#i can't even get the surgery i medically need because i had a panic attack

[insipid-drivel]

The hardest thing I've ever had to accept about myself is that I am not worthy of being loved by anyone, no matter how hard I try. I'm a categorically unlovable person, and regardless of how much I wish even my own family loved me, they never will, and I just have to learn to live with it. I know my mom loves me, but I don't deserve it for all she's endured and suffered because of me. At least my siblings were wise enough to learn to feel nothing for me and aren't wasting their time with me anymore.

If you have people you truly love in your life, don't take them for granted. Love is a privilege that I will never earn regardless of how much of it I try to give and show, and I'm very sad that my life is going to be as lonely as it's going to be in spite of how hard I tried to cling to the parts of me that my family seemed to like.

It was never enough. I was never enough. I never will be.

Cherish the people you have.

[tales-of-a-seahorse]

Yesterday I had an appointment with a therapist I had to stop seeing last year because my insurance was changing. But now that I have different insurance I could start seeing him again. After talking with him for about half the appointment, explaining where I was at with everything and how I feel like I still don't have a good handle on dealing with my trauma responses related to the csection, he told me that he feels like it's pretty safe to say that I have PTSD from it. ...Which was interesting to hear.

What I mean by that is that it took me well over a year to even be willing to label my birthing experiences traumatic. I would call it disorienting. I would call it stressful. I was willing to call it hard to process. But for a long time I couldn't label it a trauma because it didn't fit my understanding of what trauma was- at least in the sense of emotional trauma. I always understood emotional trauma to be something like:

(1) Person A is harmed by actions caused by Person B.

(2) The actions of Person B were either malicious or born out of the negligence of Person B.

Under these two premises of trauma, in my view, I could not have experienced a trauma. I, as Person A, would have needed to be harmed by a malicious or negligent Person B. So, who is Person B? My OB/GYN? No, I don't think so. Her actions were the opposite of negligent or malicious. Even knowing I didn't want to have a csection, I can honestly say I think she made the right call to tell me that I needed a csection. She did everything right for me. Does that make my baby Person B? My baby harmed me by, what, not tolerating labor and having non-reassuring fetal heart tones? I doubt any of that was intentional, considering I don't even think they were a sentient, fully conscious being in the womb. There doesn't really seem to be anyone left to label Person B at that point. Which means with those premises making up my understanding of trauma, I couldn't be traumatized by my csection.

So, then why am I having the responses that I am having to my birthing experience. Why am I asking myself questions like "did I even give birth?"? Why am I having stress dreams about having to have awake surgery again? Why can't I lay flat on my back without having a panic attack? It didn't make sense and no amount of reading about birth- from medical journals to feminist theory- was making it better (in fact, it might have made me worse, but thats a whole other post). I found myself spinning my wheels. I was stuck in a feeling I didn't understand and couldn't seem to name. When I started telling other people about it, they were labeling it as a trauma, even though I still felt like it didn't make sense to me. But eventually, I gave up fighting it and accepted the label because it seemed like it was the only way to get people to understand me. I could only make my experiences make sense to other people if I used language they understood.

Upon explaining all of this to my therapist, he told me that he hadn't ever considered trauma as something specifically caused by another person. He then went on to be the first person to ever define trauma for me in a way that allowed my experiences to fit into that definition. He defined trauma as something that is so far outside the realm of your everyday experiences, so far outside of what is expected that your brain gets stuck on it. It doesn't fit into the space already laid out and the brain doesn't know what to do with it.

This, had I not already accepted the trauma label, probably would have tipped me over into it more willingly. Giving birth, even in it's most uneventful form, isn't something a person does all the time. I wasn't expecting a csection. I was, in fact, in denial about my own csection risk. I was sure that I was just going to be able to labor and give birth like millions of people have. Out of the ordinary and unexpected, check and check. My brain is definitely stuck on it. I have a 150 page word doc filled with my thoughts, feelings, and research notes on the topic of csections. For a long time I had to force myself to think of anything else, I just ruminated on it. Letting it turn over and over in my head. And describing it as not fitting into the space available really struck me because that is exactly how this feels. It's like having a piece from a 50 piece puzzle (you know the big pieces) that I'm trying to fit into a space from a 500 piece puzzle. The space isn't big enough. But my brain seems to be convinced that if I just keep trying, eventually it'll fit.

Maybe it will eventually fit. I suppose only time will tell. But for now, it feels like a step in the right direction that I am able to say, honestly, that my birth experience was traumatic. I'm not just tolerating the label so I can be understood. I am claiming it. I have birth trauma. And accepting that label changes nothing. It doesn't change my decision to have another baby. It doesn't make me anymore or less excited to be pregnant again. It doesn't change my feelings about labor the second time around. It's an interesting feeling, that I'm curious to sit with for longer and see where it takes me. Who knows what kind of revelations wait for me now that I'm to a place of self-acceptance.

[gamergirlbonestaskforce141riot]

Please ignore this one if you mention this detail anywhere in your story. How does Riot handle beauty procedures after the incident in Transistria? Is she ok with a hairdresser going behind her back and touching her head from behind? Did anything change in her beauty routine?

Short answer: Badly :D

Long answer:

She was never a girly girl exactly, but she visited the hairdresser ocasionally, got her nails done when on leave, sometimes went to get a facial, got a massage or had waxing done. Little things that she slowly started doing for herself, to feel pampered, usually after being nagged by Soap, Mini, or their mother. Even Laswell from time to time surprised her with a spa voucher, or plainly ordered to 'go to X' and X was something cosmetical for her.

So by the time when she was more comfortable doing those things for herself, dressing up, wearing makeup, buying cute clothes, Transnistria. And as Soap would put it, all the steps she took forward, now she stumbled down the stairs.

There are better days than others, of course, but she can't have anyone approaching her from behind if she's not expecting it or is warned about it. The most likely reaction would be being decked in the face or worse, or she'll just plainly freeze and have a panic attack.

She can deal with being in a lift/elevator, but if she can use the stairs she prefers that. Anything to not be trapped in a room too small.

She can't deal with male presenting people in a medical setting. In Moldova Laswell had to threaten bodily harm to make male medics leave the room because she was freaking out so hard that she thought she'd pass out. Laswell had to swear she'd be inside the surgery room with a gun, and that she'd use it if any of them tried to touch her wrongly. (And she did)

So, about what you actually asked (I always babble off topic)

At first it was an absolutely nope. No one touching her. Cutting her own hair and all. The first time she consented into being touched was when she got the tattoo in Taipei when Laswell had her in hiding. And because it was a female tattoo artist.

Slowly, choosing carefully the interactions, she is more open to have things done. But, with subterfuge.

She'd wait for any of the Lastochkas to mention going to the hairdresser to tag along. Reasoning that if they're in the same room and they see something weird going on, they'd say something. But in reality, is just the need to being with someone.

Laswell tried to gift her a massage voucher again, she counter attacked by buying another and booking the same time for both, so they'd go together.

Soap tried to book her a facial, she dragged him too to have another. He loved it but had to suffer the teasing of the rest of the guys for looking so fresh.

[maintitle]

I watched DS9's It's Only A Paper Moon yesterday, and I want to talk about it because it wasn't until right now that I understood why it slapped me across the face so much, and why I think that episode is so important to me.

This may be triggering to people with disabilities, heart conditions, disabilities from COVID, or medical or military related trauma. Read ahead at your own risk.

I developed a heart condition at 18 from the H1N1 virus (which is why I tell all my friends to take preventive measures if they had COVID, because these kinds of new and unknown viruses can have long-lasting effects on you we don't know yet). While I had a lot of tests and missed a lot of school that year, the effects of that wouldn't be clear for years until at 24 I got a pacemaker/defibrillator put in in what we later found out was a life-saving surgery. The trauma of that event took a long time to catch up with me. While I'm still facing symptoms and limitations from that period of my life, the immediate danger has passed. But it took A LONG time for the fear of what happened to me, the PTSD of that event, to catch up with me. I've dealt with huge panic attacks and hyper-obsessive fears regarding my heart since around twenty-nine, fears I live with and fight through in therapy to this day.

As someone facing those issues, I hooked onto A Paper Moon this watch in a way I haven't before. The issue deals with the loss of Nog's leg in battle earlier in the season, a traumatic experience he had in the middle of a warzone only halfway through their defense. During his recovery, Julian begins to play recordings of I'll Be Seeing You, put together by Vic Fontaine, a semi-aware holodeck program that is really popular on DS9.

Nog returns from surgery at the beginning of the episode, and is walking with a cane. Multiple people on staff, including Julian himself, is concerned over the use of the cane because medically, he shouldn't have a need for it. He shouldn't even be in pain based off of what they know from the new leg and the nerves around it, but he's in pain and having trouble walking. A lot of the arguments in the early episode revolve around people talking behind Nog's back about how they can't understand why he has the cane or why he's in pain when there doesn't appear to be a medical reason for it.

