#diagnosed and beginning treatment

[ohcarolina]

and btw i finally found out that i have graves disease today.

[sincerity--extreme]

I try to avoid making these posts as much as possible, I've already asked for help before (and got some, thank you so much to everyone who was able to help) but now I need to come again, this time it's not about debts or bills, I already talk about that on my pinned post, but to it's about my father's surgery, we got a call a couple of days ago from the doctors with the final price of surgery (I'm not sure how it works in other places but here they give the separate details for the surgery itself, the people who'll do the surgery so, doctors, nurses and the anesthesiologist (I think that's the name in English) and the last thing is "equipment" or whatever it's called) trying to get straight to the point before I get too lost, it all will cost R$1.500, that's around 440 or 450 dollars if my math is right, we need to have it until the end of January, so if anyone could help by donating or even share this post, we'd be very thankful

PayPal - sincerityextreme@gmail.com

[vampireknitting]

I have to get my wisdom teeth removed here on the 4th and I really wish medical anxiety wasn’t so dismissed or laughed at.

The anxiety has been slowly ramping up since Christmas and now that I have to cut out the only thing that’s managed the fibromyalgia bs. I mean sure it’s just weed. But when my health tanked and I was throwing up half of everything I tried to eat and losing weight like it was nothing. Unfortunately it was the only thing that helped stop the vomiting.

I’ve been put on and taking off several medications over the years for being the unlucky type that doesn’t react well to different meds. All the gut pills they wanted me to take hurt or was you know making me digest my own blood.

The Fibromyalgia began creeping in when I was in high school and the doctors I had told me to eat pills and go away. I had injured my knee and it just didn’t get better. I still have issues with it. Being a childhood cancer survivor means health complaints must be cry’s for attention or drugs.

They asked me to not consume any weed because they don’t know if it’ll hurt me to be put under so they can cut out the heavily impacted teeth. Which fine, I won’t fight because they could label me as some sort of user or drug obsessed or whatever. But the only drug that I know can kill you while being put under is meth.

My sister’s dental surgeon said don’t stop smoking weed because there isn’t anything out that supports either side. Pro weed or anti-weed before surgery. He didn’t want anything to add to the stress of the surgery so he said keep doing what you’re doing.

[anteroom-of-death]

Honey I am immune to psychopharmaceuticals that you'll never know of.

[reasonsforhope]

Story from the Washington Post here, non-paywall version here.

Washington Post stop blocking linksharing and shit challenge.

"The young woman was catatonic, stuck at the nurses’ station — unmoving, unblinking and unknowing of where or who she was.

Her name was April Burrell.

Before she became a patient, April had been an outgoing, straight-A student majoring in accounting at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. But after a traumatic event when she was 21, April suddenly developed psychosis and became lost in a constant state of visual and auditory hallucinations. The former high school valedictorian could no longer communicate, bathe or take care of herself.

April was diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia, an often devastating mental illness that affects approximately 1 percent of the global population and can drastically impair how patients behave and perceive reality.

“She was the first person I ever saw as a patient,” said Sander Markx, director of precision psychiatry at Columbia University, who was still a medical student in 2000 when he first encountered April. “She is, to this day, the sickest patient I’ve ever seen.” ...

It would be nearly two decades before their paths crossed again. But in 2018, another chance encounter led to several medical discoveries...

Markx and his colleagues discovered that although April’s illness was clinically indistinguishable from schizophrenia, she also had lupus, an underlying and treatable autoimmune condition that was attacking her brain.

After months of targeted treatments [for lupus] — and more than two decades trapped in her mind — April woke up.

The awakening of April — and the successful treatment of other people with similar conditions — now stand to transform care for some of psychiatry’s sickest patients, many of whom are languishing in mental institutions.

Researchers working with the New York state mental health-care system have identified about 200 patients with autoimmune diseases, some institutionalized for years, who may be helped by the discovery.

And scientists around the world, including Germany and Britain, are conducting similar research, finding that underlying autoimmune and inflammatory processes may be more common in patients with a variety of psychiatric syndromes than previously believed.

Although the current research probably will help only a small subset of patients, the impact of the work is already beginning to reshape the practice of psychiatry and the way many cases of mental illness are diagnosed and treated.

“These are the forgotten souls,” said Markx. “We’re not just improving the lives of these people, but we’re bringing them back from a place that I didn’t think they could come back from.” ...

Waking up after two decades

The medical team set to work counteracting April’s rampaging immune system and started April on an intensive immunotherapy treatment for neuropsychiatric lupus...

The regimen is grueling, requiring a month-long break between each of the six rounds to allow the immune system to recover. But April started showing signs of improvement almost immediately...

A joyful reunion

“I’ve always wanted my sister to get back to who she was,” Guy Burrell said.

In 2020, April was deemed mentally competent to discharge herself from the psychiatric hospital where she had lived for nearly two decades, and she moved to a rehabilitation center...

Because of visiting restrictions related to covid, the family’s face-to-face reunion with April was delayed until last year. April’s brother, sister-in-law and their kids were finally able to visit her at a rehabilitation center, and the occasion was tearful and joyous.

“When she came in there, you would’ve thought she was a brand-new person,” Guy Burrell said. “She knew all of us, remembered different stuff from back when she was a child.” ...

The family felt as if they’d witnessed a miracle.

“She was hugging me, she was holding my hand,” Guy Burrell said. “You might as well have thrown a parade because we were so happy, because we hadn’t seen her like that in, like, forever.”

“It was like she came home,” Markx said. “We never thought that was possible.”

...After April’s unexpected recovery, the medical team put out an alert to the hospital system to identify any patients with antibody markers for autoimmune disease. A few months later, Anca Askanase, a rheumatologist and director of the Columbia Lupus Center,who had been on April’s treatment team, approached Markx. “I think we found our girl,” she said.

