

He smiles warmly to you and shook his head. “No, there is no need for you to worry about! I can handle all by myself.” his voice was full of mischief, making you roll your eyes and chuckle.

-----

The day went out slowly. it's always like that normally, people rarely come to the book store since nowadays everyone could purchase every book on the internet and will arrive quick to their homes.

Mr. Robert leaves for the doctor's appointment which you took the opportunity to finish writing your book. It wasn´t something to go to the public eye, just a little story for you and only you to read it.

As you were lost in your story, a loud sound grabs your attention. Turning your head to the side, you saw a simple wooden box on the floor beside you. It was small and delicate, you notice some beautiful words craved on it as you pick it up.

“Use me and your words will become reality.” you read the words. Tilting your head to the side, making some pieces of h/c hair fall to your face, you frown to the small box. “Weird... Did Mr. Robert had some old merchandise from Alice in Wonderland in here?” you murmured quietly.

Putting the wooden box on your lap, you open it slowly. Inside was only a simple black pencil, with a small ruby on the top. “What? All this for a simple pencil?” you chuckle, picking up the pencil.

You begin to make small doodles with the pencil, bored that no one had come in for hours. The words from the box run over and over on your mind. It would be awesome to have anything you write come to life. Imagine waking up one morning and have dragons, elves and other creatures running around.

Looking down at the scribbled paper and chuckle. “I wish that the avengers were real.” you read your words out loud.

Sighing, you threw the paper to the trash can as you saw that it´s time to close the store.

------

The infernal ring from your phone woke you up from your slumber. Groaning, you lazily try to find the beeping thing on your bedside table. Lifting your head from the soft pillow, you saw ´Mom´ in big on your phone.

Sighing, you slide your finger on the cold screen.

“Hi, Mom,” you mumble tired.

“Sweetie! How are you? You won´t stay your free day at home, right?” her squeaky voice came out from the other side loudly, making you hiss.

“Mom, please! I do what I want!... How´s it is going your and Dad's vacation?” you ask while sitting on the bed, stretching your sore back.

“Oh, it´s lovely! Paris is really the city of love. I and your father will stay for one more month... I think you should also do a little vacation, Y/n. After the blip, you never got out of that damn apartment or the book store. I think it would do you good to leave the house and go travel, to make new friends and other stuff.” your mom said, her voice was now calmer and fuller of concern.

The blip?! What the hell is she talking about? Did she saw the new spider-man and now is joking with you? Rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, you stood up from the bed, slipping a comfy robe. “The blip? Mom, what are you talking about?” you ask while walking to the kitchen, preparing a good cup of coffee.

“Oh sweetie...i know that was a really awful event to be turned into dust but you need to know that I and your father are here for you! If you need to talk or any help, we are here for you,” she said.

What is she talking about? Did she smoke something on the vacation? Sitting down on the chair, you put your mug on the table and open your laptop, opening Google Chrome. You search on anything about the blip, seeing the news about the tragic event and how the avengers had saved everyone. To your surprise, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and Natasha were alive, along with Vision and Loki.

“Ahh...Mom, I will call you later. Bye!” with that, you end the call. “What the hell has to happen?!” you whisper while reading all the news. You notice that every avenger looks alike to the actors in the movies. Your heart almost jumps out from your mouth as you see Bucky´s picture. God! He´s beautiful!

Closing the laptop, you rest your head on the table. How could this have happened? The Avengers and Thanos and the other are all fiction, none of that is real!

“THAT PENCIL!” you shot up from your seat.

Running to your bedroom, you change into more appropriate clothes and run out of the apartment. You need to get to the book store and get that pencil back. Well, it´s really cool that you are in a world that the avengers are real but what if something extremely bad happens? What if a bigger threat than Thanos comes to Earth and kill everyone? In that case, you prefer to be in your cozy bedroom reading a book on your reality.

When you arrived at the book store, you grab your keys and open the door since today was the day that they were closed. Walking inside, you go directly behind the counter, where you had put the box.

As you look down, you saw nothing put papers and books. “Fuck!... I swear that I've put the pencil here!” you whisper.

Distracted by searching the damn pencil, you didn´t notice the bell of the door ringing as a large figure walks inside.

Standing up, you try to see if you had put the pencil in the counter but as you peek from behind the counter you saw the one and only Bucky Barnes looking to the books on the shelf. A gasp escape from your lips and you duck quickly behind the counter, your cheeks red as a tomato.

Fuck! Why is he here? This is too much for your poor heart to handle.

“Ahh...Excuse me?” his deep rich voice made goosebumps on your skin.

Taking a deep breath, you stood up slowly, embarrassed by the stupid figure that you´ve made just now.

“H..HI! Welcome to our store!” your voice came out in a little squeak, making your face even redder.

God! This is a disgrace. You must look ridiculous since you haven´t brush your wild hair and there was some evidence from sleep on your face.

“Thank you... Are you open?” he asks while looking around, seeing that the lights aren´t turn on and some shelves are empty.

“Ahh... No, but if you want, you could look around! I´m just searching for something that I had left here yesterday.” you said, seeing his ice blue eyes studying your every move. You have noticed a faint softness on them when he sees how nervous you were.

“Okay...I will have a look. Thanks.” he said softly while walking around the small store, looking to the different books on the shelf.

Biting harshly on your lower lip, you try to keep in an excited squeal. You can believe that Bucky Barnes is in your shop and that had talked to you. He seems so timid, looking around the store like it was something out of extraordinaire.

Shaking your head, you begin looking around for the pencil again. It can´t have disappeared! Maybe Mr. Robert took it with him. Damn, I knew that I shouldn´t touch things that weren´t mine!

Putting your hand on your waist, you rub your hand on your face, trying to think where did you had put it.

“I´m sorry... I know that this is pretty quick and out of nowhere but...would you like to get some coffee with me? I know a good coffee shop down the street.” Bucky´s voice interrupted your trail of thoughts, making jump a little.

Turning back, you saw his pale cheeks with a faint blush and his eyes were full of anxious and nervous. Did the winter soldier just invited you for coffee!? Your dreams really had come true!

“Ahhh...Y..Yes! Of course! Just let me close the store than we will go.” you said with a smile.

He nods and stays there waiting for you, watching you cleaning some stuff on the counter. After closing the store, you two walk down the street to the coffee shop that he talked about.

You two enter the small coffee shop, the smell of coffee and brownies hit your face wonderfully. He leads you to a table beside the large window and pulls the chair for you to sit on.

The waitress went to your table and asks what you two wanted.

“Ahh... I want a mocha,” you said.

“And I will also want a mocha. Thank you.” Bucky said with a small smile to the waitress, who giggles like a schoolgirl and winked at him.

That made you a little self-conscious since you weren´t dressed for a date and probably there was a little of toothpaste in the corner of your mouth.

“So, do you work on the book store a long time?” he asks you, his voice timid and soft.

Swallowing a lump on your throat, you nod while pushing a piece of your hair behind your ear. “Yes! I started working after finished my university. The owner is a very sweet man and needs some help since he was the only one working in there.” you said shyly while playing with your sleeves.

The waitress came back with your drinks and you notice the Bucky´s coffee had a number with a kiss on it but he didn´t even notice it since his ice-blue eyes were fixed on you.

“It seems nice. The store seems calm, it must be great to work there. Having a place where people are quiet and go there from their love for the books.” he said with such gentle voice, making you almost melt on your seat.

“Yeah...it´s really great but nowadays people don´t go to the books stores to buy books since with the internet is easier and they won´t have to move their ass.” with your last words, Bucky let´s out a warm laugh which makes you join him.

You two pass the rest of three hours talking and joking around. He tells you his love for books since he can´t work well with TVs and phones or other modern stuff.

“I´m sorry for asking you this but... had you been blip? You know, turning into dust?” he asks you while rubbing the back of his neck which was bare since his beautiful brown hair was up on a bun.

Your eyes widen with his question. Fuck! What will you tell me? You don´t know if you had turned into dust since this isn´t your reality. Well, your mom said that I was.

“Ahh...Yeah, I was. It was...an awful experience.” your voice was quiet, making him smile gently to you.

“I know what it feels...if you want to talk, I'm all ears,” he said softly, making your body warm a little.

As you were about to answer him, his phone starts ringing, making him groan in annoyance. He took his phone and curse under his breath.

“I´m sorry but it seems that our date has to end here... I have a mission.” his soft voice turns into one rougher and harsher.

He stood up and ask the waitress for the check and a pencil. She comes back with everything and he pays then he starts writing something on his napkin. The waitress begins to smile and giggling as she saw his number on the white square but it vanished when he gave you the napkin.

“Call me when you´re free.” with that he leaves the coffee shop.

You look down to the napkin and grin widely, shocked that you had the number of the winter soldier. Maybe writing with that magical pencil wasn´t so bad at all.

Hey Guys!!! So I´m starting this new series of Reader had got into a world where the avengers and rest of their universe are real. Tell me what you think and hope you like it!!

Taglist list is open. Click right HERE

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solanazblog-blog · 5 years

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Curcumin as treatment for Rheumatoid Arthritis

These days Rheumatoid Arthritis consist of four plans of attack, NSAIDS, steroids, disease modifying antirheumatic drugs or DMARDS and biologic agents. Most of these drugs are very effective but they can have serious side effects, like liver damage, bone marrow suppression, lung infections, joint inflammation (I know ironic, but true), and blood clots. That doesn't cover bruising, constipation, diarrhea, fatigue, being susceptible to catching colds, flus and other unpleasant contagions.

The goal of all of these drugs is to reduce inflammation so that joint pain and joint destruction don't continue. Reducing pain levels is so that one can have quality of life and reducing the joint destruction is for keeping functionality of the joints as long as possible.

Rheumatologists do blood work to assess how much inflammation the body is fighting. These tests are called erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR), C-reactive protein (CRP) and plasma viscosity (PV). (Tidy) Most autoimmune patients are familiar with these tests. While we use all three, the most important one is the CPR. A healthy person has "CRP levels...below 3.0 mg/L." (Carteron) CPR numbers over 10.0 mg/L signify "infection or inflammatory disease" (Carteron)

So, for RA patients, we want our numbers to be as low as we can get them. Sometimes treatments lower the numbers between 3.0 mg/L and 10.0 mg/L and sometimes we can get them below 3.0 mg/L. Being 3.0 mg/L means we are in remission. Remission being all signs and symptoms of RA are gone but RA is still recognized in a blood test.

The current methods of treatment are fantastic considering some of the older methods of treatment which included aspirin therapy which is still used but generally not first choice due to stomach and digestive issues like causing ulcers. Gold treatments were used through capsules and injections but there could be a lot of side effects like allergic reactions, bruising at site injection, and chronic diarrhea. Both approaches usually take months to start to take effect as well.

The newer treatments tend to work more quickly, though if you listen to any commercial, you'll be too scared to take them as well. When I was prescribed Humira, the pharmacist handed me a ten-page side effect booklet. Ten pages! I asked the pharmacist if this was for real and he said 'yes'. I walked out with the meds and by the time I got to my car, I knew I wasn't going to take it. I came home and put it in the fridge, where you have to store it. I looked at it all day and night and then I promptly said, "no thank you" and there went $2000.00 a month in medicine in the trash (can't return once it left the store) that I wasn't going to take. There had to be a better way.

I got on my computer to look for a better way. I decided to see how people used to treat rheumatism. This is a question that could lead you to answer on why Humira exists, but you also might find that there were ways it was treated, that the Western world decided they could 'improve upon'.

What I found for treating my RA was turmeric, and Indian spice, a member of the ginger family, that is used in Ayurvedic medicine in India. Ayurvedic medicine is:

"…is one of the world's oldest holistic (“whole-body”) healing systems. It was developed more than 3,000 years ago in India.

It’s based on the belief that health and wellness depend on a delicate balance between the mind, body, and spirit. Its main goal is to promote good health, not fight disease. But treatments may be geared toward specific health problems." (WebMD)

Turmeric was specifically used to treat inflammation. One would have to eat a lot of turmeric though to specifically treat an ailment. It is easier to incorporate turmeric in India when many of the food preparation consists or could consist of ingesting turmeric up to three times a day with meals and drinking Golden Milk, a turmeric drink. Scientists decided to figure out what in turmeric helped stop inflammation. They came up with the main polyphenol curcumin. They isolated this out and created curcumin as a separate supplement. When curcumin was combined with piperine (black pepper) the bioavailability of it became 2000% of turmeric the spice, and we already knew that was effective! Over the years various combinations of curcumin have been created. Some people couldn't handle the black pepper or the extra ginger. So, a company called Arunja Naturals Extracts Ltd. In India created Curcumin BCM-95®. This is a combination of curcuminoids and essential oils, all natural that ensure high bioavailability without extra supplements or additive. Some brands will say that using medium chain triglycerides (MCT) makes it even more bioavailable but if you’re like me and allergic to coconut and palm kernel, the sources of MCT, you can’t use MCT. Curcumin BCM-95 is excellent all by itself.

