#had another Covid test come back negative though

[capetowncapers]

Oh my fucking god tell me my body doesn’t hurt like that from carrying things for my family what the hell

[oflgtfol]

girl i think i fgot the fucking flu

[mypoisonedvine]

𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙢 || dieter bravo x camgirl!reader (part three; finale)

read 𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙩 (part one) and 𝙗𝙡𝙤𝙤𝙢 (part two) first!

𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮 || he can't believe you're really here— now he has to just try not to blow it... figuratively speaking.

𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩 || 5.7k

𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 || smut (18+ only; unprotected sex, oral f receiving, multiple orgasms/overstimulation [for reader], creampie), sex work (however dieter technically does not pay the reader for sex, just her flight to visit him c:), mentions of covid-19 pandemic, soft dieter being soft, emotions!! lots of 'em!, extremely sappy/fluffy ending (oops?)

He wasn’t sure who he was more worried would get recognized: you, or himself.

It was his idea to go out to dinner first, in fact he’d insisted on it.  Going out to dinner in times like these was a bit iffy, but thankfully the place had outdoor dining and you’d both already tested negative— for more than just the virus…

It was a beautiful evening to eat outside, but it made him even more anxious that any passerby might know him either of you from your respective works; so far, no one had said anything though.

As he watched you take a sip of your sparkling water, he realized that he hadn’t had a crush on anyone in a long, long time.  He hadn’t had sweating palms and a racing heart and a dry throat over someone since probably high school.  By the time he was in his BFA program, he was so focused on his craft that he didn’t find himself worrying much about that sort of stuff— and if he wanted to get someone into bed, it didn’t seem like much to stress over.

This was different.  This wasn’t an issue of getting you to sleep with him, although he certainly hoped you wouldn’t renege on the intentions you’d stated before— this was about getting you to like him, maybe even (as he would’ve put it back when he last had a crush) ‘like like’ him.

“Was your flight okay?” Dieter asked compulsively to fill the silence, proud of himself for thinking of something to say.

“Still good,” you nodded.  “You asked me that when we first got here.”

“Right,” he sighed, “sorry.  I forgot.”

“It’s fine,” you laughed, setting your glass down on the white tablecloth.  “I’m nervous, too.  But in a good way.”

He smiled.  “Yeah— I’m just really excited that you’re here.  And it’s still kind of weirding me out that you’re… you know, real.”

“It’s definitely trippy,” you agreed.  “When you see somebody over video chat a lot, they look sort of surreal in real life.”

“Are you… speaking from experience?” he wondered, lowering his voice a bit.

“Yeah— but not this kind of experience,” you clarified.  “I’ve never met anyone from my work before— I told you that.”

“Right, yeah— I believe you,” he assured.  “Have you ever flown overseas just to meet someone before?”

You laughed, looking down for a second.  “No, I haven’t,” you answered, “but this isn’t the first time I’ve been, you know, wined and dined by somebody…”

“Well, I figured this wasn’t your first date,” Dieter scoffed.

“No, I mean— well, yeah,” you hummed, “but I, um… before I started camming, I was actually a sugar baby.  So I’ve had my flights paid for before, is what I mean.”

He widened his eyes a little, but nodded— hoping to look more intrigued than overwhelmed.  “Oh, wow, that’s— I don’t know a lot about that, honestly…”

“I was about to ask if you’d ever had a sugar baby before,” you smirked, “guess not.”

“Yeah, no,” he shook his head, “not my— not for me.  Not before, I mean— is that what you want?”

He got a little nervous that you would only want that— a relationship built on money.  He was more than happy to drop some cash on you— he’d offered to pay for everything for you on this trip, it only seemed fair when you had to come all this way— but he got a sick feeling in his stomach imagining that that was all you wanted from him.

But then again, he just said he didn’t know a lot about it, maybe it wasn’t like that… he just felt like it was another performance, and that was the last thing he needed from anybody.

“O-oh, no— not with us,” you answered quickly, blinking a few times, and he sighed with relief.  “I mean, it was nice— it wasn’t all old guys and crazy finance douchebags like people think,” you explained with a laugh, “but it was… it was hard work, in its own way.  ‘Cause another misconception is that it’s sex in exchange for money and gifts— it’s not, not the way I did it at least.  Those guys wanted the ‘girlfriend experience’... that’s the most profitable thing, whether it’s online or in-person.”

Dieter cleared his throat; can’t blame them, I guess…

“But, you know, they didn’t have the time for a genuine relationship, so it was like giving that emotion but never receiving it,” you continued, “and that was exhausting.  Not to mention most of them had other girls involved… I’m not a jealous person, but you know, that’s obviously not what I want for myself in the end.  So I switched to camming, worked out well with the pandemic and everything…”

“I’m sure,” Dieter agreed.  “So, um… maybe this is kind of a forward question, for a first date, but… what do you want for yourself in the end?”

You seemed to get a little more shy, then.  “Well…” you began softly.  “Despite what you’ve seen me do, I’m a pretty traditional girl.  I want a serious relationship, I want a lifelong commitment, I want… a family, probably.”

It was hard not to feel a lump in his throat when you said that, even if his emotions were conflicted at best.

“I mean— that doesn’t have to be you,” you rushed out, “I’m just saying… that’s the end goal.  I have a lot of time for that, in my opinion.”

“No, right,” he agreed.  “So then, I guess the obvious question— and probably a much easier one— is what’s your goal for tonight?”

You raised an eyebrow.  “I already told you my goal for tonight.”

He swallowed thickly.  He remembered your last message before getting on the plane pretty clearly: boarding now. hopefully i can get some sleep but i’m pretty wired ngl. just thinking about getting there and jumping your bones. i want you to fuck me so hard i can’t walk (or think) straight.

“Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded at all if you just took me straight to the hotel,” you smirked, “but dinner is nice.”

“Yeah, I— I thought about it,” he admitted.  “But… can I be honest?”

“Always.”

“I wanted this to be more than just… that,” he said.  He wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to tell you, but he hoped it wouldn’t bother you too much.  Thankfully, the gentle smile creeping up your face seemed to indicate that it wasn’t particularly offensive.

“So, what do you want this to be?” you pressed.

“We can figure that out as we go,” he offered, “we should get to know each other better— for real.  But that night that we stayed up until three just talking after what was supposed to be a one-hour call—”

He saw you smile even wider as you remembered it.

“I haven’t felt close to anyone like that in—” he began, but it all stopped as the waiter suddenly appeared from thin air.

“Your tortellini, ma’am,” he said as he set your plate down in front of you, and you offered an intrigued ‘ooh’ as you examined the dish, “and your langoustines alla busara,” he finished as he set Dieter’s food down.

“Thank you,” you offered the server with a polite nod, but Dieter could only muster a hum— he was a little miffed that the guy had managed to interrupt such an important moment.

“Anything else I can get for you two?” he asked, looking back and forth.

You looked over at him to check first, before shaking your head and replying, “No, I think we’re alright.”

“Excellent,” he beamed.  “And— can I just say one thing?”

You both paused, not sure what to make of that.  “Uh, sure,” Dieter decided, since the waiter seemed to be looking at him.

“I loved you in Hunger Strike,” he said excitedly; Dieter tensed up, wanting to look at you to gauge your reaction but suddenly too afraid of what he’d find.

“Oh, thank you,” he mumbled out, “that… means a lot.”

“I mean, it really moved me,” the waiter insisted, even though Dieter just wanted this interaction to end promptly.  “You were so— I’m really not trying to intrude, but is there any way I can get your autograph?”

Then he looked at you, and he couldn’t quite read the expression on your face— amusement, maybe, with a hefty dose of discomfort as well.  You looked away and took a long sip of your drink.  “Uhh,” Dieter choked, looking back at his adoring fan, “you’ll get my autograph when you bring the check.”

Seeming to realize that he had gone too far, the young man straightened up and cleared his throat.  “Right, uh— enjoy your meal.”

