#family doctor mesa arizona

[mybookplacenet]

Tell us about yourself.: We are a best-friend writing duo. We met when we both lived in Mesa, Arizona; however, Lisa-Marie moved to Alaska in 2021. Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?: Lisa-Marie: I grew up in Nottingham, England, home of Robin Hood. Being familiar with London, we used several locations in one of our manuscripts. Also, in our debut, the female main character's family comes from England and speaks with a British accent. Amanda: I grew up in Maryland and moved to Arizona in 1993. While Maryland is mentioned in one of our manuscripts, because Arizona is familiar to both of us, it is heavily featured in several of our works. Do you have any unusual writing habits? As best friends, each of our writing sessions starts with an hour of chit-chat to ensure that everything is out of our systems before we get down to business. What authors have influenced you? Lisa-Marie: I grew up in Nottingham, England, home of Robin Hood. Being familiar with London, we used several locations in one of our manuscripts. Also, in our debut, the female main character's family comes from England and speaks with a British accent. Amanda: I grew up in Maryland and moved to Arizona in 1993. While Maryland is mentioned in one of our manuscripts, because Arizona is familiar to both of us, it is heavily featured in several of our works. Do you have any advice for new authors? Have several people beta read your manuscript, but don't use friends and family. You want someone who will give you honest and brutal feedback. What is the best advice you have ever been given? Get thick skin. Writing critiques are essential in this journey and, therefore, should be painful. That's how you learn. What are you reading now? Lisa-Marie is reading To Catch a Killer by Sheryl Scarborough, and Amanda is reading Falling for Your Best Friend's Twin by Emma St. Clair. What's your biggest weakness? Distraction. We are both talkers, and being best friends, we have lots to talk about. What is your favorite book of all time? Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, hands down. We are obsessed with the series (not the movies), and because of those books, we are best friends and writers today. When you're not writing, how do you like to spend your time? Lisa-Marie: I love archery and try to get to the range as often as possible. Amanda: I like to try and paint like Bob Ross while following along with his videos. Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you? Haha, we are both too old to remember that far back! What has inspired you and your writing style? We are both hopeless romantics, and the forbidden love of Edward and Bella had us hooked. Stephenie's writing flows easily and completely absorbs us both. We try to emulate those same qualities in our manuscripts. What are you working on now? We are working on several projects. The first is our edits for book two in the Plus One series, Just What the Doctor Hired. Second, we have fifteen thousand words in book three of the series, Two's Company, Plus One's a Crowd. Lastly, between the other projects, we are revising our YA speculative time travel novel to submit to our agent, Nicole Payne of Copps Literary Services. What is your favorite method for promoting your work? There are favorites? Haha. We promote our work on all our social media platforms and scour the internet for other free opportunities on blogs and various bookish websites. What's next for you as a writer? Book signings! We are contacting our local bookstores and asking for event dates to promote our work How well do you work under pressure? We thrive! Doesn't everybody? Haha, really though, we work well with a timeframe or deadline. It helps keep us on track. How do you decide what tone to use with a particular piece of writing? We feel the tone of the book should fit the genre and our audience. If you could share one thing with your fans, what would that be? A peek into our brains so they could see what we see in our imaginary worlds. Also, our website with our preorder links! Haha! Amanda and Lisa-Marie Nelson and Potter's Author Websites and Profiles Website Amazon Profile Goodreads Profile BookBub Profile Amanda and Lisa-Marie Nelson and Potter's Social Media Links Facebook Page Twitter Instagram LinkedIn Pinterest Read the full article

[warnerstree1]

Understanding Lemon Tree Fertilizer Needs:NPK Ratio: Citrus trees thrive on a balanced fertilizer with an NPK ratio such as 6-6-6 or a citrus-specific formula. These numbers represent Nitrogen (N) for foliage growth, Phosphorus (P) for root development and flowering, and Potassium (K) for overall health and fruit production. Micronutrients: Ensure your fertilizer also includes essential micronutrients like iron, zinc, and manganese, important for preventing deficiencies.

How to Fertilize:Timing: Fertilize young lemon trees every 4-6 weeks during the growing season (spring to fall). For mature trees, fertilize 3-4 times a year, avoiding fertilization in winter. Amount: Follow the instructions on the fertilizer package. Over-fertilization can cause damage. A general rule is to start with about 1/4 cup of fertilizer for a young tree and increase the amount with age. Application: Sprinkle the fertilizer evenly in a circle around the tree, extending slightly beyond the drip line (the outermost edge of the branches). Water thoroughly after fertilizing to help the nutrients reach the roots. Organic Options: Compost, fish emulsion, or other organic fertilizers are excellent options to improve soil quality and provide a slower release of nutrients.

Important Considerations:Soil Test: A soil test can determine specific nutrient needs in your soil, helping you tailor your fertilization plan. Tree Age: Young trees need more frequent fertilization than established trees. Potted Lemon Trees: Container-grown lemon trees need more frequent fertilization due to limited nutrients in the potting mix.

Helpful Links:University of Florida IFAS Extension: Citrus Culture in the Home Landscape https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/HS132 The Home Depot: How to Care for Citrus Trees https://www.homedepot.com/c/ai/how-to-care-for-citrus-trees/9ba683603be9fa5395fab90c37a6c84 BAC Online: Lemon Tree Fertilizer https://www.bacfertilizers.com/fertilizer/lemon-tree-fertilizer

Warners Tree Surgery Is A Mesa, Arizona (Based)“Family Business". Our Tree Expert, Warner, Is available To Help You With Your Sick Trees If You Live Within A 30 Mile Radius Of Mesa. Warner Working, Our Tree Doctor, Cares For Many Different Species Of Trees In And Around The Cities Of Mesa, Gilbert, Chandler, Tempe, Sun Lakes, And Scottsdale. If You Are In Need Of A Tree Expert With Over 50 Years Of Knowledge And Experience, Then Call“Warners Tree Surgery”. Our Number Is: (480) 969-8808 For More Information/Videos Visit Our Websites https://warnerstreesurgery.com/ Or https://mesatreedoctors.com/

[anand07723]

Nurturing Communities: A Journey through Voyage Medical Primary Care in Phoenix, Mesa, Gilbert, and Scottsdale

In the bustling cities of Phoenix, Mesa, Gilbert, and Scottsdale, where the desert sun paints the landscape with warm hues, a beacon of healthcare excellence shines through - Voyage Medical Primary Care. Picture this: you walk into a welcoming space, greeted not only by the soothing ambiance but also by a team of compassionate healthcare professionals dedicated to your well-being. This is the narrative of Voyage Medical, a primary care provider that transcends the traditional notion of a doctor's office. Let us embark on a journey to explore the unique and patient-centric services offered by Voyage Medical across these vibrant Arizona communities.

Phoenix Primary Care - Where Compassion Meets Innovation:

At the heart of Phoenix, where the urban pulse meets the desert calm, Voyage Medical Primary Care stands as a testament to compassionate healthcare. The Phoenix Doctors Office is more than just a place for routine check-ups; it is a haven where patients forge lasting connections with their healthcare providers. The skilled medical professionals at Voyage Medical not only prioritize your physical health but also understand the importance of holistic well-being. From preventive care to chronic disease management, they walk alongside you in your health journey.

Mesa Doctors Office - Bridging Gaps, Building Bridges:

Heading east to Mesa, Voyage Medical's presence is a testament to its commitment to bridging healthcare gaps. The Mesa Primary Care facility is not just a medical center; it's a community hub fostering health awareness and education. Imagine a place where the doctors not only treat ailments but also empower patients with knowledge to make informed decisions about their health. Voyage Medical in Mesa goes beyond the clinical setting, emphasizing a partnership between healthcare professionals and the community they serve.