The answer is actually incredibly simple: It's not the leg, it's the trauma from loosing the leg. Nog, who is still incredibly young in the episode, had somehow seen himself as invincible, a young cadet wanting to prove Ferengi can be incredible members of Starfleet, who had seen quite a bit of action and was cocksure, and in one moment he not only lost that bravado, but he also learned he was mortal in one horrifying singular moment.

Obviously, Nog is lucky enough to live in an era where it's possible to replace a lost limb, but that doesn't change the fact that for a horrifying unmentioned, maybe SEVERAL DAY period of time, he was left on a makeshift bed, listening to fighting outside, knowing that he could be attacked at any time, could die at any time from factors not even exterior to him. And now he just has to... go back to life after that horrifying dose of his own mortality.

The only thing that gets him by is that recording of I'll Be Seeing You by Vic Fontaine, because that's the only thing that he had to take him out of that horrifying situation while he laid on that makeshift gurney. The episode explores that idea by having him play it while trying to sleep, and eventually go to the holodeck and try to live in it with Vic after he was shamed for being in bed too long and for listening to said music for too long.

The funny thing is, Vic is the ONLY person, INCLUDING THE COUNSELOR ONBOARD DS9, who recognizes that his pain is valid. Vic, as a hologram, recognizes that his pain isn't crazy, it's as real as the injury he experienced, because Vic has a perspective that none of these hyper-worn-down Starfleet Officers or parental figures in his life has: His LIFE is a series of not-real instances of pain, of happiness, of dealing with other people he knows are holograms. Vic isn't like Moriarty in TNG, he's not like other semi-sentient Holodeck programs, he KNOWS he's a program but he also finds that life to be very real FOR HIM. The feelings of one of his bandmates are as real to him as the problems of Julian walking in to talk about one of the many women he simps for not feeling the same, because despite knowing they're not physically real, he CARES for them and takes their lives seriously.

Nog's feelings are real. His PAIN is real, even if a doctor can't understand why. Nog's in the middle of a long, extended panic attack where he's internalizing a near life-ending medical emergency and doesn't know how to DEAL with it. He loses himself in the program because it's the only place he can get past the trauma of the event, he's hostile to others who try and look at him with pity or as a hero because he doesn't want to be DEFINED by that pain. Vic knows this, and builds him up in other ways. Gives him a life to live, watches him slowly not need the cane and not even realize it, gives him tools and an environment to cope and generally is the only person that validates that trauma.

The episode is maybe one of the series best mental health episodes possible, and DS9 is generally REALLY good with these issues. As someone with medical trauma, I saw myself in Nog. I'm sure others who have experienced disabilities in the military see even more of themselves in him. We relate to it because we're constantly belittled or told our pain is in our heads, when the truth is we FEEL it. I feel it multiple times a month, when I lay down and go to bed and lay on my side just right that I can feel my heartbeat, and then I overanalyze it, and then that leads to a panic attack and me grabbing a pressure cuff or a fingertip pulse whatever it is to see if I'm okay, but by then I can't come down from the panic attack until it's done. I feel it when I'm helping someone move or if I'm on a casual walk and I feel my heartbeat spike, and my mind overreacts and wonders if this is normal exertion or a heart attack.

Not FEELS these things. It's real pain. And Vic doesn't invalidate it. It's as real as the injury itself, and it's not one that he'll ever truly conquer. But the episode gives him time, space and kindness to help him find coping mechanisms in order to continue with his life and dreams, and THAT'S Trek to me. A future where these things can be understood and worked through, without the constant shame that people with disabilities face when describing the trauma responses they suffer on a day-to-day basis.

In the end, Nog is heard. The main characters come to understand that what he felt is real. The episode gives him the time to work through complicated PTSD, and while he's not okay at the end, he's learning to live with it. And it's really fucking special to see this explored with a character we saw grow up into a man, on a show where the future is meant to be better than the present, written by writers in 1998 where they had no right to handle this as well as they did. This was an exceptionally special episode of television.

[oddballwriter]

EMH and MH guys with an s/o who has a severe irrational medical anxiety? Puts off doctors appointments, gets squeamish with imagery or media depicting medical facilities- If I ever had to go in for a major surgery it would be the end of the world. /lh Sitting in the waiting room to get my wisdom teeth taken, almost sent me into cardiac arrest. I am an adult, and I clung to my poor mother. I will cling to you. I just need..someone to give me a hug after a checkup and not find it stupid, man, like- please help,,hold my hand ; ;

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Warnings: mentions of phobias and irrational fears, panic attacks, and therapy 

Author’s Snip: I only did Tim, Brian, and Evan. I hope that's okay. If you wanted more then tell me who you wanted

I’ll shut up now. Enjoy! And don’t be afraid to request.

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Tim

He gets it

In a way

He doesn't really like being in medical settings either. They remind him of when he was a kid and his mom and doctors were trying to find out what was happening with him (hc)

Tim can obviously manage it but he understands if you can't

He won't ask why you're scared, that's your business

He'll be there for you the entire time and help you calm down

He'll say "Nothing bad is going to happen", not in a "get over it" way, but in a reassuring way.

Nothing bad is going to happen. If it's a check up, they're just going to talk with you and look over whatever it is that they want to look over

If they actually need to do something, like a surgery or test, he knows it can be terrifying on it's own, but you are literally going to be in a room where everyone in there is legally required to know what they are doing and even have a paper that they can only get if they know what they are doing

Tim will drive you to the appointment himself if it helps you commit more

Brian

When you first tell him he laughs and then profusely apologizes when he realizes that you are scared in the way that people usually are

He sort of knows what to do but also doesn't

Tim is really his only example of someone who has some sort of issues with hospital settings. But like I mentioned Tim still goes through with it even if he feels uncomfortable in the atmosphere

He sort of just encourages you to be brave

He won't tell you to suck it up or that you're being dramatic. You have an actually fear, maybe even a full on phobia, so he won't dismiss your feelings at all

Brian will take you to your appointments and even be in there with you in the doctor's office

He doesn't mind sitting there and waiting as you have the check up so long as you are okay with him being there and it helps you be more calm

Evan

It's the same start out with Brian except it doesn't get properly put into his head until you actually have a moment where you canceled because you were too scared, or worse, actually have a panic attack

By then, he's apologized over and over about underplaying your fear

He tries his best to help you by either reassuring that you will be fine and that you are in a room with people who know what they are doing

He tries his best to be there for you

Suggests that you maybe talk to a therapist or someone like that to help you with your fear. Maybe you learned to be that way or something happened. He doesn't know.

What he does know is that you have a fear that could get in the way of a regular life depending on if you have any conditions that need to be checked on, so you really wants you to go see someone so that you're able to control it

[darklovecat]

other glow up tips?

My Experience with Lasik Eye Surgery (Trans-PRK).

Investing in laser eye surgery was one of my most important parts of my physical glow up. My eyes are my best features, they're pretty, big round, dark brown, but didn't exactly work (5 dioptries). Either way, you couldn't tell because they were either hidden behind a frame of glasses, blodshot and half-closed due to lenses, or covered by extremely unnatural looking bright blue color contacts (God please forgive me). I ditched them all, got them lasered and look and feel 100% better.

Lenses.

I hate them. All the times I dropped and lost them, all the times my eyes would turn watery the moment I put them on, and the one time it got stuck in my eye and I couldn't find it and almost had a panic attack. This is my own experience, I'm not an ophthalmologist, so take this with a grain of salt (or two) and do your own research please. I'm here to share my own personal experience. My eyes used to start tearing like crazy just with soft breezes of wind and at times it was hard to keep my eyes open even though I followed all instructions. Lenses made my eyes look hooded as well and after getting my eyes lasered they don't have that droopy look, my eye area looks so much more open and awake now. I hated the discomfort, the redness, the sensitivity, having to put them on, having to put them out, having them. There could be a million explanations for these but it was just easier for me to get my eyes lasered and call it a day.

The surgery.

You put on your surgical gown and a hair cap, you lay down, they give you local anesthesia so you can't feel any pain in your eye. Laser beam for 10 seconds (felt more like 10 minutes). The surgery itself does not feel painful, just extremely uncomfortable, you can't close or move your eyes for 10 seconds, my surgeon counted back from 10 but I swear it felt like an eternity. I cried while they were lasering my eyes because I always do and I kept pinching myself and shaking my legs because I felt very nervous and was probably PMSing, but there is no actual pain, just intense discomfort and pressure, the actual pain only comes after the anesthesia wears off after a few hours, I would say it is a 7.5/10, you wear black goggles for 2 weeks, your eyes sting like crazy, it's like having dry eyes 24/7 for 2 weeks. And then 2 weeks later you wake up and your eyes actually work (miracle). I remember taking them off for the first time after weeks and being absolutely shocked about how well I could see (and at how terrible my eyebrows looked).