Scampering away, he left the both of you behind, along with all that tension he’d created.  How come he got a escape a situation that was his own fault, and Dieter was stuck here wondering if you would be upset that he didn’t tell you who he really was— or if you’d reveal you were a crazy stalker-fan the whole time— or if knowing he was famous would change your interest in being with him (if you even had any)?

“I’m… sorry about that,” Dieter finally offered to you, and you started to smile.

“Don’t be,” you chuckled, “it was kinda funny.  Do you usually react so… badly, to that kind of thing?”

He coughed a bit.  “No, I— are you not…?  Do you know—?”

“I saw the movie, Hector, I don’t live under a rock,” you admitted.

“Oh.”  Not sure what to say next, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind: “What did you think of it?”

Shrugging, you answered with a simple ‘eh’.  There was a pause before he began to crack up— and then you did, too. 

“So, I’ve been worrying about all you finding out about my career for nothing?” he assumed, and you nodded.

“I didn’t recognize you right away,” you explained, “but I put it together before we planned all this.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he wondered.

“I mean, I didn’t think I needed to, really,” you shrugged again.  “It’s just your job.  I was ready to talk about it if you brought it up— if you wanted to vent about work or something— but you never did, so I figured it must not be relevant.”

“Does it… change anything between us?” he asked nervously.  “Do you feel weird about going out with a movie star?”

“Mm, I don’t know about star…” you smirked, making him laugh again— and that was the part that was the same as always.  You still made him laugh, and now that the two of you were really talking again, it felt just like that night that you talked for hours— but even better.

When the plates were cleaned and the bill was paid, the two of you walked back to his hotel— he’d picked this place in part because he could see it from his window.  But that brief walk back was one of his favorite parts of the night so far, only because he’d slipped his arm around you, and you leaned into him: in that moment, he felt more normal than he had in a long time— and yet, at the same time, special in a way he’d never felt before.

~

“I tried to clean up in here, but—”

“Isn’t there housekeeping for that?” you wondered.  

“Yeah, but… I’ve had the ‘do not disturb’ sign up for the past week,” Dieter explained.  “Didn’t want anyone to come in while we were talking…”

“Right,” you smiled, finishing your examination of the room and turning to face him again.  The door shut on its own; you were looking at him with every light in the room reflected in your eyes.

He stepped closer to you, and wrapped his arms around you, and— why were his palms so clammy?  “I don’t think I’ve been this nervous to kiss someone since… since maybe my first ever kiss,” he recalled, and you laughed softly.

“Yeah, me either,” you whispered back, and he ran his hand over the curve of your hip.  “Who was your first kiss?”

“Uh, Sandy something… Brendan, I think— no, Brennan… Sandy Brennan.  We sat next to each other in History class in seventh grade,” he recalled.  “What about you?”

“I mean, unless you count a peck or two from my kindergarten boyfriend,” you chuckled, “my first real kiss wasn’t until high school— Gregory Cho.  But I wasn’t that nervous… actually, I was sort of ready to get it over with.”

“There was someone I was really nervous to kiss in high school, too,” he recalled, “but that was… different.”

“Who was it?”

That name was much easier to recall.  “Alex Brooks.”

“Was she super pretty?  Or popular?” you pressed, wondering what had him so nervous, what made it different.

“Both,” Dieter replied quickly.  “And… he was captain of the basketball team.”

You didn’t react strongly, but he still noticed it.

“Is that—?” he began to ask.

“He sounds like a real catch,” you smiled.  “Was he a good kisser?”

“Yeah,” Dieter laughed, “for a high schooler.  I guess things don’t feel as special now as they did back then— just some decent making-out in someone’s dad’s truck was the coolest thing, now it’s like— it’s all right there, you don’t have to…” he trailed off, but started a new sentence.  “I mean, even you— I’ve seen every part of you, but I just really met you for the first time.  And somehow I’m so afraid to kiss you.”

You were still smiling, but it changed, and you reached up to rest your hand on the back of his neck; it made him shiver in the best way.  “If you’re afraid, then it must still be pretty special.”

You kissed him, after all that; he would’ve felt bad for making you wait, if he wasn’t so fully engrossed in kissing you back and pulling you closer and breathing in deeply against your skin.  

For a long time, that was all it was— just one, amazing kiss.  Just his lips on yours and the gentle dance of trying to go further without going to far; just your hands holding tightly onto his shoulders as he gripped your waist through the dress.

You started to pull him across the room by his shirt— towards the bed— and broke away to speak; he tried to chase your lips for more, but stopped when you bit your lip and rested a finger on his chin.

“You haven’t seen every part of me,” you corrected him— even though he barely fucking remembered saying that after a kiss like that.  “I mean, my body, sure, but… not who I really am.”

“Then show me that,” he pleaded.  “That’s what I want— you, everything.”

You smiled wide and kissed him again, the two of you toppling onto the bed together.  

He’d been thinking about doing this since the moment he saw you: pulling up the bottom of your dress so he could pet your thighs, enamored with the smoothness of your skin.  “Baby,” he purred when he caught sight of your panties— what little there was of them.  The lace just gave him a glimpse of what was beneath, a tease of your perfect little cunt.

“God, I need you so bad,” you groaned as you pulled him down for another kiss; he’d been hard since you wrapped your arms around him, and he could swear he was already throbbing by the time he rocked his hips against yours.  “Fuck— feels even bigger than it looked…”

“Maybe your computer screen wasn’t big enough,” he joked, making you laugh lightly before another moan came out when he rocked down on you again.  “What do you want, beautiful?”

“You… you know what I want…” you panted, wrapping your legs around his waist.

“Humor me,” he encouraged, moving in to kiss your neck— and loving the way you squirmed under him.

“Want— want you to fuck me,” you whimpered, “want you to make me— fuck— yours…”

He groaned deeply as he rutted his hips into yours harder, finally taunting you to the point that you had to reach down and start opening his pants.  “So eager,” he mocked playfully, as if he wasn’t going to ravage you the second you were done getting his cock out.

In fact, he almost tore your dress as he pulled it down to expose your chest, barely finding the time to appreciate the view of your tits before latching his mouth onto them.  “Oh fuck,” you gasped, and he smiled around the pert nipple in his mouth; these had seemed sensitive from the way you toyed with them as you touched yourself, but it was heaven on earth to confirm his suspicion himself.

“Want me to make you mine?” he prompted again, voice muffled by your delicate skin in his mouth, and you whimpered as you nodded.

“Yes— please—” you begged.

“Not sure I can do that,” he warned, and you gave him a confused look.  “You’re already mine, you told me yourself.”

You giggled, arching your back slightly as the tip of his tongue drew circles on you.  "I did say that, didn't I?"

"Mhm," he confirmed.  "Hard to forget."

"Well, m'still yours," you offered, "but I need you right now, I'll do— fuck, anything, just—"

"You don't need to do anything," he assured, looking up at you as he moved his mouth from your breast down a little lower, "just lay back and I'm gonna take care of you."

You bit your lip and nodded.

"Second I saw you I wanted to kiss you all over," he sighed.

"Well, I've got a couple ideas of where you can start," you smirked.

And yes, he would love to start there, but he needed to do his best not to rush this.  So, smiling up at you first, he began his journey.  His lips and tongue explored your body on his way down: a kiss here, a lick there, a playful bite when he felt extra naughty.  "You're so fucking beautiful," he mumbled against you.

"Yeah?  You too," you sighed.

He didn't think of himself like that— handsome, maybe, certainly aware of his better angles, but beautiful felt strange.  But he liked it, especially when you said it.  Especially when you said it while he was slotting his face between your legs.

It was even prettier up close, and the smell was fucking intoxicating: tangy and musky and sweet, heady, earthy, human.  And he knew you'd taste even better.

So he dove right in.  Maybe he should've started with your clit, that would've been the obvious choice, but his instincts led him to just slide his tongue right into your hole.  If nothing else, it certainly seemed to take you off guard, and you gasped as you grabbed onto his hair with both hands.