Bringing back Devine

When Devine Cruz was 9, she began to hear voices. At first, the voices fought with one another. But as she grew older, the voices would talk about her, [and over the years, things got worse].

For more than a decade, the young woman moved in and out of hospitals for treatment. Her symptoms included visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as delusions that prevented her from living a normal life.

Devine was eventually diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, which can result in symptoms of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. She also was diagnosed with intellectual disability.

She was on a laundry list of drugs — two antipsychotic medications, lithium, clonazepam, Ativan and benztropine — that came with a litany of side effects but didn’t resolve all her symptoms...

She also had lupus, which she had been diagnosed with when she was about 14, although doctors had never made a connection between the disease and her mental health...

Last August, the medical team prescribed monthly immunosuppressive infusions of corticosteroids and chemotherapy drugs, a regime similar to what April had been given a few years prior. By October, there were already dramatic signs of improvement.

“She was like ‘Yeah, I gotta go,’” Markx said. “‘Like, I’ve been missing out.’”

After several treatments, Devine began developing awareness that the voices in her head were different from real voices, a sign that she was reconnecting with reality. She finished her sixth and final round of infusions in January.

In March, she was well enough to meet with a reporter. “I feel like I’m already better,” Devine said during a conversation in Markx’s office at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, where she was treated. “I feel myself being a person that I was supposed to be my whole entire life.” ...

Her recovery is remarkable for several reasons, her doctors said. The voices and visions have stopped. And she no longer meets the diagnostic criteria for either schizoaffective disorder or intellectual disability, Markx said...

Today, Devine lives with her mother and is leading a more active and engaged life. She helps her mother cook, goes to the grocery store and navigates public transportation to keep her appointments. She is even babysitting her siblings’ young children — listening to music, taking them to the park or watching “Frozen 2” — responsibilities her family never would have entrusted her with before her recovery.

Expanding the search for more patients

While it is likely that only a subset of people diagnosed with schizophrenia and psychotic disorders have an underlying autoimmune condition, Markx and other doctors believe there are probably many more patients whose psychiatric conditions are caused or exacerbated by autoimmune issues...

The cases of April and Devine also helped inspire the development of the SNF Center for Precision Psychiatry and Mental Health at Columbia, which was named for the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, which awarded it a $75 million grant in April. The goal of the center is to develop new treatments based on specific genetic and autoimmune causes of psychiatric illness, said Joseph Gogos, co-director of the SNF Center.

Markx said he has begun care and treatment on about 40 patients since the SNF Center opened. The SNF Center is working with the New York State Office of Mental Health, which oversees one of the largest public mental health systems in America, to conduct whole genome sequencing and autoimmunity screening on inpatients at long-term facilities.

For “the most disabled, the sickest of the sick, even if we can help just a small fraction of them, by doing these detailed analyses, that’s worth something,” said Thomas Smith, chief medical officer for the New York State Office of Mental Health. “You’re helping save someone’s life, get them out of the hospital, have them live in the community, go home.”

Discussions are underway to extend the search to the 20,000 outpatients in the New York state system as well. Serious psychiatric disorders, like schizophrenia, are more likely to be undertreated in underprivileged groups. And autoimmune disorders like lupus disproportionately affect women and people of color with more severity.

Changing psychiatric care

How many people ultimately will be helped by the research remains a subject of debate in the scientific community. But the research has spurred excitement about the potential to better understand what is going on in the brain during serious mental illness...

Emerging research has implicated inflammation and immunological dysfunction as potential players in a variety of neuropsychiatric conditions, including schizophrenia, depression and autism.

“It opens new treatment possibilities to patients that used to be treated very differently,” said Ludger Tebartz van Elst, a professor of psychiatry and psychotherapy at University Medical Clinic Freiburg in Germany.

In one study, published last year in Molecular Psychiatry, Tebartz van Elst and his colleagues identified 91 psychiatric patients with suspected autoimmune diseases, and reported that immunotherapies benefited the majority of them.

Belinda Lennox, head of the psychiatry department at the University of Oxford, is enrolling patients in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of immunotherapy for autoimmune psychosis patients.

As a result of the research, screenings for immunological markers in psychotic patients are already routine in Germany, where psychiatrists regularly collect samples from cerebrospinal fluid.

Markx is also doing similar screening with his patients. He believes highly sensitive and inexpensive blood tests to detect different antibodies should become part of the standard screening protocol for psychosis.

Also on the horizon: more targeted immunotherapy rather than current “sledgehammer approaches” that suppress the immune system on a broad level, said George Yancopoulos, the co-founder and president of the pharmaceutical company Regeneron.

“I think we’re at the dawn of a new era. This is just the beginning,” said Yancopoulos."

-via The Washington Post, June 1, 2023

[demilypyro]

I feel like a lot of what I remember is..... The waiting, and the walking.....

In spring of 2017, my mom had gotten a blood clot in her brain, and she became partially paralyzed. She would never be able to walk or work again, or even live alone.

I remember spending that summer.... waiting. Waiting for the bus, to take me to the hospital, where my mom was. And later, waiting for the bus back home. I'd just sit there. Thinking. Multiple days a week. Later, it became about waiting for the bus to take me to the care home my mom now lived in. Once a week, I'd sit there. Waiting. Thinking. Walking from the bus stop to the home. Walking back. Waiting. Thinking.

Seeing my mom in that state, I think it.... shook me awake. I realized.... anything could happen to you, at any time. You could get sick, and the entire future you envisioned would be gone. And you wouldn't get to try again.

You only have one life... And it could end at any time.... I had to make the most of it....

..... Was I really gonna spend all of it as a guy? Having to be a guy? For the rest of my life? Could I be happy that way? Could I bear that pain? For the rest of my life??

No.

I mean, no way, right. If life had more to offer.... then I had to pursue it. I owed that to myself. And to my mom. She worked so hard for me.... Yet I was always so sad.... I had to find out what I needed to be happy. Especially now.