Gilbert Doctors Office - Personalized Care in the Heart of the Suburbs:

Venture further into the suburbs, and you'll find Gilbert, where Voyage Medical brings personalized care to the forefront. The Gilbert Primary Care facility is a haven for families seeking comprehensive healthcare services. Here, the focus is not just on treating illnesses but on building relationships. The doctors at Voyage Medical in Gilbert take the time to understand the unique needs of each patient, ensuring that healthcare is not a one-size-fits-all approach but a tailored experience.

Scottsdale Doctors Office - Wellness Redefined:

Nestled in the upscale community of Scottsdale, Voyage Medical redefines wellness. The Scottsdale Primary Care facility is not merely a doctor's office; it's a sanctuary for those seeking proactive health management. Picture a space where lifestyle and health seamlessly merge, where doctors collaborate with patients to design wellness plans that align with their individual goals. Voyage Medical in Scottsdale is a beacon of preventive care, embodying the philosophy that a healthy lifestyle is the best medicine.

How Voyage Medical Can Help:

Across Phoenix, Mesa, Gilbert, and Scottsdale, Voyage Medical Primary Care is more than just a healthcare provider; it is a partner in your health journey. Through a holistic approach to healthcare, Voyage Medical aims to empower individuals and communities to take charge of their well-being. From routine check-ups to chronic disease management, the focus is on preventive care and personalized solutions. Voyage Medical stands as a bridge between traditional healthcare and a future where patients are not just treated but actively participate in their own health and wellness.

As we conclude our journey through Voyage Medical Primary Care in Phoenix, Mesa, Gilbert, and Scottsdale, one cannot help but be inspired by the commitment to patient-centric care. The unique approach to healthcare, blending compassion with innovation, is what sets Voyage Medical apart. The Phoenix, Mesa, Gilbert, and Scottsdale Doctors Offices are not just places to address ailments; they are anchors in the community, fostering a culture of well-being and empowerment.

In a world where healthcare is constantly evolving, Voyage Medical remains steadfast in its mission to provide accessible, personalized, and compassionate care. So, as we look to the future of healthcare, let's ask ourselves: How can we contribute to a healthier, more connected community? With Voyage Medical leading the way, the answer lies in each of us taking that first step towards proactive, patient-centered well-being.

[azitts]

Top Intensive Outpatient Programs Near Me

Choose intensive outpatient care at AZITTS for a smooth transition from behavioral hospital stays or an alternative to inpatient care. Our medical providers offer holistic care, including mental and physical health, with a focus on long-term well-being. Our family doctors treat a wide range of conditions, from acute to chronic, and emphasize preventive care for all ages.

[affordablehealthinsuranceblog]

Affordable Health Insurance Provides Comprehensive Solutions For Small Businesses!

When it comes to running a successful business, the health and well-being of your employees should be a top priority. Providing your employees with access to mesa health insurance can help ensure they receive quality medical care when needed, without having to worry about the financial burden. Small business owners can benefit from Affordable Health Insurance policies by providing their employees with medical coverage and peace of mind.

What is health insurance?

Health insurance is a type of insurance that covers the cost of medical care. It helps individuals and families pay for doctor visits, medical tests, surgery, hospital stays, and other medical services. Health insurance plans are typically offered through employers or health insurance providers. With health insurance, an individual or family pays a premium each month to the health insurer in exchange for coverage, and you can easily get it from Affordable Health Insurance.

Why do people need health insurance?

Health insurance is an important tool for managing healthcare costs, as it can help reduce out-of-pocket expenses for medical care. Without health insurance, an individual or family may be responsible for paying the entire cost of medical care. This could lead to serious financial hardship if an illness or injury occurs. Health insurance can also provide peace of mind, knowing that you and your family are protected if something unexpected happens, for that you can consult beforehand withAffordable Health Insurance.

4 reasons to get health insurance from Affordable Health Insurance:

Obamacare

Affordable Health Insurance plans meet all requirements set forth by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare Arizona so small businesses can rest assured their employees are covered under this federal law.

Comprehensive coverage

Affordable Health Insurance offers a range of plans that provide broad coverage for medical services, including visits to primary care physicians, specialists, mental health professionals, urgent care, and hospitalization.

Cost savings

Affordable Health Insurance offers plans with lower premiums than many other insurance companies. This can help small businesses save on their monthly expenses while still providing employees with access to quality healthcare.

Access to quality care

Affordable Health Insurance has a network of doctors and hospitals across the U.S., so your employees can find quality care close to home.

Conclusion

At Affordable Health Insurance, they understand the importance of providing small business health insurance Arizona at an affordable price. Their plans provide comprehensive coverage and access to quality care while helping small businesses save on their monthly premiums.

For more details, visit https://affordablehealthins.com/.

Original Source: https://bityl.co/KOSZ

[embarkbehavioralhealth]

Embark Behavioral Health Adds Premier Outpatient Clinic in Scottsdale

Leading Treatment Provider Now Serving Preteens, Teens, Young Adults and Their Families CHANDLER, Ariz. — March 29, 2023 — Embark Behavioral Health, a leading network of mental health treatment programs for preteens, teens, young adults, and their families, will soon add a Scottsdale outpatient therapy clinic to its services in the Phoenix area. The clinic is enrolling clients and will feature an intensive outpatient program (IOP) and a therapeutic day treatment program (also known as a partial hospitalization program, or PHP) as part of the company’s robust continuum of care.   “The new Scottsdale outpatient center, along with our existing Phoenix location, will be a catalyst for healing in the Valley and a window into Embark’s spectrum of services," said Alex Stavros, CEO of Embark Behavioral Health. "Our teammates have done an exceptional job launching these programs and bringing the Embark treatment approach to families across the greater Phoenix area. And with suicide being the second-leading cause of death for ages 10-24 in Arizona, it’s more important than ever that we create access to higher quality mental health services."   The clinic, located at 7373 N. Scottsdale Road, Suite D-120, in Scottsdale’s McCormick Ranch area, will be the second Embark location offering outpatient treatment programs in Arizona, with Uptown Phoenix being the first.   Embark ensures the highest levels of quality care and safety standards, offering programs accredited by The Joint Commission. Programs include individual, group, and family therapy, as well as therapeutic/peer mentoring, home health care services, addiction treatment, and parent coaching for issues such as: - Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).    - Anger/mood regulation.    - Anxiety.    - Bipolar disorder.    - Borderline personality disorder.  - Bullying.    - Depression.    - Family conflict.    - Self-harm/cutting.    - Social isolation.    - Substance use/abuse.    - Technology addiction.  The Scottsdale Clinic: A Closer Look “The new Scottsdale clinic will help more adolescents and young adults to maintain and thrive in their lives and relationships through the support of professional mental health counseling,” said the location’s executive director, Dr. Meka Allen, who has a doctorate in social work. “I’m excited to bring our unique family-centered treatment approach to those in need in our area.”  Embark treats the family as a whole, using an evidence-based and relationship-focused approach. In addition to providing family therapy, the company also collects thousands of data points and shares feedback with each family so it can adjust treatment in real time to improve results.  The Scottsdale location’s therapists will serve a variety of locations throughout Phoenix, including: - Scottsdale.   - Tempe.    - Mesa.  - Chandler.   - Glendale.    - Phoenix.   - Paradise Valley.   - Fountain Hills.   - Windsong.   - Ahwatukee. - Guadalupe.    - Gilbert.   - Queen Creek.    - Camelback East Village.    - Desert Ridge.  - Tolleson.    - Goodyear.    - South Mountain.    - Apache Junction.    - Avondale.  To celebrate, Embark will host an open house and ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Scottsdale Chamber of Commerce from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on March 30. Guests will enjoy refreshments, learn about the intensive outpatient and therapeutic day treatment programs, and tour the new space. To RSVP for the event, visit the Eventbrite page.    In addition to increasing the number of families it serves in the Phoenix area, recent Embark milestones include:  - Expanding the company’s online mental health services with an insurance-reimbursed virtual intensive outpatient program available to residents in various states across the country.   - Moving the Embark Behavioral Health support office to Chandler, Arizona. The vibrantly designed space celebrates the company's culture, values, and purpose.  - Opening several insurance-reimbursed short-term residential and outpatient clinic locations across the country in states including California, Colorado, Maryland, Georgia, and Virginia.    - Launching the Embark Behavioral Health Foundation with a mission to raise awareness of the youth mental health crisis, end the stigma around mental illness, and drive more access to high-quality services. The foundation will also provide a scholarship fund to help adolescents, young adults, and their families participating in mental health services pay for private pay programs, insurance co-pays, premiums, and general fees.  For more information about Embark Behavioral Health, visit www.embarkbh.com.  Read the full article