"Baby, fuck, that's— oh god, you can't imagine how many times I thought of this," you admitted, breathing heavy already.  He smiled against you, then gave you one big lick from the furthest down his tongue could reach all the way to the very top— all while holding fierce eye contact with you.  "Fu-uuuuck," you choked, dropping your head back just as your eyes rolled up.  "That's so… just do that again, please…"

He did it a few more times, noticing the way you seemed to get more impatient with each one, until your hips were chasing after his tongue.  "Stay still, baby, don't you trust me to do this right?" he purred, holding tighter on your hips.

"Yeah, I just— been so long," you whimpered.

He just did his best to find what made you scream the loudest and keep doing that— you were so sensitive, he just had to press his tongue down flat on your clit and move it in circles and you’d start shaking and sobbing and begging.  He moaned into you every time you tugged on his hair, having to rock his hips against the bed to appease his attention-deprived cock.

"You're… so amazing," you panted, "I— fuck! Oh god, I can't remember the last time someone—"

You never finished your thought, because he started fucking you with his tongue and you were too busy moaning his name, but he couldn't believe what a waste it was that nobody was eating this pussy on a regular basis.

"Gonna— oh fuck, yes, gonna come," you warned, "I… I'm gonna come so fucking hard…"

You started shaking, and he started fighting to keep you as still as he could so his work wouldn't be interrupted.  For a second he wondered if you were already coming or not— but then you made this noise, and your cunt clamped down on his tongue, and you cried out his name; it was perfect, it was the most beautiful moment he could ever imagine.

When it became too much, you went from tugging his hair to pushing him away with it, and he grinned up at you with a breathy laugh.  “Fuck, baby,” you whimpered, and he saw the tear streaks on your temples and cheeks.  He traced one with his thumb before kissing you again— deep and hungry, letting you taste yourself on his tongue.

He hummed when your hands reached down to work on getting his pants off— eager and shaky, he certainly related to that.  As soon as your hand wrapped around his cock, he moaned, just from that.  He was almost embarrassed about it, until you bit his lip in playful encouragement.  "Does that feel good?" you purred.

"Yeah— your hands are better than mine," he laughed breathlessly.  

"How about this?" you raised an eyebrow, swiping your thumb over his slit, and he groaned as he rocked into your touch.

"God, baby…" he groaned.  As good as it felt, he found the strength to grab you by both your wrists and pin them down by your head.  You grinned, struggling just a bit, and moaned as he slid his cock against your soaking pussy.

“Don’t tease me,” you begged, “feels like I’ve been waiting forever.”

But he wasn’t teasing you— he was psyching himself up.

Believe it or not, he actually felt pretty nervous about this part.  Not for a lack of experience— for the entirely opposite reason.  Dieter had been with a lot of people, and for the most part, it was all… the same.  It all blended together— he only remembered those people from when he was a kid because he was a kid, and his romantic encounters were so few and far between.  He could remember details of his various partners from the last few years— Crystal who had a clit piercing, Marvin who begged to be choked, Cameron who seemed to enjoy giving him a blowjob even more than he enjoyed receiving it— but this, the actual sex, it was generally pretty interchangeable.  

So, he was worried that after all that build-up, after all the yearning and fantasizing and talking, that this would be the end of it being special— and you would just turn into a hook-up with a slightly more interesting backstory than the rest.  

As valid as that fear was, it was far from enough to stop him now, not when you were looking up at him and tightening your fists as he kept you pinned and silently begging for him with your eyes.

He had to let go of one of your hands to guide himself inside, but he interlaced the other with your fingers while he did it— and then, with one strong push, he was fully within you.

“Oh my god,” he gasped, “you feel… different.”

You raised an eyebrow, chuckling a little.  “Uh, different than what?”

Than everyone else.  “I— I don’t know,” he breathed, “I’m not making sense.”

“Not really,” you agreed with a laugh.

“Hard to think straight right now,” he defended.

It wasn’t just that you felt different— it was that this felt different: being with someone he really cared about, that he wanted to impress, that he wanted to see after this was over.

Someone that he never wanted to let go of.

“You feel so fucking perfect,” you whimpered, “fuck, don’t stop— feels so good—”

One of the benefits of making you come on his tongue first was that he knew it wouldn't be that bad if he didn't last too long now— though that wasn't why he did it.  In fact, this was rarely his issue, if anything sometimes he struggled to finish for unclear reasons.

But even if he could get away with finishing quickly, he wanted to make this last as long as he could.  He never wanted this to end, actually.

As he found his pace— not too speedy yet, but with a bit of his eagerness showing— he kissed you again, deeply and hungrily.  He wondered if he'd ever done this before: kissing during sex.  He felt like he probably had, and yet he couldn't remember it— maybe that said more than anything.

This, on the other hand, was very memorable.  He slid his arms under you when your back arched, he held you tight and close and drank in every one of your moans through that kiss.

For how many times he’d pictured fucking you, he never really imagined it like this… and he thought he’d imagined it every way before.  But he realized that he’d mostly imagined it a bit kinker— you riding him, or him fucking you while you were bent over the table in his room, or 69’ing or something.  This was passionate, and sorta slow; this was his hips grinding on yours with every thrust so he could keep rubbing your sore clit; this was making love, he realized— if it wasn’t, he couldn’t imagine what was.

“I— fuck, baby— think I’m gonna come again,” you warned him with the most beautiful whiny sob.

“Fuck, already?” he smiled, and you nodded feverishly.  

“Just… don’t stop, please, just like that— fuuuuck!” you choked, and he gasped every time your walls clenched down on him.

“You’re so fucking perfect, fuck,” he grunted, moving a bit faster and not letting up on the pressure from his pubic bone on your clit, even when you actually screamed under him.  “You’re so amazing, oh god, I—”

He heard it before he said it: I think I love you.  He stopped himself before blurting it out— maybe he’d tell you after, but he wasn’t so far gone to forget that this wasn’t the right time.  You’d think he didn’t really mean it, that it was just the delirium talking from how incredible you felt, but he knew it was so much more than that.

He shut himself up by kissing your neck— not too hard, but plenty to leave a mark, and make you squirm in the process.  Your hands wrapped around his back and your nails dug into his skin, but he couldn’t even feel the pain of it, he couldn’t feel anything but the sticky, resplendent heat of your body.

“So much fucking better than the goddamn dildos,” you said suddenly, and he laughed against your skin.  

“Do you miss all those people watching you come?” he wondered.

“No, fuck no,” you panted, “there’s nobody else but you.”

He couldn’t help but fuck you faster when you said that— you should’ve known better than to stroke his ego that way.

“Fuck!” you sobbed.  “Hector, baby, you’re so— oh god, I don’t know if I can take it—”

“Shh, you can,” he promised, “you can do anything, you can come for me again—”

“Oh fuck, I— I might,” you admitted shakily, “but then I’ll— I’ll fucking pass out or something.”

“No, you’ll be okay,” he promised, cooing at you softly.  “You’ll be so good for me, I know you will— just come for me one more time, baby, tell me what you need to come again.”

“I… just a little time is all I need,” you answered, voice breaking.  “I swear I’ve never— I’m not usually so— fuck, it’s just you—”

“I know,” he assured, loving the way you babbled praises but worried it would distract you from coming again; and if you didn’t soon, there wouldn’t be time before he lost it.  He was already barely able to keep his composure just from how beautiful you looked like this, let alone how you felt.  “I know, just let it happen, I know it’s right there for me— just come for me, beautiful—”

You dragged him down into a sloppy kiss, and he felt it— those incredible pulses inside you, waves of slick coating him until he felt sticky all the way down his thighs; your sobs were more precious than anything he’d ever heard.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he praised, fucking you even faster now as your head fell back limply.  “I can’t h-hold back anymore, I need to—”

“I know,” you said to him this time, “it’s okay, please— want you to…”

“You still— oh my god…” he choked, losing his train of thought for a moment.  “You still want me to come inside you?  Wanna be full?”