I came out to her a year later. She was nothing but accepting.

All that time, I was still visiting her weekly. In her new home. Visiting by bus. Walking and waiting.

Meanwhile I was traveling out to gender clinics. Undergoing psychological interviews. Getting the proper diagnoses so I could begin treatment. Walking there and back. And waiting. Walking and waiting.

So much waiting.

[rebirthgarments]

TW: Chemical w-rfare, Ab-rtion

Urgent Ask to evacuate Nara, a 🍉 disabled woman with MS who also has pancreatic cancer due to chemical w-rfare.

Support by financially contributing to her @FedUp4Palestine vetted funhnd-raizer (that I personally vetted): givebutter.com/NaraMedicalAid

+ resharing/ reposting this post!

I, Sky Cubacub- a Fed up 4 Palestine team member, have been in direct contact with Nara to get to know her and her story more over the past few days. We have become fast friends due to so many overlapping symptoms of our disabilities. Nara’s story caught my eye because I have post-viral ME/CFS which many times is a precursor to MS. I really want my disability community to show up for her to get this campaign funded that is so close to my heart so that she can continue medical treatment.

We have chatted extensively! During our chats, I found out from Nara that she had not previously had health issues until she was exposed in the white phosphorus attack in 2008. The long lasting damage and effects of phosphorus continue to compound and become more and more disabling to this day, even after 16 years.

Here is her story in her own words (edited for clarity):

“Hi I'm Nara,

I'm a cancer and multiple sclerosis patient. I need treatment, examinations, and follow-up on a regular basis, but the hospitals in which I used to follow up were bombed and the other one was turned into military barracks. All I need now is to leave Gaza for treatment, preserve my life, and live with my family in peace.

We're a family of 4, including my 12 and 7 year old children.

I had been diagnosed with a tumor in the pancreas as a result of inhaling phosphorus in a previous war. A couple years after being exposed to phosphorus, I became pregnant, and the fetus was pressing on the tumor, which drew the doctor’s attention to the cancer. My fetus was emergency aborted, and the spleen, 80% of the pancreas, and part of the small intestine were removed. I complained every now and then of a lot of pain as a result of the removal of part of the pancreas. I was having follow up care in the Turkish Friendship Hospital for hematology and tumors. But since the beginning of October, I have not been able to follow up because the hospital has turned into a military barracks.

The remaining part is talking about multiple sclerosis:

In 2018, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I had many complications, such as inflammation of the seventh nerve in the eye, the inability to walk with balance, movement with difficulty, and many symptoms. I was then required to take 12 injections every month and many medications and vitamins. I was following up at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis, but unfortunately the hospital was out of service due to the war. So for a long time I have not received any injections. MS is truly difficult and it controls my life completely, and the attacks occur in many and varied ways.”

A note about her breathing apparatus:

Because people in displacement have to wait in long queues and pay to use the bathroom, Nara had started to restrict her water intake because of a UTI she never has been able to heal from. This has created a problem with raised levels of potassium, so doctors have placed her on oxygen for fear of the potassium affecting her heart.

Goals

she needs at least $15,000 to evacuate

2 adults at $5,000 each

2 children at $2,500 each

this price is subject to increase due to the cost of registration for evacuation continuing to go up

The other money will go to the cost of treatment and living costs.

Nara chooses to stay anonymous because she has had to mask her disabilities so much that only her family knows about her MS and Cancer, so we have not linked her instagram, but we are in direct contact with her and can verify that she is who she says she is! Because of this, she cannot promote her own fundraiser, so it is our job to collectively do it for her!

[Image Description: a digital illustration by @k8deciccio of Nara, a Pal-eh-stienian woman wearing a black hijab/outfit with purple highlights. She has a breathing apparatus that is bulbous that goes in her nose. Text Reads: Help Narawith Cancer and MS Treatment, She Must Evacuate with her family of 4. $30k goal givebutter.com/NaraMedicalAid . There is a QR code in the bottom right corner that goes to her support link. The @FedUp4Palestine logo is in the top left corner.]

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

I had a panic attack in my kitchen the other day. 

It was a really warm evening, I was making dinner in the kitchen and I noticed I felt a bit weird. At first I didn’t pay it much mind, I was probably just annoyed at having to stand at the hot stove in this weather, but then the thought crossed my mind “What if I falsely believe this is some harmless discomfort and I’m actually having a heart attack?” - and those of you who struggle with health anxiety as well can surely imagine it was all downhill from there. Suddenly I got dizzy and my chest hurt and I felt like I couldn’t breathe… 

And I said to myself “These are all the symptoms of my usual panic attacks, these aren’t new or unusual symptoms that require me to get medical attention right now”, so I turned off the stove and did the first aid I learned works for my panic attacks:

I went to the fridge and got an ice cube and held it in my hand, until that sensory stimulation snapped me back to reality. And when I could think clearly again, I felt safe enough to do a deep breathing exercise and go through my “Why do I feel so shitty” checklist (checking for unmet physical needs I may not be consciously aware of), and I realized I was dressed way too warmly for the weather, so I changed into something lighter - and then I went back to making dinner. My “heart attack” was just me overheating and then my anxiety attaching a wrong interpretation to that. 

That’s a pretty boring story, right? Nothing dramatic happened. But that’s exactly why I share it with you. 

When you’re young and mentally ill (or if you have been freshly diagnosed with it, at any age), a common fear is that it’ll stay. You’ll be like this forever now, you’ll never go back to normal. And so positivity often focus on recovery, on “it’ll go away one day, you just gotta be strong until then”. And maybe it will! Mental illness is a pretty vast umbrella term, some conditions under it can be cured completely. 

But I wanted to share another perspective here: even if it won’t go away, even if it indeed stays forever because it’s a chronic condition or a treatment-resistant one (or because you learn, after years of wondering why your depression and anxiety won’t go away with traditional therapy, that you’re actually autistic and need a completely different approach than a neurotypical patient (hi, it’s me)) .. it won’t feel like it did at the beginning forever, simply because it’s no longer so new. When it’s new, you have no blueprint on how to deal with it. It’s a situation you’re thrown into with no prior training - of course you feel completely lost and hopeless! 

