#but her mobility is limited and she sprains her ankles like every other week. her shins have broken like a few times

[bacchuschucklefuck]

[savrenim]

I gotta say I think my favorite part of Jeremy as a DM is that he takes the stupid half-jokes that I make offscreen and just. turns them into things for me. that also fit perfectly into the plot and the story seamlessly but feel special 

like I was making goddamn jokes about “okay but. but I want a bloodsword. we do blood magic. please. Jeremy. Jeremy what if I could make my blood into a sword. b l o o d s w o r d. I could go to parties and never be unarmed because mY BLOOD IS A SWORD. YOU CAN’T DISARM ME YOU WOULDN’T PART AN OLD ELF FROM HER BLOOD WOULD YOU, SO LONG AS I HAVE BLOOD I HAVE SWORD.” and then, like. because it was only half a joke and I got attached to the aesthetic I actively started planning on how to make one of my own, which was pretty much going to be that there are some shadow weapon spells either on the cleric/oracle or witch lists and I was just going to take one of those as I was leveling up in Caedic magic and request that because it’s blood magic can we please flavor it descriptively as being made of my blood and not of shadows like, just as a cool aesthetic piece, and I’d have my bloodsword. 

and then halfway through Book 4 Galen fucking Torus out of nowhere makes a really fucking rad bloodsword from his own blood and hands it to me and I kill a bunch of enemies of the Empire and feel hella cool and I go “c a n  y o u  t e a c h  m e” with starry eyes the next day and he goes “okay sure” and starts teaching me how to make a bloodsword and there are cool bloodsword mechanics and just. Iria Strell got a bloodsword. after I spent six months joking about it. this is an actual legitimate bloodsword not a cheap knockoff made from a flavored shadow spell, real genuine Caedic blood magic here.

and, like, there are a couple of other obvious things (I spent a while being excited about a Feat tree that I’ve now totally forgotten because I think I was looking for some weird way to add Int to attacks and there was something similar to feinting you used bluff for a round and I’ve forgotten about it because it became irrelevant because Iria has developed mechanical combat spurs that give her a pretty similar option, not a “sooo then in five levels I’ll be able to do this!”) I guess another one was joking for months okay not joking about how much in love I was with Arcadia Dominus and holy shit she liked me back and the “gay murder elf bachelorette” bit actually becoming a part of the campaign, this campaign got literally infinitely more gay because I made a dumb joke and then Jeremy went “okay” and followed up on it, we went from no gay to one of the longest running and at least emotionally important plotlines is “oh no Iria is so gay you utter disaster fire of a lesbian how are you going to mess everything up now because Pretty Girl”

but, like

the one that is hitting me really really strongly now-now is that I have been half-jokingly complaining for months and months that I regret So Much Iria Strell’s background as a minor noble because it limits the fanciness and quantity of dresses that I can get for her and goddamnit I want to put her in all the shiny things all of them and how Painful it is to pass all these cool costumes that I Want To Pull just in fashion posts and stuff but uuurgh I can’t because Iria Strell isn’t the sort of noble who would wear all those and she kind of isn’t allowed and that just goddamnit I need to make a character next game who whatever the context wears Cool Clothes so that I would get to actually do a shit-ton of character design and costume design 

and I am 1000% sure that this didn’t change from the original plans, like, the outlines have been in place for months well before I got obsessed with noble costuming, but the big objective of this book is Iria is investigating a maybe heresy/conspiracy that maybe involves nobles, and to do so, she has to go to a bunch of noble parties, and Galen Torus gave her an unlimited credit card and went “material resources are no worry go ham request whatever you want” and what her wardrobe is actively affects all the interactions she has with people and how well she can gather the information she needs to

which means that OOC I get the chance to design a full and changing wardrobe for Iria Strell to look cool as it is now her job as the secret leader of an investigation to actually do noble business and look pretty sometimes and talk to a bunch of nobles and go to parties but just. I’m limited in interesting ways by what is tasteful, but I have been given the full resources and an active in-character reason to utterly go ham on costuming, which makes me so excited as a person