“Yes,” you whined, “yes, baby, please— wanna be so full of your come, I want everything—”

"Fuck, okay," he agreed, gasping as he tried to keep up his pace despite the growing pressure inside.  "I'm really fucking close…”

“I’m yours,” you told him again— and then he went from ‘really fucking close’ to ‘already fucking there’.  He came inside you with a long, whimpered groan; his head dropped onto your shoulder while each pump filled you, trying to catch his breath but feeling like he’d never find it again.

Admitting he loved you during sex wasn’t a good idea, but saying it immediately after wasn’t that much of an improvement.  Now, though, he was too exhausted to keep his mouth shut.  “I think I love you,” he blurted out suddenly.

For one incredibly long second, you didn’t react at all.  You looked up at him, and he hesitated to even look back because he didn’t want to see anything less than ecstasy on your face.  “Oh,” you said, “cool.”

He wasn’t sure what reaction he anticipated, good or bad, but it wasn’t that.

“Let me know when you know,” you suggested.

“No!  No— I know,” he insisted, reaching up to hold your face, “I know.  I love you.  I think I did even before you came here, but… it just seemed so crazy.  We don’t know each other as well as we should for that, right?  But I feel it— I feel something that I just can’t explain—”

“Hey, slow down,” you laughed, “I feel it too.”

The way you smiled at him, resting your hand on his chest— was he glowing?  He felt like he was actually glowing.  “Good,” he decided.

“Let’s get to know each other better, then,” you announced.  “Start from the beginning, the whole thing: parents, siblings, school, favorite movies, worst dates, hot dogs or hamburgers—”

“No, you start,” he pouted, “you’re more interesting.”

“Me?  Please, I’m just your average camgirl titty streamer, don’t worry about it,” you scoffed.

“And I’m just some lame old Oscar winner,” he shrugged.

But both of you talked— all night, actually.  You never fell asleep, he was never even that tired— you kept him so full of energy he didn’t even notice how long it had been until the sun started to come up.  And then you kept talking at breakfast.  And then you fucked again, and talked some more after; he knew it had to end, eventually, but he didn’t even want to think about it.  He didn’t want to think about you going home and letting something so perfect end.

He told you just as much on the last night— assuming you didn’t switch your flight home to a later day again.  You’d just been laying in his arms after another bout of passionately desperate fucking, both of you half-asleep but not wanting the separation of even just unconsciousness, and he blurted it out.

“Don’t leave,” he pleaded under his breath.  “I don’t want you to go.”

“I know you don’t,” you returned softly.  

“I don’t want this to end.”

You were quiet for a while, turning over on your side to face him, tracing your fingers over his chest gently.  “It doesn’t have to end, just because I leave,” you mumbled.  “I know it’s crazy, but we can be together, even if we’re not… together.  I mean, I’m certainly not gonna be with anybody else—”

“Me either,” he said quickly, before he could change his own mind with the doubts— the voice in his head that said he could never settle down because he’s too fucked up.  “I only want you.”

“It’ll suck, being far away from each other— but you’ll be back Stateside eventually, right?” you assumed.

“God, I hope so,” he sighed, “if the world doesn’t end.”

“If it does,” you whispered, moving in closer, “I hope it’s tonight.  I wouldn’t wanna be anywhere else but here.”

It was a romantic thought, but as he kissed you, he realized he’d never wanted the world to end less than he did right now.  He never longed for an apocalypse or anything, even on nights that his doubts and anxieties made him yearn for oblivion just for himself, but just now he could’ve cried thinking about everything falling apart tonight.  Whether it be by fiery explosion or a quiet, instant disappearance, he couldn’t let armageddon happen now— now that he had you.  For the first time, he saw himself having a future, in a way he never had before.  Existing as a ‘celebrity’ meant being on the edge of irrelevance at any moment, knowing this could all go away overnight and you’d just be ‘that guy who was in that thing that one time’.  

But this time, he stood on a precipice of something wonderful, of something natural, and it was the most beautifully terrifying unknown.  It was tomorrow.  Tomorrow, you’d get on the plane; tomorrow, you’d leave, because the world wasn’t going to end tonight.  But his life was going to start tonight, and he didn’t have to face it alone anymore.

[multi-fandom-imagine]

A/n: I hope you feel better, COVID really fucked up my lungs enough to bring back my Asthma. Also I’m sorry I did not post this, I just just super tired during break

-Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley-

Hearing another cough escape your lips Simon slowly made his way towards you. He had hoped your weren’t still sick, the last test you had taken came back negative yet you were still coughing. He hated the thought of you still being sick. Kneeling down in front of you he grasped your hand gently. “How are you feeling love?”

Giving him a weak smile you shifted your position on the couch doing your best to get comfortable. “A little better, I mean my chest hurts but that’s hurt because I’ve been coughing so much.” Biting your tongue you watched as Simon moved to sit next to you. His arms drawing you into his chest.

“Do you have your inhaler on you.”

Nodding your head you buried your face into his chest, the scent of his cologne relaxing you. Sighing you let your eyes slip close feeling his fingers run gentle circles on your hips putting your further into sleep.

Hearing a chuckle, your tightened your hold on his shirt. “Good night love.”

+•+

-König-

Flinching at another one of your coughs, the large man waited patiently for the doctor to come back into the room. With your cough not going away he decided to rush you to the hospital.

“You worry to much.”

Wrinkling his nose he shifted his body then shook his head holding your hand gently. “I do not like seeing that you are sick.”

Rolling your eyes you gave him a playful smile as you squeezed his hand though you tensed as the doctor stepped into the room. You hated that you know had to now carry a inhaler with you due to how damaged your lungs were.

“Ja, you will be fine love.”König pressed a kiss to the side of your head. A smile forming on your lips as you glanced up at the large man, you do your best to take in every detail of him. You always did before you fell asleep. You liked to memorize his face knowing that you will be dreaming about him.

From his crooked nose, to the light scars littering across his face. Biting back a yawn, you were just happy to be back home and out of the hospital. Nuzzling into his chest you let yourself fall asleep in his arms feeling safe and secure.

[grits-galraisedinthesouth]

I thought Fauci was hospitalized with the WEST NILE virsus? "Fauci wants to bring back MASKS after contracting COVID (despite being vaccinated SIX times)"

12 Aug 2024

By Alexa Lardieri U.S. Deputy Health Editor Dailymail.Com

The number of infections is increasing as part of another summer surge - even though hospitalizations and deaths from the virus remain at historic lows.

On Monday, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease said: 'The message is that if you are in a risk category you have got to take this seriously.'

The 83-year-old told people with comorbidities and seniors 'you should be wearing a mask' in crowded places.

He also revealed he had contracted Covid about two weeks ago. It was his third Covid infection and he has been vaccinated and boosted a total of six times.

The above shows weekly Covid deaths (blue bars) and percent positivity of Covid tests (orange line)

The above shows the percent positivity of Covid tests in the past week by region in the US

According to the CDC, the weekly Covid test positivity for the week ending August 3 was nearly 18 percent, compared to 16 percent the prior week and 10 percent one month before that. 

Test positivity is the share of Covid swabs taken that come back positive. 

World Health Organization officials warn that if the virus continues to spread, it could lead to new mutations and severe infections that evade vaccine protection and therapeutics. 

Deaths have been generally on the rise since May, but began declining the week ending July 20. They currently hover at around 500 per week, compared to more than 25,000 in the fall of 2020.

The elderly, people with compromised immune systems and those with comorbidities are more at risk of developing severe Covid, being hospitalized and have a higher risk of death from the virus. 

New documents 'credibly show' Covid DID leak from Wuhan lab, say House Republicans

Dr Fauci told MedPage Today Editor-in-Chief Dr Jeremy Faust: 'You don't have to immobilize what you do and cut yourself off from society, but regardless of what the current recommendations are, when you're in a crowded closed space and you're an 85-year-old person with chronic lung disease or a 55-year-old person who is morbidly obese with diabetes and hypertension, then you should be wearing a mask.

'And you should be careful to avoid crowded places where you don't know the status of other people and you should get vaccinated and boosted on a regular basis.'

