#healthcare experiences

[inkskinned]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[blairamok]

job interview tomorrow at the zoo, wish me luck!!!

[balkanradfem]

I've managed to curate my small misogyny-free space both online and in real life, and now I'm no longer used to misogyny, it's no longer normal to me. So when I accidentally glimpse it, I'm not desensitized to it, I'm always shocked and unbelieving.

If I notice a m*n talking about a woman like she's 'just some ***' I'm immediately aware that this is in fact a demonic creature who needs to be burned. If I see anyone using a slur against women or pretending women are at fault for any of the world's issues, the hair on my neck stands up at the unbelievable amount of hatred.

Anyone implying that women should be in any way controlled, punished, forced to do anything against their will or dedicate their lives to anyone but themselves, is preposterous and villainous to me, I'm at loss that someone could even think that way about a half of the human population who are creators and administrators of life.

I know I am in a bubble, but it feels different knowing deeply in your heart that all of this is not normal, that casual or normalized hatred against women is absolutely insane, that it's sharp and painful and dehumanizing at every turn. It's insane to realize that women just have to live like this, believing all of that is normal, that I once lived like this, wondering what was wrong with me and why I couldn't just be what everyone was expecting me to.

I think still, if I can make a small space without this hate present in it, without anyone or anything implying we should be anything but free, anything but full complete human beings with absolute control over our lives, then we can strengthen and grow these spaces, and get more women in, have more women experience what life is like when hatred is removed. There is hope for women.

[shamebats]

[marcysdreamydays11]

Yes, yes I am and that same man denied people healthcare and allowed them to suffer slowly and die and succumb to illnesses. He just got shot quick and done he didn't have to suffer for months slowly dying LMAO yeah we laughing. We're mourning over the 16k americans who have been suffering and dying from these horrible illnesses and diseases etc this guy was shot done and quick he got the easy way out. Y'all wont solve gun violence so we'll solve our problems with gun violence.

[loki-zen]

Cynical prediction (non-election-related):

One big eventual consequence of widespread genAI implementation is going to be the revelation that a lot of things we assumed were checked by more than one person before they went out to the general public never actually were, not in the detail you'd hope for at least - we've actually been relying on the diligence and competence of individuals who were not actually tested on or rewarded for displaying this.

[ashadowofburnedoutstardust]

"What if several executives were shot every few weeks instead of kids?"

What do you think the practical applications of learning from a thought experiment may be?

[nightmarish-fallen-angel]

... this is incredibly hurtful and transphobic.

I shouldn't have to detransition to talk about the issues I face because I am transmasc, and implying such is fucking awful. We are not "obsessed with our status as AFABs" (those of us that are). It's not bioessentialist to state that some of us experience misogyny or bigotry relating to our bodies.

And they are literally just calling us "misguided little girls" and saying the TERFS are right (also wild to acknowledge terf rhetoric that primarily targets transmasc/some nonbinary people then... agree with it???)

[isbergillustration]

Apropos Sad Wet Scandinavian Zombies;

[faeryaesther]

I'm not going to dive deep and take it seriously about how these ppl were throwing stuffs under that video of jannik visibly trembling/shaking but, how fucked in your heads are you to realise that bodies function differently and reaction to that was the result of a lot of things other than everything you fuckheads mentioned.

[mitsmebinch]

walking through the hospital i work at hearing multiple coworkers laughing about how funny it is the uhc ceo got merked. sometimes it is a good day

[cherryblossomshadow]

Ivermectin

Transcript:

The bizarre thing about people shouting either "IVERMECTIN IS HORSE DEWORMER" or "THE ELITES ARE HIDING THIS FROM US" is that both of those things are just obviously wrong.

We've looked at Ivermectin for a bunch of potential uses and it seems like there is a small chance that, at very high doses, it might help some people with certain cancers, but if it does help (which is unlikely) it probably won't help much. There's one trial recruiting patients to test it in combination with an immunotherapy drug right now.

The thing about ivermectin is that it isn't well-absorbed by mammals. This makes it very useful as an anti-parasitic because worms absorb it readily. So it poisons parasitic worms but not people.

But it is absorbed a bit and at high enough doses, it has a bunch of other effects on the human body, many of them negative.

Early in the pandemic, there were some studies in individual cells (rather than whole bodies) that showed it might help control the virus. When the "health influencer" space glommed onto that, we actually didn't know for sure whether it would be helpful or not. But because it was cheap and available, some people (lots, actually) really did started dosing themselves with veterinary ivermectin. By the time studies on the efficacy were published (which showed it wasn't at all effective) the damage had been done.

And so we ended up with ivermectin (a drug that real people take for real diseases) becoming a culture war signifier, which is FUCKING STUPID.

Now, Mel Gibson has friends who are in remission from cancer after taking ivermectin (and probably also the treatments recommended by their oncologists, as that is almost always how these stories go). And he and Joe Rogan, during their conversation, seem ASTOUNDED that people in cancer research are ignoring it. They seem to think that every elite knows that, if they so much as GLANCE at ivermectin, they're getting fucking fired.

Except that researchers have done tons of studies on whether ivermectin could possibly be useful in cancer treatment because, if it is, that would be really great! People seem to think that pharmaceutical companies are the only ones who do cancer research but actually they mostly just bring drugs to market. Most cancer research is funded by the government or done by universities.

As much as we've looked, it doesn't seem likely that ivermectin is a good cancer drug because, at the doses where it might have an effect on a cancer, it'll have all kinds of other nasty effects on the human body, like damage to the nervous system and brain.