[veldarosemedicalcenter]

[dailyunsolvedmysteries]

Hatbox Baby

Around 8 pm on Christmas Eve 1931, Sharon Stieg Elliott, a seven-day-old baby, was found concealed in a ladies hatbox and abandoned on an Arizona desert near Florence, Arizona. Ed and Julia Stewart's car had broken down 150 feet from where the tiny baby, wrapped in a blue blanket, lay in the hatbox, its little legs drawn up to its chest and whimpering from the cold and hunger. As Ed repaired a broken fuel line and Julia's 15-year-old twin cousins John and Betty Mansfield huddled in the back seat, Julia strolled out into the desert and came upon the box. She heard a tiny sound from it and thinking it might be an abandoned kitten or puppy, she called for her husband to come and open it. They were horrified to find a tiny, red-haired baby in the box. 

As soon as Ed got the car running again, they rushed the infant to the Mesa, Arizona police station where Chief of Police Joe Maier received her and transported her to a local maternity home in Florence run by a woman named "Ma Dana". A doctor determined that the baby was healthy. The discovery of the young baby in a hatbox soon became national news. It was a symbol of hope for those suffering through the Great Depression. The child was put up for adoption. On February 16, 1932, a hearing was held at the Pinal County Courthouse in Florence, Arizona. Seventeen couples had expressed interests in adopting the baby. By that day, the search had been narrowed down to two. Sharon was subsequently adopted by Faith Morrow and her husband.

It wasn't until 1986 that Sharon learned the truth: that she had been adopted and was the "Hatbox Baby". Sharon began a search for her birth parents. Soon, an organization called "Orphan Voyage" became involved in the case. Investigator Alice Syman helped Sharon get the court records released about her case. Reading through the records, they became skeptical of the Stewarts' story. According to the records, the Stewarts and the Mansfields left at dawn on December 24, 1931, to drive to the mountains. They only stopped once, at Roosevelt, Arizona. Alice believes that in either Roosevelt or another city the couple picked up Sharon. Alice Syman, now living in St. Augustine, Florida, and John D'anna of the Arizona Republic Newspaper in Phoenix, Arizona, continue to investigate the case, hoping that someone is still living who might help them solve it, and Sharon will finally know whether it was a Christmas miracle that she was found or whether she was placed there someone knew that she would be found.

In 2011, the documents turned up; among them was a handwritten note from Faith. It stated that her "friend" was actually Sharon's biological cousin. It also stated that Sharon's biological mother was apparently Edna Sherman Roe, who had Sharon out of wedlock at age fifteen. Reports state that Edna died in a plane crash in 1951. However, it was discovered that Edna had a niece living in Tucson. Sharon attempted to contact the woman so that DNA testing can be done; however, the woman later stated that she did not want to be involved. It was later determined that Edna was not Sharon's mother.

In 2017, a forensic genealogist named Bonnie Belza began investigating Sharon's case. Through DNA testing and genealogy websites, she was able to identify Sharon's biological parents. Sadly, her biological mother Freda Strackbein Roth died in 1991 and her biological father Walter Roth died in 2005. Her biological brother James died in 2017. However, Sharon was able to get in contact with her grand-niece. Interestingly, it was discovered that Freda and Walter had married a few months before Sharon's birth. It is believed that they abandoned Sharon or gave her away because she was conceived out of wedlock. A journalist who investigated the case believes that Sharon's adopted mother had connections to the Roth family and helped to arrange the "abandonment" and adoption.

[princesssarisa]

22 questions

Thanks, @cinefantastiquemitho!

01. The book that transformed your life. Freak the Mighty. It traumatized me so much in middle school, I think it singlehandedly changed me from a mostly happy (if quiet and overemotional) child into a moody, anxious teenager. The same goes for it’s ‘90s movie adaptation, The Mighty, starring a young Elden Henson and Kieran Culkin. It’s about the unlikely friendship between two misfit middle school boys: Max, the big, hulking, “stupid,” somewhat mentally disabled protagonist with a traumatic past, and “Freak,” an intelligent yet small, severely crippled, and (spoiler alert) terminally ill boy who rides on Max’s shoulders and serves as his “brain,” leading him in modeling their lives after the knights in the Arthurian legends he reads. Basically, it’s like Bridge to Terabithia meets a PG-rated Midnight Cowboy with Arthurian themes. I was forced to read it and watch the movie in school and it shook me to the core because I identified too much with Max. Not that I ever thought I was stupid, but since I was also a physically heavy, intellectually disabled, socially awkward, often teased, withdrawn misfit, I saw myself in him, very, very much. So to watch his struggles, and then in the end to see him devastated by his only friend’s death, hit hard. If that spirit medium I recently talked to was telling the truth about my past life as Emily Brontë’s best and possibly only friend, then maybe subconsciously I saw her in Freak (since she was also a “freakish” misfit who nonetheless was highly intelligent, witty and imaginative) and relived her illness and death in his. At any rate, it plunged me into a long depression that must have seemed inexplicable to the adults around me.

02. The movie that changed your way of seeing the world. The 1983 telecast of Madama Butterfly from the Arena di Verona, starring Raina Kabaivanska as Cio-Cio-San. In hindsight, it was a flawed production. Kabaivanska was a 49-year-old Bulgarian grand dame, not the least bit convincing as a 15-year-old Japanese girl. The tenor, who was supposed to be her worldly seducer, was young enough to be her son. There wasn’t a single Japanese person in either the cast or the creative team – it was all a European fantasy of Japan. For that matter, Madama Butterfly is inherently problematic with its racial and gender issues (in other news, water is wet). But watching this old telecast on VHS, out of curiosity about Miss Saigon’s source material, was the real beginning of my passion for opera. I was already familiar with The Magic Flute, but this was the start of my love for opera beyond that one. The tragic romance of the story, the visual beauty of the sets and costumes, and Puccini’s sumptuous musical score captivated my fourteen-year-old self. It led me to VHSs of La Traviata, Carmen, La Bohéme, Tosca, Rigoletto, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, L’Orfeo and Turandot, as well as other videos of Butterfly, and then to opera performances onstage. It gave me a new passion and gave me something beautiful to share with other people through “Opera Quest,” the program I’ve created to introduce opera to elementary school students. I’m so, so grateful to it!

03. The music that makes part of the soundtrack of your life. Opera, Broadway/West End show tunes, and Disney songs.

04. Define longing. It’s wanting, but deeper and stronger. It’s constant wanting, painful wanting, wanting that almost becomes obsession.

05. If you got back in time, which scene would you visit of your life? Any of my Thanksgiving visits to my grandma in Mesa, Arizona. Of course I’d love to see her again – she died 12 years ago – but I also loved wandering around the pretty retirement community where she lived, listening to Les Misérables or to Andrew Lloyd Webber on my headphones, and then sometimes swimming in the outdoor pool. I also loved the restaurant we always went to for Thanksgiving dinner, and if possible, going to see the lavish Christmas lights at the Mormon Temple a day or two later.