1 year later...

I wake up, I have 10/10 vision, and I love it. I feel like I can see better now than ever, I don't have to deal with eye sensitivities due to lenses, or worry about accidentally sitting on my glasses, I feel prettier too. There's another thing that feels very hard for me to describe, but I feel like I am directly living in the world, I feel more in touch with the world, my lenses and glasses always felt like a barrier. After your surgery, you need to wear sunglasses for 6 months. Not an issue, you should protect your eyes in any case and protecting them from the sun's UV rays has always been essential for me regardless. They need to be big especially on the sides so your eyes are protected.

To sum it up, here are my tips:

Go to a very reputable doctor at a specialized eye clinic. My doctor had 25 years of experience and over 50 000 cases.

Take all the medications that you are prescribed post-surgery and follow all instructions, focus on healing after your surgery.

Invest in a pair of high-quality UV blocking sunglasses. No, that chewed up pair from H&M you got 2 years ago won't cut it.

Reduce screen time, blue light blocking filters are your best friend. Make sure you have a support person.

You need to go to a highly reputable place obviously, you can't cheap out unless you have another pair of eyes, your doctor needs to be very experienced and good at what he does, use what resources you have to read up on your doc and his work, his ratings should be very high and of people who are happy with their results. My mom, my aunt, my grandpa all got LASIC eye surgery 20 years ago so naturally, I followed in their eye steps because they were all happy with their results. You need a support person, my parents were right with me during and after the surgery, my mom picked out the hospital and doctor for me and I could not go out of bed for 2 weeks so make sure you have some good podcasts ready and take at least 2 weeks off.

Feel free to message me or drop an ask if you have any questions.

[portablecity]

the worst pain i ever felt was both made worse by waiting for too long, writhing and spasming in pain, in a hard chair in a crowded, bright emergency room that was also actively under construction -- and then was fully resolved by the most efficient and effective emergency nurses and resident doctors who got me into a bed to writhe and moan in pain to my heart's content, dealt with the different layers of pain via the most efficient iv injections I've ever received, got me juice and cookies, and also made sure my partner got juice and a sandwich so he was alright to look after me. i went home almost entirely pain free, same day, and it felt like a legit miracle.

the OP's mention above re continuous pain management vs letting it spike was the hardest and most important lesson I've learned in dealing with pain, btw -- if you're experience regular unmanageable pain spikes, talk to a doc about ongoing management options. this especially helped me after surgeries.

also, for fun, my personal fave pain management tools when at home include:

- heat bags/heat pads/hot bath -- dry rice in a sock in a microwave heated in 30 second increments will go a very long way -- sometimes i use them on the pain site, sometimes just on my abdomen or lower back as a comfort/distraction

- ice packs -- everything from a rice sock kept in the freezer, to gel packs, to bags of frozen peas -- but these are only useful in certain places for certain pain and can make other things feel worse

- snacks -- eating ***always*** helps me with pain, even when the pain is also making me nauseous, though in that case it's gonna be a couple cautious crackers and not a hearty bowl of chunky soup. 4am painsomnia snacks are a permanent presence on my grocery list. also water is never a bad idea, and sometimes caffeine can work miracles, but that last one can be a double edged sword for me.

- laying down and closing my eyes -- maybe this is very obvious to you, but if I'm feeling pain hit while I'min the middle of a task i often want try everything else before accepting that i need to be horizontal for a bit, even though retiring to bed earlier means I'll feel better faster with less other supports. but i resent being told to stop my work or hobbies and i often forget or resist this fundamental truth

- not panicking -- I've had enough acute and chronic pain that being at a six or seven can start making me stress myself out enough about things getting worse that the pain will do a hard spike. if i can intervene before then, breathing exercises, gentle quiet company, and boring quiet YouTube tutorials all help keep my brain as chill as it can be. the real trick is to know whether it's better to lay down alone in the silent dark to rest or if that's just a recipe for a pain spike panic attack.

- some gentle movement -- none of this fucking yoga shit, but sometimes standing and just actively shifting my weight around helps; sometimes slow walking is good; sometimes stretching can make a difference! and no matter what, locking up into a curled up ball of agony for hours is definitely gonna make me feel worse later, so at minimum changing position regularly is useful.

- years of my own records of pain medication use and effectiveness -- I've had the joy of experiencing a wide spectrum of types of pain, and you can't medicate pmdd like you would a migraine or a fibro flare or post-surgical incision pain or neuralgia, but also you can't expect yourself to hold all that in your head! so keep a pain journal, even one as simple as date, pain location/type, approx max pain level, which drugs you took, and if they worked. this helps you to know which nsaid to take, because you only get to take one type at a time and they are not all the same it turns out. also when a medical professional tells you to try managing your pain with over the counter drugs, you can still get them to help you plan a dosage schedule! and they definitely know more than the average joe about how to get the most relief out of a reasonable amount of acetaminophen or ibuprofen.

shoutout to everyone else wrangling pain, whether acute or chronic. i wish you many effective interventions and much understanding from the people around you.

If there’s one thing I feel I can unambiguously brag about, it’s that I’m great with patients who are in pain crises. I’m tenacious and stubborn about lowering 10/10 pain to something more manageable. I got a patient in “25 out of 10” pain at start of shift down to a 4 by midnight and it only took opioids, Tylenol, muscle relaxants, ice packs, warm blankets, fresh coffee, repositioning, an abdominal binder I scrounged up, a phone call to the surgeon to get lidocaine patches ordered, and some serious chit chatting with the patient while we waited for all that to kick in. We didn’t end up needing IV medication, we didn’t have to increase opioids, we didn’t need to add any medication that would potentially delay discharge, and the majority of what I did is all stuff she can also do at home so it’s a sustainable pain management plan. This is my absolute favorite thing with nursing, I love love love managing pain, I know I talk about it a lot but it’s the most satisfying thing in the world. I love watching someone emerge from a horrendous haze of pain until they feel like a person again. Also I’m scheduling this to post well after my shift is done so that I don’t jinx anything, also while I was writing this post I had to take a quick break for two hours half way through because someone started having a seizure. My job is wild. I used to be a barista.

[devilressprincess]

I'm not dying *yet*

I'd like to believe I have more years in this life than I expect inside my head. Of course it is not up to me to decide that. I have longed prayed that whatever God's plans for me I'd accept it. The good, the not so good, the better, the great, all of it.

I was silent for a while because I went through a lot of emotional and medical stress and my results just came about a week ago and if I were to interpret it, it does seems like everything's okay for now. Of course, my cardiologist would have to have a say in it, he knows it better than I do but I would like to say, with the little clinical knowledge that I have, that everything is just fine.

I still have those symptoms, I still have the anxiety, I still have the fear of just being here one minute and the next minute I'm gone. That kind of thought just plays around in my head all day even when I'm asleep.

It would be nice to have someone to talk to who understands my irrational fears.

It's sad sometimes because I do have friends but I don't want to burden them with my problems. I do have Leo but I don't want him to think that there might not be a future for us. I do have a family but you can't dump on them because they're going through stuff also and you are supposed to be the strong one.

I want to be cared for, I want to be heard, I want to be pampered and feel like I am something to be missed.

I need to remind myself that I brought this upon myself. That I voluntarily opted to be alone with my thoughts.

I have this(Tumblr) to let my thoughts out so that's kind of a good thing. I guess.

I fear that my anxiety has manifested itself into physical symptoms and it can get worse and it will get worse.

A little side story. I was in Cebu for about a couple days with just me in the hotel waiting for my family to arrive. And those 2 days were the worse. I used to enjoy solitary life. I used to enjoy "me" times but those 2 days were scary because all sorts pain/discomfort were coming out. I was alone, I had no one to bring me to the hospital, I had no one to hold, no dog to pet to help me calm down, I was alone with my thoughts and my thoughts were nasty.

Prayer was my only weapon and succumbing to what might potentially happen eventually helped me through those days. I prayed that if I were to not wake up then that's it, I'd have to accept it. I was feeling the extremes of my anxiety. It was the worse I have experienced in my life.

I thought it would go away when my family finally came but it had become worse. Because of my fear of the unknown, my brain kept feeding me with scenarios and thoughts that seemed like it could happen and then the physical symptoms would come. The chest pain, the panic breathing, the headache.

My mom had to be admitted the following morning and I wasn't feeling very well. I took my diabetes medications and ate so little for breakfast. By 12 noon I was having all sorts of symptoms. I almost had me admitted too. Once we were in the room it just became worst. I was agitated, I could not understand what was happening. My heart rate was raising though my blood pressure was normal. I ate a lot sweets to counter attack hypoglycemia but still, I wasn't feeling any better.

I couldn't sleep and it just made it worse.

By the time I fell asleep, I woke up feeling better for only a few hours until the symptoms kicked in again and I was for sure going to have an angiogram and I wasn't going to pass my stress test which I had scheduled the following day.