and it’s just. super tiny details like this that idk make the games feel....more than just special? or maybe it’s that I’m not used to being listened to? like. the game is so good. I’m having so much fun. we have gotten to book 5 and it is once again the coolest fucking thing I could imagine. and so was book 4, and book 3, and book 2, and book 1. it is completely unnecessary to throw in tiny things like the bloodsword in order to make me happy and it is all done so....seamlessly? like. if one of my hunches is correct. the bloodsword and a ritual that Galen Torus performed telling Iria it would make her better at the bloodsword wHICH IT DID BUT THAT WAS NOT THE MAIN POINT OF THE RITUAL, THE MAIN POINT OF THE GODDAMN RITUAL WAS TO CONSECRATE PRIESTS AND PRIESTS HAVE MORE ACCESS TO BLOOD MAGIC SO A SIDE EFFECT IS BETTER THAN A BLOODSWORD BUT A CONSECRATED PRIEST IS A SUPER HIGH RANK AND THIS MAKES HER A CONSECRATED PRIEST AT AGE EIGHTEEN WHICH IS VERY VERY VERY UPSETTING TO HER AND POSSIBLY UNPRECEDENTED EARLY 30S IS CONSIDERED RIDICULOUSLY EARLY TO BE A CONSECRATED PRIEST FOR INCREDIBLY TALENTED AND FAST-CLIMBING CAREER-FOCUED NOBLES NOT A MINOR DISGRACED KIND OF EXILED LESBIAN DUMPSTER FIRE LIKE SHE IS

but consecrated priest thing aside and that being one way or another a major plot point and that coming so seamlessly and so perfectly a surprise from the fact that she asked an Exarch if he’d teach her how to make a bloodsword

again I’m pretty sure “Book 5 is noble politics book” was always going to be a thing so it’s not “oh Jeremy wrote it into the plot that I get to be ridiculous and pick out every single dress and everyday wear and hair and makeup for my character all the time multiple times a session and have that matter” because it was always abstractly going to matter as that matters as a part of being a Caedic noble but just 

here and is everything I wanted and was everything that I was totally joking about for months except no joke I just. get to do it. which I’m just actively so excited about. I guess it just...feels weird to me because I’m... sometimes used to making my own fun? or just, like, making things happen in my own life? there have been way too many “well if you want to survive it’s only you that you can rely on” situations not even in a bad sense of my life is horrible like. I could go on a rant about how I....not don’t trust people as people but don’t trust people to be 100% reliable and so always make a backup plan so that if a person falls through I can still get what I need done to be done and it’s just more pleasant for everyone involved if I don’t pin pressure on people or things? but in a different way I do the same thing for the games that I’m involved in, I will find things to make me have Feelings and will make my own fun and write letters and befriend NPCs and insist on staying in touch and, like...I dunno I guess I’m not used to trusting any world, be it fantasy or real, to give me what I want, if I want a thing I have to carefully plan and invest time and energy to earn and take it and be prepared to fail and just because Jeremy’s my friend and I goddamn narrate everything jokes or not of how I/my characters feel and “okay but here is the 1000th picture of a cool dress that I’m sending you and because Iria Strell doesn’t get to wear cool dresses we’ll say it’s the Gothicus Maximus Spring 2019 collection” and just

I guess I’m really not used to a world that cares about what I want

and, like, is sometimes fucking brutal Iria is dealing with slowly losing her mobility and ability to fight to an injury that was her fault and she is descending into a lot of really fun mental health places that push fun buttons and Marian is spelljammer and is Marian don’t even get me started on Marian’s family suddenly reappearing or just. characters from the thousands upon thousands of words of backstory showing up but just idk it feels like even when things are really brutal to the characters......the world is still kind to me? it’s aware of what I care about and it cares about me?