06. The place where your heart is. Los Angeles. Even though I wasn’t born there, it’s the earliest place I remember. I grew up there and it’s only been four years since I moved away. Every time I’ve gone back to visit since, I I’ve had the overwhelming feeling of “I’m home!” Even though I’m glad not to be living in a big city right now, I wish I lived closer and could visit more often.

07. The travel of your life. I haven’t travelled very much outside the US, though I have been to Canada, London and Ireland. Within the US, I was born in Connecticut, I’ve lived most of my life in California, and I’ve spent a lot of time in New York (relatives live there), Washington State (more relatives live there), Arizona (my grandma lived there), Florida (other grandparents, plus Walt Disney World), Montana (still more relatives), North Carolina (still more), and Minnesota (family friends). Once each I’ve been to Chicago, Boston, Cape Cod, and small towns in Vermont and New Hampshire, and I’d love to go back to each of them one day. I’ve also been to North Dakota, but don’t remember it very well, and I’ve spent at least a few hours each in Las Vegas and Salt Lake City, but not long enough to do much of anything.

08. An author that you have met recently, and whose works you want to continue to read. Not too long ago I took a writing class taught by April Halprin Wayland, who wrote the beautiful Jewish children’s book New Year at the Pier about the tradition of Tashlich on Rosh Hashanah. I’d definitely like to read more of her books, especially her Passover children’s book, More Than Enough. I’d love buy them for my little cousins on the Jewish side of my family.

09. Coffee or tea? Herbal tea. Rooibos chai is my favorite.

10. Who's your Doctor (if you don't watch Doctor Who, who's your favorite character from a TV series)? I couldn’t say. I don’t watch Doctor Who or much TV at all anymore. Let’s just say I love the main characters from all the TV shows I watched when I was little.

11. If you could just throw everything away and live your dream, what would you do? I’d buy a safe and luxurious self-driving RV (this is a fantasy, after all) and travel all over the US, living in a different place for a week, two weeks, or a month at a time. In this fantasy, there’s no pandemic going on, so I have the freedom to go anywhere. I’d visit every big city, every cozy small town, and every notable place of natural beauty, I’d go to the opera and see local productions of Les Misérables wherever I could. I’d visit my relatives whenever I liked. I’d present “Opera Quest” at a local school in each place I visited. But I’d also spend plenty of alone time in my RV, or in whatever hotel or inn I chose to stay in for a little while, and work on the books I’m writing, listen to music and meditate. There would be no pressure on me from anyone to do anything. That would be amazing.

12. If you could choose to be a character from a book, TV series or movie, who you would be? None. Some of them have nice lives, but they all have their problems too, and I’d rather keep my own problems than take on theirs.

13. What makes you not like a story? Characters we’re supposed to like being cruel and spiteful to each other and neither regretting it nor being properly called out for it. If their behavior is clearly supposed to be bad and treated as such within the story, it’s one thing. Even if they never regret their own behavior, that’s fine as long as the other characters call it out as bad. But when they don’t, I feel like the author is saying that anyone would be just as cruel and spiteful in that situation. That it’s no big deal, it’s just human nature and anything better would be unrealistic. I hate that.

14. Do you like romance in stories? Why? Yes, I do like it. Not if it’s badly written, but when it’s well written, I love it. I love watching two characters come to care so deeply for each other, fill each other’s deepest needs and bring each other happiness. Of course that happens with platonic love too, but romance is the way it most often happens in stories.

15. Which book did you hate having read? Well, I didn’t like having to read Candide as a college freshman, because despite all its humor, it’s cynicism depressed me. I was going through a stage where I was feeling overwhelmed by the world’s problems and had turned to idealistic spiritual beliefs to comfort myself, so I hated having to read a book that essentially said “Optimism is stupid, the world is a terrible place, there is no God and no good reason for anything, and all we can do is try to make the best of our individual lives.” (Yes, I know that’s a vast oversimplification of Voltaire’s philosophy – it just came across that way to me at the time.)

16. Which movie did you hate having watched? I’ve already mentioned The Mighty, above, so... another one... When I was seven or eight, I saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory for the first time, and I was very disturbed at the end by Wonka’s angry outburst about Charlie and Grandpa Joe stealing the Fizzy Lifting Drinks. Of course everyone can agree about how scary and mean Gene Wilder acts in that scene. But imagine how much worse it would be to an ultra-sensitive little kid on the autism spectrum, especially since I wasn’t expecting it. I had read the original book already, so the fates of the four bratty kids and the infamous boat scene didn’t phase me because I knew to expect them. But movie-Wonka’s final test is a movie-only addition, so I had no idea he was going to start screaming at poor Charlie, and to me at that age, an adult suddenly screaming in rage at a child was scarier than a child turning into a blueberry any day. Yes, it’s only a test, Charlie passes it and all ends happily, but it still upset me.

17. Do you like anime/manga? Any favorite? It all looks very nice, but apart from seeing Kiki’s Delivery Service and a few episodes of Pokemon as a kid, I haven’t experienced much of it. Maybe I should explore it more.

18. Who is the best villain you saw in a story? I don’t think I can choose just one from all the stories I know. For the best villain from Shakespeare and opera, I’d probably have to say Iago, because of how thoroughly effective his scheming and manipulation are. For the best Disney villain, I’d have to say Frollo, because of how horribly realistic he is: as an abuser of power, a racist, a religious bigot, a sexual predator, a psychologically abusive foster parent, and in the way he believes everything he does is holy and right. But there are so many good villains in all genres of fiction, choosing just one favorite is impossible.

19. If you could do an interview with any person, alive or dead, from our world, who would you choose and why? William Shakespeare. I have so many questions about his plays. They’ve all been interpreted in hundreds of different ways and I’d like to hear what his real intentions were when he wrote them. And for that matter, if he really did write all of them or if there’s any truth in the anti-Stratfordian theories.

20. If you could meet and and befriend a writer, who would it be? I just said Shakespeare, but I don’t want to repeat the same answer twice... Well, if that spirit medium was right, then I’ve already met and befriended three famous writers in a past life: Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. Supposedly I spent “many hours” with all three of them, but was especially close to Emily. If that’s true, then I’d love to meet them again, do some catching up, and talk with them about the modern controversies surrounding their books... especially Wuthering Heights, which seems to defy easy interpretations of its characters and themes.

21. Cats or dogs? Dogs. I just adore them!

22. If you could choose any time period or society to live, which it would be? A year ago, I would have said “right here, right now.” But with this global pandemic taking place and the future of the world and of America in particular feeling so uncertain, I’ve changed my mind. I’d rather live in one of the fantasy worlds I’ve created: either the Sisterhood of Nira’s valley (the setting of my completed but unpublished novel An Eternal Crown) or Zalina Island (the setting of the Beauty and the Beast and Little Mermaid retellings I’m working on). Those places might have flaws of their own, but at least they’ve made social progress that this country hasn’t made, and they have magic too. If I could I’d move to one of them, at least until the pandemic is over and we have a new president.

I tag @simone-boccanegra, @astrangechoiceoffavourites, @nitrateglow, @thatvermilionflycatcher, @sunlit-music, @theheightsthatwuthered, @fairychamber, @wuthering-valleys

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Paulo Cortes, DMD, is a board-certified dentist who serves Mira Mesa in the greater San Diego, California, community. At San Diego Smile Center, Dr. Cortes and his team offer services associated with general and cosmetic dentistry. Dr. Cortes enjoys working with his patients and being sure they are receiving the best-quality care and most up-to-date treatment options at all times.

