#but it's such an important job

[the-cookie-of-doom]

I've been in nursing school for a year now, and the stress of everything has been seriously wearing me down. After nearly 4 months in clinical being made to feel like an idiot, I find myself doubting my choices more often than not. But then I'll have an interaction with a patient at just the right time to remind me exactly why I'm here, suffering through his god-awful program.

A few weeks ago, a patient my age came in, massive trauma victim. She'd been camping in the mountains for a few days when she crashed an ATV. Honestly, she's lucky to be alive. Her friends had to run 2 miles through the wilderness to get to a payphone and call for help. She'd spent a week in the hospital by the time I met her, when she'd finally asked someone if there was any way we could wash her hair.

The normal system we use is these shower caps that have soap in them, and they're awful. Especially when you have thick, curly hair that's almost down to your waist. Walking into that room, seeing this poor kid who could barely move due to her injuries, my heart just broke. Her hair was so dirty after almost 2 weeks without a proper shower that it looked wet from where I was standing in the door.

Together with another nurse tech, we managed to improvise and figure out how to get her hair washed. The beds aren't made for it, we don't have the equipment for it, and like I said she could barely move. But we made it work. I spent probably an hour and a half carefully washing and combing through her hair with nothing more than a regular barber's comb, until it was completely clean and tangle free, and braided it after so it could stay that way.

Just this week I was able to help another young woman that I wasn't assigned to. I didn't know anything about her situation, but I overheard another of my classmates (her assigned student) tell the nurse tech that she needed help and didn't want him to do it. The nurse tech essentially told him it wasn't her responsibility to accommodate that, she was too busy, and the patient needed to either accept his help or get over it. I overhead, and stepped in to see what was wrong.

When I got to the room, the patient was crying and hyperventilating, couldn't tell me what was going on, and looked overall distraught. I was able to just sit with her for a few minutes to calm her down, find out what was wrong. She was hot and sweaty, needed a new gown/sheets. Understandable, no problem. I went and got the stuff, brought her a cold drink and a fan, got her changed, etc. The whole time she kept apologizing because she didn't know what was wrong with her, she wasn't usually like that, she didn't have anything against the guys it was just too much...

The whole time, that nurse tech from before was with me, too. Despite telling my classmate she didn't have time to deal with it, she almost immediately followed me into the room, kept trying to take over what I was doing, all while looking incredibly frustrated with the patient. Making her feel even worse. Once we were done I got the tech to leave so I could talk with the patient, let her know it's okay, that she was just overwhelmed and it's understandable. I reassured her that we're there to take care of her, she deserves to feel safe and taken care of in the hospital. The whole time, she didn't feel comfortable asking for anything else because of how she was treated before me.

Nursing school focuses on building a therapeutic relationship with patients. We need them to trust us and believe they'll be taken care of. It's easy to say you chose health care because you want to help people, but it's also really easy to lose that compassion. Sometimes you don't realize you're doing it. I don't blame that nurse tech, she really was busy. And when you're a working nurse with multiple patients to care for, you don't always have the time to spend an hour or two washing someone's hair, or handling their emotional breakdown with patience. But I think too often, people don't even try.

These relationship's with patients are exactly what's getting me through the misery of nursing school. I'm not out there curing anyone right now, but I know I'm having a positive impact in people's lives. I'm doing my best to show that you can still trust that when you're in the hospital, during one of the most vulnerable times in your life, someone will be there to take care of you and care for you.

I've worked in health care for two and a half years now. My philosophy has always been to maintain patient dignity above all else. It's so easy to forget the person lying in that bed is still a person, and not just a patient, or a set of tasks that have to get done at a certain time. You can't let yourself forget the care in healthcare.

[casdeans-pie]

Sam is organising some of their archived items one day, and tries on the Holy Fire glasses just as Castiel walks into the room. He tries not to freak out because now he can see that Cas is surrounded by floating, glowing eyes.

Sam takes the glasses off. Normal regular Cas.

Puts them back on. Eyes everywhere.

Cas looks over and sees Sam's strange expression, not knowing the glasses he's wearing have been treated with Holy Fire, and asks if he's okay.

Sam fumbles his way through a "Yeah- I'm uh- I'm fine."

While they're talking Sam notices that actually, only a handful of the eyes floating around Cas are open, looking at him, while the rest are closed.

But then Dean walks into the room.

Instantly all of Cas's glowing eyes snap open and follow his movement through the room. "Hey Sam, hey Cas," Dean greets, unaware of the eyes watching him.

"Hello, Dean," Cas replies, all the eyes squinting closed like a happy cat.

Sam watches with interest. "Cas?" he says.

Cas's physical body turns to him, but only a few of the eyes leave Dean. "Yes, Sam?"

"Nothing."

The eyes all return to Dean before Cas even finishes saying, "If you're sure."

..........Sam is unsurprised.

[ambrosiagourmet]

I think one of the biggest tragedies of Laios & Falin and their relationship is how much his actions impact her life. But like. Specifically how much they WOULDN’T impact her life as much if they weren’t both stuck in such a shitty abusive situation.

This part of the Falin-tries-makeup daydream hour comic is what got me thinking about it again because truly it just... it seems like such a like an offhand comment that I'm sure Laios didn't mean to be cruel or anything. That's just like. A little kid not thinking about what they are saying. ESPECIALLY when the kid in question is Laios.