BCM-95 or as its now been renamed, Curcugreen ® “…is all-natural, from simple ingredients, and holds 13 international patents. It has been extensively researched in 33 clinical studies by universities throughout the US, Japan, Australia, and India, backing its efficacy for multiple health indications” and "BCM-95 is one of only a few supplements in the nutraceutical industry to receive an FDA 'No Questions' response letter, after previously undergoing safety and quality evaluations." (Cision) The Arthritis Foundation recognizes turmeric, pointing out that curcumin BCM-95 is known and recognized for treating RA and osteoarthritis (OA), as well as bursitis. It even gives recommended dosages. Studies show it is more effective than using NSAIDS and that it blocks “inflammatory cytokines and enzymes, including cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2), the target of celecoxib (Celebrex).” (Arthritis.Org)

I told my doctor that I was going to start taking Curcumin BCM-95. He first asked me, with a low voice and concern, did I think that I had arthritis? I said, “ah yeah doc, that’s why I’m trying to find a better way, because I know I have it.” I explained to him what it was and he knew of the spice but wasn’t sure that my level of RA would be treated with the formulation alone, (remember, he just gave me Humira, heavy stuff) so I made ‘lady/gentlemen’s’ agreement with him, I asked him to give me 3 months and let me see what it does to my inflammation numbers and if the numbers stay the same or go up, I will go back on standard RA meds, if they go down, he needs to let me continue to see how low we can go with curcumin. He agreed. 90 days later, I went from 11.0 mg/L (high inflammation and that was with standard meds) to 6.0 mg/L. We did another 90 days. I dropped from 6.0 mg/L to 4.0 mg/L. He then said, he’ll see me in 6 months, this was progress. In six months, I was 1.5 mg/L. I was now less than the healthy, non-inflamed person. I have maintained below the 3.0 mg/L for two years now. A year and half ago, he looked at me and said, “I wish all of my patients did the work you do to help yourself with alternative methods.” I see him every six months now because, I am not symptomatic of RA. Now I do have the occasional flare up, but I can attribute it to something I ate or a physical position, I was in too long. I don’t just have random flareups like I used too. Curcumin also makes it so that I don’t need pain meds. This has helped my stomach out a lot. I see my GP every six months as well, but I time his appointments so that I am still getting bloodwork done every 90 days. My GP has RA and he uses biologics. He asked me what I was using, and I told him I wasn’t being treated for RA that I was using curcumin instead. He responded with, “That is treatment, I thought you weren’t being treated.” I said, “I didn’t think docs were recognizing curcumin like that.” And he said they were. My over the counter supplement is considered treatment. A win for the natural alternatives.

You’re at my site because you are looking for alternatives to treating your RA; curcumin is it. You can find BCM-95 or Curcugreen at any supplement store or online. Many people with RA use many versions of curcumin, but the only one recognized by the Arthritis Foundation and the only version that is backed by studies for RA, is the BCM-95/Curcugreen formulation. Give it a try and let me know what you think. Write below in our comments section to let us know if it worked for you or not. We look forward to hearing from you.

Check me out at my website for more info on Alternative Methods for Rheumatoid Arthritis:

https://sites.google.com/a/oswego.edu/rheumtogrow/home

*Don’t go off your meds and always speak to your doctor before trying anything new. I am not giving you medical advice, and I am not a doctor.

Resources:

Arjuna Natural Extracts Ltd. (2018, June 26). Arjuna Natural BCM-95® Curcumin Confirmed by FDA. Retrieved from https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arjuna-natural-bcm-95-curcumin-confirmed-by-fda-638268643.html.

Benefits and Risks of Arthritis Medicines. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.arthritis.org/living-with-arthritis/treatments/plan/arthritis-drugs-benefits-risks.php.

Caterton, N. (2018, June 12). Rheumatoid Arthritis: What CRP Levels Say About You. Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/health/rheumatoid-arthritis-crp-levels.

Gold Treatment. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://orthop.washington.edu/patient-care/articles/arthritis/gold-treatment.html.

Hewlings, S. J., & Kalman, D. S. (2017, October 22). Curcumin: A Review of Its' Effects on Human Health. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5664031/.

Kandola, A. (2018, October 24). Rheumatoid arthritis and CRP levels: What is normal? Retrieved from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323450.php.

Ratini, M. (2019, March 20). What Is Ayurveda? Treatments, Massage, Diet, and More. Retrieved from https://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/ayurvedic-treatments#1.

Rheumatoid arthritis. (2019, March 1). Retrieved from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/rheumatoid-arthritis/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20353653.

Tidy, C. (2018, July 18). Inflammation Blood Tests: ESR, CRP and PV Values. Retrieved from https://patient.info/treatment-medication/blood-tests/blood-tests-to-detect-inflammation.

turmeric. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.arthritis.org/living-with-arthritis/treatments/natural/supplements-herbs/guide/turmeric.php.

turmeric and Rheumatoid Arthritis Symptoms. (2015, February 2). Retrieved from https://nccih.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/030106.htm.

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drokelley-blog · 5 years

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Okelleys in Tenwek 2019

Since returning from Africa, my wife Dana and I have found it difficult to respond when asked how our trip was. “Good” or “great” is the usual one-word response but many more adjectives come to mind, as it was a trip filled with a mixture of different encounters, experiences, and emotions. And somehow just one or two words do not suffice. It would definitely be accurate to say that it was eye-opening.

We came to this particular place because of the Many family. Most folks know of our long-term friendship with them, so I won’t elaborate here, but it was wonderful to visit them and experience what life is like for them at Tenwek. I believe they are where the Lord wants them to be, but like life anywhere, Tenwek has its share of happiness and hardships. We had learned what we could ahead of time about Kenya and Tenwek from materials provided by Samaritan’s Purse who took care of all the logistics of our trip, as well as from conversations with the Many’s and also from our daughter Claire, who had visited with them for several months in 2015. But nothing really could prepare us for a place that is so different from our everyday experience back home.

Our drive to Tenwek hospital took us 4-5-hours from the airport in Nairobi on a rough road that had become paved only 5 years prior. Tenwek is located in the rural highlands of southwestern Kenya which has no large or modern cities nearby, yet the population in the general area is quite large. In addition, patients are referred from long distances for treatment at Tenwek which is one of Africa’s largest mission hospitals. As you might expect in a developing country, the people there do not have most of the things we take for granted. Clean water, reliable electricity, passable roads, and adequate sanitation are still hard to come by there, and there would be no access to adequate healthcare without Tenwek Hospital. It is a 300-bed teaching facility with a long evangelical-centered mission to provide the best healthcare possible. 72 of those beds are designated to the maternity service, where I spent my time working as a member of the “OB service”.

Most women in this area give birth at home. There are smaller clinics in the area which provide very basic care but lack the ability to handle most emergencies. So, women who come to Tenwek either arrive from their village, or are referred by these smaller clinics with little or no prenatal care and are either high-risk or suffering some sort of complication related to pregnancy or childbirth. The maternity service delivers about 3-400 babies per month, and also receives a large number of patients who have delivered elsewhere and are experiencing complications. The single delivery room holds 3 delivery beds or “couches” and is used for deliveries, triage, and labor exams. There is a 5-bed “labor” ward for laboring patients, inductions (of which there were usually 4-5 daily), and any high-risk antepartum patients. Of course, this ward stays full and often spills over to the other rooms on the unit, which normally accommodate lower risk antepartum, postpartum and post-operative patients. Healthy newborns stay with their mothers. Mothers whose babies are in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) stay until their babies are discharged. The NICU has a capacity of about 45. So, the halls are normally crowded with patients, visitors, and staff, and it is not unusual to have 2 mothers assigned to the same bed or 2 babies assigned to the same isollete due to overflow. There is one O.R. in maternity for cesarean sections, or other minor procedures, but it is only available from 9 AM to 4 PM. Outside these hours an emergency cesarean section must be done in the main O.R. or “theatre”, which is in another building.

To say that the conditions in the hospital are different than what I normally have available at home would be an understatement for sure. That being said, Tenwek provides excellent care for maternity patients considering their limited resources. Nurses manage all labor patients and perform all uncomplicated vaginal deliveries. They have medications such as Pitocin and magnesium sulfate for inductions and treatment of preeclampsia but do not have infusion pumps. They also have available the usual medications to treat postpartum hemorrhage. There is no continuous fetal monitoring available including for patients on Pitocin or with other high-risk indications. There is no epidural service available. Intermittent fetal monitoring and a vaginal exam (VE) usually are performed by the nurses every 4-6 hours on all labor patients. Inductions are performed with misoprostol, Pitocin or Foley balloon. Patients are not screened for group B strep but antibiotics are available to treat infections and are given preoperatively. Patients with one previous cesarean are allowed to “TOLAC” (trial of labor after cesarean). Everything is in short supply, and items we normally consider disposable in the U.S. are “repurposed” until they are no longer usable, such as Bovie pens and laparoscopic trocars. O. R. packs included cotton drapes and towels, which are sterilized and reused.

2-3 nurses cover active labor patients and inductions in 12-hour shifts, and 2-3 to cover postpartum, gyn post-op, etc. There are another 2-3 in the nursery caring for the newborns who are sick or premature. As I mentioned, the nurses perform the labor checks, non-stress-tests (NST’s), and routine deliveries and call the intern or physician for complications. The only patients directly under the supervision of the OB team are antepartum admissions, post-surgical patients, and patients with complications. During my time there were 2 medical officers (completed one year of post-medical school training), and 1-2 Ob- gyn’s, depending on who is available on a given day. The Ob-gyn doctors are currently Americans including Dr. Cheryl Cowles and Dr. Angela Many, but there is a new Kenyan Ob/Gyn starting soon who had just completed residency training in Uganda. There were also 2 clinical interns and 3 medical interns. Clinical interns have similar training and background to physician assistants in the U.S., whereas medical interns have completed medical school and will be medical officers at the end of their internship. Night and weekend call are divided among the Ob gyn doctors, medical officers, and family practice residents; however, the Ob doctors are always on the hook if needed to help with complicated cases. The interns take call also, and work pretty much like interns in our training programs back home, which is to say “hard”. On the OB service during my visit there was also a 1st year family practice resident and a 2nd year surgery resident. The daily rounding list included post-op, antepartum, ICU, and any other patients with complications and usually had 40 or so names on it. There were usually 10 or more new admissions every day. Many patients presented with “LAPS” (lower abdominal pains) and were full-term or post-dates based upon their last menstrual period but had no prenatal care and no ultrasound to confirm their due-date. There is one portable ultrasound machine on the maternity ward used by OB physicians and medical officers for performing scans. Typically, these patients would receive an ultrasound, NST, and a VE and were either induced, kept in the hospital for observation, or discharged undelivered and given a follow up appointment in the clinic in 1 week with the prayer that they would keep that appointment or return in labor and deliver a healthy baby.

So, between daily rounds, clinic, scheduled surgeries (non-emergent surgeries are booked on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the main theatre), new admissions, and emergencies, the OB service kept very busy. In fact, the number of patients and seriously ill patients was more than I had ever encountered in one place. The diagnoses on our rounding list resembled the contents section of an obstetrical text book. Tenwek mothers are also chronically anemic and that is a bad thing in obstetrics, where the potential for rapid blood loss is high. We ordered more blood transfusions during my 2 weeks than I have in over 10 years and possibly my entire career. Family members were required to donate, and nursing students, medical staff and missionaries were also called upon often to give blood in order to address the critical need. OB patients occupied 3 out of the 6 ICU beds in the hospital the first week I was there. Unfortunately, 2 of the 3 did not survive their illnesses. We also had several babies born premature and several stillbirths and most of these outcomes could have been prevented if they had gotten to the hospital earlier in their illness. I often thought of how back in Knoxville I would transfer such seriously ill or preterm patients somewhere else for their care, but at Tenwek there is no such thing as “somewhere else”. I took call 4 nights in 2 weeks including an entire weekend. I lied awake at night waiting for the beeper to go off and it usually did. I was able to take call from “home” (our small apartment at the guesthouse which is a 5-minute walk away), but they were not particularly restful nights.

Tenwek is a teaching hospital. So, we would begin “teaching” rounds every morning between 7 and 8 am, just like back in medical school and residency. This took some getting used to since I had not done this in 30 years, but I did enjoy the interaction with clinicians in training. Of course, acting as first assistant and helping an intern learn to perform a cesarean section requires patience, but this is critically important at Tenwek as the goal is to train more Kenyan nationals to provide for the healthcare needs of their country. There were daily conferences such as grand rounds, and “M&M” (morbidity and mortality), just like in any traditional academic setting. But there is also a clear spiritual emphasis here that cannot be missed; one that is related to the spiritual well-being of the interns, residents and ultimately the patients. The motto at Tenwek is, “we treat, Jesus heals”. Prayers are said for the patients before rounds and before every surgery. These prayers became a great source of comfort and strength to me personally as we cared for many seriously ill patients. In addition, a morning team devotion preceded rounds each day, and there is a devotional meeting for the entire medical staff every Wednesday morning in the hospital auditorium. In the evenings there are small group meetings for Bible study and fellowship in the homes of the missionaries for medical staff, interns, and students.

As you might gather from my description, the daily conditions, work load, and severity of illnesses which I encountered during my time at Tenwek was almost overwhelming. And yet I was humbled and amazed by the ability of the medical staff and missionaries to carry on tirelessly with great compassion and concern for their patients. Before the trip, I read a book entitled “Miracle at Tenwek”, which describes how the mission of Tenwek began and has since remained focused on seeking God’s leadership in sharing the gospel through medical missions. I believe that the success of Tenwek is due to the fact that the focus is still the same today. “They still do it right”, was an assessment I heard from a returning missionary in describing Tenwek in it’s mission to train individuals to provide compassionate care for the physical as well as the spiritual need of their patients.

So, to find one word to describe our trip to Kenya is difficult. It was a trip filled with joy, kindness, and beauty as well as suffering, sorrow, and poverty. But if I had to choose one word, I would use the word that another visiting physician kept saying: “amazing”. It’s a good word to describe Africa, Kenya, the Kenyan people, and the missionaries who work at Tenwek. But it is also a great word to describe God, whose hand we saw in every aspect of our trip.

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blousewriter43-blog · 4 years

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<h1>Why Are Lawyers So Unhappy?</h1>

Content

The Keys To Making Online Law School Successful.

Advocaten In Nederland, Alkmaar.

Subscribe To Targetcareers.

Law College Professors.

Lawyers Office Appelman Alkmaar

In Alkmaar, you will certainly uncover a variety of firms handling home law. There are three choices that you have if you would certainly like to employ an expert Alkmaar lawful rep. The member of the family lawyer Alkmaar in Alkmaar has the capacity to offer you one of the most effective legal solutions that are tailored to your specific requirements.

A great deal of them bill a level cost per hr or a section of the general quantity collected during a particular case. Utilizing a household legal representative from a little company is the favored option. The family members lawful depictive Alkmaar can offer you with suggestions along with assistance when you are going through a tight spot. Apart from lawful and also financial assistance, the house lawyer Alkmaar will absolutely have the capability to route you via all the legitimacies associated with the instance.