Mental illness is a real illness and as any illness, it’ll affect your daily life - but over all those days, you learn more about it. You try things to cope with the symptoms and realize that some techniques work better for you than others. Even if you can only learn to manage it rather than cure it: you figure out how to deal with it better. You draw your blueprint. 

It’s still part of your life but it’s no longer the showstopper. It becomes just a boring story of stopping dinner to take care of your symptoms first. And that’s something to hope for, to fight for. 

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad 

[liminalweirdo]

A Tale of Two Pandemics [id under cut]. Also, this doesn't just go for people with Long COVID, but for people who are covid-concious as well. Please wear a mask. You-do-you brainrot is killing people and destroying quality of life. Put your community before the economy, wear a mask.

Soft blueish background with darker text reading, "A Tale of Two Pandemics" Long COVID by the COVID Action Map.

A flow chart beginning with: "A and B both develop new health issues after a COVID infection." Chart splits into "Person A" and "Person B"

Person A:

Goes to see their primary care doctor who refers them to several specialists

Well-informed specialists run a barrage of tests and diagnose Long COVID

Diagnosis gives clarity and allows them to connect with other people with LC

Receives specialized integrative care from health team for recovery

Institutional validation of their LC translates into social validation, support

Circumvents wait times, unavailability by paying out of pocket for care

Friends, family, loved ones happy to take precautions to prevent reinfections

Savings/financial help lets them take months or years off of work/school

Avoids reinfection with community support, money for high-quality PPE, etc.

Applies for disability benefits with the support of community, gets approved

Gradually beings to stabilize in some ways even improve over time.

Person B:

Can't afford a doctor's visit, tries to wait out all of their new health issues

Finally sees a primary care doctor who dismisses their symptoms as anxiety, etc.

No diagnosis leaves them isolated and confused about what's happening

Keeps suffering symptoms with no explanation, support, or treatment

Personal research points to LC, tries a bunch of online miracle "cures"

Tries to get into a Long COVID clinic and gets denied because they're full

Friends, family, love ones refuse to take precautions to prevent reinfections

Friends and family disbelieve them, cut them off, institutionalize them

Multiple reinfections from ongoing workplace and community exposure

Symptoms worsen with exertion and medical neglect, unable to work

Loses job, community, family, child custody, pets, housing, safety, even life

[hussyknee]

The young woman was catatonic, stuck at the nurses’ station — unmoving, unblinking and unknowing of where or who she was. Her name was April Burrell. Before she became a patient, April had been an outgoing, straight-A student majoring in accounting at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. But after a traumatic event when she was 21, April suddenly developed psychosis and became lost in a constant state of visual and auditory hallucinations. The former high school valedictorian could no longer communicate, bathe or take care of herself. April was diagnosed with a severe form of schizophrenia, an often devastating mental illness that affects approximately 1 percent of the global population and can drastically impair how patients behave and perceive reality. “She was the first person I ever saw as a patient,” said Sander Markx, director of precision psychiatry at Columbia University, who was still a medical student in 2000 when he first encountered April. “She is, to this day, the sickest patient I’ve ever seen.” It would be nearly two decades before their paths crossed again. But in 2018, another chance encounter led to several medical discoveries reminiscent of a scene from “Awakenings,” the famous book and movie inspired by the awakening of catatonic patients treated by the late neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks. Markx and his colleagues discovered that although April’s illness was clinically indistinguishable from schizophrenia, she also had lupus, an underlying and treatable autoimmune condition that was attacking her brain. After months of targeted treatments — and more than two decades trapped in her mind — April woke up. The awakening of April — and the successful treatment of other peoplewith similar conditions — now stand to transform care for some of psychiatry’s sickest patients, many of whom are languishing in mental institutions. Researchers working with the New York state mental health-care system have identified about 200 patients with autoimmune diseases, some institutionalized for years, who may be helped by the discovery. And scientists around the world, including Germany and Britain, are conducting similar research, finding that underlying autoimmune and inflammatory processes may be more common in patients with a variety of psychiatric syndromes than previously believed. Although the current research probably will help only a small subset of patients,the impact of the work is already beginning to reshape the practice of psychiatry and the way many cases of mental illness are diagnosed and treated. “These are the forgotten souls,” said Markx. “We’re not just improving the lives of these people, but we’re bringing them back from a place that I didn’t think they could come back from.”

– A catatonic woman awakened after 20 years. Her story may change psychiatry.

[prolifeproliberty]

Hey, I'm stumped on this objection, if it's alright, I want your input on this

"For these types of people I always give them a hypothetical situation for them answer So if you knew your wife was going to die by giving birth to the child would you let Your wife get an abortion or would you let your wife die in the child grow up without a mother?"

What do you think?

I would answer that the choice is never actually that simple. We imagine this cinematic moment where the doctor comes out to talk to the anxious husband in the waiting room and says “Sir, we can only save one of them. Should we save your wife or your child?” and he has to make that choice.

That makes a very dramatic movie scene, but it’s not real.

There are three categories of “life of the mother” situations:

1. Very early pregnancy. Mother has a life threatening condition and cannot be kept stable until the child reaches viability (now around 22 weeks with evidence-based best practices). Even in these situations, a direct abortion isn’t the life-saving care. Usually we’re talking about the mother needing a treatment for her life-threatening condition that risks the life of the baby. Most ethical choice is to treat the mother. If the baby dies as a result of the treatment, that is a tragic loss. If the baby doesn’t die, awesome! In this category, there is no way to save the baby without saving the mother, because if the mother died, the baby would too. Ectopic pregnancies fall in this category because there is currently no way to save the baby. If we developed the ability to get ectopic embryos to successfully re-implant in the uterus, that would become the ethical option.