Dr. Cortes graduated from Castle Park high school in Chula Vista. After graduating high school he enlisted in the United States Air Force, went on to work for large telecommunication companies, and then decided to return to school to pursue his passion to serve and help others. He returned to school, receiving his first degree in Biology from the University of San Diego. He then decided to focus his study on dentistry and received his doctorate from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

He eventually completed externships in Oral Surgery at Banner Good Samaritan Hospital (located in Phoenix, Arizona) and Highland Hospital (Oakland, California). To maintain his credentials, Dr. Cortes attends continuing education classes each year to ensure his patients have access to the latest technological advancements.

Dr. Cortes and his wife, Anaissa, met at the University of San Diego. They have two young daughters together, Valentina and Paulina. As a family, they enjoy cooking, traveling, and enjoying the beautiful San Diego weather together.

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[stfumras]

WORLD

Pregnant Women Say They Miscarried In Immigration Detention And Didn't Get The Care They Needed

Pregnant women in immigration detention under the Trump administration say they have been denied medical care, shackled around the stomach, and abused.

Two weeks after arriving in the US seeking asylum, E, 23, found herself in a detention cell in San Luis, Arizona, bleeding profusely and begging for help from staff at the facility. She was four months pregnant and felt like she was losing her baby. She had come to the US from El Salvador after finding out she was pregnant, in the hopes of raising her son in a safer home.

“An official arrived and they said it was not a hospital and they weren’t doctors. They wouldn’t look after me,” she told BuzzFeed News, speaking by phone from another detention center, Otay Mesa in San Diego. “I realized I was losing my son. It was his life that I was bleeding out. I was staining everything. I spent about eight days just lying down. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t do anything. I started crying and crying and crying.”

Stuck in detention and having lost her baby, E says she wouldn’t have come to the US seeking a safer life if she’d known what would happen. She asked that her full name not to be used out of fear of repercussions while in detention and for her family back home.

“My soul aches that there are many pregnant women coming who could lose their babies like I did and that they will do nothing to help them,” she said.

About a week after speaking with BuzzFeed News, E gave up her fight for asylum, accepted voluntary departure, and was deported back to El Salvador.

In May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions publicly introduced the “zero tolerance” immigration policy that has led to children being separated from their parents at the border, sparked national outrage, and triggered an executive order from President Trump. While the national focus has been on family separations, another Department of Homeland Security policy quietly introduced by the Trump administration five months earlier has devastated women fleeing violence in their home countries: the detention of pregnant women not yet in their third trimester.

“My soul aches that there are many pregnant women coming who could lose their babies like I did.”

Before that directive, which the Trump administration implemented in December before announcing it in March, ICE was under an Obama administration–era directive not to detain pregnant women except in extreme circumstances or in relatively rare cases of expedited deportation.

The new ICE directive states that women are not to be held into their third trimester and that ICE is responsible for “ensuring pregnant detainees receive appropriate medical care including effectuating transfers to facilities that are able to provide appropriate medical treatment.”

But BuzzFeed News has found evidence that that directive is not being carried out. Instead, women in immigration detention are often denied adequate medical care, even when in dire need of it, are shackled around the stomach while being transported between facilities, and have been physically and psychologically mistreated.

In interviews and written affidavits, E and four other women who’ve been in ICE detention and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody while pregnant told of being ignored when they were obviously miscarrying, described their CBP and ICE-contracted jailers as unwilling or unable to respond to medical emergencies, and recounted an incident of physical abuse from CBP officers who knew they were dealing with a pregnant woman. Those descriptions were backed by interviews with five legal aid workers, four medical workers, and two advocates who work with ICE detainees.

The incidents were not limited to a single detention center. Three medical workers and five legal aid workers who spoke to BuzzFeed News all said they had seen — and some had documented — cases of pregnant women not receiving or being denied medical care in more than six different detention centers in California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Manoj Govindaiah, the director of family detention services for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), said that the majority of the pregnant women they work with in the ICE-run Karnes family detention center in Texas have told RAICES that ICE staff promised to bring them to off-site medical professionals but never did. Lauren Connell, a pro-bono attorney who also does work at Karnes, confirmed that she has had to fight for some of her pregnant clients to receive the medical care they ask for.

Sera Bonds, the founder and executive director of Circle of Health International, and Leah Little, the group's chief operations officer, who keeps records of the women the group sees, said the pregnant women often say they did not receive medical care while in detention. Both women recounted caring for a woman in their clinic in McAllen, Texas, who, in her eighth month of pregnancy, fell directly onto her belly but still was not taken to a hospital.

In written testimonies — taken by RAICES for their records and provided to BuzzFeed News, and signed by the women under “penalty of perjury,” with the names redacted — two pregnant women held at the Karnes center complained of not being provided with adequate medical care for their pregnancies. On top of this, one said she was given clothes that were so small for her pregnant belly they gave her welts and “pain in [her] uterus”, while the other said she underwent repeated X-rays despite this being against the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendations and against CBP(but not ICE’s) policies for pregnant women. “I saw on the machine that [it said] pregnant women should not have an X-ray,” she wrote.

In an email, ICE reiterated that it follows the policy on detaining pregnant women as written on its website, noting that ICE makes the decision to keep people in custody on a “case-by-case basis” based on criminal records, risk of flight, “any known medical conditions,” and whether she or he “poses a potential threat to public safety.” It added that private contractors that operate the facilities where pregnant women are housed also are required to adhere to those standards, but it declined to comment on specific facilities.

“All detainees, determined to be pregnant, are provided appropriate education, pre-natal care, and post-natal care,” the statement said. “Such care includes referral to a physician specializing in high-risk pregnancies when high-risk pregnancy is indicated.”

CBP referred BuzzFeed News to its national standards, and DHS did not individually respond to a request for comment.

Amanda Sluss Gilchrist, the director of public affairs for CoreCivic, the private prison group that owns the Otay Mesa detention facility where E was held, told BuzzFeed News in a statement that CoreCivic staff “do not make medical or mental health treatment determinations,” and that ICE and their 500 officers assigned to the detention facility are “solely responsible for contracting, staffing and oversight of any medical and mental health services.” Gilchrist added that detainees “have daily access to sign up for medical attention.

A pregnant woman from El Salvador at a Catholic Charities relief center June 17, 2018, in McAllen, Texas. Catholic Charities is not one of the centers accused of mistreating women.

In a congressional hearing in May — just weeks before the news broke that immigration officials were separating immigrant families — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Congress about the care she said ICE provided to pregnant detainees.

“We provide them with prenatal care, we provide them separate housing, we provide them specialists, we will take them to appointments if they need to go somewhere else, we provide them counseling,” Nielsen listed.

“They are not only given adequate care in facilities, but it is much better care than when they are living in the shadows.”

When asked about the list of resources Nielsen said pregnant women in ICE custody were receiving, each of the three women BuzzFeed News spoke with said they had received none or only one or two of the services — often with significant delays while in dire situations.

“We provide them with prenatal care, we provide them separate housing, we provide them specialists.”

“It’s a lie. They didn’t give me anything,” said Rubia Mabel Morales Alfaro, 28, who was in ICE detention from around Dec. 23 to March 15 this year. E also said she had received none of the services. “If they had had that, I would not have lost my son. I don’t understand why they won’t take care of pregnant women,” she said.

Three lawyers and two medical workers who work with detainees told BuzzFeed News that the treatment of pregnant women was substantially different before Trump took office. Pregnant women were often released from CBP centers faster than other detainees, particularly after August 2016, when ICE issued a policy limiting detention of pregnant women to only “extraordinary” circumstances or cases of mandatory detention. Often it took only a phone call to the center to get a pregnant woman released on parole, Linda Rivas, the executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, told BuzzFeed News. After Trump entered the White House, these calls stopped working, she said. And after the new policy was announced, advocates stopped having a reason to think they would.

Still, five legal and health care advocates who work with women detained after crossing the border illegally or seeking asylum said ICE does provide women with a pregnancy test, prenatal vitamins (not always regularly, two advocates said), and, sometimes, a standard entrance exam by a nonspecialist medical worker.