This is specifically what you want if you need help with disputes or unique Work concerns connected to employment. The very best law practice will have labor law lawyers Alkmaar all set to be certain that these problems do not swallow you.

The Keys To Making Online Law College Successful.

The web is typically used by lawyers in North Holland to promote their law practice as well as to generate new consumers. This enables customers to get an idea of the company's options in addition to whether they would certainly appropriate for their particular demands.

Advocaten In Nederland, Alkmaar.

The attorneys in Alkmaar can likewise provide different other assistance to immigrants. As an example, they can provide you suggestions on what to generate order to have your records in order when you enter the nation.

In this way, we can assure you top-level advice in every part of the world. Low-cost law workplace can in many cases provide the best service, as they comprehend the needs of the ordinary private along with tailor their solutions according to those demands.

We have our own network of workplaces in significant financial centres, staffed with professionals in Dutch, Belgian, Luxembourg as well as Swiss law. Via these workplaces, our clients have access to Loyens & Loeff's full-service legal proficiency in their very own time zone. Our workplace network is complemented by our numerous country desks all of which are experienced in structuring investments throughout the globe. It's a winning mix that enables us to aid global clients in a really effective means. In addition, we get on outstanding terms with other leading independent law practice and tax specialists.

Who is the richest lawyer in Canada?

Best Lawyers In CanadaKatrina Pacey. Executive director, Pivot Legal Society, Vancouver, B.C. Pacey was recently appointed executive director of Pivot Legal and continues the fantastic work of her predecessors. Louise Arbour. Dennis Edney and Nate Whitling. Poonam Puri. Justice Beverley McLachlin.

If you require a professional Alkmaar attorney in family law, you can choose to use one from any one of the family members law workplace situated in Alkmaar. Many law workplace in Alkmaar permit their customers to see their online accounts online.

After obtaining many years of experience helping the large four consultancy firms, he began his very own company in 2013. As an associate Athena practices basic civil law, yet emphasis mainly on criminal law.

They ensure you get all that's appropriate based upon the work law. You call for a lawful rep when you have committed a crime, company criminal offense or a civil crime. You require a professional lawyer in individual bankruptcy law, lease control law, tax commitment law, and obligation law to deal with all the concerns. At the specific very same time, you will certainly need an expert lawful representative in case of a lorry incident.

On top of that, Danielle Prince is a passionate lawyer in the area of Family members Law. She acts decisively and energetically in family matters concerning wardship, going to legal rights and divorce.

Which job has the highest salary in Australia?

Australia's top 10 highest paying jobsSurgeons. Nearly 4,000 Australians work in this profession, and they top the earnings bracket with an average taxable income of $394,866. Anaesthetists. Internal Medicine Specialists. Financial Dealers. Psychiatrists. Other Medical Practitioners. Judicial and Other Legal Professionals. Mining Engineers. More items

It could also be tough to decide on what type of attorney to work with, yet, as long as you attempt, it will absolutely deserve it. " No man is an island" has in fact frequently been an expression in No's Legislation as well as it holds true when it pertains to finding a lawyer. When you utilize the net for situating a lawyer, you have great deals of selections.

Share your experiences at Branger Advocatenkantoor Mr S H M with your good friends or discover even more Lawyers in Alkmaar, Netherlands. https://inputjuly62.wordpress.com/2020/08/28/an-introduction-to-biglaw/ in Alkmaar have an extensive as well as happy history. Discovering the best type of attorney for you can be a very challenging procedure.

These companies have a projected turnover of EUR 20.517 billions and use a variety of workers estimated at 56,188. The company best placed in Alkmaar in our nationwide position remains in placement # 29 in terms of turn over.

Find an attorney that authorizes your instance, instead of one that focuses on the exact type of circumstances you have. For the most part, it will certainly be simpler to maintain a lawyer that focuses on the location of your demands. Law workplace in Alkmaar can additionally use legal support to immigrants. A few of these foreigners might call for assistance in looking after their lawful troubles. A few of the immigrants may likewise call for help with the procedure of obtaining long-term home.

No-Completion Protection secures your set charge quote on the occasion that your building deal falls-through. To safeguard this advantage, a transferable administration fee of ₤ 125+ VAT is taken at the point of direction and then subtracted from your final expense. Ought to your deal fall short to finish, for whatever factor, you will pay no further charges on that particular transaction. Your preliminary settlement will rollover to your following instruction with us, and will be utilized versus the balance of your legal costs on your completion statement. With regional experience, our lawyers will certainly lead you with the whole of your sale or acquisition.

Rather, their legal representatives are well learnt particular topics, like the law of company restructuring and also corporate regulation. All lawyers in Alkmaar obtain training from the case supervisors that are the proprietors of these law firms.

You can use the internet to find a local lawyer via a lawyer suggestion solution.

You may have some good luck locating a lawyer that is offered to aid you if you have some special needs that the attorney in Alkmaar can address.

You Certainly understand the benefits of locating the excellent bankruptcy law company Alkmaar if you are currently in an economic issue.

Eldon "Peppie" Sulvaran graduated from the College of the Netherlands Antilles in 1987. He got his masters in General Law and also is considered an expert in Criminal and Extradition Law. Prior to studying law, he got a level at the Central Institute for the Education of Sport teachers in Holland. If you intend to be sure that you can have your lawful concern evaluated, then you can register with this internet site. In Alkmaar, Infobel has noted 19,210 registered companies.

That's a waste of cash if advocatenkantoren noord holland want to function with one attorney to represent you in every state. As an instance of a law workplace in Alkmaar, there is the law technique of the president of Namur University.

Shaira Bommel finished in 2005 from the College of Amstelveen with a master in Civil rights, Bad Guy Law and Family Members law. During her studies she functioned as a court recorder for the Alkmaar court where she composed rulings in civil juvenile situations. In 2007 she worked for District attorney General in Suriname where she focused on extradition instances.

Law College Professors.

Different methods will certainly provide numerous kind of services. Alkmaar lawyers are ready to handle all your queries as well as additionally issues. As well as the greatest element is that they will be situated in work environments where you can in fact get some aid in circumstance you require some guidance. When an attorney is available to help out you, that's when you will actually appear like you have really got somebody to depend on.

There are many law method in Alkmaar that charge the a whole lot more small prices because of the truth that they have the capability to offer clients with much less issues. There are a number of law firms in Alkmaar that concentrate on estate law, including business along with individuals. Their representatives are knowledgeable pertaining to a range of different kinds of law. These types of law practice provide depiction to various kinds of people, consisting of lawyers as well as agents. Lawyer firms in Alkmaar supply cost-free assessment services.

Lawyers Office Appelman Alkmaar

You can not employ a lawyer Alkmaar in all states, unless you pay above the normal lawyer fee. If you plan to utilize a specialist lawful agent in Business law, you will certainly have to pay an excellent offer a lot extra. In the UNITED STATES legal agents in general take expenses for representing individuals that request their help

Handling your lawful problems can be a frustrating job, nonetheless an individual lawyer Alkmaar can help. you deal with the circumstance. Alkmaar is the Dutch word for "City of Lawyers." advocaat alkmaar takes pride in twenty-three law technique all offering legal solutions to its clients.

as well as what records you need to not bring with you in order to have them to stay clear of having them analyzed at the boundary. If you have some knowledge relating to regulation, attempt asking if there is a local bar organization.

It's feasible to call a lawyer Alkmaar today as well as get the help you require. Likewise, you can get the answer to your concerns to aid you have a more clear mind. Is it your desire to lease or sell out your company room or home? With the area of tenancy law as well as building being very important, these lawful help will certainly get here in to direct you on contractors, consumers, and also developers. Necessary to a fast conveyancing purchase is to make use of a positive home lawyer.

By doing this, you can additionally see if he/she is supplied and you can talk with him or her on the phone. All the different attorneys in Alkmaar are certified to deal with these issues. What you must think of is what kind of technique each has.

When a customer can talk to a legal agent as well as testimonial with him or her in detail concerning any kind of provided legal issue, this is. Consumers might likewise be able to speak about anything that they intend to with lawful agents from this company. Law office in Alkmaar supply countless type of lawful services, the significant ones being family members as well as tax obligation issues.

In order to maximize a legal agent's guidance, a client must be provided options that contain professional options. Among his numerous specialist locations is global tax obligation law.

If you are still not exactly sure, try asking him/her for their ideas regarding an ideal lawyer in Alkmaar. If an attorney in Alkmaar has experience in your circumstances, you can use the Net to find.

Danielle Royal prince finished cum laude in Dutch law at the University of Amsterdam. Before this she had actually finished the research of Dutch language and also literary works. Danielle began her legal career at the Court Alkmaar before moving to the profession of solicitor in 2007. You do not have to take the simple escape with your financial resources when it concerns finding out about getting one of the most efficient feasible legal representative. You need to have a specialist do this for you to ensure that you can obtain the best deal and additionally assurance.

In many cases, the scenario managers will certainly run all aspects of the instance as well as handle it initially throughout. Some individuals have actually additionally developed a second law practice, although they are not utilized as a legal agent, to manage their situations. These people call their brand-new law technique as "for the public good" lawyers. This kind of attorneys accepts instances that don't include any kind of cash money. Firms in Alkmaar attorneys additionally have their own law workplace.

As an example, they will certainly acknowledge with all the regulations that connect to your specific circumstance. So ensure that you discover an attorney that can handle your instance from an intellectual viewpoint. Law method such as Baxter, Marti, White, Puckett and also Remsen, as well as Taylor are all considered top law practice in Alkmaar. Certainly, there are likewise different other law method that have great performance history in Alkmaar. There are some factors that a customer should keep in mind when picking the ideal legal representative.

The president of Namur University is a legal rep by occupation. This is specifically what you want if you require help with conflicts or unique Job problems connected to work. The most effective law practice will have labor law lawyers Alkmaar prepared to see to it these concerns do not swallow you in. They make certain you obtain all that's suitable according to the law. As a fully independent law firm, Loyens & Loeff is excellently positioned to coordinate global tax obligation and also legal issues.

Furthermore, they can help people with various other kinds of legal problems. These include relative law, company legislation, civil guideline, criminal legislation and likewise insurance coverage regulation.

Lawyers in Alkmaar have the ability to inform lawyers from numerous other law office exactly just how to deal with specific instances, such as cash money laundering. An instance of this is when a court orders a lawful rep to offer proof, if the legal agent informs the judge that it protests the law. However, in this circumstance, the court can not take the situation and likewise assigns a different legal agent to take care of the instance rather. A wonderful location to start seeking an Alkmaar law firm would certainly be at one of the close-by law workplaces or local lawful information centres.

Danielle Prince looks for to offer fast and also positive options, although she certainly does not steer clear of from litigating. Quality of contents, a keen eye for the interests of the customer and an original method are paramount.

Top Law Schools In The United States & Canada.

You can never obtain your instance managed without settlement from somebody. Nevertheless, the services given by law office differ a good deal.

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bangtansadnyeondan-blog · 7 years

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Roses

chapter one / chapter two / chapter three / chapter four / chapter five / chapter six / chapter seven / chapter eight / chapter nine / chapter ten / chapter eleven/ chapter twelve / chapter thirteen

genre: angstxfluff

pairing: yoongixjungkook

Chapter One

Jungkook sat on his bed patiently waiting for his doctor to come in with his medication. as the lock got turned he looked a new doctor in the eyes.

"You're new," Jungkook said as he looked at the new doctor. He had black hair, pretty brown eyes, and a small face. He was smaller than Jungkook. His white doctor’s jacket didn't suit his face, nor body.

"Hello," Jungkook said respectfully as he stood up to bow to the new doctor.

His eyes widened as he saw his new patient. He was used to their dull faces, not someone with eyes as twinkling as this one. He looked back down at his clipboard as he entered the room, closing the door behind him.

"Jeon Jungkook? I'm your new assigned doctor, Min Yoongi. Let's just go over the usual for now," Yoongi started, gesturing to the weighing scale off to the side. He was instructed to take care of a few patients to start off with and Jeon Jungkook was his last and according to his file, his appointed patient. To know his patient better, he'd need to first know his vital details first and then he'd talk. He had everything on his file yet he understood his patients better when they conversed with him. So he leaned against the wall, gesturing to Jungkook to step up onto the weighing scale. His eyes were still taking in the unkempt look that graced Jungkook, contrasting his bright eyes.

"Of course," Jungkook said as he walked to the weighing scale. He lost a whole kilo last week, which worried the doctors.

"I lost weight again," Jungkook mumbled as he looked at the new doctor. "I promise don't worry, I'm not trying to lose weight," Jungkook said nervously, the last time he lost weight in a small amount of time they gave him a lot to eat and forced him to, but to one point he threw up because he couldn't eat anymore.

Yoongi just nodded, "it's alright, I'm not saying that. It happens," he sat on Jungkook's bed. "It might be unconscious. So tell me about you. I'm new and I could just base my judgment of you based on the file they've given me but I'd rather know you than the facts about Jeon Jungkook."

Jungkook sat down on his bed as he looked to Doctor Min. "Uh-," Jungkook mumbled, not knowing what to say about himself. "I-I'm J-Jungkook, I-I like drawing a-and listening m-music?" He stuttered looking at the doctor. He didn't like talking about himself, to the other doctors he didn't have to. Nobody ever asked him about himself so he didn't bother to tell anyone about himself. How could this doctor at once care about him? Jungkook wasn't good enough for anyone.

Yoongi bit his lip and flipped a new page on his clipboard, clicking his pen open. "Well, Jungkook, how old are you? And... What's the reason you're in here? Or... Are you in here voluntarily?" Yoongi was trying to be diplomatic or at least not trigger Jungkook but he needed to know more than just what was written in his file. He definitely needed more input from Jungkook. "I can't help you Jungkook unless you help me."