and I’m just so not used to the world being kind

I don’t need the world to be kind to love it. I love this world even with how fucked up and hard it is, and I love the games that I play and the stories that I get to be a part of without them caring about me at all, I don’t need them to care about me, that’s not why I’m playing

maybe I’m just hella tired and the move has been awful my old housemate gave me a deadline less than 12 hours before when there was never a deadline in our original conversations and then she and her mother were also going through my room and my stuff I guess to try to determine how quickly I’d get out of there but, like, I do not like it when people go through my stuff and there was a scare about the landlord selling the new place and the new landlord would have to honor the lease for a year but then maybe not wanting me to have my cats so suddenly for two days even my new living place was up in the air and I was already jet lagged and stressed and barely slept to try to finish a week’s worth of work that I was under the full impression I had a week to do in a day and a half and definitely sprained my ankle but got to keep walking on it and internet took forever to set up and trying to fix my furniture and all my stuff is in boxes and I’m still walking around on a twisted ankle because it’s just me there’s no one here to help me, if I want things to be okay and to get done I have to make them be done myself and these boxes need to be unpacked by Saturday morning because the landlord wants to fix the floor and just. I’m stressed and emotional so maybe I’m hella overreacting to “oh you like costumes? well an aspect of this book is noble interactions and parties so sure I’ll let you pick out literally every dress that you’re wearing” but it just

it matters so much to me

Jeremy is really really good at the DnD thing

[rebuildingrebeccagloria]

Physical Therapy: Getting back on my feet....literally

I have only four sessions (possibly) left, and some previous conversations brought some insight to my journey.

I’ve had some wonderfully great and wonderfully awful therapists in my 18 weeks or so of therapy. The only PT I have ever really had was when I sprained my ankle after tennis my sophomore year, then the SHAPE clinic at OU during 110 season. So I had a pretty good idea going in, which made it less scary….think Saw 2 instead of Saw. I knew it was going to be scary, but I was still diving into the unknown.

The Good:

- The therapists (both OT and PT) were wonderful at OSU, what little I could do. They understood the pain, but they pushed me like no other. I knew if I could do it a day after post-op and still make it through, each day would get better. Every day is better than the last. It’s hard when you don’t see results immediately, but every little bit helped. (I even met a therapist at OSU who went to Mohawk, a high school in my county! *cue ‘Its a Small World After All’*)

- How my therapists at Nursing Home #1 could work with one good leg and one leg in a fixator, plus one good arm and one bad arm, is beyond me. They were simple, but helpful. Nothing was scarier than actually standing up for the first time, but it also gave me hope. Even though I had one leg that still needed work, and a multitude of things could have happened, I knew that someday I would be back on my feet again.

- My PT at Nursing Home #2 became my personal ally. He got me back on my feet. He got me to be mobile again. He was able to confront my fear of getting back into a car, instead of being strapped down on a stretcher. He found my inner strength and was able to push me to my limits. Within the month of December, I went from being immobile in my bed with my hospital gown to being dressed in a cute skirt and carrying gifts down to the room on Christmas Day. And I can’t leave the one OT I actually got along with out of this. It’s hard when you have only 1 ½ arms to work with, and she did it. I left with a good foundation for my left arm to start healing.

- My therapy at the local hospital here has been so great. My doctor said it would be helpful to do maybe a month more of therapy. My main goal was to get on a cane - from there, normalcy and life would be able to transition me to walking on my own. My therapist was able to meet my goal with such an ease. I was able to go from a walker to a cane with no difficulty. (She even had a cat cane!)

The Bad:

- At one point in the hospital, I remember the therapists screaming at me because no one had cleaned my neck brace. I started choking up, feeling helpless because these women were interrogating me, asking why my care hadn’t been better, why my brace wasn’t cleaner, why no one took care of it. I felt so low; I know it wasn’t my fault, but I felt responsible. There is no worse feeling than when you are rendered helpless but you ask yourself why you can’t do more.

- I once was told I had to transfer from bed to wheelchair and vice versa using a transfer board. I originally had the therapists assisting me, but then they wanted the aids to do it. (God bless STNAs, btw.) Only half of them had been trained properly and one day I got the two that weren’t. Also didn’t help that they were both weak and one barely spoke English. They both were nice ladies, which made this process feel even worse. We were unable to get me out of the wheelchair - I was so weak, and I’m not tiny. Nothing ruins your already destroyed self-esteem than being stuck in a wheelchair. We had to get a therapist to assist - and since I was already at a bad angle, I slid and landed head-first into my bed. Sometimes we over or underestimate our body’s abilities, but throughout all of this, I have had a pretty keen sense of my body’s worth. I knew what I could and couldn’t do. Having to tell professionals brings a whole “do we push them or do we let it go” argument, and some of them push because they think that’s the best answer. I can’t blame them too much; I’ve been in enough classrooms to know that sometimes you have to. But on the patient side, pushing isn’t always the answer in my case.