Dr Fauci's face mask guidelines have long been criticized as people claimed they did not work to prevent the spread of Covid. 

The educational and social effects of face masks on children have been well documented, with one NIH study calling the impact of mask use on students' literacy and learning 'very negative.' 

Another NIH study also found that social distancing caused 'depression, generalized anxiety, acute stress and intrusive thoughts.'  

And in testimony to Republicans in June, Dr Fauci admitted he didn't remember reading anything to support that masking kids would prevent COVID.

When asked if masking kids was an effective way of preventing Covid transmission, he said: 'I still think that's up in the air.' 

Despite the mixed guidance, experts are still concerned about the rapid spread.

Dr Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University's School of Public Health and former White House Covid response coordinator, told NBC: 'If you just talk about infections, this is probably going to end up becoming the largest summer wave we’ve had. It’s still not as big as the winter waves, but it is starting to get close.'

Dr Anthony Fauci recommended that the elderly and people with comorbidities wear face masks to protect against Covid

Dr Jha said she expects this surge to peak in the next few weeks and subside in September, just as updated vaccines to target the KP.2 strain of Covid become available.  

Additionally, in a briefing last week, World Health Organization officials said 84 countries are experiencing a rise in the percentage of positive Covid tests over the last several weeks. 

WHO officials said: 'Covid-19 infections are surging globally... and are unlikely to decline anytime soon. The UN health agency is also warning that more severe variants of the coronavirus may soon be on the horizon.'

And wastewater surveillance suggests the spread of the virus is two to 20 times higher than what is currently being reported. 

WHO officials added that new waves of infection could spur mutations and more dangerous strains of the virus 'that could potentially evade detection systems and be unresponsive to medical intervention.

The health agency is urging countries to ramp up their vaccination efforts and promote yearly Covid vaccines for high-risk individuals. 

Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist and lead of the COVID-19 response at WHO, said: 'As individuals it is important to take measures to reduce risk of infection and severe disease, including ensuring that you have had a COVID-19 vaccination dose in the last 12 months, especially, if you are in an at-risk group.

'I am concerned with such low coverage and with such large circulation, if we were to have a variant that would be more severe, then the susceptibility of the at-risk populations to develop severe disease is huge.'"

[delucadarling]

Current rambling thoughts on dieting/weight loss, nothing that's a downer:

Back in April I got blood test results that showed my cholesterol was high and my sugar was barely shy of being diabetic. It spooked the shit out of me, as despite being fat most of my life, I was also pretty healthy and somewhat active. It was after getting covid that I was so fatigued I dropped the active thing pretty much entirely.

The doctor was more focus on the sugar, and recommended cutting back simple sugars, adding in more fiber, and increasing my weekly activity.

I'd been wanting to get back into shape for a long, long time but I've been nervous about trying the gym again. My dad was one of those shithead people that secretly films people in the gym doing things 'wrong' or committing the sin of being fat in public. It had me terrified of trying to get fit where other people could see me, because you know, most people don't want to be mocked.

Lucky me, I have the most amazing, supportive girlfriend ever. She took me by the hand and very gently showed me around the gym, helped me learn how to use the machines, and didn't mind when I shadowed her around as she did her workout. From there, I got excited! I used to LOVE working out, I just mostly did simple stuff, running, and swimming. I did a lot of WiiFit when I was younger, and this one Jillian Michael's DVD I found at Walmart for like $5 at the time. Running was the big one though (hello Zombies, Run folks).

So just making those changes (less soda, more fiber, more exercise) over the course of maybe 3ish months I dropped almost 15 lbs. I hadn't been tracking my weight, but I did compare the results the doctor took from my previous three appointments. I was kind of shocked! I've never had a healthy relationship with weight loss, and every time I've tried to lose weight it lead to a lot of heartache, misery, and doubled weight gain. So I more or less wrote off my ability to trim down and decided to just be fat and happy.

I will say though, the extra bulk has recently frustrated me. I can't do yoga the way I used to. My limbs are still flexible but I keep getting blocked by my own fat. I have to go real easy on my joints because of all the extra weight, which is frustrating, because I'd honestly love to try jogging again. I just don't want to fuck my back and knees up again.

I decided to give losing weight another try, with a lot more self-love, after a lot more research, and with the support of someone who has loved me even at my fattest and never said a word about it.

It hasn't been too hard this time. I don't feel like I'm depriving myself. I am impatient, I want to see results NOW, but obviously that's not how things work. And slow is better anyway.

I know tumblr has a generally negative view on weight loss, and I fully include myself in that. I bought into the 'starvation mode means you'll never ACTUALLY lose weight permanently) thing, I was convinced anyone trying to lose weight had the same disordered ideas on it that I used to have (and still struggle with sometimes). It's a loaded topic for a hundred reasons, so I am trying to be conscious of when I talk about it and around who. Hence the tags and putting it under a cut. I'm happy and excited to be trying this out, putting my health first, trying to feel strong and capable in my body, but I absolutely know first hand how upsetting hearing about dieting can be. Not to mention how hard it is to avoid the more toxic side of trying to change your diet and fitness.

I've found a lot of resources that are very facts based, cut and dry, and leave out the moralizing behind weight loss and weight gain and just weight in general. There are a lot of very encouraging resources as well.

So yeah! As said, this is just a ramble, I like to write to get my thoughts down, and it always comes easier when it feels like I'm talking to someone, not just myself. I probably won't post a lot about this, but it's been just over a week since I started tracking my food and daily weight specifically, which always used to be something that would send me into a bad habit spiral. This time feels different. I've been doing fine. There have been a few moments of disappointment, but they've been easy to shake off. Mostly I'm just astounded to learn more about the macros involved in the food I eat, and I'm also happy to have tools to help me find portions that make me feel full and not stuffed. On the days I've been not kept to my deficit goals, it was because I was hungry and decided it was more worth it to feed myself than stick to a number and I didn't feel a bit of guilt about it afterward.

I'm pretty pleased with how it's going so far. I feel stronger, I feel more energetic, and tracking my food intake and weight makes the part of my brain that loves a spreadsheet very happy.

[livingandthriving]

A year ago today I went to see my doctor, hoping to get some answers (and treatment) for my increasingly severe respiratory issues. She ruled out asthma and sent me to the ER to get some tests done. Little did I know I'd end up hospitalized for 3.5 weeks.

(This is going to be long, sorry.)

They tested me for Covid and allergies, and when those came back negative they did a CT scan, and that was when they saw I probably had some type of lymphoma. They did not tell me this right away, just that there was a lot of fluid build-up around my lungs, among other things. Getting that drained was Not Fun (I almost passed out). I was admitted to the hospital proper after that, and spent 10 days in the Pneumology ward hooked up to O2 and getting the pleural effusion drained every few days while waiting on an official diagnosis. They did tell me on day 2 that they'd found what might be tumor and needed to do a biopsy to confirm, so when the diagnosis turned out to be Hodgkins lymphoma I was not completely surprised, but it still felt unreal. (Mind you, when the hospital psychologist came in with the doctor to break the news, I had a feeling it wasn't going to be good.)

The doctor was quick to reassure me that my prognosis was good, but there was clearly no time to lose since I was promptly transferred to Lyon to start chemo. I got my first helicopter ride out of the deal: they were concerned about potential traffic jams on the highway and didn't want to risk it while I was still on oxygen. My best friend's response when I messaged her to tell her this was to suggest I hum the Mission: Impossible theme while in the air. I didn't, but the crew found her suggestion hilarious. 😂

I made it to Lyon without incident, and my parents arrived shortly after I did (traffic was fine after all) to find that I was already something of a celebrity: apparently they don't get many patients come in by helicopter. Upon learning this, Best Friend's sister requested my autograph. (There's a reason I'm good friends with this family.) 😆

The next day was a blur of procedures, culminating in getting hooked up to my first round of chemo that evening. I was a little concerned about potential nausea, but thankfully the anti-nausea meds they gave me beforehand worked beautifully. I was still exhausted afterwards, though. That would be my default state for the next few months.