"I'm 19," Jungkook mumbled while staring at his feet. "I-I'm h-here because my ex-boyfriend sent me here," He said looking at the doctor. "A-after he b-broke up with m-me, I t-t-thought I wasn't good e-enough, n-no, I-I k-knew, and I-I a-am b-being a b-bacteria i-in t-this w-world," Jungkook was close to crying, but at the same time, it felt somewhat good to tell his story. He sniffed as he looked at Yoongi. "I-I w-wanted to e-end m-my l-life, I-I s-still w-want, b-but T-Taehyung b-brought m-me h-here," he mumbled as he wiped his tears away.

Yoongi was tempted to reach out to the younger boy but he held back. It wouldn't be good on his part. That's why he had been transferred to this hospital in the first place, he got too involved with his patients. "You do know that even bacteria are very important to us, right? No one in this world was made on a whim. Everyone has their role in society, maybe you just haven't found yours yet. You came to this world when you were meant to and you will go when you're meant to. Plus there's no guarantee you can end your life when you want to, right? So for now, why not live because you have to? Live because someone else wants you to?"

"B-but I-I don't e-even want it m-myself?" Jungkook said as he moved a little away from the doctor sitting next to him. He looked at the wall and took his notebook and pencil from under his pillow. He opened it at an empty page and looked at Yoongi's side profile of his face. He tried to draw it, normally Jungkook didn't draw young people since he didn't see them a lot. Though there were times he could leave his room he never did. He didn't want to bother others. He sketched Yoongi's face as he wrote next to the sketch 'Doctor Min'

"Maybe you haven't found it yet, your urge to live. How about we look for it? You said you liked dressing and listening to music- speaking of which... Do you even get to listen to music?" Yoongi said, frowning slightly as he looked around the room.

"N-no," Jungkook mumbled as he looked into his notebook again. "T-they d-don't let m-me have electronic d-devices," He said as he added a sketch of Yoongi's earring in his sketchbook. He liked the earring. It was a beautiful silver star.

"Apparently you don't go out either. So, we'll go out now. Grab what you want to, we're going for a tour. You need to get out of this room. And while coming back, we'll go to my room and listen to some music before coming back. Let's go," Yoongi said, flipping the pages closed and putting his pen away before standing up.

"N-no thank y-you," Jungkook said as he didn't make a move. "I-I'm fine h-here," He mumbled as he looked up to the doctor.

"I didn't give you a choice Jungkook, let's go," Yoongi said, his voice firm but not harsh, he wanted Jungkook out of the room and have a change of scenery. It would help Jungkook and Yoongi knew Jungkook knew that.

"O-okay," Jungkook said as he looked at Yoongi. "I-I'm s-sorry," He mumbled as he stood up and walked behind Yoongi out of his white room. Yoongi's words were quite harsh and Jungkook got scared he disappointed Yoongi in some way. Yoongi suppressed his sigh and nodded, slowing down to walk alongside Jungkook, smiling and greeting every patient and doctor and nurse he saw.

"You don't have to be sorry, I want you to enjoy yourself a bit more and realize what life can hold, even when you're in a facility like this." Yoongi clarified, walking towards the garden they had put up at the time of establishment and was still maintained well.

"Okay," Jungkook mumbled, fiddling with his hands as he looked around, Yoongi said hello to every patient, doctor, and nurse they passed, Jungkook didn't know any of them. He was nervous around these people he didn't know. They walked in the direction of the garden, a place where Jungkook would've gone to if he didn't have to pass the halls. Yoongi turned to Jungkook, noticing how he was slumped over which made him look the same height as himself.

"You okay Jungkook?" Yoongi asked, noticing his wide eyes flitting about spasmodically.

"You don't have to be nervous. These people, they're no different than you. Everyone here, trust me everyone, is here living because they can't die. Me too, so don't worry, you're not alone." He pushed the door open to the garden, which was filled with colorful flowers and rich green grass and a few tall trees. Jungkook walked into the garden, mesmerized by the beauty of the green place filled with nature.

"Pretty," He mumbled towards a flower as he looked at it. "D-do t-they have r-roses?" Jungkook asked. Knowing that Roses wouldn't be the smartest in a hospital with mentally ill people.

"They do, but they're hidden. Come along," Yoongi instructed as he pulled his white coat off, folding it over his arm before walking towards the back of the garden. Beyond a small gate, there was a garden of only different colored roses. Using his fingerprint to push the gate open, he walked through the mechanical gate, calling Jungkook to follow him in. Jungkook silently followed Yoongi to the roses. He looked at them and smiled.

"T-Taehyung hyung always t-told m-me I-I was b-beautiful like a r-rose," Jungkook said as he smiled sadly.

"I g-get why h-he s-said it I-I l-look g-good but, w-when you w-want to g-get closer I-I'll hurt y-you," He stuttered as he looked at the rose. Trying not to make his fingers bleed from the thorns.

"But it also depends on the person who holds the rose. The rose has its thorns for defense. If you want to stay guarded and keep others out, you may end up hurting them. Or you may let them choose if they think the pain is worth it because personally, I think the pain is worth it." Yoongi finished as he grabbed onto a stem carefully, pulling the rose closer to smell it, his fingers unaffected by the thorns.

"You should know how to handle the thorns. If you hold the rose the wrong way, yes you'll get hurt but not all of the stem is covered in thorns." Yoongi reminded Jungkook while pointing out bits of the stem which was void of thorns and had small needle-like projections instead. "If the rose is abused, these little needles-like projections will turn into thorns too."

"T-then e-everybody i-is a rose, and t-their l-lovers are the f-florists who know how to h-handle t-their thorns?" Jungkook said as he looked at Yoongi taking a rose. Afraid that his doctor would hurt himself with the thorns.

"Perhaps they are," Yoongi said as he walked over to sit under a tree. "But it's not just lovers, there can be several people who can come into your life and stay and not get hurt no matter what you say or do. Doesn't have to be only a lover. It can even be just a friend who cares." Yoongi looked at his hands which had impressions of the thorns but not a single cut, he smiled, he knew how to handle these thorns that he had been taught to handle by his childhood friend who was a florist.

"Oh," Jungkook said as he listened to Yoongi. Yoongi was smart. Jungkook looked at Yoongi who smiled at his hand, his hand didn't have a single scratch from the thorned flower. "I h-hope I will h-have more people i-in my life who I won't h-hurt with my t-thorns," Jungkook said to Yoongi, hoping that his doctor would be one of them in the future.

"You will. But you need to also know that there are people who want to stay and eventually, you should shed your thorns too. Before you wither." Yoongi spoke looking up at the slouched figure. "You should come out more. Maybe your ashen looking skin will start to look better... You're tall, stand straight, Jungkook. You need to own up to yourself first before others can embrace you as you are."

"I d-don't know," Jungkook whispered as he looked to a rose that was so close to the floor hidden under the shadow of all other roses. Jungkook sat down on the floor carefully taking the rose in his hand. "W-will you t-try to be the f-florist w-who c-can handle my t-thorns for n-now?" Jungkook asked looking up at the doctor who stood next to him.

Yoongi smiled slightly, crouching down next to him, "that's why I'm here. Even if you didn't want me to, I'd still try to be the florist to your rose. So will you let me take care of you? I want to help you get out of here. But you need to want that too. Do you want to get out of here? I can help you now, later and be next to you every step of the way but only if you want it."

Jungkook looked to his side where Yoongi sat down next to him. Not quite sure what Yoongi meant, did he mean it as a friend? Or as a doctor. "You w-will still get your s-salary," Jungkook stuttered as he looked at the roses again.

Yoongi laughed, "why are you worried about my salary? It's just the type of person I am." He sighed and ran his hands through the blades of grass. "I've always been very attached to my clients. I want to help them all the way, always. It's not about my job, it's just who I am." Yoongi said, slightly wistfully, his lips pursed after he went silent.

"The other doctors don't care like you do," Jungkook whispered to the floor, "I like that." Jungkook hoped that Yoongi didn't hear the last comment. He didn't want to embarrass himself already. He was rather good at these things as he stood up, removing the dirt that had gotten onto his jeans.

"I guess I can hope then you'll treat me differently than the other doctors?" Yoongi asked, still crouching on the floor. The plants looked slightly dehydrated, maybe he'd tell the gardeners to pay a bit more attention to these roses.

"I c-can t-try," Jungkook said as he looked at the sky. Which had turned dark gray. "It's getting darker, it might rain," Jungkook mumbled to himself.

Yoongi looked up too and smiled, "I guess the gardeners don't have to worry, the rain is better for the plants anyway." He stood up, stretching slightly before starting to head towards the bright white facility again.

"Come, let me show you my chamber. If you want, you can lounge in there whenever till curfew time. I'll leave something you can play music in, in my room so you don't have to have anything electronic in your possession." Yoongi continued to talk to Jungkook as he crossed the other garden, pausing once in a while to look at the flowers and other plants.

"T-thank you," Jungkook muttered as he looked at a withered flower. He looked at Yoongi again and followed him into the white building. He hadn't listened to music in some time. Yoongi waited once he entered the building, walking again once Jungkook catches up with him. He makes small conversation once in a while, when he sees someone familiar, stopping Jungkook every time by putting a hand on his shoulder. After they get to his chamber, Yoongi sighs and tosses his coat on his chair, closing the door.

"I'm sorry it took us so long to get here. After we're done here, I'll take you back to your room. Then after that, you can come back here anytime. I'll leave the door open. And if it gets locked, my password is 030993. You can enter whenever you want that way." Yoongi said as he searched for his phone and earphones, handing his unlocked phone with the earphones plugged into Jungkook who was still standing. "You can sit, make yourself comfortable," Yoongi said as he sank into his own chair.

"Y-yes," Jungkook mumbled as he sat down on one of the chairs with the phone in his hands. He opened the music app to search for his favorite artists. He listened to the music he hadn't heard in a long time, he listened to new tunes from them and smiled as he heard an old song he hadn't listened in a year. He searched more songs he used to listen to a lot and smiled at every single one he still enjoyed. Yoongi entered details of his round into his computer, sneaking a glance at Jungkook every once in a while. After he was done with filling in the details, he started putting his notes from today in general into his computer so he could reflect back later and maybe improve. Pausing in his note taking, he looked at Jungkook for a bit before reaching for the telephone on his desk, calling the main desk to tell them he was going to have food with the patients today so he could understand their lifestyle here better.

"D-doctor," Jungkook mumbled into the phone. "C-can I-I c-call y-you H-Hyung?" he asked nervously as he looked up from the phone. Yoongi put the phone back after mumbling a thank you and looked at Jungkook.

"Hyung? Sure, if that makes you feel more comfortable," Yoongi said nodding before pulling himself back in front of the computer. "It'll be time for dinner soon, we should go down then." He said as he continued to type.

"O-okay Hyung," Jungkook mumbled as he took out the earphones and gave the smartphone back to Yoongi. "T-Thank you Hyung," He said as he looked to the floor again.

Yoongi stared at Jungkook squarely, "Did you enjoy listening to music? I told you I'll leave something for you to listen to music on. I think I'll bring my extra phone that no one calls on. You can listen to music on that. No need to thank me, I told you I'll help you."

"I did," Jungkook said as he smiled. "You don't have to, that'll be breaking rules!" Jungkook said as he looked at Yoongi. "But I'm hungry," he smiled. Yoongi stood up and pushed his chair in, leaving his coat on his chair, prepared to leave with just his id card.

"Let's go for dinner then. I'm having dinner with you too, I hope you don't mind," Yoongi said as he waited by the door after opening it, waiting for Jungkook to leave first. Once they were walking down the hallway, Yoongi leaned towards Jungkook to whisper, "Irl be bending the rules, not breaking them. Plus I'm responsible."

"O-okay Hyung," Jungkook mumbled following Yoongi to the dining room. They walked silently as Jungkook looked at the white walls. There was no art on the walls, no color just white. "W-why are the w-walls so empty?" Jungkook wondered as he looked at Yoongi.

Yoongi shrugged, "I guess it's their way of keeping it 'clean' or them trying to not trigger anyone by having a certain color of design on the wall. This is a sterile environment and I think that's how they think it should be. Once you get out, maybe you can tell them to change the walls?" Yoongi finished as he pushed the door to the dining hall open, and he knew he was dreading the meal because there was no way it was going to taste good. It was hospital food.

"Maybe," Jungkook mumbled as he walked to a table in the corner. "L-let's eat t-there," He said pointing at the table he wanted to sit at. Yoongi nodded and headed to the table a bit behind Jungkook, his eyes raking over the room.

"Why the corner?" He asked quietly as they sat down.

"I-it asks less a-attention," Jungkook said as he sat down looking at Yoongi. "I-I don't l-like attention," He added as he looked at the table.

"Sorry, that means you won't like me... Because I'm going to give you endless attention." Yoongi pointed out, his eyes still trained on Jungkook. "Should we go get the food? It's self-help here, isn't it?" Yoongi said, laying his hands flat on the table, looking at the spread across the room.

"I-I'm okay w-with you," Jungkook smiled nervously as he stood up. "L-let's g-get food," He said as he walked to the 'buffet' which was barely a buffet.

Yoongi followed behind Jungkook, "you don't have to be so nervous around me..." He took a plate, scrunching his nose up at all the tasteless food. "No wonder you're losing weight... I'm sorry you have to eat this sort of meals." Yoongi sighed, shaking his head as he thought over what to tell the management because he was definitely going to change the food served in here.

"O-oh I g-guess," He mumbled taking some of the food and a weird liquid they called as some soda. He stood at the end waiting for his hyung to finish. Jungkook didn't get a lot of food so he finished rather fast. "A-Are you done?" Jungkook asked as Yoongi walked to him.

"I... I don't feel that hungry. Yeah, I'm done," Yoongi said, slightly deflated by looking at all the food. He put a hand on Jungkook's back and guided him back to the table, a frown etched into his face. "I need to talk about this to the management as soon as I can." He mumbled to himself as he sat down again.

"W-why?" Jungkook asked hearing what Yoongi mumbled. He took a bite from the tasteless rice he had taken on his plate, ready to throw up. "I-I wish I c-could go t-to McDonalds again," Jungkook mumbled as he shoved the plate forward done with eating after three bites of the tasteless food.