- Second example: In Nursing Home #2, my OT was in charge of bringing me back to my room. She thought we could transfer back into bed with me, her and a board. I said multiple times: just one more person. Please, grab an aid. She was headstrong and remained positive that we could do this!

Boy was she wrong.

Mid-transfer, the board started flipping up and I ended up falling. Fortunately, I reached out for the bed and landed safely. However, this could have ended in a worse way. The lady offered a half-hearted apology (“it was the bed’s fault, it started moving”) and I never trusted her throughout my stay! 🙃

- At least she would work with me. After a long argument of a lift vs a transfer board that I wanted to lay to rest after I made my point, but was brought up multiple times, I had an OT come into my room to work. She starts stretching my arm in a way that was hurting my wrist - all I could think of was “you’re twisting/pulling/bopping it” (okay maybe not bopping). She snapped, saying she wasn’t twisting and I was just sore. Let me just state this - after all I’ve been through, I would THINK I have an idea of what “sore” feels like. Trust me when I say this: it’s not sore. I tried to communicate the best I could, which is what a patient/therapist relationship should be all about.

Instead, she stood up and walked out. “You do better with the other therapist, so we’re done here. I can’t deal with this.”

I know I look young, but I’m 25. I have a decent idea of what professionalism is. That was not it.

- Another case of non-professionalism, we tried not having a raised toilet. (“We only have one bed commode and we have a new patient who needs it so we’re taking yours”) My therapist asked me to sit on it and I did - it hurt and I had to use all my might to get back up, but I did it. To him, that means A-OK! I cried, and explained to my mother that if I have to use it more than twice a day, it’s going to be rough. I asked her to try it, since I said it was unusually low for a normal seat. So she went in and sat, then got back up.

“Aw hell no!”

She fought and they “looked” for a raised seat. The solution? My wonderful boyfriend - who works for a completely different medical company - had to bring one in.

Then, the therapist barged in asking what the problem was - “You were doing it just fine! You don’t want to go backwards! You don’t need it!” Mind you, he was screaming these “facts” of his, confused by why someone who has weak arms and legs wouldn’t want to use such a low seat multiple times a day! How bizarre! That was the last straw. My mother and I had to tell him to leave multiple times. I appreciate trying to be a cheerleader, but a cheerleader doesn’t come in uninvited to scream at the subject. Yelling isn’t going to make me magically believe, “Oh yeah! I can do it!” But no, his bruised ego couldn’t take that maybe I didn’t trust his judgement - which wasn’t the case, but he made it the case. By the way, I still use a slightly raised toilet seat. We’re in the process of getting rid of it, but there are more important things in life like walking with a cane or being able to put my own socks on.

The Ugly:

I only left one story for the ugly. I know some of the previous stories were ugly, however I saw them as “bad” because of the people involved. All of those stories could have ended quite differently had some people had different attitudes (even myself, I can admit that.)

But this one…there’s no getting around it:

The day after I had my second leg surgery, my therapists came in. They wanted to at least get me to the side of the bed, if not standing. My doctor promised me, “We’ll have you trying to stand the next day!” Well, she wasn’t wrong. See, the difference between my first leg surgery and my second is that during my first surgery, I was so out of it. Whether it was strong drugs or being on the brink of possible death, I was unaware for the most part. However, the second surgery came with full awareness. The pain meds were even making me nauseous, which didn’t help that we took out the feeding tube. So the therapists come in, ready to work. My boyfriend was there for moral support and I have to be honest, I am torn between whether I really wanted him there or not. Because what he saw, I wouldn’t have wanted to see happen to him. I was screaming in agony, I had never felt such a pain. I was already in a ton of pain, every joint was on fire. We had to do it, I know, but it was awful. I couldn’t stop crying, I just wanted it all to end.

The one therapist told me then, Every day is better than the last.

If life is troubling you, just remember that. If I can go from screaming any time they tried to sit me up on the edge of the bed, to walking everywhere on my own, then so can you.