A few days in, it was determined that poking a new hole in me every 3-4 days to drain the pleural effusion was highly impractical, especially since it was going to take a while to go away, so I got a drainage tube put in. It was Supremely Uncomfortable (I was on morphine for several days), but within a few hours they were finally able to take me off oxygen! Being able to breathe normally never felt so good.

I got to go home in between rounds of chemo, which was very nice, even if I wasn't back in my own room (I had twice-daily nurse visits and it was easier for me to be in the guest room downstairs).

Going back for the second round was definitely different: no helicopter, I was able to walk in, and I knew what to expect this time - well, mostly. I didn't anticipate having to stay a couple of extra days because getting a new Picc line put in proved challenging. It's always something, isn't it? 😅

Thankfully that was the last time I had to stay at the hospital for more than a few hours: the PET scan I got a few weeks later showed that I was in remission, and I was able to do the rest of my chemo as an outpatient at my local hospital. Aside from two sessions getting postponed due to illness/low white blood cell count, that all went smoothly and I had my final session in January.

Early February I got another PET scan which confirmed that I was in complete remission, at which point I could focus on recovery. This is definitely going to be the longest part; I was told it can take up to 2 years to get back to normal. The fact that I'm already back at work, albeit part-time, is pretty good, all things considered.

So, how did all this affect me emotionally? The first few days in the hospital were probably the hardest, because something was obviously very wrong, but I didn't know what. In spite of that, I had a sense of peace and that God was in control (the song The Goodness of God was stuck in my head for days). That peace persisted even with the diagnosis, which is definitely a miracle because I'm generally prone to anxiety and jumping to the worst-case scenario. Instead, my reaction was, "Welp, this is gonna suck, but I'm going to make it." It helped that I had lots of people praying for me.

Even so, there were some rough moments. Losing my hair a few weeks in was especially difficult. I knew it was going to grow back, but I think that was when everything really started to sink in. Having to cancel my travel plans for the fall was another hard pill to swallow. Not being able to go to church was probably the hardest.

How am I doing now? Well, I'm still processing everything (hence this post), and likely will be for some time. It still feels a little unreal to tell people I had cancer. It's not one of those things you ever think you'll have to deal with, at least I didn't think I would. But here we are. I will say the fact that I'm starting to really process it all now is a good sign since it means my brain is no longer in survival mode. Hopefully that will continue.

I could go on, but this is already very long (kudos to you if you made it this far) and it's late, so for now I'll just say I'm grateful to still be here. Oh, and if you start having weird symptoms, don't wait to see a doctor.

[infinityonhighvevo]

i know it’s personal but if you are ever interested in sharing that story on here i’d be interested in hearing it! <3

hehehehe thanks anon i love talking about my heart problems <3 medical story time below so trigger warning for all that; tldr i died but i got better

so i’m in my first semester of my sophomore year of college and i get sick. i’m the type of guy who gets sick a bunch but, having just come out of a COVID spike in the area i lived in, i was nervous. i go to the doctor and test negative so i assume it’s just a miserable cold. (i test negative another twelve times throughout the ordeal.) i have a fever for a few days; it goes away but i’m still coughing, short of breath but not wheezing, and tired. i’m sick like this for like six or seven weeks (yeah, weeks) before i go to my doctor again. after a clear chest x-ray she’s like, okay, your lungs sound like ass, it’s walking pneumonia, take ten days of antibiotics and get another x-ray if it doesn’t get better

meanwhile, i can’t walk anywhere because i can’t breathe, i have to stop while walking up the stairs to my fifth floor dorm room because my heart races any time i do more than two flights, my feet are crazy swollen, i have to sleep sitting up because i can’t breathe lying down, and i keep waking up at like 2 in the morning to pee because my muscles are so weak i genuinely can’t hold it. basically, i’m super gross. (and, as it turns out, dying.)

the ten days of antibiotics go by and i’m sicker than ever. i go get a second chest x ray through my school’s medical center. (which sucks, by the way. the people care but they can’t do shit.) i get a call at the end of the day from them: they want me to uber to the er for a CT. yeah. uber. props to them for not saddling me with an ambulance bill but i was for real dying and they should have done it anyway. my good friend is luckily free to drive me, though, so i scarf down some microwaveable mac and cheese (because college) and off we go.

i sit in the ER with a former friend for six whole hours before i get taken back. i get tested on, i throw up my maccy cheese, and finally at 2am i get told by the er doc, very bitchily, that i need to have a procedure done. i am the type of deathly ill where my brain just isn’t cognitively functioning, so i do not understand what he is saying. i ask if he can wait until the morning so my parents can be there. he rolls his eyes and is just as bitchy to my surgeon father who i call on the phone. i don’t end up having the procedure done, and my mom comes to get me first thing next morning. she takes me to the hospital my dad works at. i get my lung drained!

the x-ray that my school had sent me to get showed that my right lung had almost completely collapsed. for context, each lung can hold about a liter of air. i had 850mL of fluid drained from my pleural space, which is the sac surrounding the lung. it had almost completely collapsed my lung. the procedure was gross but not that painful. they stick a syringe between your ribs and pull the fluid out. you get numbed, so it just feels like weird pressure, but the fluid itself is nasty and murky. i felt better after my thoracentesis—still sick, but better. they kept me overnight for observation, thinking that it was just bad pneumonia from my asthma and that everything was fixed.

everything was not even close to being fixed. i slept like ass and felt even worse. at like 8am they did an echocardiogram, which is basically a heart ultrasound. by 10am i’d been moved up to a different wing and was shaking hands with the guy about to break my sternum open and save my life by stopping my heart for a few hours.

basically, i had a strain of strep that travels in the bloodstream. it had, by sheer force of terrible luck, infected my mitral valve, completely destroying it. we think i had a congenital defect, but the valve was so fucked when i got to the hospital that they literally couldn’t tell. if i hadn’t had surgery when i did, i think i would have only lasted another week. i got open heart surgery to replace my valve with a prosthetic, and then a pacemaker surgery five days later because my rhythm didn’t come back on its own. i got put on hardcore antibiotics for like six weeks that i lowkey became allergic to at the end.

overall, it was not a fun experience but it did dramatically shape me as a human being. i’m now a cyborg and i get cold/numb fingers and toes really easily. also my scars turn bright red when i drink, which is a fun party trick. i’m bluetooth enabled, which is terrifying, and i get special treatment at the airport, which is nice because i like attention. the best part? built in icebreaker for the rest of my life. the worst part was the dying. obviously.

seriously, though, if you’re short of breath for a while, have a fever at any point, and have swollen feet, have someone carry you to the hospital. those three together are big indicators that your heart is fucked.

[the-vibes-are-off]

The Stormlight Archive Volume 1: The Way of Kings’ Review: Chapters 5-8

link to contents page - https://at.tumblr.com/the-vibes-are-off/hey-hey/96xd9ohihrzs

Right, well, you know how I said in my previous post that my COVID test was negative? Yeah so I was swiftly clowned and I am now SICK right on essay season. I have dug out crusty dusty old HP Pavilion to do work but I’m essentially only using it for Tumblr so. My partner is officially in another country now (I know you’re going to read this so pls come back I am dying) so I cant even be babied 24/7 due to the time difference. On season 4 of Criminal Minds already tho so ....

In terms of reading, I am officially back and LOVING it. I am limiting myself to 4 chapters in one setting because that’s how much I want my review sections to cover and writing this takes longer than I thought it would tbh. Lets get to it! 

Spoiler Free Zone:

The split narrative is like definitely managing my problems with maintaining my attention. I will say that since Kaladin’s story line, although definitely interesting don’t get me wrong, would probably get boring if it was all I was reading. I’m more a magic and lore and pretty women fantasy enjoyer than a grr fight fantasy enjoyer since my like gritty lit enjoyment comes from different genres.

Loving the direction that Shallan’s plot line is going in, I’m glad Brandon doesn’t just give the characters what they want straight away and there is at least the illusion that they’re working for something even though its obvious they’ll achieve it eventually.