Yoongi bit his lip and tapped on the table. "Hey listen, Jungkook.... Can you please eat a bit more? Please? I promise I'll get you a burger tomorrow. I can bring lunch in so I'll bring in some for you too and we'll have it in our office? You're going to become underweight at this rate... I don't want you to... Just... Finish this today?" Yoongi coaxed him carefully.

"I-I'm n-not that h-hungry," He mumbled, he just really didn't like the food. Jungkook was about ready to throw up as he took another bite and had to keep his hand in front of his mouth. "I-I'm s-sorry, I c-can't eat m-more," he said as he shoved the plate away and took a sip from the vague soda. Which wasn't any better.

Yoongi pushed his glass of water towards Jungkook, "Have the water, it's the only thing here that tastes like it should." He sighed deeply, if this was the food they were serving, they wouldn't be getting anywhere with their "diets". No wonder all the patients he had seen had only been deteriorating. Jungkook looked at the concerned doctor and took the glass of water. It was the only thing he trusted in the hospital.

"O-okay," He said as he took a careful sip from the cold water. His stomach reacted with disgust, he didn't eat or drink a lot beside the times he had assigned to himself because the food here was so terrible. "W-will you r-really buy me a h-hamburger?" Jungkook asked, his eyes were big from disbelief. No doctor would actually do such things to patients, they didn't care.

"Why not? I said I'd be your florist, right? I mean I'd rather be your gardener than florist because a gardener can help you grow and improve but yes, I mean it. You can see it for yourself tomorrow then if you don't believe me or trust me yet." Yoongi shrugged. It wouldn't be surprising if Jungkook didn't trust him. He wasn't supposed to trust anyone right off the bat, Yoongi was supposed to earn his trust which is what he was going to do.

"T-thank you H-Hyung," Jungkook said as he thought about the hamburger. "C-can y-you- I-I don't w-want to be a bother," He started. "You k-know n-nevermind," He mumbled looking into the glass of water again. Yoongi nodded at the helper who asked if he could clear their plates, watching as he took away the barely touched food.

"It's okay, you can tell me," he said as he directed his attention back to Jungkook.

"C-can you b-buy me new n-notebooks?" He asked nervously as Jungkook still held onto the glass, actually a transparent plastic cup, with water. "A-and some a-aquarelle-paint," he whispered softly. He really wanted to paint with aquarelles. Yoongi nodded, pulling out his phone to take down notes. He would order them now and get them delivered tomorrow morning before coming in. That way he could bring them in tomorrow itself for Jungkook. He did have a list of other things other patients had asked from him and bring the doctor he was, he couldn't refuse them. He had already ordered a few things and he ordered some things for Jungkook as well.

"Water colors, so I'm guessing also brushes and a mug to put the dirty water in. And a sketchbook. All to be delivered tomorrow." Yoongi smiled as he finished paying, looking up at Jungkook after he was done. "Don't hesitate with me, Jungkook. I want you to be open with me, completely raw. I'm not here to judge you. I'm here to listen and help in any way I can. Let's go back."

"Y-yes let's g-go back," Jungkook said as he stood up. Hoping that Yoongi wouldn't be like any other doctor. He already proved a lot of himself, as a caring doctor. Jungkook hoped he could one day trust Yoongi.

#angst #fluff #jjk #myg #writing #roleplayed #au #bts

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iagreeonehundredpercent · 8 years

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Not Doing So Great

I would like to share a small list of chronological events. This list is also happening to me, but I’m going to pretend it’s a grocery list so I don’t snap. Snap peas only, no snapping. This has been my past few months.

December: awful job says holiday hires have taken all of the holiday work days off. I must work during the holidays. I cannot go home to see my family.

January 19th: my birthday. I don’t plan anything on this day, I have a party on the 22nd. I am excited for this party, unlike the past four years of birthdays I am celebrating this one with my friends and I am sure I will enjoy myself.

January 20th: I am fired by my garbage job. They say it is my attitude. This is incredibly upsetting and demoralizing. I am fired without notice or without pay in lieu after almost a year of working for them. I don’t even know that this is a thing you legally can’t do to people until my mom tells me over the phone. I am horribly depressed.

That Weekend: I cancel my birthday party.

January 23rd: worrying that I’m not going to have enough money to stay afloat until my next job, I decide to email shitty job telling them that I am owed termination pay.

January 25th: I find out that I am pregnant.

Also January 25th: I find out that I am pregnant immediately before a job interview.

Also January 25th: I somehow do well in the job interview, and am offered a job as a street fundraiser.

Also January 25th: I reject the job as a street fundraiser.

Also January 25th: terrible job emails me back, saying that they will only give me termination page if I sign a contract that is in essence a gag order. I am never allowed to speak anything but positively about awful job. They offer me $400 for this.

That Weekend: my mom visits. We have a discussion about Mike Pence, this discussion leads to abortion, my mom does not believe in abortion. She believes that women who become pregnant should be forced to have the child, and then either raise the child or give the child up. I feel a distance between us that I have not felt since coming out. I am acting strangely, but I say it is because I was recently fired. For the first time since the day after my birthday, I am grateful that I was fired.

January 31st: I find out I have been hired at new job. New job is great, better pay, better hours, kind people. But they want me to start the day after tomorrow. I was planning to have an abortion on a friday so I would have a weekend to recover from the most significant symptoms. I tell new job that I am still at trashcan old job (which I of course say is great but just can’t give me enough hours) so that I have give room in case I decide to have an abortion.

Also January 31st: I decide to have an abortion.

Also January 31st: I make an appointment for an abortion. This is difficult and emotional, but also difficult because the earliest appointment that works is next week friday. I must lie to my new job about still having Friday hours at my old job. I do not enjoy lying, and am not good at it.

February 2nd: It is my first day at my new job. They are friendly and patient. They pay me every two weeks instead of every month and a half on irregular days. They encourage me to get up and walk every few hours to prevent back issues instead of forcing me to stand for hours with no heat in the winter or no air conditioning in the summer. They help me fix my mistakes and admit their own instead of viciously attacking me for making any at all. I love new job.

Also February 2nd: I find out that the girl I am replacing has a sister. Her sister is a vendor for misery job. I will spend the next week and a half discussing the positive particulars of acid rain job with the girl I am replacing.

Also February 2nd: I reject dying-puppies job’s offer of signing a gag order for $400.

February 3rd: still pregnant

February 4th: still pregnant

February 5th: still pregnant

February 6th: still pregnant

February 7th: still pregnant

February 8th: still pregnant

February 9th: still pregnant

February 10th: I have an abortion.

A week and a half later: The abortion itself went well. I am glad I chose the clinic that I did. I am glad that I had the abortion. I had an IUD inserted at the same time as the abortion. Even though everything could be normal, I am still experiencing severe pain in the evenings and pretty significant bleeding. I am worried something is wrong, so I call the clinic where I had the abortion, and a doctor says this is normal. The only thing that she will say is not normal is if I am in so much pain I cannot move or if I bleed so much in half an hour that I flood a pad. She will not tell me when it is normal to stop bleeding. I am not having either of the symptoms she mentioned. I assume my recovery is normal.

I bleed and am in pain every day for the next two weeks. I am a scientist now, I slowly tell select friends about my abortion and quiz them on recoveries of friends and family members who have also had abortions or IUDs inserted. Everyone seems to have a different experience. No one seems to have answers. I doubt myself, I belittle myself. I assume I cannot handle pain, that I am weaker than my friends. A small part of me feels like I deserve it. I rarely take Advil.

March 1: I go to a walk-in clinic I visited early in my pregnancy to discuss options. I am tired of convincing myself that my pain and my bleeding is normal. I am tired, and even if it is nothing, I want [read: need] someone to confirm that is the case. A friendly doctor sympathizes, she agrees that my symptoms do sound concerning. She does an exam, orders blood work, does a urine pregnancy test, and promises to follow up. I feel like a person again, if only for a moment. But she also explains to me later in the appointment that I have had a positive pregnancy test, and my symptoms could be due to an infection, either because of the IUD or the abortion, or due to still being pregnant. I get fuzzy at this point and don’t understand her properly but don’t ask any more questions because I don’t want to cry in the clinic. A nurse draws my blood and I leave.

Yesterday: My bleeding and pain significantly increases. The clinic calls me at work while I am doing some filing. The blood test shows a positive pregnancy. I am breaking inside. They say that they have a requisition for me for an ultrasound to further confirm the test results. I tell them that I will walk over and pick it up, my work is 15 minutes away. I lie to my work and say that I am experiencing heavy bleeding from an IUD insertion and need to go to the hospital. They are concerned and compassionate, and they encourage me to go.

I have a small breakdown at the clinic speaking with a doctor. But it is not another baby, it is not the same baby, it is a piece of tissue from the placenta that won’t leave my goddam uterus. Even if this is the case, it feels the same and the solutions are the same. I will either have to have a medical or a surgical abortion. This time the doctor is careful not to call it an abortion. It is the same procedure, but now it is to ‘remove the tissue’.

I walk to the hospital

I spend nine hours in the hospital.

In the hospital over the course of nine hours, I have 1 external ultrasound, 1 internal ultrasound, 3 internal exams, 3 external exams. I have to explain my symptoms countless times. I have to recite my medical history over and over, talking to each new stranger about my abortion, about my bleeding, about my pain. Even after the second ultrasound confirms that there is a piece of tissue remaining from the abortion, I doubt myself. I doubt my symptoms. I doubt my pain.

I am a person who lives with depression. I have attempted suicide in the past, and I know my limits because of it. I could not have survived yesterday without my friend who came with me to the hospital. For many of those nine hours, I lived with the possibility of having another surgical abortion less than a month after the first. Even after everything I’ve been through, after all the pain and bleeding and doubt I still don’t regret my abortion. But I’m not the strongest person, and even though I know it’s different and I know there’s no baby, there never was a baby just a cluster of cells, and even though I know it’s necessary I wished that this wasn’t happening and I knew that I couldn’t deal with another surgical procedure.

The last doctor I saw from gynecology prescribed me a medication sometime past 9PM last night. It has an 85% efficacy rate. It has a complicated name that starts with an ‘M’ and essentially triggers a miscarriage. It is used in abortions. After a snack raid of a nearby Rexall, I returned home and took this medication. It feels like another abortion.

I’m having a hard time, guys. I’m sorry if this post feels heavy, I know that many of you also lead heavy lives and I want you to know that I don’t expect anything from you. I just had to talk about it. Even though I’ve told a select few friends, I feel isolated and very alone a lot of the time. I’m worried that I’ll once again be in the incredibly small minority of people for whom abortions are not entirely effective and I will have to go through this a third time. I’m exhausted and very very sad.

I also don’t want people to feel dissauded from having abortions because of this post. That is your choice and your body, my body is just being so rude about it. Very clingy, literally in the case of the placenta tissue. But trust your body. Know your body. Pain and constant bleeding is not normal. It is not something you deserve or something that is to be expected just because you have a uterus or have recently had an abortion. Don’t let other people’s doubt or discomfort with the truth cloud your judgement. They don’t live inside you. They are not you.

Apologies to the people I have not talked to in a while. This is why. I sincerely hope things get better soon.

#this has been lauren talking #for a long time #long post is long #sorry about that #i just needed to talk about it #all of it

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allmymisters · 6 years

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You Say Tomato.

When people are together a long time, you pick up on so many things from each other. From how you leave the toilet paper, to how they like their eggs cooked, to what their tells are when they lie. I can confidently say, we knew each other better than anyone knew us...or did we? Was it just a facade, that because we were together so long we thought we knew our ins and outs? I'm not sure, maybe one day we will have that conversation. Maybe one day, we will have the biggest conversation of our lives.

You had been playing with Lisa for a while. It was exciting for you to be playing with different musicians who were doing different genres of music. I always told you that was what New York was for. This was the city of limitless possibilities, but if you don't get out there, nobody will know who you are. There was no doubt of your talents and you were finally getting to the "pro" status you wanted to be in. I wanted to believe that all that work we did when we lived there was to further our creativity, to further our future.

Lisa picked you up for the gig like she did for any other gig in Brooklyn around 4 or 5 pm. I felt that every time you played somewhere, because you were the drummer, it was always more work getting your gear and probably because there was more of it. You had a rehearsal spot in Williamsburg on Roebling St. and there is where you taught the drum lessons. You had been teaching drums since I met you, before then even, and I always saw you, a patient and nurturing teacher. You had this ability to explain things that made them less complex. Every time you built a flight case or tinkered on a motorcycle, I went away with more knowledge than I had expected. I suppose you're the reason I'm such a gear head sometimes.

You saw teaching as a means to an end. This is what you did to pay your bills. I think New York was harder for you than for me. I never expected her to just give me things, she gave me a lot of rocks, but I'm the one who worked to build something out of them. You, you seemed thwarted at every turn. Completely dissatisfied at where you were in your career and what you were trying to do, but then you started playing with real musicians and I felt the tide finally started to turn for you and I was excited. You called on a Sunday.

"Hey." "Hey." "Look, this is stupid, I want this to work!" "Ok?" "What are we doing?" "I don't know, I mean you need to decide what you want. That's what it comes down to." "Well, I want us. I want to work this out. I'm coming home next week. Fuck this, I gotta finish up some things here and then I'm moving back home." "Ok."

I don't know. Maybe I was so unenthusiastic because I had become so used to your inner conflictual nature. I knew you were weighing all the pros and cons. I knew that I didn't want you to be unhappy, but I wanted you to also fight and I felt lately you weren't fighting. So I put the ball in your court and had basically given up. I wasn't going to be the person who took what you loved most away, even if it wasn't me. I did however want you to make the decision whether to stay or go because I knew where I wanted to be. There were so many frustrating conversations in those few months. So many things, I wanted, you wanted, but we never found the right way to say them.