It just wasn't making any sense because my blood pressure was normal, my heart rate was normal, my O2 sat was normal, but there's this nagging feeling on my chest. It is relieved for a bit when I sleep but goes on and off once I wake up. It just made me more anxious about the angiogram that I might be having.

The next day came, my mom had her surgery and while waiting for her to be back in the room, I had my stress test done. While waiting outside the test center, my chest was so heavy, my left side arm felt like I have been carrying 5kgs of rice for hours. They took my blood pressure, guess what? Yes, it was normal. I couldn't understand what was happening with me.

Then I had a baseline echo which was so painful. It was the most painful 2D echo I have had in my entire life. The tech really did want to view my heart clearly because she was pushing onto my skin and to my ribs so hard. But I was okay with that because it just meant that they'd be getting a better view, therefore, a better result. Mind you, the symptoms seemed to have gone during the entire time.

Then I had to wait again outside for the actual stress test and lo and behold, it was back. I was on guarding position the entire time because there was this like uncomfortable feeling on my left chest to my left shoulder and to top it all off, my mind was just giving me so much negative thoughts.

When it was my turn to do the echo, it was gone again. I was able to have a brief conversation with the doctor that did the echo and she said that my heart seem to be doing okay and reminded me that I need to lose weight to keep it that way and maybe even improve my condition. I even asked a second time if everything was okay and she said yes. I asked a third time with the tech that did the 2nd echo and she said I was okay.

Right after that, I went inside the chapel and thanked God for a good result. The pain was gone, the chest discomfort was gone, and for the days that followed, it was all gone. Except after we got back to the hotel, I had a fever that I have no idea what caused it. It went on until the next day going as high sa 38.4C but then the next day I felt better. Maybe it was exhaustion.

That is when I realized I have allowed my anxiety to manifest itself to physical symptoms. That I have allowed my thoughts to win over.

Right now, about 3 weeks after, the symptoms are back.

To be honest, I'm still trying to figure out why it has returned. Why am I anxious again when the results came out normal? Why am I worried again? I worry to much it's scary.

I do have a lot of stressors recently and I am juggling a lot at the same time. I have a wedding to plan, an exam to pass, and I have work to do. I can't squeeze them all in my 24 hours.

I'm still trying to figure out what has been causing my stress lately. Because no matter how many time I read my test results, it just doesn't make sense why I'm having this chest discomforts again.

Could it be the pressure of the wedding? Maybe. Could it be because I'm not taking my reviews and studies seriously? Maybe. Could it be I'm once again scared of death and dying? Maybe.

I don't know. All I know is I need to trust God. His plans vs mine.

If I am set out to just live until I'm in my mid 30s, then that's that.

I need to pray more so these thoughts, these negative thoughts, would go away. So these symptoms, that are unrealistic, would go away.

Thanks for listening.

Until next time,

JJRB.

[chibinightowl]

Waiting is the worst part. Logically, Tim knows his husband is in the best possible place for the care he needs. But he's also behind doors that not even the name Wayne will open, waiting alone in a place that has caused him so much trauma in the past.

Well, perhaps not this particular hospital, but other medical centers and other medical professionals have all contributed to Jason's PTSD.

Tim can't even sit with him, hold his hand, and field questions so his husband doesn't have to. He can't tell the staff to speak up, that Jason is half deaf on one side and has damage on the other thanks to an accident years before. He can't give him a hug when he goes back for his scans and offer a smile when he returns.

What's worse, what's tearing Tim's guts up inside, is the guilt that he didn't listen when Jason first mentioned he wasn't well. Admittedly, they both thought the nausea was a side effect of the panic attack Jason suffered two days before. He'd spent the morning vomiting before a doctor appointment he couldn't put off any more. They chalked it up to anxiety and that it would pass once the visit was over.

The appointment might be over but the nausea remains. Chills and cold sweats have entered into the mix and Jason has spent the last couple of nights tossing restlessly in the living room where the floor is paneled rather than carpeted. It's not unusual for him to lie there--he runs warm to begin with and has said he enjoys a nap where the flooring is cool on his skin.

This morning when Tim woke up, Jason was still there, whimpering and restless. His eyes cracked open when Tim sat down in the armchair with his coffee. "Babe, I don't feel good," he'd said.

"I know," Tim had soothed. "When did you last take your nausea meds?"

They both know what a vicious cycle Jason's brain can get stuck in, how his body reacts to stressors and how in turn he'll fixate when there's nothing actually wrong. Many a virtual doctor visit has been had for exactly that.

But today, tears welled up in Jason's eyes when Tim brushed him aside. "I took them already," he'd said. "Nothing is working. I can't eat. I can't drink. I'm cold and hot and I fucking hurt. I know this shit is all probably in my head but I want to see a doctor and have them tell me that to my face."

Tim remembers all too well how he'd felt like he was humoring his husband when he snagged his tablet to look for the closest urgent care clinic. It's at the clinic where the PA prods Jason's abdomen and he curls up tight against the pressure.

"I think you might have appendicitis," she'd said and sent them on their merry way to the ER.

The whole drive, Tim felt like a damned tool. He's had appendicitis himself, he knows the symptoms, and has even gone through the surgery. How did he miss this?

At a stop light, Jason had placed a clammy hand over Tim's. "Don't beat yourself up over it, babe."

"I should have known..."

"You should have known shit--your symptoms were different."

This is true but is beside the point. "I'll stay with you," he says in a rush. "For as long as I can."

It ends up not being for very long. So here Tim sits in the cafeteria, nursing a cup of coffee and fucking around on his phone. Jason's maybe 500 feet away in a triage staging area, but it feels like miles. He has an IV for fluids and has been given medication for pain and the nausea. He's NPO in case he'll need surgery.

All of these things Tim knows from his own experience earlier in the year. He'd done it all by himself because Jason's PTSD wouldn't allow him to even set foot in the ER. He'd tried, oh had he tried, but Tim told him it would be okay, that he'd keep in touch by text and to keep his phone on him.

Jason might be able to walk in here now but he shouldn't be alone. But the ER is crowded and there are no extra seats in triage for guests. Jason had squeezed Tim's hand when the nurse told him he needed to wait elsewhere.

"Keep your phone on you, babe."

"I won't put it down."

And so he waits, gnawing on his guilt and feeling like the worst person ever.

[zorilleerrant]

Okay not to be a Batman stan but I need to talk about disability in narrative and how people want to ignore disabilities if they're common or if the disabled person is competent. Because you always see abled people saying 'that isn't a real disabled character because' but even disabled people find themselves doing it from time to time, often because a character is popular. And if we brush aside all the obviously disabled characters when they're popular, of course we'll only think of unpopular examples!

The most major one I think: childhood trauma. This is so central to Batman as a character that it's included in basically every version of his narrative; it's one of the first things people think about and talk about when describing the character. It noticeably changed his personality - people talk about how he was bright, outgoing, etc. before The Incident - and impacted the course of the rest of his life. And the narrative establishes this so thoroughly that people don't question; they believe his trauma does impact his whole life and should be allowed to impact his whole life.

Then we need to consider Leslie. I don't see child therapists much at all in fiction, and if they exist, it's for characters who are children, briefly. Even most of those turn out to be 'unnecessary' because the child was 'right' about whatever it is, framing the therapist as an antagonist. Meanwhile, not only does Batman say Leslie helped him through a hugely traumatic time in his life, he still goes to her for therapy when he needs it, especially crisis therapy. As a character considered one of the manliest men out there, acknowledging his mental health problems and seeking help is a big deal! Especially when he's 'just sad' as a lot of people claim about grief. And even though he's had therapy he's not just suddenly 'normal'!

There are related elements to his PTSD (not just childhood) that we see all the time, as major narrative points in multiple different stories. He has nightmares regularly. He has chronic and phantom pain, and he sometimes overreacts to pain that isn't very severe. He's hypervigilant and paranoid; it takes a lot of effort for him to trust other people or rely on them. He doesn't ever believe he's safe or that his family is safe. He makes plan after plan in attempts to control his circumstances, especially the ones that can't be controlled. He has panic attacks. He talks to himself. He catastrophizes and assumes the worst about every situation and is overprotective of everyone he cares about. He has traumaversaries and very specific ways of acknowledging those dates and events.

Then we have the recent turn into watching Bruce's body break down. He has trouble with things he didn't use to. Things hurt that used to feel fine. It takes more effort to maintain his muscle tone and flexibility; his reflexes aren't as fast; his body doesn't always do what he tells it to. He has scarring and muscle weakness from all kinds of injuries, built up over the years, the way any professional athlete does. He has back problems, yes, but it's more than just one event, and while the text calls it 'getting old', so do a lot of people as they retire from sports (at relatively young ages).