Mostly, I’m just loving the characters they’re introducing in Shallan’s story, maybe not so much SOME people (a certain person specifically I dislike is beginning, BEGINNING to grow on me) as they’re just so lovely and cute and nice and ugh we love to see it.

*** SPOILERS INCOMING ***

Spoiler Zone:

I’m saying it now, I did initially think Jasnah was just a bitch tbh like I get she’s all important and up her own ass or whatever but she doesn’t appreciate art??? I get Shallan like couldnt just get what she wanted but like .... come on. I was so mad when she just started shouting n shit when Shallan was waiting in the alcove like get a grip pls. However.... turning a boulder to smoke? I had to tab that as cool, like that was just a smart idea to clear it and a cool fckn power to have 

Shallan wanting to steal tho? I love her, a true icon as she should steal from the bitch. I literally just tabbed it love this bc ? Slay like what else could I do. I’d steal it too 

aaaaaaaaand then were back to Kaladin actually just getting fucking shit on at every turn yet again. mf has to carry a bridge?? and then get shot at with arrows?? my goodness give this man a break 

The spren getting a name tho like Syl is acc like carrying Kaladin’s arc for me I want to know what is going on there I am trying so hard not to spoil it for myself

From an arts and humanities student standpoint, I did tab Shallan describing how she views her art and the process of creation as like fleshy and human. Like in both studying and writing poetry I relate to capturing a person or a place or a moment on paper 

And then 2 cuties that I simply had to draw attention to in Brother Kabsal and Yalb. They are iconic and I adore them the end :*

Tab Count:

Cute: 2

Fights: 1

Sad: 1 

Death: 0

Cool: 0 

Wtf wow: 1

Wtf why: 0 

Slay Quotes: 0 

Love this: 2

Hate this: 0

Tab Total:

Cute: 3

Fights: 4

Sad: 1

Death: 2

Cool: 4

Wtf wow: 2

Wtf why: 1

Slay Quotes: 3

Love this: 5

Hate this: 1

PS: If anyone actually reads this far down comment (or post me if you’re feeling generous) your fave tea to drink when you’re sick because I’m going through maybe 10 cups a day and I am swiftly running out....

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

I woke up fatigued with a migraine and a really bad sore throat, so I went into my pantry and took a big whiff of black pepper, and I've lost my sense of smell...

Uh-oh.

Well, I went to CVS and got a covid test, but it came back negative. This same exact thing happened to me in early 2021; I got deathly sick for two weeks and lost my sense of smell, but every single test I took came back negative. Home test, negative. Pharmacy kiosk test, negative. Different pharmacy drive thru test, negative. I still have no clue what I had back then because I had no insurance and couldn't afford to go to the doctor. My mom thinks I have a sinus infection, but even though I have insurance this year, it's the cheapest plan on the market, covering next to nothing, so I still can't afford to get checked out. I wouldn't trust a doctor anyway because every single one I've seen in the last 10 years has been a quack who just wanted to wring money out of me; tests I didn't need, follow-up appointments that cost a hundred dollars just for them to tell me they weren't gonna do anything that day and I needed ANOTHER follow-up in a week, they would draw blood and then do nothing with it until it "expires" then ask to draw more, money money money money money- the United States healthcare system is a con, a racket, a scam, rotten to the very core by capitalism. Doctors don't want people to get better, they want people to keep coming back to give them more money! It's like tech companies making their products shitty in purpose so they break and you have to buy more, doctors give shitty care so you have to follow-up. There's no incentive for them to cure peoole, it's a subscription model!

I bought a bag of cough drops for my throat and some painkillers for my head, and I'm just gonna have to wait it out, same as 2021...

[dollarbin]

Nickel Bin #13:

Loudon Wainwright's Dead Skunk

It's Wednesday, May 29th 2024, and, if all goes well, tomorrow morning the sun will rise, all warm and smiling, and the little birds will tweet merrily as I rise up from sleep, filled with boldness and joy.

Then, after five days spent creeping around in a mask like it's 2021 all over again, my Covid test will come back negative at the very same moment that a New York jury declares Donald Trump a convicted felon.

There will be world peace by lunch time and my students will welcome me back on campus with cheers, eagerly showing off their completed homework.

It will be so sweet. But, what's more, as icing on my turntable, (I don't like cake) I'll return home at the end of the day to find a big box of money sitting on my doorstep. There will be a mixture of denominations, most of them large, inside and it will be a very big, very heavy box. A handwritten note will accompany the bills, a note that will go something like this:

Dear Author of the Dollar Bin,

Please accept this small token of our joint appreciation. We agree with everything you write.

Sincerely,

Stephen Stills and Neil Young

I can see it all now: a vision of the definite and glorious future. Great things are surely coming my way.

And when they come, I will break into song. Probably this one.

But who am I kidding?

The sun will be hot, the birds will be crows, the Covid will linger, Trump will get away with it yet again, peace will remain a dream some of us, and Joni, had, and my students will cheer when I miss another day because, obviously, none of them will have done their homework.

And that big box of money? It won't be on my doorstep. Rather, I'll have this laid out all over my street:

Don't worry about me though folks. Even as everything goes terribly wrong all over again I'll have this wonderfully silly theme song for our collective moment, which is the only piece of music on the planet which uses olfactory in its rhyme scheme, from Wainwright's easy-to-find-in-The-Dollar-Bin Album III in my head all day long.

And therefore I'll be grinning.

UPDATE 24 HOURS LATER: The birds sang, Trump's now indeed a convicted felon, my test was negative and most of my students actually did their homework. And what was I humming in my head through it all? Yeah, you got it, it's dead:

Yeah you got your dead cat and you got your dead dog On a moonlight night you got your dead toad frog Got your dead rabbit and your dead raccoon The blood and the guts they're gonna make you swoon

I'm not home from school yet, but based on the great state of the day so far, I now actively anticipate encountering that big box of money on my doorstep an hour from now. Thanks in advance Neil and Steve!

[sapphicautistic]

they tore up a lot of the rest of the floor today and the particle board (yes particle board) that was underneath it. on the actual wood part of the subfloor they stapled black paper. it looks so strange in here now. i think they're gonna lay plywood (to replace the particle board part of the subfloor. WHY was there particle board down there.) in the kitchen & hallway tomorrow, and after that either lay flooring or pull up the particle board & flooring in the living room our stove has not been plugged in for... a couple weeks i think? i forgot when mitigation moved it. food is in weird stashes in several different rooms bc we don't always have access to the kitchen. or to the backup kitchen we set up in the corner of another room after being told we might not have kitchen access for a few weeks to a few months (god i'm so glad that was wrong) we do have the fridge plugged in fortunately, we really thought we were gonna have to live out of a cooler for awhile and we borrowed a cooler to prepare, i'm so relieved to not need it

it's nerve wracking being in the kitchen though, the subfloor has been exposed for awhile and i've had to be hypervigilant about chasing down every tiny piece of food i drop and not doing dishes much since my dyspraxia makes water go everywhere when i do dishes. i'm generally the main dish doer in this house so we've been using a lot of paper plates etc but they're gonna make us have floors soon!!

i gotta be the workers' point person tomorrow and wake up 90 minutes earlier than usual to let them in. i'm so looking forward to this being over.

i'm so tired. i'm so sick. i got paranoid that i had covid for a minute bc i'm developing symptoms that aren't typically this bad with just post exertion ME stuff but all the tests are coming back negative and like. i don't leave the house more than a couple times a month, my odds of exposure are so small. i see like 5 people ever and they're all more careful than most abt covid and none of them are or have been sick. half the time i mask around the ones i don't live w anyways.

so i think it's just post exertion stuff, it's more of a change in intensity than in kind anyways. it's upsetting and jarring to have physical proof of getting sicker though.

like i KNOW it's bad to push myself this hard all the time but what other choice do i have? and when it's so nebulous it's easier to dismiss the damage i'm doing to my body. getting a reminder that it's a real concrete thing, in the form of new worsened symptoms is very disturbing.