You came to me one weekend before and wanted to have a serious conversation. I've seen you stressed before, but never crazed. You had revealed to me that you had severe OCD and that it had been going on since childhood. "I do about 50 things a day, just to function. My parents don't even know," you admitted to me. I honestly was in shock because I never once suspected anything. "Yeah, think about when we leave the house or I come home, I always squeeze my keys three times before opening the door among other things." I knew you had a hard time making decisions, but I never noticed any type of OCD behavior. I think you were handling a lot at that time and I was trying to be supportive. I told you to go speak to someone, but as all things in your life, you had to tell your parents first. They made the decision to make an appointment with their doctor. The next thing I know, you are on anti-depressants. You didn't need anti-depressants. All you needed was some good old fashioned therapy. I think you feared being nuts and I think you felt weak to have to seek out such help. It didn't matter that I had an opinion, it only mattered that the hole was patched up...quickly.

The week before you told me you would be coming home to join me, you were complaining about not feeling well and having headaches. I told you to just rest that it was probably stress. I also told you to go to the doctor, but I knew you were waiting to be put on my health insurance when you came home. I thought maybe it was you adjusting to the anti-depressants. I couldn't be bothered with it, I was so angry with you and was dealing with my own stresses, that I didn't really pay much attention to how you were feeling. For the first time in my life, I was thinking of my own life and where I wanted to be. You had been talking to friends regularly and I'm sure there were copious amount of advice, but I pushed you to seek them out because I couldn't be that person anymore, I was tired. Emotionally spent from the constant back and forth of you struggling. I had to be my own rock for once and I think that devastated you.

"I remember he made a phone call to his Mom there in the van while we were settling to leave. He was talking about getting certain screws for a project he was doing? It sounded peculiar and funny for some reason. He was being very detailed oriented…over screws. Then his mom must have asked about how he was feeling. His response was “better” and some mention of him being dizzier earlier in the day. I really didn’t think much of this at the time though it was kind of strange. I mean we get dizzy or a weird pain now and then in our chest and it goes away. Looking back this makes sense. The clot/tissue must have been traveling earlier in the day and made him dizzy at a point, then passed on to a new location in the brain. " -- Lisa Bianco, Musician

You were on your way to a gig in New Jersey. You sat in the passenger seat next to Lisa, while she drove towards the Verrazono bridge, your other bandmate, Fab sat in the back. As you approached the Victory Boulevard exit on the Staten Island Expressway, you abruptly said, "Guys, I need to go to the hospital. My hands are cramping." You had your hands under your thighs to keep them straight. Lisa had her thoughts on what could be happening, but she knew something was wrong. She thought maybe an allergy from something you ate. She also thought that maybe it was a reaction to the new anti-depressants you were on. They called an ambulance, which you rejected, due to not having health insurance. Although the ambulance was on the way, they did as you wished, and headed to a hospital.

Lisa was apt in this type of situation. She was rational and she knew you well enough to read your distress. As you all arrived at Staten Island University Hospital, the cramping had subsided and you were able to walk in with them. Someone started to take your vitals. She said you had a look of "disbelief". I knew what look she was talking about. I had seen it before, when people died suddenly or the day we sat outside the coffee shop and I gave you the ultimatum. Lisa had told the person taking your vitals that you were not drunk or on drugs and she wanted to make sure they knew that, being a musician and all. Something seemed unnatural about you, even though you were capable of making a phone call. You called your mother. She asked questions and then Lisa took the phone to describe what had happened up to that point. Here's the thing about ER/Hospital like situations, if you're body isn't almost severed from your head, nobody gives a shit. I've walked out of an emergency room before because nobody would listen to how much pain I was in. So you all sat there, in the waiting room, and eventually to the ER beds. While waiting there for sometime, something started happening to your speech. When Lisa asked you what you had for lunch you said, "Tomato...tomato...tomato." It would not go any further, you couldn't describe anything else about your lunch and you couldn't have a normal conversation at this point.

Lisa knew that things were amiss. She knew you weren't acting "normal". You were only 34, what could possibly cause such a sudden medical eruption in you. Surely this was some weird reaction, surely you would be just fine once they examined you. As you tried to answer the RN's questions, a look of confusion shone on your face. Of course, like any good medical facility, at that moment, they handed you the forms to make sure they'd get paid for fixing you. And like a good bandmate and friend, Fab tore them up, he knew you didn't have the mental capacity to read the legalese that laid in front of you and I would have done the same.

In all that confusion, Lisa thought it would be best to take responsibility for knowing what was your status. She felt that if any tests were to be run, she wanted to make sure she could be a contact to relay information from. The show must go on. Your bandmates decided to leave you at the hospital and would come retrieve you after the gig. She figured you'd be there waiting for them after the few hours they were gone, but you never answered the call.

"He had a seizure," the doctor said. Lisa thought it was strange because you didn't look like you had a seizure she had seen before. She just accepted what they told her and why wouldn't she, these were doctors. She proceeded to find a landline and called your mother to report what had happened.

I got the call on Tuesday morning. 328 miles away. There you laid. Eyes closed. Oxygen. Squirming. Sweating. Clammy. Adorning a hospital gown. There I laid. Asleep. Eyes shut. Breathing peacefully. Coolness of the sheets atop of me. Awaiting tomorrow. It made me mad that I wasn't warned. No black raven visited my dreams. No Spideysense tingled. No flickering lights from beyond . No "in case of emergency" call. I wasn't even on the list. For the first time in our lives together, I truly felt disconnected, but when I finally saw you lying there I felt every single invisible word you said.

#one for sorrow

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anxietycalling · 5 years

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... is this thing on?

HA. After like two months of trying to break into my own goddamn tumblr account, I finally figured out what password I used. So hi. Hello. Welcome back to the internet, self.

I mostly wanted to log in to give some updates about my life and start, you know, documenting it as there is some monumental stuff in the works for me this year. I’ll put the rest of it under a cut because I’m not a barbarian.

So one of the biggest changes for me since the last time I blogged reliably is that I got diagnosed with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. That was, uh, two years ago? Somewhere in that general timeframe. It’s not really that surprising, given my mother’s extreme fastidiousness that she later admitted to me is untreated OCD. I’m the only person I know who can walk soundlessly in pitch dark and make entire meals without touching food with my hands because of that. But anyways, I guess the reason it didn’t get diagnosed sooner is because, as my wonderful psychologist puts it, “You’re too smart to fall for obvious compulsions because you’re aware of how they affect your public perception, so you get trapped in the ones that are more realistic.” In other words, I intellectualize my OCD too much. That’s not to say it doesn’t affect my life though! For... probably about a year, maybe more, I had a crippling fear of handling or preparing food for others because I had a persistent obsession that I would accidentally poison someone. At its worst it got so bad that I couldn’t touch plastic wrap or open packaging, either. Through cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and exposure response prevention (ERP), my symptoms have decreased to the point where I’m able to cook for myself and others again. I still seek reassurance more than I should - which is another symptom of OCD - but I’m working on it. Baby steps! Most of my symptoms are manageable now, but I do still get ‘stuck’ sometimes. Like I said, I have a wonderful psychologist. She makes me do things I don’t want to do. She’s nice about it, but she’s a bit of a stickler for progress. Which is good! She’s very practical in a way that previous therapists of mine haven’t been. I don’t like the ooey-gooey “How does that make you feeeeeel? How does it relate to your tortured chiiiiildhood?” nonsense, so I’m glad we can skip that. For years I thought I was just bad at therapy, so I didn’t pursue it. Turns out that the right person with the right counselling philosophy can be a great asset in managing mental illness. Which leads me to the reason I sought out a therapist to begin with...

When I moved to Ottawa, I got a regular endocrinologist for the first time in my life. She’s wonderful and willing to work with her patients at their own level. My husband goes to the same endo (but more on him in a second...) and seeing the differences in the way she interacts with each of us is awesome. She takes time to answer my many questions and often has great practical advice about managing hormone replacement therapy. My testosterone levels have been stable for... three years now? Maybe a little more? Aside from one set of bloodwork where my hemoglobin was high, there haven’t been any major hiccups. And my endo said that it wasn’t necessarily concerning, just a precaution because we don’t know what the effects of heightened hemoglobin levels in transgender men are yet. Another thing my endocrinologist does is refer her patients to other relevant services. After my second or third appointment with her, she wrote my letter of recommendation to the government so I could change my gender designation on my birth certificate. She also did the paperwork for OHIP to cover my top surgery. I got the letter from the Ministry of Health a couple of weeks later, and started down the path to actually, you know, getting surgery. It’s more complicated than you think! She recommended me to the Montreal GRS clinic (Drs. Brassard, Belanger and Bensimon). There is a fair amount of paperwork that they request before your file even gets passed to the surgery team. One of those things was a letter of recommendation from a health professional that meets the WPATH standards of care. That’s when my endo recommended my therapist to me. The WPATH standards of care require at least 6 months of follow-up from the practitioner, so I sat down in that office once a month until I got my dang letter. And what a letter it was! Cori, my therapist, basically wrote a strongly worded letter that implies her disapproval over needing a letter at all. Why, you may ask? Because I already had years of documentation detailing my gender dysphoria and persistent desire for surgery. Literal years of it, dating back to... 2007 or so. But she wrote the letter, we continued on, and my brain is much healthier than it’s been for years.

Getting my IDs changed was a lot more work than I expected. Like, I knew that it would take a fair amount of paperwork, and I was prepared for that. I did my gender marker change first, which involved first getting the letter of recommendation notarized and sending it off to the government to get a shiny new birth certificate with an ‘M’ on it. It took about 4 months to get my first birth certificate. After that, back to city hall I went to change the gender on my driver’s license and health card. Getting the gender marker changed was inexpensive - I paid $35 for the new birth certificate plus postage. Ottawa city hall has services that will commission (notarize) your documents for free, so I didn’t pay for that, but normally in our city it costs between $15-20. Next I did my name change. The form itself is about 30 pages or so, and most of it is just checking boxes like “Hey, I’m not a criminal, I’m not hiding from any debts,” and then getting it notarized and mailing it off. The name change took the longest - I waited about 6 months for my new birth certificate. Changing the name on my IDs was easy. All I had to do was go back to city hall (again) and wait in line (again) and update my drivers’ license, health card and social insurance file. For about the first month after my name change, I had a folder I carried everywhere with me. You never really realize how many places you give your name to until you have to change it. The gym, doctor’s offices - despite having socialized healthcare and a (mostly) computerized system, you have to remember to change your name at every doctor’s office you visit separately. Now I have my updated IDs, so I can just show my driver’s license.

Now I’m going to talk about the path to getting a surgery date at GRS Montreal. Yes, I got the letter for my OHIP funding relatively quickly, but actually getting my file to the surgical team was a logistical disaster. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, by the way - I’m glad that they’re doing their due diligence and making sure everything is well documented. It’s just kind of hard when you’ve already waited for so long to stay patient. So, yes, I got my letter from Cori after 6 months. The reason I’m so irritated about it to this day is that a couple of months after they insisted they needed this letter, I got another email from the clinic saying they didn’t need it. And then they went back and forth on it another couple of times, so Cori and I just said fuck it and did it anyways, because I do not have the patience for that kind of back-and-forth. During the interim while I was getting regularly therapized, I also did all of the medical components they required. It was basically just a visit with my family doctor so he could sign a form and say “Hey, this guy is healthy enough for surgery and I am competent to handle any complications.” I know that doesn’t sound like a lot, but having to fill out a million checkboxes and saying ‘No’ to a million health conditions I don’t have, multiple times, gets a bit tedious after a while. So I did all of that, and then I sat on my hands and waited. And waited. And waited some more. I prodded them occasionally via email, because I’m impatient at the best of times and am often bossy and direct with health professionals. Finally, after another 6 months, they passed my file on to the surgical team, who actually called me on the phone promptly to tell me the next steps. The surgical nurse literally emailed me an info packet on Jackson-Pratt drains while on the phone with me. They gave me my surgery date in September. And now we wait again. I’m leaving for Montreal on February 25th. At this point I’m just impatient and trying to keep busy. 51 more days. The closer it gets, the more time stands still.

My bio-dad died in... 2017? Something like that. I know, it sounds awful that I don’t remember when he died but also, he was just a shit person. He abused me, he let his girlfriend abuse me, and he continued being a terrible person even in death. There was money for me in some account he had (and had forgotten), apparently, and I spent almost a year trying to figure out how to get it with no luck. Seriously. Even my mom, who had long since divorced my bio-dad and remarried, tried - because the account manager said she had to be the one that accessed the account, even though it was in my name and I’m an adult... and my mother’s lawyer looked at the whole thing, figured out that it was super illegal, and the investment firm stopped returning my calls. What a fucking scam. And yes, I could pursue it legally if I wanted to, but I really don’t want to. I don’t have the patience or the money for lawyers. Everyone in my family is unequivocally mad at me for not going to the funeral. I mean, why would I? Why would I go to the funeral of a man who sexually abused me and chose alcohol over both of his kids? But my family tends to be very “But faaaaaaamily!”, therefore, most of them have stopped speaking to me. I’m not really upset by his dying, by the way. I kind of made peace with it in like 2013 or so the first time my mother called me sobbing to tell me he was on his deathbed. I wasn’t surprised then, either, that he had congestive heart failure due to alcoholism. He was so jaundiced the last time I saw him in person that he looked like a Simpsons character. He didn’t recognize me, either. My brother had to tell him that I was his own child. So that pretty much killed any kind of forgiveness I could have had for the man. To his credit, he maybe kind-of tried. If trying is calling me, on purpose, on my birthday every year to tell me what a woman I am and am becoming. Ugh. Gross. Grossgrossgross. Also, and this is a big Also, I could not have stomached that funeral when everyone was acting like his death was so Tragic and Could Not Have Been Foreseen. Like! I remember from childhood that that man could put away a 24-pack of beer in a day. One of my fondest childhood memories of him - if you can call them that - is bottle return day, where we would wait for my mom to leave for work and then sneak his empties out of the house to return for the deposit, which he would then use to buy more beer and buy KFC for lunch. And this is a secret that we kept from my mother for, like, years. I don’t think she really ever knew the extent of his drinking. Or mine, when I was still drinking. I wasn’t ever really bothered by his death. I had a breakdown about it, sure, but it was more about the finality of his having died without standing up for myself or demanding an explanation/apology for his behavior towards us, or for raping my brother’s girlfriend, or... anything.