2. Late-term complications. I’m going out of order here for a reason. This is anything where the mother’s life-threatening health issue starts after viability, but especially when we’re talking 30 weeks and on. Baby’s chance of survival with an early delivery goes up rapidly as baby approaches full term. In these cases, if the mother needs immediate treatment for a life threatening issue, she doesn’t actually need her baby to die. There is no reason to choose between the mother and child. A C-section is actually safer than a late-term abortion, since third trimester abortions usually still involve the mother laboring and delivering a dead baby. If the concern, as posed in the original hypothetical, is that she would “die by giving birth,” then she probably just needs a C-section (or a better doctor).

3. The third category is the most complex one. This is when the life threatening issue for the other begins when the child cannot yet survive outside the womb, but may be able to in a few weeks. This is where the difficult decisions are made. This category includes women diagnosed with cancer who might decide to delay treatment to protect their child until their child can be safely delivered. However, even here we can see examples of mothers who choose to receive treatment without first killing their child, and doctors who find innovative ways to treat life-threatening illnesses without harming preborn children.

The true answer is “save them both.” We can’t always - just as any doctor knows in a triage situation they can’t always save all the patients. The decision of who to save is never based on which patient is more human, more valuable, or more worth saving. The answer is instead based on how the doctor can save the greatest number of patients. If the doctor can save everyone, they do. If the doctor knows a course of action means for sure saving one patient, while another might not make it, but the alternative is losing both, then they will choose to save at least one. We almost never see a situation where the doctor has to arbitrarily choose between two patients - the decision is always based on the condition of each patient, the resources available, how much time there is, etc. There are algorithms for this kind of thing.

Basically I refuse to let unrealistic hypotheticals dictate actual policy on saving children.

Because people believe in the “we can only save one, choose!” scenario, we get doctors telling women that they will die if they don’t get an abortion, and then they cry to the media that they had to go to Colorado or California to get their “life-saving procedure.” The reality is that either the doctor could have treated the mother without first killing the baby and given the baby a chance to survive, or they could have delivered the baby and then treated the mother.

Anyone who says they couldn’t do the first option under ____ state abortion law is either lying or ignorant. If the mother’s condition is actually life-threatening, every state allows doctors to treat the mother. Killing a child doesn’t cure any illness.

[heartswithinreach]

Hello! I wanted to say I love your writing and super eager for more! That said, I was recently diagnosed with cancer and was wondering how the lads would react to an MC who was diagnosed with it or something similar? If that's too dark, I'm sorry!

Thank you and I hope your day is great! :)

a/n: i am so sorry anon, i hope you're taking care of yourself and that this can bring you some comfort 💖💖🫂everyone wish anon well!!

LaDS when MC has a cancer diagnosis

Xavier

After a few moments of silence, he accepts the reality of your diagnosis and begins making plans on how to make your life easier. Whatever you need, he'll do it, no questions asked.

For your sake, Xavier is as calm and steadfast as ever. He wants you to continue living life as normally as possible. He'll do subtle, thoughtful things just to remind you how important you are to him and that he’ll always love you, no matter what comes.

With Jenna and your team's full support, you and Xavier both take a leave of absence from duty so Xavier can take care of you during your treatment.

Tara takes the lead in organizing visits and dividing chores they can do so you can rest with nothing to worry about. She spends almost as much time with you as Xavier does and he’s immensely grateful so many support you both.

Xavier listens to your worries and fears. Say what you feel, he's here to shoulder it with you without judgment.

Rafayel

His first reaction is anger — not at you, but at this horrible situation.

No one deserves this and he's so frustrated he can't just make this go away with the money or influence he has. What is it all for if he can't take care of you?

But this isn't about him. Rafayel might not be the most natural caretaker but your bond is forever. He won't just abandon you now.

He can't sleep that night after you tell him so he works till dawn converting a spare room into your home away from home. Being near the sea can help improve your health, right? Well, maybe you should stay with him for while, then!

Rafayel, despite what he may think, is actually a pretty good nurse, fussing over you and making you feel special while keeping your spirits high. He is so attuned to you and your needs, it’s as easy as breathing.

Zayne

As your physician, he saw the signs early on but quickly passed your case on to someone more qualified than him. He couldn't allow his feelings to get in the way of getting you the best possible care.

Zayne is there at every meeting, every check up, every treatment. He didn't expect it to be so difficult from getting too involved but he knows he would be nothing but a hinderance to the team treating you.

So he puts his faith in the capable staff of Akso Hospital while he dedicates himself to your emotional and mental health. He only goes into the hospital a few times a week for his more urgent patients, otherwise, he’s at home with you.

Zayne becomes so considerate and gentle, you'll wonder how you ever thought he was cold. Through it all, he will be your rock.

You need him, now more than ever, and Zayne takes that more seriously than ever oath he’s ever made.

Sylus

Mephisto is never far away so when you’re walking home after getting the news, you’re not very surprised to see Sylus waiting in a dark alley by your apartment. He will pull you into his embrace without a word and hold you together as you fall apart.

Sylus wants to know how you want to proceed and then he wants you to give him permission to make it a reality. He’s always silently hoping you’ll use his resources but now he’s almost pleading.

He keeps some sense of normalcy by continuing to tease and antagonize you, though now more gently than before and only if it’ll get you to smile.

Sylus wishes you could stay with him in the N109 Zone but he knows it’s impossible. You could never get the proper treatment there and he can’t leave his domain for too long. But the twins and Mephisto can do everything he cannot and that brings him some solace.

In time, you and Mephisto become closer until he has a nest in your room and you wake up every morning to something new and shiny on your windowsill to cheer you up. Having even just an extension of Sylus with you until the man himself comes to visit you at night is more comforting than you ever imagined.