We even have the future of how this turns out from the Batman Beyond verse: doctors are shocked at how old he seems when they examine him, from how much damage his body has taken. He needs all kinds of daily medication just to keep it working, along with mobility aids that change depending on the severity of his problems. He takes heart medicine; he needs invasive surgery; he's sometimes in too much pain to move around.

The pain is a big factor in a lot of ways, and I think one of the important points is that Batman, like most of the Batfamily, takes pain medication regularly. Generally they're even pretty casual about it! At a time when people are constantly fearmongering about 'painkiller epidemics' and denying that kind of medication to people with chronic pain, it's important that Batman's usage of daily pain medication (as well as acute pain management) is considered 'justified' because his pain is 'real'. It may take daily injury and bodily abuse, but at least there's a narrative in which people actually do hurt all day every day, and are encouraged to treat it. Even denying himself too many pain meds leans into very real fears of addiction or building up a tolerance!

There's also the part where he has trouble expressing himself emotionally. This ties into PTSD and also chronic pain, but it's often cited in other interpretations of Batman's neurodivergence. Which is sometimes acknowledged on the page! But is it any wonder one of the magnets for neurodivergent people is really relatable when he struggles to make himself understood? When he accidentally hurts people's feelings even though he didn't mean anything bad, or has trouble understanding why they hurt his? When he wants to communicate but can't figure out the roadblocks, even though he can see them so easily in strangers?

Batman has been disabled from the beginning, and his arc follows so many real people's life stories. It's hard to see because people think of it as just being part of his character, but that's important, too. Being disabled impacts all of our lives and informs our characters, and that does shape who we are as people.

Why do they deserve to win?

Bruce Wayne

Harold Allnut

[quirkless-accident]

Thermos

Danny gets badly injured during a mission/ arc/ training and Danny just "shrugs, ive had worst/ im fine/ tis but a scratch"

Shouta had a high pain tolerance. It just came with the territory of being a pro hero-and an underground one at that, where the work was a bit more strenuous, a bit more messy.

As an underground hero, he's seen things that give him panic attacks at the most inopportune times. When he closes his eyes he can sometimes see the blood staining his knuckles from beating villains half to death. When it rains all of his joints decide they want to ache simultaneously. He's got old injuries in every part of his body, and they want him to remember whenever they sky gets a little gray.

He's had most of his bones broken, and he's had his guts all but spilling out of him from stab wounds, and he's early bled out on multiple occasions.

But none of that could even compare to what Danny's going through right now.

It was an accident in training, but one thing led to another, and Danny's guts ended up actually spilling out a bit.

Danny had been sparring against Todoroki, and hadn't had enough time to dodge or go intangible. The ice spiked up and went straight through his stomach and out the other end.

Danny cried out, gripping the ice as green leaked from his mouth and the gaping hole in his stomach. Shouta was over there in the blink of an eye, barking at another student to go and get Recovery Girl.

"Don't worry about it," Danny said, giving him and Todoroki what probably would have been a fond smile, if not for the grimace coming in full force. "I've had worse. It's not even that bad, I promise."

"What do you mean you've had worse?" Todoroki asks, and oh. He's not calm at all. In fact, he looks a little too pale, but whether it's from the look of Danny's injury or the guilt that's no doubt eating him from the inside out, he can't tell. Hell, he can't even begin to process.

"Just stay awake, okay, kid?" Shouta says. Danny's arms are shaking with the effort of holding himself up so he doesn't slip further down the ice, but he just nods and smiles like nothing is wrong. "What's-what's your favorite show?" Shouta asks. He already knows the answer to it, it's some horror sow from the pre-quirk era that Danny has explained to him and Hizashi in length about. But Danny tells him about it again anyway, through choked out words and half-lidded eyes.

It doesn't take long for Recovery Girl and a swarm of medic bots to greet them. A couple minutes at the very most, but it feels like years.

"Hey, RG," Danny greets weakly from his spot above them. "How's it hanging?"

Shouta has never wanted to simultaneously choke and hug someone as fiercely as he wants to do now. But Danny being so calm, as unnerving as it is for Shouta, is probably helping everybody else out.

Recovery Girl gets to work and makes sure she's more than ready to treat Danny. When she's done, he uses his intangibility to slip out of the ice spike. As soon as he's free, he's strapped to a stretcher and wheeled out faster than Shouta can blink.

He calls of the rest of training and sends Todoroki to Hound Dog. He should probably stay and make sure they're okay, but his mind if whirling with what ifs and other, worse thoughts that he was doing his best not to think about.

Shouta had never lost a kid since his tenure at U.A.

He wasn't about to start now. And he certainly wasn't about to start spiraling. Not when Danny needed him.

He all but sprinted to Hizashi's classroom, not caring that he most definitely broke the door with the force in which he opened it. Hizashi was startled, hand already going to his directional speaker. But then he saw Shouta's face, and bless him, because Shouta didn't even need to say anything before Hizashi was at his heels, running with him to the infirmary.

He let them in, despite her strict rule about no visitors during surgery.

"Hey, Zashi," Danny greeted weakly from the bed. How he was still awake, Shouta would never know.

"How are you-" Hizashi paled at the sight of Danny's torso. In hindsight, Shouta probably should have told him what happened before leading him back here. "What happened?" His voice was barely above a horrified whisper. Danny, though, seemed just out of it enough to not notice his dilemma.

"Just a training accident," he lazily waved off.

"How are you still conscious?"

"Oh, uh-well, ectoplasm is thicker than blood, and it leaves the body a lot slower than blood. So I figured if I just stay awake I should be fine," Danny said with a shrug. "Can't hold my ghost form if I'm unconscious, you know? Stitching is a little harder cause my skin keeps turning to goo but it's whatever."

"It's what-" Hizashi said, cutting himself off with the sheer disbelief he was feeling. Because all of those words were very concerning. And sure, it was good to be in tune with one's own body, but how did Danny know that?

Shouta remembered him saying he's had worse. He doesn't want to really find out how worse it was. How close they could have gotten to not meeting Danny at all.

After answering a few ghost physiology-related questions, Recovery Girl shooed them out.

Neither of them talked, but they were both weighed down with the knowledge that if this had been any other kid, there would be blood staining their hands. There would be no cheerful welcome home! waiting for them when they walked through the door. There would be no family picnics and family beach days and family anything.

So they sat, and they waited. They didn't speak, but they did grip each other's hands as tightly as they could without hurting one another, giving gentle squeezes of reassurance whenever the other seemed to be spiraling. It was grounding, to say the least.

Recovery Girl didn't finish her surgery until late at night. She came out looking absolutely exhausted but satisfied with her work.

"He's finally resting now," she tells them. "And he turned back. He should be okay, though he's gonna be on strict bedrest until he heals up. With his natural healing abilities and my quirk it shouldn't be more than a couple of weeks."

Shouta and Hizashi both slumped with relief at the fact that their kid (and really, they've never discussed it, but it was an unspoken fact that Danny was their kid) would be just fine.

"He was in an out of it," Recovery Girl said. "Some of it was nonsense, but some of it was...Concerning. Whenever he's healed up I'd maybe talk to him about it. Or get him to talk to someone else about it."

"Yes, we will," Hizashi said immediately. HIs antsy nature was finally taking over, it seemed. "Can we-are we allowed...?"

"Go on ahead. Just try not to wake him."

"Thank you, Shuzenji," Shouta said. He knelt down and clasped her hands, giving them a thorough squeeze. She patted him lightly on the head before giving him a kiss goodnight. She ushered him into the room with Hizashi, and headed off to her own room that she used more often then she would like.

The room was bathed in a soft moonlight, but it didn't stop Danny from looking incredibly pale. He was completely still, too, which unnerve Shouta. Danny was always animated in some way, whether it be hard at training or bouncing his leg while he did homework. He was always in some form of constant movement. So to see a lack of it was...Well, a little bit weird. If it wasn't for the occasional rise and fall of his chest, Shouta would have thought he was a corpse.

But he wasn't.

He was staring at his son, who was alive and strong and so many other things that Shouta couldn't put into words because every time he so much as thought about it his throat would suddenly close up and his eyes would sting from something that wasn't his chronic dry eye.

He sank into the seat next to Hizashi, right up against the bed. With his left hand he held his husband, and with his right, he squeezed Danny's cold, limp hand, covered in callouses and Lichtenburg figures.

And for the first time all day, he felt like he could actually breathe again.

[odd-birds-and-booksellers]

“Alex…” Jo interrupts, her hand slowly curing round his, the one resting on her bump. He can feel his lips trembling as the tears he’d fought so hard to keep at bay begin to fall. 

"I put glow in the dark stars up.” He whispered. "So she can't be dead."

On one of the rare occasions, Alex and Jo’s days off don’t coincide, Alex finds himself wishing for a six-hour surgery, hell he’d rather be removing splinters than deciding between lemon sherbet and soft daffodil. To say he was excited about the impending arrival of their second child would be an understatement but completing the ridiculously long list Jo had left him to do this morning before rushing off with Robin felt more like torture.