But, despite that, we're looking, because for some people who are dying, it's worth checking to see if it would be useful in combination with other therapies.

Cancers are very hard to treat because cancer cells are very similar to /our/ cells. Trying to kill a parasite is relatively easy because worms are very different from people. Cancer cells are descended from us, they are human cells gone rogue, so it's hard to attack them without attacking the rest of the body. That's the whole reason why it's so much easier to kill parasites than it is to kill cancer cells.

Fenbendazole is an even weirder thing to get all excited about as an "alternative treatment" because we've studied it for cancer treatment because it acts on the microtubules that control cell replication. That's how a lot of chemotherapy drugs work (including one I took), targeting cells that replicate a lot. So fenbendazole's whole thing is that it might have been a good cancer treatment because it would be another option as a toxic cell-killing chemo drug.

But, because fenbendazole is (again) not very well absorbed by mammals, it is (again) a great drug for killing parasites and not a great drug for treating cancers.

I just…I kinda can't believe we are this incapable of just leaving cancer research to cancer researchers. Ivermectin is a medicine for humans. It's not a panacea. At low doses, it basically does nothing because it isn't easily absorbed by humans and, when it is, it hangs out almost entirely with fatty tissues.

It would be amazing if a cheap, well-understood drug were broadly useful in cancer treatment. Ivermectin just /isn't/.

I have a private theory that fenbendazole and ivermectin are so present in these conversations 100% because they are known to cure real diseases (parasitic infections) and they are easy to purchase extremely cheaply because they are available for animals.

That means people can actually take them, which creates both government warnings to NOT TAKE ANIMAL MEDICINES and many stories of people taking the animal medicines and (mostly) being just fine. That's just a tremendous mix for creating discourse and turning it into a culture war thing.

And look, if people are taking ivermectin WHILE taking the treatments their doctor recommends, that's stupid but unlikely to kill anyone.

But the way it was discussed on the JRE, it makes me think some people will ONLY take these medicines, and they will not take their drugs their doctors recommend, and those people will die. And that's fucked.

[whitesnakewine]

Im still obsessed with the standard Orochimaru set for his lab from the light novel

You know that thing where odd place pizza restaurants with the best pizzas are often front for drugs dealers?

That's Otogakure and Orochimaru's hideout with their infinite medical resources and free healthcare

[mayashwood]

TW: Gross surgery/medical stuff.

I've always been the wrong kind of trans woman you know? Like, I'm a pervert, I'm profoundly mentally ill, I'm clocky as fuck, I'm 6'2", I weigh 260lbs, and I go around saying things like "for me being trans is a spiritual experience..." and "I knew I wanted to be castrated long before I knew I was trans...", like I'm just a TERFs wet dream, and a lolcow waiting to happen.

Anyway, to really put the icing on the cake, I'm now one of those inconvenient trans women who had a really bad experience with gender affirming surgery. Fundraised for 2 years to get an orchiectomy, then had to go and get a serious infection and nearly die about it.

Puts you in a really awkward spot, like my scrotum literally burst, and I feel guilty about complaining about it, cuz it feels like you're letting the side down, and making us look bad in front of the cis. 🙃

But the bottom line is, surgery always comes with risks, gender affirming surgery is no different, cis people have complications from "elective" surgery all the time, many of which are gender affirming, and despite the close call, this is still the best decision I ever made. Fuck all the transphobes.

[beautifulqueerexistence]

One Week Post-Op (DI Top Surgery update, TW MENTION: Surgical procedure, surgical complications, medical transition, top surgery drains, Hematoma)

Wow, holy crap, my surgery was a week ago already!

I met with my surgeon yesterday for my first follow up! It was really nice to be able to talk about the small hematoma (a blot clot, more or less!) in my left side, and have her concretely tell me that it’s breaking down the way it’s supposed to, that the neon color drainage IS normal (for a person with a hematoma)… And I got my right side drain out!!! The left will continue to stay in until (at least) my follow up a week from today. The hematoma needs to reliquify slowly and drain, either via my drain or by spreading to the surrounding porous tissue by converting to bruising. That being said, my bruising is gonna WORSEN before it’ll get better, but bruising is a good sign that my hematoma is healing. Swelling is pretty consistent on the left, and she said that everything looks amazing, all things considered!

I realized yesterday that I will never again have to deal with underboob sweat, that weird “tuck your shirt under them so your skin doesn’t stick and get all sweaty gross,” or having to “rest them” while leaning on a table. That was a trippy realization, that at some point I did that for the last time, and now I’m just free of it. I was able to soooorta tilt to my right while sleeping last night, and as a side sleeper, I’m ecstatic about that. I looked at my pre-op photos for the first time since surgery this morning and I’m gonna be honest… I’m already forgetting what they felt like. It feels so dissociated bc my brain just so easily clicked into “Yep, this is what my chest is supposed to look like.” Even with the incisions and bruising it still feels like MY (flat) chest just had some surgery. And that’s a super fucking cool feeling, having my chest feel like MINE, finally feel familiar.

My mom thanked my surgeon yesterday for “that (my) smile” and said “it was an overnight difference with him. I can just see him glowing with relief.” I think that’s a pretty accurate anecdote to leave this update off on. More to come as things progress.

Side note- If anyone has any questions about top surgery, drains, hematomas, or anything adjacent, I’m happy to talk! My DMs are always open. I’m by no means an expert or qualified doctor, but I’m always happy to share my experience in the hope that it helps someone else.