[vonbabbitt]

big long kamimura loredrop that i sent to my tetro staff two years ago. obvious spoilers and trigger warning for a lot of stuff. not for the weak of heart. also forgive the very casual tone this is written in i was sending it to my STAFF!! MY FRIENDS!! it has not been curated for public release lol

KAMIMURA KAZUTOSHI. WOW. LOTS TO UNPACK HERE. so kamimura was born as a very sickly kid. his parents were initially planning to have two kids, but when kamimura was born with very particular needs, they decided it would be better to dedicate their full time and attention to just one kid. so thats what they did! kamimura was born with a few conditions that made his childhood a bit rougher, the main of which being hemophilia, an (at the time) unidentified autoimmune disease and a few lesions on his brain. not ideal! so he was in and out of the hospital a lot as a kid, something that was very scary for him at the time, but his parents were very very supportive and loving during this time. they would be at the hospital with him every single time he had to be there (obvs cuz he was a tiny baby boy) and his mom would not go home until he was discharged. she would always be there telling him stories and playing games with him and doing her best to make the experience as comfortable as possible for him. so that made it less scary!

kamimura had a very good support system and it made him a very happy and social kid! he grew up very outgoing and playful and eager and close with his family. his dad was a busy guy who worked in tech, so while he was usually at work, his mom worked from home as a copy editor, so he spent a lot of time with her. as he started to get a little older (7-8), a few more comorbidities and diagnoses started popping up - chronic fatigue, crohns, some vision problems, muscle issues, things that made his life a lot more difficult and worried his parents because he was getting bad fast. this meant a lot more time in the hospital for baby kamimura which is very unfortunate for him. eventually he gets put on a new balance of medications/treatments and his family keeps doing their best because goddamnit their kid should get to be a happy kid! which he is! hes a very happy kid! hes just also a kid with a LOT of medical issues

SO THEN WE HIT AGE NINE. kamimuras mother is home alone with him when a close family friend drops by. hes someone kamimura knows very well - comes to all their parties, visits often, etc etc. but he was also someone who had very strong feelings towards kamimuras mom. he had confessed to her multiple times and obviously she had said no because she is married with a child and was not interested at all. except this time hes completely fed up with it. she says no, he gets aggressive and violent and tries to overpower her. she fights back, he panics and stabs her. a lot. repeatedly. over and over and over. so the kitchen is an absolute bloodbath. not good! a few minutes into this, kamimuras dad gets home from work and is very quickly added to the body count. family friend runs, and about ten minutes later, kamimura gets home from school.

so now this nine year old boy has walked in on his parents mutilated bodies lying in a sea of blood on the kitchen floor. his mind basically shuts down. he cannot even begin to process the ways in which his entire world has just come crumbling down. he goes upstairs to his room, closes the door, and proceeds to stay there for two days straight. if he can just stay in his room and not go outside, no matter what he saw, no matter what he smells, he can pretend that everything is fine and theres nothing downstairs.

after two days of this, kamimura's dad's work calls for a wellness check. a wellness check is performed! EVERYTHING IS NOT WELL. the police find kamimura, remove him from the house and into the system he goes. pretty soon he ends up living with his moms sister, who isnt a mean person or anything, but she never wanted kids and shes just lost her sister and shes going through a lot so she never really connects with kamimura. she feeds him and houses him and does her best, but hes completely shut off emotionally and very traumatized and wants nothing to do with this new life thats been put on him so he mostly ignores her and just goes through the beats of life.

from this point on, he has no friends. he doesnt get close to anyone. he doesnt try to. he shuts himself off, keeps to himself and gets picked on a bit because of it. hes outcast at school pretty quickly and that does not do much to help his mental health. it doesnt help that his PHYSICAL health is still deteriorating pretty fast and hes now living with somebody that has NO experience in taking care of his medical needs. hes still in the hospital all the time, but now hes alone and its quiet and hes scared. he hates hospitals. he hates going to the hospital so so so so much because hospitals are scary and it only serves to drive home the complete lack of his mom existing that is haunting him every day. it doesnt help that hiding out in a corpse house for two days has given him a deep, DEEP fear of anything dirty or putrid in the way that his parents' crime scene was. this evolves into a pretty bad case of germophobia that makes him hate hospitals even more because theyre disgusting infected places where people go to die and rot. bad.

but life continues! so when he turns 14, kamimura goes to high school for the first time! its also around this time that he finally dyes his hair - his black hair makes him look exactly like his mom and he cant handle seeing that every time he looks in the mirror, so blue it is! because blue does not look like either of his parents and now he doesnt have to fking see their faces every single time he looks at himself. yay! so he enters high school, his mental health is tanking, his physical health is tanking and everything is bad. high school is equally bad because hes still getting bullied and he feels sick all the time and school is stressful and he is completely lacking in socialization. so at age 14, kamimura tries to kill himself for the first time. it does not work. he goes to the hospital and very hastily explains it to his aunt as having simply fucked up his own medication and says it was all an accident because fuuuuck he does NOT want to be institutionalized. that would suck. and luckily this excuse works and he's back out in the world soon after. yay?

anyway life goes on! so kamimura goes back to school. except weirdly enough, he actually starts talking to another person. this person is named isao kamei and he is a boy in kamimuras grade! hes nice and cool and hangs out with kamimura and likes kamimuras dumb blue hair and likes all the things kamimura likes (scary movies. breaking random shit behind the school after class. yknow) so the two hit it off pretty quickly and soon kamimura has a best friend. except, uh oh, maybe hes more than a best friend?? kamimura starts realizing that hes got feelings for isao and panics because he does not need this complication ruining his one and only friendship. kamimura has had severe severe trust issues for years now and has finally let himself get close to another person again and he CANNOT LOSE THAT. but isao is a good guy, and theyre close, and kamimura is starting to think that isao feels the same way about him so maybe hed be cool about it. it goes against every instinct he has spent the past five years cultivating, but he finally works up the nerve and admits to isao how he feels about him.