He understood though, with only two months to go everything seemed to pile up on them, the quiet calm they had mistaken for panic when Robin was on the way paled in comparison when they were trying to juggle two full time demanding careers, a new puppy, a new baby and a toddler whose main goal in life seemed to be giving his parents a heart attack with the many hiding places he could find.

And this is how Alex found himself staring into the abyss of a million Amazon boxes that Jo had somehow managed to sneak by him, with various shades of yellow paint cans dotted around.

He understood Jo’s desire to make everything perfect, she’d been that way since she’d stepped out of the loft bathroom over two years ago, her hands shaking as she lifted the test towards him clearly displaying two lines. He swears they both had good intentions when Robin was born, he wouldn’t be spoiled, there wouldn't be gifts that make up for missing birthdays or missing bedtimes, they’d be honest about mommy and daddy having to work hard for everything they have and yet they couldn’t seem to stop themselves, because the luxury of giving their son and now their daughter everything they’d never had brought more happiness to Jo and Alex then maybe their children would ever understand. There could never be a single second their children doubted how loved and wanted they truly were, so it didn’t matter if their daughter would be in with them for the first few months, her room had to be finished before she arrived.

Their daughter...he smiles at the mere thought of her, their daughter, who likes to kick when their reading Robins bedtime stories, or plays the guitar on Jo’s rib cage until Alex sings along softly with her in the early hours of the morning, their daughter who’d refused to make herself seen for the first two scans.

It’s only when Alex finishes the last coat of soft daffodil that he hears the faint ringing of his phone above the radio. Shuffling down the ladder he wipes the back of his hand on his shirt as he hears the familiar ringtone sound again making Alex frown as he manages to navigate his way through the maze of boxes he's built around himself.

There’s a slight twitch in his chest as he begins down the stairs hearing his phone fall quiet only to start up again seconds later. He finds it still plugged in by the coffee machine where he’d left it, glancing at the screen to see he had twelve missed calls and three voicemails.

There's a definite twitch in his chest now as he clicks play on Jo's first voicemail, his lips twitching up at the sound of Robin's singing. They sounded like they were still in the car as Jo listed off a few more things she needed him to do.

"Hey, sorry I know you said not to go overboard but there are two more deliveries coming today so make sure to listen out for them and oh oh...if you get a chance to go grocery shopping we need...well we need pretty much everything but get me those cupcakes with the oranges on them and oh erm..." She paused after taking a slightly heavy breath. "I do not feel great today, maybe I can get someone to take over my surgeries. Oh and don’t forget to get the box of baby clothes down from the attic will you...okay... I love you, Alex, I’ll call you later."

He frowned quickly, bypassing the message Meredith had left, assuming it was whatever love triangle tragedy she had that day. He finds Jo's second message. There was no greeting to this one, only Jo's panicked voice.

"Why aren’t you answering the phone Alex? What’s the point of having one if you don’t ever answer it?”

His phone beeped again, signalling another message had been left, this time from Meredith again.

"Alex, where the hell are you? You need to be here now. I don't know if Jo is trying not to worry you but Carina is having her admitted so get over here before I leave work and drag you here myself.”

He felt his heart begin to drop in his chest as he hit replay, trying to piece together what was happening. Before he even knew it his feet were carrying him towards the front door, keys in hand as he rushed out. His entire mind had narrowed in on one simple need: to get to Jo.

He couldn't think of much else as he drove, he doesn’t even remember his route to the hospital he just remembers being at home and then bursting through the doors of Grey Sloan. He was severely out of breath by the time he caught sight of Meredith outside the maternity ward talking quietly with Bailey.

The best thing about Meredith, and what made her excel as a doctor, was that she was damn good in a crisis. So she knew the minute their eyes met that Alex just needed Jo. As soon as he’s within reach she wraps an arm around his shoulder—which felt way too much like condolences for Alex's liking and leads him through the doors where Carina was already waiting. This had to be a mistake. Jo was fine last night. Their daughter was fine last night. He’d felt her kicking as they’d talked. They’d talked about his mom's upcoming visit, and maybe going to see Amber and her family for Christmas or inviting them here.

"—I know. It's awful." Carina mutters her eyes on Jo's chart. The intern beside her nodded in agreement.

"I hope Dr Karev shows up before the ultrasound. She shouldn't have to deal with that alone." The intern responds.

“He’s here,” Carina whispers as she looks up, hearing Alex and Meredith footsteps as she tucks the chart under her arm. “If you can go set up the ultrasound while I talk to him.”

"Of course."

Alex gulps at the sorrow on Carina’s face as she steps closer, it's all too much for him as he averts his gaze down to the floor, his eyes catching on the silver band around his finger, splattered with yellow paint from earlier.

"What's going on?" Alex asks, hearing his voice crack as Meredith drops her hand from his back.

"Alex, you need to take a breath and pull yourself together because right now Jo needs you.”

He doesn't respond to Mer, doesn't even look at her as he raises his gaze back towards Carina, “What’s going on?” He repeats, his voice lower this time.

"Jo's in premature labour. She mentioned a couple of hours ago that she had some pretty bad Braxton Hicks, but then she timed them and they were too close together and too regular. So she paged me, and when I checked her cervix had already begun to open-”

Alex found himself nodding along but Carina’s words soon faded to quiet buzz in his ears. His fingers are already twitching to hold Jo. This couldn’t be happening, not to them. Not now.

"Okay." He whispers his voice dangerously low as he blinks back tears, desperately trying to pull himself together when everything in him was burning. Please don’t do this, please don’t take her from us, please don’t do this to her . He can feel his nails digging into the palm of his hand, the only way he's sure he’s still alive is the dull pain he feels as he takes a deep breath gathering himself slowly. Suddenly his doctor brain kicks in as he begins to ask what they are doing to fix this, listing everything he knew like he wasn’t surrounded by some of the best doctors he knew.

Carina nods, her words still buzzing in Alex’s head as she explains the past couple of hours, Jo’s contractions stopped an hour ago, her cervix hasn't opened any further.

“We’re just waiting to do an ultrasound...it really needs to be done right away.”

“Right...what's the problem then?”

“She’s refusing Alex, won't let anyone near her.”

Alex shakes his head, that's not true. Jo wouldn’t...she would never do anything that could harm their baby. She wouldn’t refuse medical care. He watches as Meredith shoots another look to Carina who sighs, tilting her head in a way that has Alex’s heart dropping into his stomach. “I tried earlier with the stethoscope to find the heartbeat...and was unsuccessful.”

"Alex, do you understand? We couldn't find a heartbeat. Dr DeLuca tried and I did too. Even Jo tried...now she’s refusing the ultrasound, she won’t let anyone touch her."

The childish reaction was quick and automatic. "Maybe you didn’t try hard enough, you didn’t do it right, okay? You know you should check properly.”

Carina took a deep breath. "Alex, I'm sorry. I’m going to do an ultrasound, of course, but…I don't know. It's usually easy to hear it with a stethoscope at twenty-eight weeks. Intrauterine deaths happen and there's not much—"

He felt like he couldn't breathe. His hand was clutching at his chest trying to feel the air filling his lungs but he couldn’t feel a thing as everything went fuzzy again. "Stop. Just shut up. You don’t know Jo. You don’t know our…"

"I'm so, so, s o sorry, Alex," Mer whispered. "I know how much you wanted her."

He felt his eyes burning. "I still want her. And you're wrong because I just felt her kick last night. She was kicking when I sang—she always does that. She does. So she can't be dead."

He chokes on his words. “She’s not...dead.”

There’s a quiet discussion mainly between Carina and Meredith who seems to be answering for Alex as they both guide him towards a door at the end of the corridor:

He has to stand outside the door for a full minute as he tries to get a hold of himself. He doesn’t want his face to show how truly scared he is at this moment.

When he does finally gather himself enough to step into the room he notices how the curtains were pulled, blocking almost all of the sunlight from the otherwise dark room. Jo was curled up onto her side, her entire body tucked protectively around Robin's sleeping frame. She hadn't even lifted her head or made a move to turn when the door shut behind Alex, and that terrified him so deeply that he couldn't even move. It had all suddenly gotten very real.

He walked slowly around the bed so he could see her face, he needed to meet her eyes or he’d never believe any of this was true. But as he rounded the bed he was met with her blank stare, blinking slowly as she took in his form.

"Robin needs to go home. I don't want him to have to see any more of this." She said quietly. She made no move to speak about what was going on. She was emotionless and it terrified him. Suddenly flashbacks of the first time he’d ever seen her look so shut down came to mind. When she’d first met her biological mother. When she’d shut down and left him out in the cold. He wasn’t sure he could survive it back then, he’d needed her so much but now he was certain he’d never survive without her.

Alex turned his focus to his son, who was asleep with his face scrunched up against Jo’s chest, his chubby hands resting on the swell of her stomach.