One woman said that when her pregnancy test came back positive, ICE facility staff gave her a “diet for health” label to wear on her ID. An obstetrics-trained nurse in West Texas told BuzzFeed News that some detained pregnant women are transported to her clinic for one checkup during their time there, often in their second or third trimester. Some (but not all) detention centers also make sure pregnant women get the lower bunk bed. But according to the 17 people BuzzFeed News interviewed, the special treatment stops there.

Lawyers and medical workers said the treatment of pregnant women was substantially different before Trump took office.

Five legal aid workers who have worked with dozens of pregnant women inside the detention facilities told BuzzFeed News that they had never heard of pregnant detainees being provided with separate housing, despite what Nielsen told Congress.

“I can’t say this doesn’t happen anywhere, but separate housing doesn’t seem like a realistic option to me at all,” Govindaiah of RAICES told BuzzFeed News.

“There are so many horror stories of medical neglect that I’ve heard inside [detention centers] that I can’t even remotely fathom a scenario where a pregnant woman would be better off in detention than being released,” Luis Guerra, a legal advocate at Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), told BuzzFeed News.

From Dec. 14, 2017, to April 7, 2018, there have been a total of 590 pregnant women booked into custody, ICE told BuzzFeed News in July, saying that these were the most updated numbers. As of April 7, 2018, there were around 35 pregnant detainees in custody, they said.

Advocates told BuzzFeed News, however, that they first began to notice an increase in pregnant detainees last summer — even though DHS policy at the time prohibited their detention — and that that increase has continued every month, along with the general increase in ICE arrests and detentions seen across the country. As the number of detainees increases, the amount of attention afforded to each individual by officials decreases, advocates said.

Rivas, the director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, said her organization had noticed the change in the detention of pregnant women long before the Trump administration issued its change in policy in December. She said the number of pregnant detainees being held in the three detention centers where her organization works — El Paso Processing Center, West Texas Detention Center, and Otero Processing Center in New Mexico — began rising in the summer of 2017.

“It was a real shock to us at first, but then we just started seeing it more and more,” said Rivas. “It was an accurate reflection of what the Trump administration wanted to happen, they were just late to making it official.”

Guerra and Govindaiah told BuzzFeed News that they also saw an increase in pregnant detainees in Texas and California before the new policy was issued, and immigration advocates, including RAICES, the American Civil Liberties Union and the American Immigration Council, filed a complaint with DHS in September. The complaint included allegations by 10 women detained while pregnant before the policy was in place in Texas, California, New Mexico, and Washington state, many of whom told similar stories to the ones shared with BuzzFeed News.

Several women quoted in the complaint said they were ignored by detention staff when requesting medical attention, even in obvious emergencies or during and after a miscarriage, and all of the women reported experiencing severe psychological and emotional damage in detention that they feared affected their pregnancies.

A pregnant woman seeking asylum at a pedestrian port of entry from Mexico to the United States in McAllen, Texas.

Women who are pregnant during their journeys to the border often arrive with high-risk pregnancies, three medical professionals told BuzzFeed News.

“They’ve been traveling for at least two and a half weeks, often without sufficient food, experiencing unimaginable stress, they haven’t been able to urinate when they need to or drink the amount they need to while pregnant,” said Virginia Sushila Schwerin, a midwife and nurse who has worked for two years as a volunteer at a Circle of Health International's clinic near the border in McAllen, Texas. The clinic serves hundreds of immigrants a day who were just released from short-term CBP custody, and roughly 20 pregnant women a week, the center estimates.

She and two other medical professionals who work with former ICE detainees told BuzzFeed News that women often experience emotionally traumatic incidents on the trip, like sexual assault or separation from their partners, which can also threaten their pregnancies.

“They’re coming in at risk from that, and then a lot of them develop illnesses in detention because they are coming from a very warm climate into an extremely cold place filled with people and circulated air,” Schwerin said. “Pregnant women have highly specialized needs and this is a high-risk group. I think it’s inhumane to detain them.”

All three of the women who spoke to BuzzFeed News were pregnant when they presented themselves to Border Patrol officers at the San Ysidro Port of Entry and requested asylum, as US law permits. Still, they said, they were shackled and placed in CBP facilities, where they were denied medical care during their first weeks in custody. All said they miscarried while in custody.

All the women said they'd been shackled around their hands, legs, and belly while they were in custody. Shackling of pregnant women in their second trimester is prohibited by ICE and CBP’s most recent policies.

Each told similar stories: that they informed officials at the CBP facility shortly after being taken into custody that they were pregnant. Morales and another detainee, Jennye Mariel Pagoada Lopez, said they brought the results of their pregnancy tests and ultrasounds and showed them to the CBP officials, but, like E, both were told they couldn’t receive any medical attention until they were moved to longer-term detention facilities.

Morales said when she was first taken into custody by the Border Patrol in December 2017, CBP officers pushed her to the ground and “threw [her] around.” She told them again that she was pregnant, she said. “They didn’t believe me, they said it wasn’t important, that it wasn’t their problem.”

“They said I didn’t have any rights there and I told them I was asking for asylum because it was dangerous in my country,” Morales told BuzzFeed News, “but they said lies, lies, lies, that El Salvador was fine to live in.”

After that, she started feeling sick, “vomiting horribly, like all day,” and asked to see a doctor but was denied. She was held in the CBP facility for four days before she was transferred to Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego.

Pagoada, 24, was four months pregnant and already feeling dizzy and vomiting when she approached CBP agents at the port of entry on July 23, 2017, she told BuzzFeed News. In custody, she asked ICE officials for medical attention, she said, but they responded by saying they didn’t speak Spanish. Late that night, she started feeling intense pains in her abdomen and was bleeding so heavily that one of her 15 fellow detainees in the room started shouting and waving for help at a security camera, she said, but when the officials arrived they still denied her care.

All of the women said they had been shackled around their hands, legs, and belly while they were in CBP custody, mainly while being transported from the holding centers at the border in California and Arizona (where E was moved to for more than a week after entering in California), and then to Otay Mesa, the privately run longer-term detention facility in San Diego.

Shackling in such a manner is standard practice for prisoners in the US while they are being transferred between facilities, but for pregnant women in their second trimester it could cause issues with the pregnancy, medical professionals say. ICE facilities are contracted under three different versions of detention standards of care, depending on when they signed their contracts. Shackling is prohibited by ICE and CBP’s most recent standards-of-care policies as well as by a congressional directive.

“If a woman is jostled while wearing shackles around her belly, it can affect the child, as can any fall onto the belly, which is more likely to happen if the woman is chained,” Dr. Anjani Kolahi, a family medicine and obstetrics physician with Physicians for Reproductive Health told BuzzFeed News.

Nevertheless, a nurse who works with pregnant detainees at clinics operated by Texas Tech University and the University Medical Center in El Paso said the women are “almost always” shackled around their hands and feet, and sometimes around their stomachs. In the past few months, staff at the center have seen at least two women shackled within a few hours of giving birth, she said.

“We were all really shocked because we hadn’t seen that before … Women are most at risk of experiencing a hemorrhage within the first 24 to 48 hours [after birth],” she said, explaining that if there were complications, shackles would delay the medical team’s response and put the woman’s health at risk.

“This is not the US standard of care in any way,” Kolahi said after being told of the various claims made by women and the people who work with them. “This is absolutely medical negligence. Overall [detaining pregnant women] is a cruel, inhumane practice. It’s creating all sorts of unnecessary risk for the women” and their children, she said.

Gilchrist of CoreCivic said she “cannot speak to what occurs prior to a detainee coming into our custody,” but that Morales was “classified as level one, or low-level detainees at Otay Mesa, and would not have been restrained.”