IT GOES BADLY. SO BADLY. isao is uncomfortable and frankly kind of disgusted and pulls back HARD. he basically distances himself from kamimura forever and word very very quickly spreads (starting from isao) that kamimura is gay and that he asked out isao, something that absolutely quadruples the amount of bullying he is receiving. so a few days later, kamimura tries to kill himself for the second time. once again it does not go well. he gets very very very sick, but still wakes up in the end and is absolutely miserable and furious about it. his awful awful awful life continues to march on as always and hes back at school pretty soon after that! he continues getting relentlessly bullied, his health continues to deteriorate, and finally during one of his numerous numerous hospital visits he gets hit with two fun new terms: multiple sclerosis and myasthenia gravis. these are the two things that produce the vast majority of his symptoms. so at the very least he now has a few words to label himself with, but hes not really that thrilled about it either way. kamimura is someone with a lot of internalized ableism and resentment towards his own body. he sees it as the reason his life sucks and the reason he gets bullied and the reason he cant live like other people can. he hates himself, and that makes him hate himself even more because his parents always made such a big deal about telling him how much they loved him and how much he should love himself, so he feels like hes betraying them by absolutely loathing himself and his body.

so at sixteen, he tells his aunt he wants to move out. they arent close and he just wants to be on his own and honestly shes on board with this because she never wanted kids and shes ready to go back to her life. so out the door he goes! hes got his own apartment now, which means theres nobody to make him get out of bed or shower or eat or go to school. so he stops doing all of those things, which makes his health deteriorate faster and makes him even more miserable. so at age sixteen, kamimura makes a third attempt on his life. he learned his lesson last time and ups the dosage hard. except he cant keep it down because he hasnt been eating anything for like two weeks and his stomach just physically cannot handle the amount of medication hes ingesting. so this one fails too. but life goes on and kamimura needs to pay rent! his landlord thinks he is strange and concerning and wants to help him so he manages to get kamimura an apprenticeship with a man named ryōichi katō, a very experienced crime scene cleaner! kamimura EXCELS in this field. hes able to shut off his emotions around blood and viscera - his brain just completely blocks out the horror of it, which is almost a coping mechanism i suppose - but the point is that hes great at it. he starts working full time and it pays the bills well enough so hes got nothing to complain about quite frankly.

except his life still sucks. hes alone. hes sick. he hates himself. everything is bad bad bad bad bad. so at a particularly bad mental low at age seventeen, kamimura makes a fourth attempt on his life. this one has GOT to work because he has been honing this method for years now and SURELY he has worked out the kinks by this point yes? so he downs a shitton of pills, washes it down with cheap booze and passes out. then he wakes up in the Fujioka Memorial High School Basement Laundry Room and now we are here

[syllvarin]

Non-traumagenic plurality: How could it be possible?

First off, let's start with what some anti-endo folk mean versus what they don't mean with traumagenic plurality

They mean systems caused by/as a response to trauma and traumatic events, and those who are still affetced by them, aka systems who are disordered, DID/OSDD/UDD.

What they don't mean is systems who have trauma in their origin along with other causes. They do not believe a system can very well be traumagenic but function smoothlessly due to recovering, or have multiple origins.

Note: We are a diagnosed DID system with mixed (trauma/ramcoa/neuro/para) origins. Yes, we know what we are talking about. No, that doesn't mean we can't do mistakes, but we will try our best to be as accurate as possible. We will include scientific articles, DSM-5 DID checklist, and many more in this post.

How can that be possible?

1st: Brains are quite complicated. Research on brain functions is far from being complete, it is a long road that we are still at the very beginning of. We still don't know how brain exactly works let alone how it can form seperate conscious identities and work them together. We do know headmates exist based on brain MRI's ( link here ) That proves us that systems indeed, exist.

2nd point i want to make is that science is not done in a linear fashion. We are studying to be neuroscientists ourselves and the very core of what makes science doable is MONEY. Yes, in this capitalist system even the most seemingly basic research requires funding, money, and a goal that can be monetized to get done. Reseaches on female autonomy, rare disorders and "demonized" disorders such as DID is therefore not often as it is not easily capitalized and funded.

Therefore we do not have enough research to prove or disprove that the only way of becoming a system is through childhood.

And that brings me to my 3rd point, where we will take a look at what DSM-5 (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) says about diagnostic crietria of DID. We will see how it is a dissocative disorder, not a trauma disorder.

Found under dissociative disorders (not trauma disorders!), checklist for DID is as follows:

See how none of those checklist include trauma as checklist? Yes DID is commonly caused by trauma but not always. Yes it commonly is created during childhood but not always. Those arent in diagnostic criteria.

Definitive feature is not trauma, it is distinct personality states or experience of possession.

DID is associated with traumatic events, does not mean it requires it.

DID can manifest at almost any age (DSM-5 is saying that, folks)

What's more is OSDD doesnt even have a definitive checklist like DID. it is found under differential diagnosis, with other disorders. PDID (partial DID where one part is frontstuck a majority of the time) is also up to psychiatrist's evaluation rather than a concrete checklist.

4th point is : What about Structural Dissociaton Theory?

This theory is as it goes: The theory of Structural Dissociation works off of the assumption that everyone is born with different ego states that later merge in life. Those different ego states operate for different actions in life, that later integrate into one person during ages of 4-6. Trauma disrupts that integration and causes ANP (apparently normal parts) and EP (Emotional parts). EP's are stuck in the trauma while ANP's are not.

source: The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization" by Onno van der Hart, Ellert Nijenhuis, and Kathy Steele. 

Yes, theory. Theories are not concrete. They can be disapproved, they can change, they may not fit every experience. Structural dissociation only explains how DID can manifest at childhood, but we already know by now that DID can manifest at almost any age.

So I personally think basing everything on a theory about how DID might've been caused (which doesn't even perfectly explain every possible way) is not as fault-proof as one might think it is.