"I can get Mer to take him home with her." He told Jo quietly, he couldn't find any other words to say, it seemed neither could she.

Jo just nods in response but makes no effort to move. Alex could tell by her hand curling tighter around Robin's back that she wasn’t quite ready to let him go yet.

He’s not sure how much time passes next, as he takes a seat carefully on the edge of the bed. Reaching out gingerly to run his hands softly across Jo's cheek. And it’s in that moment when their eyes meet, his thumb tracing the already dried tear tracks down her face that they break. She lifts her right arm gathering a handful of his shirt tightly pulling him closer, pressing her cheek against his chest so she could hear his steady heartbeat. She doesn't say anything and for a second she’s silent before the sob she must’ve been holding back erupts from her and Alex can feel the tears begin to soak through his T-shirt. He feels powerless, all he can do is keep a steady arm wrapped around his wife holding her tightly to him. That was what hurt him the most about this. He couldn't do anything to take her pain away. He couldn’t fix this.

“Jo…Jo Carina is waiting to do an ultrasound…we need…we need to be sure.” Alex sighs trying to keep his tears at bay as she continues to shake in his arms. “Why won’t you let her help?”

"I didn't want anyone else." She finally admits, loosening her grip enough that he can see her face, her lips trembling as she speaks. The sight alone sends another sharp stab through Alex’s heart. "I didn't want anyone. I wanted you. I wanted—I wanted you to make it better."

Alex nods, wishing with everything in him that he could make any of this better. He lets out a shaky breath as Jo settles back down so her head was resting on his chest, her face pressing into his collarbone. He knows it is selfish, he knows it might kill them both but he can’t help reaching out over Robin's little body and pressing his hand to her stomach. He waits a moment…before pressing again, still waiting to feel the usual response. He hears Jo's breath hitch as she too waits for the little nudge of their daughter's feet, he knows she’s usually responded by now but he waits, he just keeps waiting. He thinks sort of him will always be waiting for that little kick…he thinks this moment might be frozen in time. Not us. This happens to people, but not us. Maybe it wasn’t fair to think like that, after all, every day he sees the worst card parents could ever be handed in life and yet he says the same lines about support groups and doing everything he could and not once did he think he’d ever need to hear those words.

He doesn’t know how long he keeps his hand there just waiting. "I just finished painting the nursery. I went with soft daffodils but if you prefer lemon sherbet we can change it…we can pick whatever colour you want, and I know I said we didn’t need a new crib but if you want that fancy one we’ll-“

“Alex…” Jo interrupts, her hand slowly curling around his own on her bump. He can feel his own lips trembling as the tears he’d fought so hard to keep at bay begin to fall.

"I put glow in the dark stars up.” He whispered. "So she can't be dead."

There’s no logic to what he said. There’s no truth to his reasoning but he believes it. Jo winces at his words or more likely one word in particular. He feels her drag his hand down to where Robin's tiny hands rest, a little reminder of what they still have.

Alex moves closer to them, pulling Robin gently onto his chest, sliding over and opening his arms for Jo. Letting her sink into him. She rests against him like she no longer has the strength to hold herself up.

“I'm sorry. I thought it was nothing more than Braxton Hicks. Can you believe that? I’m a freaking doctor and I couldn’t tell the difference between Braxton hicks and labour. I should have known better. I did this. This is my fault—"

Alex cuts her off, shushing her. "It's not your fault," he assures her. Life was unfair. He knew that. But this pain Jo didn’t deserve. Not his children. Not Robin. Not their new little girl with the stars on her ceiling. Not his family. They hadn't built this together for it to be broken.

"Please don't cry," she pleaded, her voice wavering. "Please don't, it terrifies me. I'm already so scared, Alex. I'm so scared."

Alex just nods, swallowing deeply as he pulls her tighter against his side. It was true that everything had changed once he'd had children. He no longer understood how he had lived without them. And he was realizing that everything he gained could be taken just as easily. He knew that, if this baby really were gone, there would be nothing he could do to ever fix the pain that would settle in Jo's heart or his own for that matter.

He feels Robin begin to stir against him and he forces a smile on his face and kisses his head, smiling genuinely when the little one lifts his arms, reaching out for his father in an instant.

"Daddy” He cheered, his little fists gripping Alex’s T-shirt as he shifted him higher up his chest. He settles his palm on the back of his head and kisses his head again.

"Robin, how would you feel about playing with Ellis, Bailey and Zola tonight?" He asks him carefully.

Robin is as stubborn as his mother. "Scout?" He suggests instead.

"Yeah okay, we can see if Uncle Link will take you. You can play with Scout and then mommy and daddy will see you when you wake up." He knows Robin has no real clue on what’s happening around him but he knew Jo had been right. He didn't need to be here.

Robin lifts his head and peers down at Jo. He seemed to be thinking hard about the proposition before shaking his head fiercely.

"No."

No was his new favourite word and Alex was already sick of hearing it. He strokes his hair back as he meets eyes with Jo. Her tears are still falling steadily. Her hands spread out over her stomach and he knew she was waiting to feel something still.

"No, I want mommy," Robin insists. His little face mustering up what Alex assumed was a scowl as he reached over to wrap his hand around one of Jo's curls hanging loose in front of her face. Alex didn’t have it in him to battle Robin today, it’s not like he wanted to let go of Jo either.

They were out of time to decide what to do about Robin because Carina was already wheeling in the ultrasound. Jo tensed beside him, her hand gripping his tightly as he rose from his place on the bed lifting Robin with him.

"I can't. Please." She whispers and if possible his heart cracked even more.

She was hanging on by a thin thread, but she was hanging onto him. They could survive this…they could survive it together. He lifts Robin higher up his chest, gently cradling Robin's head to his shoulder as the little one's legs wrapped around him.

Alex stared at the swell of Jo’s stomach, the same stomach he'd kissed just last night and singing old country songs much to Jo's amusement. There was no way…there was no way she was…he’d just finished her room…the paint was still wet. Her name is written in stars above her crib. She can’t be.

Alex didn't even realize he was crying until Carina flashes him a sympathetic smile. Robin lifts his head as he squirms in his fathers’ tight grip, peering up at him with a frown. Reaching out to touch his cheeks with his small hands.

"Daddy sad?” He whispers curiously. Alex was torn because there’s no way of explaining this to their toddler and he doesn't want to scare him. Instead, he settles for pressing him back against his chest, his little face squeezed against his neck because while he didn’t want him to watch he also couldn’t bear to let him go.

He watches as Carina helps Jo to sit up. It was too much to watch, the way her whole body shakes as her cries shook through her. He reached for her hand, laying limp by her side, his hand covering hers as he threaded their fingers together. She squeezes his hand back, gripping onto him like he was the only thing stopping her from coming undone. Her hand in his gave him a spark of hope that maybe no matter what happened next they’d make it together, as long they just kept holding on.

He almost dropped Robin in paralyzing relief when the familiar whooshing of the heartbeat filled the room. He lets out a cry of relief as he shakes his head. Alex presses his face back into Robin's hair and squeezes Jo's hand tightly, his heart still pounding away.

"Why wasn't she moving?" Jo asks, her voice hoarse. "I tried everything and she wouldn't move. And why couldn't you find it before?"

"Babies don't move much if at all during labour," Carina explained. "And I don't know. I listened for such a long time.” Once again Alex’s mind blocks out the surrounding noise until it’s a quiet buzz. Instead, he focuses on the image of their baby girl on the screen, the feel of Robin's hot breath against his neck and Jo's hand still clutching his tightly. His family. He’s had these images ever since they’d decided to try for a second…maybe even longer, before Robin, before he and Jo had even got married he’d had this whole dream…Jo, their kids and the house they’d live in and the life they’d live. “But you'll have to be on strict bed rest for the rest of this pregnancy, and even then there's no way to know how long you can prolong labour. If we can keep her from being born for at least a month she’ll be in a much better position."

He comes back down to reality when he feels Jo tug at his hand, she’s looking up at him expectantly. “There’s our girl,” He whispers, leaning closer, pressing a quiet kiss to her hair, not even glancing at Carina as she backs out of the room to give them a moment.

"What if I have to give birth soon?" She mumbled into his shirt. "What if we lose her anyway?"

He shook his head firmly. "We won't.”

He kisses her forehead and glances down at Robin before turning back to Jo. She was looking at him with that look. The one that communicated very clearly that she trusted him with everything in her.

Alex set his hands on her stomach and let out another relieved breath.

"God." He said quietly. She set her hand over his and caressed the back of his hand with her thumb.

Jo's expression twists with guilt. "I’m so sorry...this is all my fault. I've been overworking myself. I always think I can do so much more than I can and our girl is suffering because of it. Maybe I'm not fit to be a mother."

Alex shook his head. "If you're not fit to be a mother, Jo, no one is. Hell, you know what an unfit parent looks like and you are not one."