i don't want to get sicker. i am making myself sicker. i don't want to live my life as small as is now safe for me so i push past what is safe to do and so i get sicker and sicker and my life gets smaller and smaller. and it's not always a choice. who is going to help me get necessary tasks done? everyone i know is disabled or overworked, almost all are both.

anyways welcome to my tired mind 🤪 by following this blog you're reading the journal of one very exhausted lesbian who just needs to lie in bed for a month or two and not have to eat or go to dr appts and then i'll be fine

[kareenvorbarra]

bitching about work-related things

okay so. i stayed home sick Monday-Wednesday this week with a cold. i felt really shitty for a few days but nothing unusual, i didn't have a fever, the home covid test was negative. yesterday i text my boss to tell her i'm staying home a third day, and she says that if i'm out sick for three days in a row, i need a doctor's note saying i'm okay to come back in. not a doctor's note as an excuse for being out this long, but after three days i can't return to work unless a doctor says it's okay.

i didn't know this until my boss told me - my previous job (which was in a different part of the same organization) had a similar rule, but it only kicked in if you were out for five days in a row, which i think only happened to me once and it was because i had mono (so i had already been to the doctor to get the diagnosis and it was easy to get her to write me the letter)

so yesterday i called the clinic a couple of times trying to figure out what to do, because i was pretty sure i would feel okay enough to go to work today (Thursday), but nothing really came of it, I couldn't get in touch with my doctor or any of her nurses, the nurses i talked to at the urgent care were very nice but they said they couldn't write me a note without actually seeing me, and i could kind of tell they didn't want me to have to go to the urgent care when it was pretty clear i didn't need to. finally someone told me that the doctor's office would call me the next day and figure out what i needed to do. so i text my boss and tell her i couldn't get a note, i'm going to be out at least one more day, it's fine.

today i didn't mind missing work again because i'm still a little bit sick, though not really sick enough by shitty US calling-in-sick standards (i have gone to work feeling like this, most people i know have gone to work sicker than this, even though people probably shouldn't be doing that). i waited all morning for someone to call me, nobody did. so i went on the website of my health care provider and apparently they're having trouble with their phones and website right now. i can't log into the site that would let me send and receive messages from my doctor, i can't even look up the doctor on the website to find her phone number.

anyway i feel insane and i can't believe i'm here tearing my hair out and making a bunch of phone calls trying to go back to work after having a mildly bad cold. has anyone else ever worked somewhere that doesn't allow you to come back in after being out sick for THREE DAYS without a doctor saying you're okay? maybe if health care was free i wouldn't mind just trying to schedule an appointment at urgent care, but i don't want to have to pay for an appointment i don't need just to be able to go back to work? i truly do not mind missing work, they will be fine without me for another day, and tbh it's my workplace's fault for having this rule, but i'm also a little worried that my boss is going to be annoyed at me for having trouble getting this doctor's note...like i'm not trying hard enough or something (even though this is 100% a problem of my workplace's own creation)

[awwishfulthinking]

This has definitely been the worst first week of the year of my entire life:

(Health stuff, tmi, etc)

Right after New Year's Eve I start feeling a little off but overall I'm okay. Then come my work day and I have to call out because I'm feeling ill.

Felt slightly feverish and have a brain fog all day. Then that night I got hit with the worst muscle and back cramps I've ever felt, to the point where I couldn't really move.

Next day: did a covid self test. Results were negative. Felt mostly okay all of this day (Wednesday), just super tired. Was aiming to work Thursday.

Thursday: still felt weak, because I had been dealing with another chronic health condition on top of all this; went F it, and decided to call out sick the rest of the week just to be safe. Then later that day after lunch, even though I was just eating rice porridge, I get hit with the absolute worst food poisoning I have ever had and it was Bad.

End up in bed for the rest of the day, only woke up at like 7:30 pm to eat and stuff, before heading to bed again.

Today: everything hurts again ahhhhh

At least... I took the remaining two days off of work and have another two days (my weekend) to recover. Hopefully this means I've gotten all the bad health stuff out of the way early this year because man......

[writingintheshadowsforever]

Bear with me you guys please I had a cold flare up really bad yesterday and spent the whole night with this persistent cough, a runny nose, and woke up this morning to find me sense of smell and taste gone. My senses will come back in about a day or two but its still super annoying. This is like the sixth time this year I've lost my senses because of a stupid cold, and the annoying part. I've never experienced this in the past whenever I got sick. Loss of taste and smell is something new to me, and I know its not COVID because every time I would go get tested for it. The test would come back negative.

But yeah I feel a little better today but I can barely breathe still, and the cough is lingering. I had to call out of work and I do have an article to write for a Fiverr client before tomorrow. The article won't take long so I'll try to push out a quick fic tonight.

I'm brainstorming part 3 to Queen Ramonda x Reader

I'm so over being sick though its like every time I get better the kids come over with a sniffle, and next thing I know I'm sick. My mom has babysitting nonstop for the past 2 weeks, and I swear I don't accomplish everything I want next year. Moving out on my own, or finding a roommate who doesn't constantly have kids will be the one thing I manage to do. I can't take another year of this.

[lemonbalmgirl]

Plague House Update, 3/22

I took my first COVID test last night, since we aren't sure when Roommate had the exposure that infected her. Currently, I'm testing negative.

Roommate's mom brought her Paxlovid from the doctor's yesterday and my mom brought us some essential groceries. Bless good moms!

Roommate feels a lot better today, though her voice is still mostly gone. She spiked a fever Monday night and while that went down some on Tuesday, she was still running warm and experiencing chills and complete lack of hunger.

The rest of this is just me having feels.

I think I touched base with everyone I interacted with over the weekend, aside from customers at the Saturday event (where I was masked and did remember to use at least some hand sanitizer). I'm dealing with a lot of guilt around potentially exposing friends, especially since it may fuck up some of their work opportunities.

I honestly can't remember if Roommate mentioned that the teacher she was subbing for tested positive on Saturday - I don't think she did (or maybe she didn't know until later Sunday) because I finished off some food she'd eaten her fill of and she would have said something usually.

If I'd known we'd had an exposure risk, I wouldn't have gone out on Sunday. I especially wouldn't have ridden in a vehicle and eaten with friends unmasked.

(Apparently it's also good that my mom helped me with groceries yesterday, because she informed her husband about the house's positive status and he banned her from coming back over until we're clear. This caused me a minor freak out, since all of my stuff for the booth is currently in my garage, "decontaminating" from being in the house. Mom was going to pick up Girlfriend tomorrow, come and get my stuff (Girlfriend would put stuff in and out of the car trunk), and drop them off at Booth Partner's place. Mom can still transport Girlfriend if needed. Luckily, my awesome friend Minnie is willing to shift her plans tonight and take stuff to Booth Partner's for me. Goddamn, good friends are fucking lifesavers.)

I really hope my booth partner keeps testing negative, since she's in her 70s and one of our biggest events is 2 weeks from this weekend. She's definitely becoming more anxious as time passes, which I understand, but this is also on top on how anxious she normally is before events. I hope Girlfriend can handle the weekend okay, though Booth Partner is pretty good about apologizing after she's had a freak out.

Later today, I'll be going over, well, everything about the booth with Girlfriend. I'll focus on going over the point-of-sale system, since Booth Partner always appreciates me mostly handling that part, even though she can do it herself when necessary. Luckily, Girlfriend has more familiarity with knives/blades than I do, so she should be quicker on the update than me with Booth Partner's wares.

The booth will be next to Booth Partner's roommate's booth, so I'm hoping that provides some grounding (though it may also just frustrate Booth Partner, since she and her roommate have very different ways of doing things). Another pair of friends are also vending at the event and Girlfriend has met/hung out with them before - they're going to check in on Girlfriend and Booth Partner for me and again, hopefully having familiar faces around will help some.

I'll have my phone by me all weekend, in case they need something, but I hate how useless I feel about the whole damn thing.