Point 5: experiences of "multiple identities" exist for so long into history (people who are possessed, talk to themselves, act weird at times, are very different at times, etc), way before any DID/OSDD terms were created. And actually, how can we know how many people in history have had this experience when the very society we are in is very scared of them? It is fair to say only the disruptive cases must've been noticed, and majority of them probably were either deemed as crazy or exorcised as they believed those people were possessed by spirits. Just because your experience does not fit with others and just because science hasnt done anything to back them up, doesn't mean people's lived experiences are false. Why would so many people tell that they are a system when they are not? We are not living in a place where being a system is happy or fun, we are not in a society where its profitable or anything. It literally gives a person zero + points for being plural if they arent. It would be a nonstop roleplay they have to keep up throughout every aspect of their life; and at that point, it must be either impossible or that person is already plural and not roleplaying when no one is looking at them.

Creating headmates is on the same basket. A person with DID can create headmates in blink of an eye (we know from oursleves) sometimes splitting threshold is so low you may split off multiple people at once. You cannot know what is going in a person's mind, and what mechanisms work for creating a headmate. If they claim they did, it is very much no chance they are faking being different people 24/7. It *is* a real chance that they actually did develop a headmate. If you do not believe them; ask them about their experiences. I am %100 positive that if you actually listen to them, you will see those people are only trying to live their life.

Also, if you think healthy systems cannot exist and only way to be a system is through dissociation and dysfunction; then why would DID systems try to heal anyway? Wouldn't that just be sanist and ableist to expect all of them to turn into singlets because healthy multiplicity isnt a thing?But no, it is a thing, and healthy multiplicity and recovery is possible for systems. DID and other disordered forms of plurality do indeed exist, and they are indeed, treatabe in multiple ways according to what a person feels comfortable with. That is also a system's right to heal however they please. They don't owe anyone their right to stay as plural or become a singlet.

6th point I want to make is about: Why do we even care?

If a person says they have multiple people in their head, why do we care and tell them they are faking? They are not claiming to have a diagnosis, even if they did; if their situation is causing a distress to them, then they ARE diagnosable and that therefore is none of our business, again.

Last point I want to make is how endogenic DID is possible. yes, possible. remember how trauma is not in diagnostic criteria and DID can happen at any age? If endogenic plurals can happen, they can also form DID at later in life. They can also become disordered due to an event in their life. They can lose harmony and become so dysfunctional they need professional help. That doesn't mean they are no longer endogenic or some other origin, that simply means their state is different than what it was and they need help.

End of our post. Thank you for reading.

[96z]

i’m just gonna jump right into this,

rin / @leedonghun is the sweetest, kindest soul and she is dealing with some pretty serious medical issues. she was diagnosed with a brain tumor and the cost of treatment has not been insignificant in the slightest, and she deserves our help.

that said, i’ve moved my shop over to ko-fi and i’m having a pay-what-you-want sale on all of my sticker sheets for the next week. the minimum price set is $0.10 usd— you can pay that, you can pay a dollar, it doesn’t matter and there’s no judgement. every little bit helps and every last cent will be going towards rin. this is the last batch of stickers i will be doing for the foreseeable future! the goal is to reach at least $150, and i will put the first $20 forward.

shipping costs still need to be covered and are now calculated at checkout depending on your location, instead of being paid separately! us shipping is $4.50 flat, canada is $5.50, the rest of the world is $7 usd. this is a pre-order, every item is made to order and i’ll begin printing & shipping at the end of this month!

i have ~18 sticker sheets to choose from (below are just a few) and each order comes with two prints, a carat sticker sheet and a moon triplets keychain! if you can’t afford to buy, please do boost <3

[rhazberriquartz]

Forgive any typos. But this isn't something I thought I'd have to do. I guess first I start on an update with this situation here. We figured out how to get the house into our name. It'll take about 7 months. My aunt went above and beyond to make it happen. I'm grateful for that. But, there has been another brick thrown at us. @jeweltonejules is my spouse.

Now... Let's start with a timeline.

Beginning of September, both my spouse and I caught Covid. Once recovered we noticed my spouse had a swollen lymphnode. We decided to tell their PCP about it at the next appointment if it never went away,

November 2024 Jules saw their PCP who noticed the lymphnode was massive and got an ultrasound scheduled.

December 2024 The ultrasound was done. It revealed the growth to be a tumor. A large one with blood vessels. A biopsy was scheduled.

January 2025 Jules went to the biopsy appointment. The Doctor noted it was so large and in such a bad spot that they decide to schedule surgery then and there out of an abundance of caution.

February 13th the surgery was done and not one, but two lymphnode tumors were removed and sent to biopsy.

February 19th Jules is called in to go over the results from the biopsy and check on the wound in their neck. They are diagnosed with Metastatic Squamous Cell carcinoma. A cancer that came from somewhere else in the body. But it at best is stage 2 at worst stage 3.

We are currently awaiting a call from the ENT Specialist at Vanderbilt because they believe the cancer is in that area.

This diagnosis has completely devastated us and our families. We are aware of how costly chemo and radiation can be and the risks it holds.

We already live paycheck to paycheck and are hoping to raise money to help us pay for treatment and pay off any debt we possibly can. The less debt we have the more money we have to go towards treatment as well. Especially if Jules loses their job. Donations will go into savings first and foremost.

Donate HERE if you want to see updates consistently and watch a meter go up.

Otherways to Donate here! if not for what's to come I'd offer commissions. But, I will be taking as much overtime as I can at work.

And of course: This is our list of debt. So, you know EXACTLY what money will be going to outside of medical treatment!

$700 in credit card debt (Cards will be retired.)

$1,800 medical debt (Currently)

$8,600 auto debt

$58,000 Mortgage (This includes a loan we got to fix a massive issue.)

We know we are asking for a miracle, but it's all we can do at the moment.

We will be updating as we get more information.