I had a job with great pay, and I fucking quit it. No, seriously. I was making $18 an hour and I walked away from it because it was driving me to a nervous breakdown. I wasn’t sleeping, I was barely eating, and I couldn’t have a day off without obsessively thinking about work. I got promoted way too quickly and sort of lied-to way too often about how things would change, they never did, and finally in October I couldn’t handle it anymore. I saw Cori and she basically told me that I needed to quit or she’d make me. And I still feel kind of bad about that, because Ash and I fought about that for months beforehand. Literal months. It’s the only thing we’ve ever fought about. But I sat in that office in tears about the thought of ever going back to McDonald’s, and it was the right choice. The first month was really hard. Not financially - I had decent enough savings to float us for a couple months. But emotionally, I was devastated. I’ve always kind of vacillated my self-worth between pushing myself way too hard to try and force everyone to like me and crumbling under the pressure from that and turning inwards. I had no idea what to do with myself. I was sleeping at weird hours or not sleeping at all. The cats were glad I was home, and so was Ash, but I felt really sick not doing anything - or at least as much. Even with school, I felt kind of aimless. Online classes don’t really demand specific time frames. Yeah, there are due dates, but aside from that you’re really on your own. Now I’m glad that I quit when I did. From what my friends who still work there tell me, things have only gone downhill. It’s not surprising. They take anyone who’s halfway competent and seduce them with promises they have no intention of keeping to accept promotions and then never follow through. They push people way too hard and they’re not growing and changing with the economy and the demographic of people they’re able to hire for minimum wage. Like, I’m sorry, but once I’ve recovered from surgery there are way better jobs I can get that will keep my brain way healthier.

The husband. Well, to-be. We’re going to do it on paper at Halloween. Nothing flashy, just going to city hall and signing some papers and then it’s done. I’m not sure exactly where to start on this one because most of it happened so fast. I kind of dicked around with online dating for a bit and nothing really came of it; I had lost expectations around the time he messaged me. There was nothing that immediately said “Hey, you’re going to fall in love with this person!” but I took the leap anyways. I was having a hard time coming to terms with being gay and trans, so a low-stakes thing with less expectation seemed nice to me. ... And then we talked, and we both fell hard. I moved to Ottawa 2 months later, after a fairly tumultuous time going back and forth on the train pretty much every 4 or 5 days. I spent most of my money on traveling those months. It was extremely worth it. I knew I was in it for the long-haul when he called me while I was on the train home one day. I’d just left, much against my better judgment, and he had a doctor’s appointment that I’d wanted to go to. Ash is not great at asserting himself with doctors. Like I said, I’m bossy and controlling, so this one would’ve been good for me to be at. He called me basically in tears. Something was weird with his bloodwork, and not only could he not start testosterone as originally planned, but his doctors thought he had leukemia. In typical me fashion, I basically got home, worked a day or two and immediately turned around and came back. There were tests. There was bloodwork. Much of it is a blur, but the thrilling conclusion is that doctors often don’t know how to interpret Ash’s blood results because he doesn’t have a spleen, so his blood is shaped wrong. No cancer! Just weird blood and a crappy immune system. But that crystallized it for me. We moved into a friend’s place for a couple of months, and then, when we could, moved into our current apartment. And for a couple of months it was nice! Great, even! But our roommate’s girlfriend, who also lived with us, had a poorly managed personality disorder and was emotionally and sexually abusive to our wonderful roommate. It took months, but eventually we evicted her after having secret meetings away from the house to come up with a battle plan. In the end, she had to be removed by police and her parents had to come get her things. It’s something I hope I never have to do again, because it felt awful and the girl’s poor parents were clearly devastated. We parted ways with the roommate in June. Amicably, but a bit sad. Part of it was that we had outgrown having roommates, and part of it is that our roommate, while a wonderful person, has a serious hoarding disorder related to anxiety that clashed awfully with my OCD symptoms. They’re in a house with some wonderful people now, so hopefully it’s better with people who are able to be supportive in a more helpful way. All of this to say that I have a wonderful husband, who I love very much.

Which brings me to my next point. Jeez, this is turning into a novel. I’m so sorry. But anyways, I started university in September! It’s been tough what with the work stuff, but I’m doing pretty well. I’m majoring in psychology and desperately white-knuckling my way through introductory biology so I can take cognitive neuropsychology classes next year. Eventually I’d like to become a clinician, but I’m pretty sure I need to go to graduate school for that. I’m taking less classes than I’d like because of surgery, but I’m going to take summer classes to make up for it.

Also because Ash had to have emergency surgery before Christmas! We’d known something was wrong with his elbow for a while - it was an injury that he’d had since before we met. But over the course of 3 years, an injured elbow turned to a lump, and that lump lead to a loss of mobility. His family doctor didn’t seem overly concerned about it, and didn’t run the proper tests until this year. Thanks to a concerned sports medicine doctor who was way out of his depth, more tests were run. There’s nothing quite like the concerned, hushed tone of a doctor to strike fear into one’s heart. The diagnostic imaging showed a tumor had grown in Ash’s elbow. I named him Leopold. A non-cancerous, aggressive giant cell tumor. In his elbow. Literally eating away at the bone. Likely had been for a while. They called us on a Wednesday. Ash went to meet the surgeon on Thursday. The hospital called the same day to book him for surgery. Monday he went to meet with the anaesthesiologist. Tuesday we went to the hospital and they removed Leopold. And let me tell you, it was an absolute shit show. First of all, they expect a man who’s still drugged up from the anaesthesia to be able to decide if he can go home that night or not. They wouldn’t even let him call me before making him decide. Listen, this man is not great at taking decisive action in the best of circumstances sometimes. I actually ended up going home to feed the cats and going back before anyone even told me whether he was coming home or not! Then the post-operative nurses didn’t give clear directions on the aftercare, so I ended up calling the hospital multiple days in a row to figure out what was going on. They didn’t even tell me what type of stitches he had. I think the worst part was that the doctors didn’t actually check with us what kind of painkillers would be most appropriate. They just sent us home with a list, half of which wasn’t covered by insurance, and we had to white-knuckle it the first night with basically good intentions and fancy Tylenol before we could borrow the money for the rest of his painkillers the next morning. I honestly wasn’t sure we would survive that first night. Because the damage to the elbow was so severe, they put a nerve block into the arm that slowly started wearing off through the night. I never want to see anyone in that much pain. It was the kind of pain where you’re not even human anymore; you’re reduced down to an animal who’s scared and in pain, and all you want is for it to stop. I know it was necessary, what they did, to preserve motor function in the arm, but fuck, it was awful. I’m doing a bad job of explaining the technical side of this. It was an elbow resection with tumor removal and a bone graft. The bone graft actually might be the worst part. Because the tumor ate so much of the bone, we had to do the surgery pretty much immediately because any kind of impact could have shattered Ash’s remaining bone permanently. And they had to be so, so careful during the procedure because the tumor was resting on a nerve. To the surgeons’ credit, they did not sever the nerve. It’s less irritated now, and the arm actually looks quite good, but I wish they’d given us more information ahead of time. I was woefully unprepared for how much work I would be doing. You never realize how much work your hands do until they’re taken away from you. Also, something else people never talk about with surgery is how much painkillers mess with your mood. Opioids are by nature depressants, but all the textbooks downplay exactly how severe the mood symptoms can be. Of course being bedridden plays into it as well, but painkillers severely inhibit cognitive function. That first week or so was awful. There were so many goddamn medications and most of them were useless. We were like robots, with the fucking medication dispensing. I had alarms set every 4 hours so the pain couldn’t come back. We tried. We tried so fucking hard, only to get to the follow-up appointment and have a very nice medical student give us the good stuff: Tylenol # 3 and morphine. Did I mention she was a very nice med student?

So yes, that’s basically the state of my life at the moment. I haven’t really written anything since I left California, but I’m going to try this year to actually finish something. I’m going to post regularly, both because I kind of missed this place and because it’s nice to see concrete progress. Also, when I was looking for pictures of surgery results there wasn’t a lot to be found, so I’m trying to save someone else the same trouble.

Anyone who actually read to the end of this, you’re great and I’m very sorry I basically wrote a novel about my life. I know my descriptions are lacking in some places, so feel free to... ask follow-up questions, I guess? I dunno. It’s nice to be back.

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erraticfairy · 5 years

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Podcast: Do Suicide Questionnaires Save Lives?

Should we be talking so plainly about suicidal ideation? What are the benefits of assessing our thought patterns over a period of time? Join us as we discuss the Columbia-Suicide Severity Scale screening tool. We tackle this sensitive topic after Jackie was surprised by a suicide assessment at a physician’s office. Rare trigger warning this week for a tough subject, as we explore talking openly about suicidal ideation.

(Transcript Available Below)

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About The Not Crazy Podcast Hosts

Gabe Howard is an award-winning writer and speaker who lives with bipolar disorder. He is the author of the popular book, Mental Illness is an Asshole and other Observations, available from Amazon; signed copies are also available directly from Gabe Howard. To learn more, please visit his website, gabehoward.com.

Jackie Zimmerman has been in the patient advocacy game for over a decade and has established herself as an authority on chronic illness, patient-centric healthcare, and patient community building. She lives with multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, and depression.

You can find her online at JackieZimmerman.co, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Computer Generated Transcript for “Suicide Questionnaires” Episode

Editor’s Note: Please be mindful that this transcript has been computer-generated and therefore may contain inaccuracies and grammar errors. Thank you.

Jackie: This episode discusses the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale. Listener discretion is advised.

Announcer: You’re listening to Not Crazy, a Psych Central podcast. And here are your hosts, Jackie Zimmerman and Gabe Howard.

Gabe: Pay attention Not Crazy fans, right now Not Crazy listeners get 25% off a Calm premium subscription at Calm.com/NotCrazy. That’s C A L M dot com slash Not Crazy. Forty million people have downloaded Calm. Find out why at Calm.com/NotCrazy.

Gabe: Welcome to the Not Crazy podcast. I would like to introduce my co-host, Jackie, who still has not seen the new Star Wars, just unacceptable. This is why you live with depression. You realize this, right?

Jackie: Wow. That snarky A-hole is my co-host, Gabe Howard, whose absolute lifetime favorite Star Wars character. Jar Jar Binks.

Gabe: Oh, that that is not true. That is a lie.

Jackie: Maybe that’s why you experience being bipolar. Because you can’t handle the guilt you feel about you having your favorite.

Gabe: I this is gonna be the last episode of Not Crazy because that’s so mean, you just can’t tell people.

Jackie: The truth?

Gabe: No. My favorite Star Wars character is probably like a toss up depending on my mood between Princess Leia, because a beautiful bad ass, and Darth Vader because, you know, I’m adopted. So he could be my real dad.

Jackie: I still maintain that before we started recording, everybody, he told me it was Jar Jar Binks and now he’s lying for the masses. Speaking of the masses, I was recently given my very first suicide severity rating test, and that was a bit of a doozy that I did not see coming. We don’t normally do this, but I feel like this episode might be a massive trigger. So here’s your trigger warning about suicide and suicidality. We are going to be talking about it in depth because of the in-depth questions on the screener.

Gabe: To put a little context here, a suicide severity rating scale test and one of the most popular ones is the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale. It’s essentially a questionnaire that medical personnel ask people to determine if you are suicidal, passively suicidal, actively suicidal.

Jackie: This screener was specifically was developed by Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Pittsburgh in 2007.. But since then, in 2011, the CDC took it on using the protocols, definitions for suicidal behavior. And then in 2012, the FDA declared this protocol to be the standard for measuring suicidal ideation. So this is something that’s out there. And I guess I’m still surprised I didn’t know about it or didn’t see it coming.

Gabe: Is this literally the first time you’ve ever been given one?

Jackie: Literally the first time and a little bit of background, so I recently started a clinical trial for a multiple sclerosis drug. So on my first appointment they gave me this screening and I was assuming it was gonna be your average sort of like, have you ever been suicidal in the last two weeks? And you’re like, yes or no? And then you move on. End of quiz. But it wasn’t, and it was oof . Some of the questions I just did not see those coming. It was very I mean, it does its job. It’s supposed to find out on the scale how severe you are in terms of being suicidal and or how much you’ve planned around suicide. So I immediately sent Gabe a text and was like, do you know about this? Have you ever had it? We need to talk about it on the podcast.

Gabe: You were like, hey, they want to talk about suicide and the questions, I didn’t expect them. And the first question is, do you wish to be dead? And I don’t mean to make light of suicide. I’m sincerely not trying to do that. But one of the things that is fascinating about what you just said is you didn’t expect the suicide screener to ask if you wanted to die. And this is sort of where we are as a country. We always talk about suicide in like, hey, how you feelin? And the person’s like, pretty good. Excellent. They’re not suicidal. We’ve done the screener. And when the questions are really direct, they feel like like they feel heavy on your chest, like, oh, why are you asking me direct questions about life and death? I don’t like this. And I understand that, they’re heavy.

Jackie: Well, on my own behalf. They did not tell me actually the name of this scale. They were like, we’re gonna do a C-SSRS test. And like, I don’t know what the fuck that means, but hit me with the test, right. And then she did. And the first question, as you said, is do you wish to be dead? That is also not phrasing you generally get from medical professionals. And I think that is really the root of what kind of threw me on this one is the verbiage throughout the screener almost feels conversational. It doesn’t feel medical, which is, again, I think the point. This sort of conversational colloquial test is the standard now.