During and after their miscarriages, the women still did not receive adequate care, they said. All of the women were transferred to the Otay Mesa Detention Center, run by the private prison group CoreCivic, which, as BuzzFeed News and other outlets have reported, has been accused of lax medical care previously. They were connected with BuzzFeed News through legal aid workers while in detention at Otay Mesa or after being released while their cases are pending. The interviews were conducted in Spanish.

E didn’t see a medical professional until more than a month and a half after she first was taken into custody, and nearly two weeks after she had started miscarrying, she said. For Pagoada, it took five days after she started bleeding heavily for her to see an on-site medical professional at Otay Mesa, who performed physical exams without an ultrasound. Two days later, the medical professional told her she had lost her child.

After that, the bleeding didn’t stop for several days, Pagoada said. “They were refusing to give me sanitary towels, I needed like 30 per day and we were given three per day. They told me I could buy more in the commissary.” Pagoada is one of the 10 women who filed the complaint about their treatment with DHS in September.

“When the doctor examined me, he said there were many reasons for the miscarriage but it was likely because of the conditions they had me in.” —Rubia Mabel Morales Alfaro.

Morales started bleeding soon after she got to Otay Mesa and saw an on-site doctor, but that doctor told her the bleeding was normal. The next day she fainted in the middle of the cafeteria and was finally taken to an OB-GYN at Sharp Chula Vista Medical Center hours later. The OB-GYN told her she had lost her baby.

“When the doctor examined me, he said there were many reasons for the miscarriage but it was likely because of the conditions they had me in,” she told BuzzFeed News.

BuzzFeed News obtained a copy of Morales’s discharge records from Sharp Chula Vista dated Jan. 10, 2018, showing that she had suffered a miscarriage. No cause was given. The records said that Morales should “follow-up” with her OB-GYN “within 1-2 days” of her hospital discharge, and “return to ER for any concern, if symptoms worsen, if you do not feel better.” The hospital declined to comment.

Morales felt sick long after her miscarriage, she said, but was treated by detention staff as if nothing had happened. Symptoms of depression started affecting her ability to eat and take care of herself and she lost a lot of weight. She did not return to the doctor.

“I told them I am not well, I just lost a baby. And they said, ‘That’s not my fault, that’s your fault.’”

Kolahi told BuzzFeed News that in the first trimester there is not a high risk for the woman following a natural miscarriage, but in the second or third trimesters or if the woman bleeds for several days, she should, “absolutely see a doctor, because it might not pass on its own,” Kolahi said.

E and Pagoada were in the second trimesters during their miscarriages, and Morales was at the very end of her first.

The hospital discharge pamphlet given to Morales says that women who have recently had a miscarriage should “get help right away” if they “have more bleeding” or “get lightheaded, weak, or you pass out.” All three women experienced these symptoms but said they were not given immediate help.

Months after their miscarriages, the women say they are still experiencing psychological and emotional repercussions.

Months after the physical repercussions of their miscarriages subsided, the women say they are still experiencing psychological and emotional repercussions of their treatment in the detention facilities.

“It’s important that you know the trauma that they inflict on you … It’s not a place for anybody much less for pregnant women,” said Morales, who has been on antidepressants since getting out of detention in mid-March, while her case is pending. “It’s something too traumatic. It’s a punishment that I will never forget.”

“There was no relief. I was dying every day. ... Psychologically and physically you are sick,” she added. “I can’t even say how painful it is to be there without help, without support, and with the pain of having lost something so precious.”

“There are times that I laugh, times that I feel like another person entirely, I just can’t believe what has happened,” E said, only days before she agreed to return to El Salvador.

“For me, this is going to be a pain that I carry for a long time, that because of me, I lost my son. I had a dream to come to this place with my son and to be safe and make a life here. What’s going to happen now? What was the point of this dream? It hurts.” ●

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[rapeculturerealities]

Two weeks after arriving in the US seeking asylum, E, 23, found herself in a detention cell in San Luis, Arizona, bleeding profusely and begging for help from staff at the facility. She was four months pregnant and felt like she was losing her baby. She had come to the US from El Salvador after finding out she was pregnant, in the hopes of raising her son in a safer home.

“An official arrived and they said it was not a hospital and they weren’t doctors. They wouldn’t look after me,” she told BuzzFeed News, speaking by phone from another detention center, Otay Mesa in San Diego. “I realized I was losing my son. It was his life that I was bleeding out. I was staining everything. I spent about eight days just lying down. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t do anything. I started crying and crying and crying.”

Stuck in detention and having lost her baby, E says she wouldn’t have come to the US seeking a safer life if she’d known what would happen. She asked that her full name not to be used out of fear of repercussions while in detention and for her family back home.

“My soul aches that there are many pregnant women coming who could lose their babies like I did and that they will do nothing to help them,” she said.

About a week after speaking with BuzzFeed News, E gave up her fight for asylum, accepted voluntary departure, and was deported back to El Salvador.

In May, Attorney General Jeff Sessions publicly introduced the “zero tolerance” immigration policy that has led to children being separated from their parents at the border, sparked national outrage, and triggered an executive order from President Trump. While the national focus has been on family separations, another Department of Homeland Security policy quietly introduced by the Trump administration five months earlier has devastated women fleeing violence in their home countries: the detention of pregnant women not yet in their third trimester.

Before that directive, which the Trump administration implemented in December before announcing it in March, ICE was under an Obama administration–era directive not to detain pregnant women except in extreme circumstances or in relatively rare cases of expedited deportation.

The new ICE directive states that women are not to be held into their third trimester and that ICE is responsible for “ensuring pregnant detainees receive appropriate medical care including effectuating transfers to facilities that are able to provide appropriate medical treatment.”

But BuzzFeed News has found evidence that that directive is not being carried out. Instead, women in immigration detention are often denied adequate medical care, even when in dire need of it, are shackled around the stomach while being transported between facilities, and have been physically and psychologically mistreated.

In interviews and written affidavits, E and four other women who’ve been in ICE detention and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody while pregnant told of being ignored when they were obviously miscarrying, described their CBP and ICE-contracted jailers as unwilling or unable to respond to medical emergencies, and recounted an incident of physical abuse from CBP officers who knew they were dealing with a pregnant woman. Those descriptions were backed by interviews with five legal aid workers, four medical workers, and two advocates who work with ICE detainees.

The incidents were not limited to a single detention center. Three medical workers and five legal aid workers who spoke to BuzzFeed News all said they had seen — and some had documented — cases of pregnant women not receiving or being denied medical care in more than six different detention centers in California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Manoj Govindaiah, the director of family detention services for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), said that the majority of the pregnant women they work with in the ICE-run Karnes family detention center in Texas have told RAICES that ICE staff promised to bring them to off-site medical professionals but never did. Lauren Connell, a pro-bono attorney who also does work at Karnes, confirmed that she has had to fight for some of her pregnant clients to receive the medical care they ask for.

Sera Bonds, the founder and executive director of Circle of Health International, and Leah Little, the group's chief operations officer, who keeps records of the women the group sees, said the pregnant women often say they did not receive medical care while in detention. Both women recounted caring for a woman in their clinic in McAllen, Texas, who, in her eighth month of pregnancy, fell directly onto her belly but still was not taken to a hospital.

In written testimonies — taken by RAICES for their records and provided to BuzzFeed News, and signed by the women under “penalty of perjury,” with the names redacted — two pregnant women held at the Karnes center complained of not being provided with adequate medical care for their pregnancies. On top of this, one said she was given clothes that were so small for her pregnant belly they gave her welts and “pain in [her] uterus”, while the other said she underwent repeated X-rays despite this being against the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendations and against CBP(but not ICE’s) policies for pregnant women. “I saw on the machine that [it said] pregnant women should not have an X-ray,” she wrote.