But man they depended on each other SO much as kids. Too much. It really feels like they didn't have any other source of positive reinforcement, or anyone else to share themselves with. So of course an offhand comment like that has a huge impact on Falin.

Or this little bit from one of the flashbacks:

This tears me apart. Do you think it tears him apart to think about? I think it does. I think Laios holds every small failure to care for Falin against himself.

And then there's the Bigger stuff. The way that him coping with his own trauma ended up impacting her.

Like his interest in monsters. Like him going to find a ghost, and accidentally revealing Falin's magic to the whole village in the process.

Like him needing to leave. And leaving her behind.

He shaped her life so much, and he carries so much guilt for it. And again, there should have been other people there to help. The same things that made Laios need to leave home are the things that made his leaving so hard on Falin. She ate alone after that. She shouldn't have had to eat alone just because Laios wasn't there.

She was 9 when he left for school, and he was 11.

Nine. And Laios feels like he failed her because he didn't stand by her through this better. As an eleven year old.

Both of these kids deserved so much better from the world.

[gaytheropods]

I love you garbage truck workers I love you janitors I love you waste water treatment workers I love you sanitation workers I love you

[watchyourbuck]

I don’t think yall understand how meaningful it is to have Oliver say “when you close your eyes it all feels the same” (kissing on screen). The fact that he doesn’t laugh it off, or say he had to push through it, or that it was a little weird like other actors have in the past is so incredibly important. This is him portraying a character and his sexuality, and it’s so validating to have the actor do his job the way Oliver has, in such a caring, positive way. It’s the feeling of finally belonging, of blending in when you’ve been marginalized and picked out all your life. Love is love, and a kiss is just a kiss.

[trans-axolotl]

nothing makes me more insane than the phrase "selling your body" btw. like was i not also selling my body at every other job i've had where i had to be on my feet all day, lifting boxes, working in a warehouse, etc. why is it that sex work is uniquely labeled as "selling your body" while every other job is sorted into another category, no matter how much that job might have a physical impact on your body. lmao.

[ping-ski]

i know the pain is nauseating. i know you are disappointed. i know you feel betrayed. i know it feels hopeless and bleak. i know you're tired.

please don't disappear.

please be kind.

please continue to take care of yourself.

please keep living day by day.

please live. out of spite. out of hope for a better tomorrow.

if you are POC, queer, femme, trans, disabled, you are loved. you are wanted. i may not know you, but i love you with my whole person. there is still good in this world, this isn't the end.

[inkskinned]

you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.

(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)

but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.

(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)

there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.

(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)

you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.

(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)

you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.

in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.

but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.

they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.

it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.

[chloesimaginationthings]

I drew Michaels mom (game mike)

:3

THIS IS FOUL 💀

[quekerahkerah]

Reading 'Making Money' at the moment and I love how in this one Adora Belle is so CLEARLY the A-plot character. She's off commanding armies of golems and uncovering secrets from lost civilizations and marches back to town like "Hey Moist, come help me find a wizard to translate this ancient scroll" and he's just standing there giving Spencer from iCarly like "Ummmmm. Does it have to be like, right now...? Only, you see, my dog's just been made chairman of the bank—"

[splickedylit]

@ USAmericans that are following me, if you (like me) get anxious you'll somehow have issues with a mail-in or drop-off ballot: I forgot that in a lot of places (here's a site to check!) early in-person voting is an option, so I figured maybe you did too!

Lines are MUCH shorter than election day,

which means it's quick and you have more time to look things up at the voting booth if necessary,

and you have a LOT more ability to find a time that works for you than if you just vote on Nov. 5th (which I would be have been almost completely unable to go out and vote on).

Early voting y'all it kicks ass. A quick google of "early voting (my city/county" immediately brought up the exact address, days and hours of where it was available. Will definitely patronize the fine folks at my local polling center again in four years assuming that. Things go well. And we still have a democracy in four years. OTL

[calciumyum]

Matching outfit!! (this was prompted by Ren saying "Send him a bunch of love from- his, uh.. his king" before raiding Martyn)

[moonshere]

I’ll be honest I get soooo giddy whenever an ISAT fanwork depicts that the Mirabelle/Siffrin relationship is equally as important as the Isabeau/Siffrin one. Like, it’s not just the romantic relationship that is The Most Important thing narratively+literally, but the platonic one is equally as important too!

[lindseymcdonaldseyelashes]

Leverage 2x9 - "The Lost Heir Job"

[soupdreamer]

hey brennan what the fuck

[deoidesign]

I'm so mad that post was misinformation because there is actually an EXTREMELY important conversation to have about the production schedules artists are forced into. There's no need for exaggeration, the conditions are bad.

I work for webtoon. My publication schedule is weekly. While publishing I'm required 10-15 pages a week. Fully colored.

This means I'm finishing a 150 page fully colored graphic novel every 10-15 weeks.

When my comic is not updating, I am not getting paid. Any time writing, editing, or off is out of my own pocket. I don't get healthcare. They do not provide any assistants. They expect me to promote myself; they chose to deprioritize me before I even launched and gave me an end date half a year in. I never had a chance.

And this is the industry standard! Every company has artists forced into crunch hours, overtime, and burnout. Artists are literally dying early due to it. So many of my friends can't afford to go to the doctor.

It's unsustainable and untenable, and it's also the expectation our audiences have.

If we want to have this conversation, there's plenty of conversation to be had with the realities of the situation. It's bad as is.