Gabe: As somebody who’s been in the mental health advocacy game for almost a decade now, it is interesting to see how it’s changed. People like me have been banging the drum that we need to talk about suicide, using real words directly. We can’t change speech patterns. We can’t come up with, you know, the words that make people feel comfortable, right. Because nobody feels comfortable if they’re dead. This screener does do a really good job. So full disclosure, we found the screener. This is the nice thing about having an extraordinarily popular podcast. People tend to give you shit when you ask for it. So we contacted a psychiatrist. We got all of their opinions on the subject. We got opinions of some of their colleagues, both good and bad. But the first topic is wish to be dead. But they actually have the specific question. And one of the suggested ways to ask the question, I really love it. It says. Have you ever wished you could go to sleep and never wake up?

Jackie: That’s what I’m saying, the verbiage here. Again, if you’re not expecting it also, I just want to like sidebar for one second. First of all, this protocol is meant to be given by trained professionals, which we are not. We are not giving each other the screener. We are merely discussing the questions on it.

Gabe: And just to be very, very, very, very, very clear, do not e-mail us and ask us for the screener so you can give it to your friends. It doesn’t work that way. If you feel that you have a friend that this needs to be given to, please go to an emergency room, call 9-1-1, make an appointment with their general practitioner. If you suspect they might need this screener, please act. Just don’t act by emailing a podcast, act by getting them medical attention.

Jackie: So the way that this protocol works is it asks you yes or no questions. And it talks about in your lifetime and then also within the past month. So, for instance, on the first one, it would say, have you wished you were dead in your lifetime? And I said uncomfortably, Yes. And then it said, have you wished you were dead in the last month? And I said, no. And that’s the thing, too, is they repeat the question completely for lifetime and last month. So it’s not like, OK. But in the last month, it’s they repeat it word for word. So you hear these questions at least twice during the screening.

Gabe: Jackie, while you were sitting there because you’re there for a physical health issue. So you weren’t planning on dealing with your mental health at all because again, for reasons that we can never explain. Most people separate physical and mental health out entirely. So I kind of want to give like a round of applause to this clinical trial and this medical staff that they understand that your mental health and your physical health go hand in hand. You kind of bought into this idea. You were there for physical health. Right. So the minute mental health questions came up, it was like an extra whump because it was unexpected.

Jackie: It was a whump, indeed, Gabe. I felt shame. I felt so much shame to have to say, yeah, I wanted to kill myself. And later on, this is how I plan to do it. I did not expect to feel that. But then as I realized the questions were going to be quite detailed, I almost had like an internal pep talk where I was like, nope, own this. Don’t be ashamed of this. It’s not who you are right now and you can’t learn from it, they can’t learn from it, if you’re not honest. So I had to like pep talk myself to get through some of these because the shame storm was brewing, but it didn’t need to.

Gabe: Let’s talk about the shame storm for a moment. Jackie’s shame storm, because you have been suicidal in the past. So the lifetime question you answered, yes. But in the last month you answered all no’s you have not been suicidal in the last month. You have not been suicidal in years.

Jackie: Correct.

Gabe: And yet the shame storms still came a comin’, even though you were essentially answering, for lack of a better word, correctly. Are you suicidal today? No. Do you want to go to sleep and never wake up today? No. In the last month, have you wanted to kill yourself? No. Like these are the right again making air quotes. These are the right answers. And yet you still reflected back to all those years ago when you answered yes and felt shame. Didn’t you feel any pride at how far you’ve come?

Jackie: No. And I think part of that is because of the nature of the questions. And don’t get me wrong, I think that this protocol is smart. It is the only one that really measures the severity of your suicidal ideations. However, for me personally, being in a good spot. Going back and reliving it in detail was kind of shameful because dying by suicide is shameful. Just ask anybody. Right. I don’t agree with that statement, but I think that’s the go to an end. The person giving me the screener, I was like, she doesn’t know me. She’s going to judge me. Just all these like negative self-talk moments came up and I just really wasn’t expecting it.

Gabe: I don’t think that anybody ever expects to talk about suicidality. It’s not a subject that most of us gravitate toward. Right. You know, we started this podcast out by teasing each other about Star Wars. That’s the kind of stuff that people want to talk about, pop culture. Small talk is designed around the weather and the local sports team. This is a weighty subject. But as we’ve learned, not talking about these weighty subjects is one of the things that’s given these weighty subjects space to really do a lot of damage. People who are feeling suicidal, they don’t have the words, they don’t have the words to walk up to somebody and say, hey, I want to kill myself. I want to go to sleep and never wake up. I have a plan. They don’t understand any of this terminology. And perhaps even more dangerous, even if somebody in that position does have the words, most people don’t understand how to respond to it. We tend to make jokes. I want to go to sleep and never wake up. Oh, don’t we all. Wake me up when September ends. Ha ha ha. Well, everybody feels this way in the winter. The winter blues. We just dismiss that person entirely. This obviously cuts through that.

Jackie: We’ll be right back after these words from our sponsors.

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Jackie: And we’re back talking about the Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale, which freaked me right the f out when I received it at the doctor.

Gabe: Did you feel supported in this process? Because you’ve described feeling shame. You’ve described being caught off guard. You’ve described being scared. And then you described wanting to do a podcast on it. But never anywhere have you described feeling supported.

Jackie: The person giving me the screener, honestly, it’s not her job to be supportive or to be comforting during this process. I mean, she indicated even a little discomfort with the questions. At some point, because I guarantee you most people she’s asked this to said no to everything. She was just like, boom, boom, boom, this is super easy. And then she got to me and it was not easy. Because the first question said, have you ever wish you were dead or wished you could go to sleep and not wake up? So, yeah, right. I’ve wished I was dead. But the next question says, have you actually had thoughts of killing yourself? Which I thought was fascinating because you would think it would be. Well, yes, duh right. But it’s not right. They’re not the same question. They’re different. And the nuances of the question, I think, is what makes this interesting, also triggering, terrifying all of the like negative feelings that can come out of it or hopefully if you’re not me and you’re just sort of like owning your past and your story, just willing to say, yes, this is what happened.

Gabe: I want to give a little push back on something that you said, you said that it wasn’t the person’s job to make you feel comfortable, it was the person’s job just to ask the questions and fill out the charting. The pushback that I want to give is this is kind of untrue, right? It is the medical person’s job to make the patient feel comfortable. And I think this is one of the things that gives suicide space to hide. Right. So the person giving the test is uncomfortable. The person answering it is uncomfortable. So it sort of feels like that rhythm of, hey, how are you today? I’m fine. I’m fine, too. In the meantime, both of the people saying that are actually in extreme distress, but they both assume that the other person is fine. This shows you that we’re not doing a good job of training our medical personnel, especially since I would almost guarantee that that person probably thinks that mental health isn’t the primary part of their job because you were there for a physical issue. And again, I know I sound like a broken record, but this is why we have to stop treating them separately. The psychiatrists that I talked to that administer this test, they’re a lot more comfortable and they’ve talked about practicing poker faces and they talked about the advantage of silence where they would say, have you actually had thoughts of killing yourself? And then they would just sit and the person would mumble and make a joke.

Gabe: And just on and on and on. And they would just sit politely with that poker face and look at them and wait for that person. That’s like an excellent training point, right. Because when you’re uncomfortable and when people are making jokes, your knee jerk reaction is to like joke back. But then that diminishes the question. Obviously, I want to educate all the patients because I don’t think we have a lot of doctors listening to the show. Take this seriously. It’s a great way to gauge whether or not you’re doing better. The majority of us are in long term mental health care. We’re seeing therapists and doctors talking to our general practitioners. We’ve been dealing with mental illness and mental health issues for a long, long time. So having this in our charts and being able to look back five years from now and be like, oh, my God, I’m doing so much better. Like, that’s awesome. Right. But it’s also an early warning system.

Jackie: I actually totally agree because every time I go back now, they ask me the same questions and I’m in a good spot, right? So I say no to everything. But I wish that I had this when I was actually severely suicidal because it would have been nice to see where I was. And maybe then I could have said, like, look how far I’ve come. Right. So, question 5 Have you started to work out or worked out the details of how to kill yourself? Do you intend to carry out this plan? And that’s where I was like, oh shit. I’ve never really told anybody my plan to kill myself. Right? It’s one thing to say I’ve had suicidal thoughts. I really thought about it. But it’s another thing to say this is exactly the plan that I had and I told her and that felt wildly uncomfortable. She gave me a look of like, oh, wow, this is intense, right? Like when people give you a suicide screener, say, hey, how you feelin? And you’re like, I’m cool. All right. How’s your blood pressure? It doesn’t get into tell me how you planned to kill yourself. That feels like a therapy question.

Gabe: I believe that 100 percent of conversations about mental illness, mental health, our emotions, our feelings, have value 100 percent. And people say things like, well, even the asshole trolls on the Internet? Yes, it has value. It shows you what not to do. It shows you how not to behave. It shows you how not to be supportive. There is something to glean from every interaction. And we, Jackie, hate it when people tell you the right way to talk about mental health. We hate it when people tell us the right way to discuss mental illness, emotions, mental health crisis, grief, anxiety, because not everybody has the same words as Gabe Howard and Jackie Zimmerman. And we don’t have the same words as everybody else. When I was a kid, I described anxiety as a tummy ache, and I was shocked to learn years later that a research study confirmed that kids who have chronic stomach aches more often than not are having issues with anxiety. But my family did the same thing that other families did. Oh, it’s just butterflies. Oh, you’re just nervous. Oh, don’t be a baby. And of course, it was the 80s, so I got don’t act like a girl. Don’t be a sissy. And none of this addressed the anxiety that I was having and my family, they go all the way back to all of this. And like, man, imagine if we would have gotten Gabe help for his anxiety when he was twelve instead of 25. Like what horrors could he have avoided? It’s all water under the bridge now. But, I’ve always said that I want the next Gabe to have better resources and openly discussing these things is going to get you better resources. I don’t know that this was available back in 2003 when I was in the hospital.

Jackie: It wasn’t. It came out in 2007.

Gabe: Yeah. So Gabe in 2003 was kind of asked some basic and some blunt questions. Now, ultimately, it did get me admitted to the psychiatric hospital. But I read over this thing and I read the history of this thing and it’s an excellent step. And I talked to the psychiatrists, and even some of the psychiatrist that were like, you know, it needs work, they still see it as a vast improvement

Jackie: Hmm.

Gabe: Over doing nothing. They still see it as a vast improvement over the well, every psychiatrist just kind of figures out how they ask and uses their gut. This has a scoring method. This has a list of questions that you really don’t skip over. Right. You ask them all. You score it. It doesn’t rely as much on an individual’s provider’s gut instinct. And I think that’s incredible.

Jackie: Yes, there is no subjectiveness it’s still is on the patient to give honest answers, but at no point in here does the facilitator of the protocol give an opportunity to say, oh, I think they’re actually feeling this way. I don’t know if maybe some of the other screeners do that, but this feels like actual data that they are collecting. It’s not subjective and it’s measurable based on the scoring over time as well, like you said, which makes it a great tool, right? It is a great tool. It’s just when you’re not expecting it. It is a slap to the face where you’re like, oh, we’re talking about this now. We are like really talking about this now.

Gabe: I understand it’s scary. I understand it’s a slap to the face, but there’s lots of things in our life. That’s a slap to the face. There just are. Having somebody that you respect and somebody that you trust to tell you that your favorite Star Wars character is Jar Jar Binks is a slap to the face. But then it gave me the opportunity to explain to everybody that Jackie is an idiot and that Jar Jar Binks is awful and that allows us to work it out and move forward. The bottom line is, if we’re not discussing Jar Jar Binks, Jar Jar Binks would have had a much larger role in episodes 2 and 3. But by openly discussing how much we hated that character, he was diminished. And that’s what we want for suicide. We want suicide to be diminished and impact less people.

Jackie: It’s not funny, I’m laughing, but it’s not funny. It’s kind of funny. But yes, I agree. I think that the better tools we have, the more we make this something that people can talk about now. You know, it’s not supposed to be hidden. And I think that there’s a lot of motion among advocates and among patients worldwide to make this something that we talk about now, only because it helps with prevention, but also because it gives us something to learn from. And this protocol is a great way to do it from a medical provider standpoint. I just think that you should give your patients a little bit of warning what they’re getting. But if you are that patient, use it as a learning tool, like Gabe said earlier. It is a great tool. It’ll be kept in your file. You’ll be able to refer to it later. If you get this protocol don’t want the shame storm build like it did for me. Look at it as a learning experience and be proud that you’re still here to be answering these questions, even if they’re difficult.

Gabe: And Jackie, don’t be so hard on yourself. Yeah. It’s a big topic. You had a shame storm. You owned it. You admitted it. And you called a buddy.

Jackie: I agree there is no easy way to talk about how you planned to kill yourself. There just isn’t. But you can own those experiences by talking about them and by reaching out to people like Gabe said.

Gabe: I like it. Now, I want to be very, very, very clear, if you are worried about yourself, tell somebody call 9-1-1, go to an emergency room, and tell your general practitioner. Tell a trusted friend or family member. If you are worried about a friend or family member, encourage them to seek help. We don’t want to sit at home and doctor each other. That’s not how any of this works. So please, please, we’re really serious about that. Jackie is in roller derby and she will check your ass.

Jackie: [laughter]

Gabe: All right, everybody here is what we need you to do: where ever you downloaded this podcast, leave us as many stars, bullets, hearts or whatever they’re using this week as possible. But use your words. Tell people why you love this podcast. We would take it as a personal favor if you share us on social media. Want to hear something on the show? Email [email protected] and tell us what you want to hear, know about, what you like, what you dislike, and whether or not Jackie should die her hair blue again. Gabe has personally missed it. Remember after the credits there are always outtakes because it turns out that Jackie and I screw up a lot. We will see everybody next week.

Jackie: Have a great week.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to Not Crazy from Psych Central. For free mental health resources and online support groups, visit PsychCentral.com. Not Crazy’s official website is PsychCentral.com/NotCrazy. To work with Gabe, go to gabehoward.com. To work with Jackie, go to JackieZimmerman.co. Not Crazy travels well. Have Gabe and Jackie record an episode live at your next event. E-mail [email protected] for details.

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savanahdppadillaim10insuran-blog · 5 years

Text

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