In an email, ICE reiterated that it follows the policy on detaining pregnant women as written on its website, noting that ICE makes the decision to keep people in custody on a “case-by-case basis” based on criminal records, risk of flight, “any known medical conditions,” and whether she or he “poses a potential threat to public safety.” It added that private contractors that operate the facilities where pregnant women are housed also are required to adhere to those standards, but it declined to comment on specific facilities.

“All detainees, determined to be pregnant, are provided appropriate education, pre-natal care, and post-natal care,” the statement said. “Such care includes referral to a physician specializing in high-risk pregnancies when high-risk pregnancy is indicated.”

CBP referred BuzzFeed News to its national standards, and DHS did not individually respond to a request for comment.

Amanda Sluss Gilchrist, the director of public affairs for CoreCivic, the private prison group that owns the Otay Mesa detention facility where E was held, told BuzzFeed News in a statement that CoreCivic staff “do not make medical or mental health treatment determinations,” and that ICE and their 500 officers assigned to the detention facility are “solely responsible for contracting, staffing and oversight of any medical and mental health services.” Gilchrist added that detainees “have daily access to sign up for medical attention.”

In a congressional hearing in May — just weeks before the news broke that immigration officials were separating immigrant families — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Congress about the care she said ICE provided to pregnant detainees.

“We provide them with prenatal care, we provide them separate housing, we provide them specialists, we will take them to appointments if they need to go somewhere else, we provide them counseling,” Nielsen listed.

“They are not only given adequate care in facilities, but it is much better care than when they are living in the shadows.”

When asked about the list of resources Nielsen said pregnant women in ICE custody were receiving, each of the three women BuzzFeed News spoke with said they had received none or only one or two of the services — often with significant delays while in dire situations.

“It’s a lie. They didn’t give me anything,” said Rubia Mabel Morales Alfaro, 28, who was in ICE detention from around Dec. 23 to March 15 this year. E also said she had received none of the services. “If they had had that, I would not have lost my son. I don’t understand why they won’t take care of pregnant women,” she said.

Three lawyers and two medical workers who work with detainees told BuzzFeed News that the treatment of pregnant women was substantially different before Trump took office. Pregnant women were often released from CBP centers faster than other detainees, particularly after August 2016, when ICE issued a policy limiting detention of pregnant women to only “extraordinary” circumstances or cases of mandatory detention. Often it took only a phone call to the center to get a pregnant woman released on parole, Linda Rivas, the executive director of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, told BuzzFeed News. After Trump entered the White House, these calls stopped working, she said. And after the new policy was announced, advocates stopped having a reason to think they would.

Still, five legal and health care advocates who work with women detained after crossing the border illegally or seeking asylum said ICE does provide women with a pregnancy test, prenatal vitamins (not always regularly, two advocates said), and, sometimes, a standard entrance exam by a nonspecialist medical worker.

One woman said that when her pregnancy test came back positive, ICE facility staff gave her a “diet for health” label to wear on her ID. An obstetrics-trained nurse in West Texas told BuzzFeed News that some detained pregnant women are transported to her clinic for one checkup during their time there, often in their second or third trimester. Some (but not all) detention centers also make sure pregnant women get the lower bunk bed. But according to the 17 people BuzzFeed News interviewed, the special treatment stops there.

read more here

[zombfear-blog]

B A S I C

name: Brian Yu age: 21?  gender: male  pronouns: he/him  height: 6′4 date of birth: [ REDACTED ] was reanimated on FEBRUARY 20TH zodiac: Pisces  sexuality: Pansexual Panromantic  hometown: [ REDACTED ] awoke outside MESA ARIZONA species: Zombie ? 

P E R S O N A L 

personality: Brian is incredibly monotone at times, almost like he’s in a constant state of being asleep or about to fall asleep. His humour is dry- sarcastic even and he seems to uncaring to some. He usually gets his energy from the people around him, the more excited they are, the more he feeds off their energy and seems more active than he normally would be.Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that he sometimes wonders how he even has friends, since his general sense of self worth is rather low. he tries to keep it mostly to himself, not wanting the people he speaks to, to know about it as he feels they might pity him- or try to tell him that he has nothing to really be self conscious about. Things like that often go in one ear, and out the other. Much to his dismay. But doesn’t everyone have their secrets?  likes: dogs, bloody meats ( such as blue rare steak ), sleeping, joking around, bad puns, ambient or chiller music, warm blankets, being cuddled while he sleeps, alcohol, a little weed now and again, lacrosse, drumming. dislikes: too much perfume or heavy scents, dirty people / people who don’t really take care of themselves, most classes at school, track n field, the Wolfpack, The interdimensional prince, winter, summer, total silence  habits: running and messing up his hair- he can’t control it, he has to mess his hair up often, biting onto his tongue, chewing his lip or nails, biting pen caps, tapping his fingers on his thumbs, staring off.  hobbies: playing the drums, working out, sewing  fears: Being alone, being forgotten, utter silence, worms, maggots, centipedes, vultures 

A P P E A R A N C E  

hair: dark green ( dyed ), though originally black. It’s short and loose, often messy from his constant messing it up,  eye: silver white with black scleras- almost almond in shape and drooping with dark circles around them skin: green- with patches of his neck, head, face missing. Along with slight stitches along his neck, arm and leg. On his back, his spine seems to protrude.  face: More of a square jawline, clean shaved and sharp.  body: Mesomorphic and fit- he tries to take as much care as he can. He does have some abs, and back muscles for sure. His thighs and ass are certainly defined as well  scars: Plenty along his sides, face and back.  piercings: none  tattoos: Three. One on his shoulder of yellow flowers, one along his right side of the Vitruvian man and one on his thigh of a solid line dragon. 

B A C K S T O R Y:

before he turned: [ REDACTED— FILE CORRUPT ] backstory: Brian first came to conciousness outside Mesa, Arizona- finding himself to already be dead. The part missing from his neck seemed to be fresh, as he was currently very sloppily patched up. Confused, he could only wander blindly into the town, unsure of where he was or... who he was really. He had no idea what his name was, all memories he had up until waking up were gone. He noticed something might possibly be wrong when he noticed people seemed to run in fear from him, or commented on what a cool costume he had— but halloween was months away. Brian’s first attempt was to head to the hospital- being stopped by a couple who offered to give him a lift. When they asked what his name was, he tried to tell them, glancing around until he saw a place with the name ‘BRIAN’ on it. Hesitantly saying that was his name before looking to the couple. They just seemed to laugh off his off behaviour as him really needing medical attention.    The group got into the car, but the female of the party seemed to hurt her finger reaching into her bag. Having a knife on her just in case, and accidentally slicing her finder. That was the downfall of the niceties. Unaware of what he was doing right away, the scent of blood hit him and that’s when he realized he was starving. Everything became a haze. He could remember screaming, cursing until soon the car crashed and he ended up flying through the window. Covered in blood from the lady he just tore open like a back of chips. He knew he couldn’t really go back- so he fled. Covered in blood, his mind fading in and out of control as he did. The last thing he remembered was tripping, falling and .... waking up a little later in a white room.         Some monster had found Brian’s body, seeing him crawl out of a ditch making sickly and groaning noises. The monster was one of the few with dignity and called an ambulance to get brian to the hospital and looked at. Filed under JOHN DOE until he woke up. Confused and going by the name Brian again. He explained to the police and a doctor what happened, and how he had nowhere to go really. Which seemed to be a common thing, which is how he ended in the care of Jan. A female werebear who took him in, and because he was old enough to pay rent, told him that as soon as he got a job, it would be 150 a month. Not terrible, but it could be worse.         However, because he was fairly young looking when he turned, he was sent to Spooky High, which is where he attends now. 

E X T R A 

family: [ REDACTED ] he does not remember them  pets: he doesn’t have one- but he would adore having a dog  favourite food/drink/season/time of day: blue rare steak/whiskey/fall/dusk headcanons: tba

[youtechusa]

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