She opens her mouth to say something else, but abruptly she stops, her eyes widening slightly in surprise. Her expression goes from shock to joy in no time at all as she grabs his hands gently and moves them back to her stomach, pressing down lightly. Alex feels a familiar, returning nudge, gentle and soft, but definitely there. He laughs giddily and locks eyes with Jo, pleased when she laughs in return. He moves around the bed, leaning over Jo so he could press a kiss to the spot he'd last felt the nudge. He keeps his cheek pressed against her soft skin for a moment, whispering a quiet ‘I love you.’ before looking back at Jo’s teary gaze.

"Robin, come here. Come feel your sister." He tells the toddler. Alex tugs him up into his lap and helps guide his hand to the spot he'd just kissed. He applies slight pressure and laughs at the joyous giggle Robin gives when he feels the baby move underneath his hand.

"That's your little sister."

Robin looked up at her father and smiled but the tiny movements didn’t keep his attention for long as he began to climb out of Alex’s grip, into Jo's welcoming arms.

“It’s gonna be okay Jo. We’re gonna be okay.”

Jo looks up at him. Tears still trailing down her face but the sparkle missing from her gaze earlier was slowly making its way back.

He smiles gently, reaching out to cup her face in his hands, rubbing his thumbs softly over the wet trails her tears left. "Everything’s gonna be okay.” He promised. "You'll see."

And she did. A little over two months later their baby girl made her entrance into the world, a little less dramatic than her brother as she’d been monitored so closely, that it was no surprise when she decided to join everyone. With her brown eyes sparkling with the same warmth as her mother’s and a full head of hair she was every little bit perfect as Alex had imagined. A little taste of heaven.

“Hey, baby…welcome home.” Alex grinned as he pulled open the door to the nursery, ushering in Robin who proudly displayed the teddy he’d chosen for his baby sister as Jo slowly made her way inside. She’d been too afraid to step inside since the incident, she claimed it would jinx it.

“Oh wow…” She hummed happily looking down at the bundle in her arms, who as predicted was still asleep and had no understanding of the magnitude of the moment happening around her. “Aren’t you a lucky girl P?”

“Mommy… I see…you sit.” Robin yelps, pulling Jo from the bottom of her cardigan towards the new rocking chair set up in the corner. Jo is all too happy to take a seat, allowing Robin to catch sight of his baby sister.

“It’s perfect Alex…Thank you.” Jo mumbles after a minute, catching Alex’s eye who had taken the moment to settle against the door frame and just watch his family.

He smiles softly, before pushing up off the frame heading towards the window. “You haven’t seen the best bit.” He pulls the blinds down slowly, letting darkness take over the room leaving only the glowing stars for light.

Robin gasped as he looked around in wonder but Jo's eyes remained trained on Alex. “I love you.” She whispers.

“I love you.” Alex grins, kneeling down beside the chair as he runs his hand across their daughter's head. “I love you all…now look up.”

Tilting her head, Jo looked up at the ceiling and gasped. The stars trailed up the wall and right above the crib, they clustered together, spelling out their dear daughter's name.

Peyton.

-

Yes. This is a day late. But it's also very on-brand for me so.

This one-shot is part of the What Could've Been universe so if you haven't read them I would thoroughly recommend reading them, you find them all under my master post on Tumblr.

Also, I made all the medical crap up, so don't come for me with corrections...I don't care.

[mewtonian-physics]

do you have a little bit more on the iatrophobic hc? this makes so much sense

yeah!!! i have a lot more actually. i feel like it was a thing since he was a kid (points to the doctor in the 'make it right' trailers, that guy scares me) and it stuck around even when he didn't remember why, he just knew that any time he had to see a doctor it made him feel extremely anxious and unsafe. this worsened after he started getting his memories back, but the point it turned from anxiety and general discomfort to full blown terror was of course the first day he met the 'doctors' who would spend the next few weeks (i think, i haven't quite settled on a time frame for that, but it was long) very, very slowly converting him into a cyborg in one of the most horrifying and torturous processes imaginable. with him awake for every second of it.

the first surgery he had after the fact (where dr. madnar saved him) he was still under the effect of the nanomachines they'd put in him and as such was incapable of feeling fear but after that it all came back in full force. during mgs4 he could deal with naomi because the closest she came to doing any sort of medical procedures on him was when he was literally dying and in too much pain to process anything. and even then it was anything but invasive. dr. madnar on the other hand. although he trusted the man to a certain degree on account of him having previously saved his life the poor guy was still terrified out of his mind. especially since he was still too weak to move or even say anything. it brought back horrible memories and he was absolutely having a panic attack throughout the whole thing. otacon and sunny stuck around though so it could have been worse, he knew they wouldn't let anything happen to him. after he got crushed by outer haven he wasn't capable of processing anything they did to stabilize him but then at the end of mgs4 after the last fight on shadow moses island he could process what was happening at least a little bit and like. the guy was getting dragged back from what he thought was the dead by strangers. again, if he hadn't been too weak to move things would have been ugly. as it was he just had to stay there and try to endure it. after that they wouldn't let him leave yet bc they wanted to keep him under observation and i'm not going to lie to you he mostly just dissociated the entire time except for when he had visitors.

then of course he had that fight with jetstream sam later and once again had to be stabilized and undergo heavy repairs + the transfer into the new cyborg body and oh boy did he have to be kept semi-sedated and restrained for that one. otherwise the distorted sense of his own personal timeline could have led to him attacking someone while under the impression that he was still a kid in liberia and not an adult in a perfectly reputable hospital. unfortunately he can't ever be kept fully sedated for surgeries because his body is literally being built around him, they have to be able to have his input. blink once if [x part] needs to be fastened more tightly, blink twice if it's fastened too tightly, things like that. so he has to be at least somewhat awake even though it's both extreme physical and psychological torture for him. one of the only things he's grateful for when it comes to being a cyborg is that compared to fully organic people he has to deal with medical stuff far less. because if it was anything other than something deadly serious he would avoid it... well, like the plague, i guess. avoid it like the plague. hard to dodge that joke.

he also just can't be in hospitals or doctor's offices or anything like that unless he has no other choice, which means that like, if john had to get a vaccine or something he wouldn't be able to be there because the environment itself would almost certainly send him into a panic attack. also he would be unable to deal with the idea of putting his son who he loves more than anything in the world in the hands of doctors because even if on a rational level he knows they're trustworthy on an emotional level he very, very much does not. so rose has to deal with that kind of thing. meanwhile raiden just remains trying not to spiral because what if something happens, what if it's some kind of trap, what if they hurt john, and he cannot relax until he sees john safe and sound. to rose it's so routine but to him it's one of the most terrifying things he has to deal with as a parent.

so yeah raiden is just flat out terrified of doctors and medical anything really. it's one of the worst phobias he has. but, i mean, really. can you blame him. with a life like that... yeah.

[tavvattales]

TW: Talk of depression, anxiety, panic attacks, PTSD, medical talk, medicines, mentions of death, pictures of wounds and aftermath of surgeries, swearing

I honestly don't know where else to write this go get this off my chest, but here goes nothing. . .please read at your own risk

Oh jeez. So uhm I'm honestly just so tired. Both physically and mentally. I have chronic anxiety related insomnia 🙃 I had my meds increased to help, but it's still not working. I still can't fucking sleep and im so tired guys, so fucking tired.

For those who are wondering I'm now on 225mg of Effexor XR(venlafaxine xr), 200mg of Trazodone, and 50mg of Hydroxyzine as needed.

I feel like everything has gotten worse since my 3 brain surgeries. After everything I went through I feel like I should be happy that I have no more chronic migraines, but for some stupid reason I keep asking myself "That's it?" Like I should have died under the knife or something, I know that sounds awful, but I think it's because 3 back to back brain surgeries and a month and a half in the ICU was just traumatic. Nothing feels the same anymore. It feels just empty?

I told my therapist that I really didn't actually have any time to recover after my surgeries because my mom basically put me right back to work(I'm a caregiver for my elder sister who has Huntington's disease). I work when she has to go to work, so I have 15 hour work days 3 days a week, watching a sister that I love dearly slowly deteriorate.

And what fucking sucks is that my mom saw first hand what I went through all 3 times because she took time off of work to come see me everyday in the hospital, but when I decided to be open and honest with her about not being fully recovered mentally, she basically brushed my feelings under the rug and told me I wasn't taking my work seriously. "You only had 3 surgeries" ONLY? ONLY 3? Wow oh my fucking god, only 3???!!! Like my surgeries weren't a big fucking deal. 🙄

For those of you who don't know: August 6th I had my first brain surgery. It was a craniotomy for Chiari decompression. Dr put a graft over my brain since he removed a part of my skull during the first surgery, was in the hospital for almost a week, everything seemed fine and dandy besides being in immense pain. Was only home for two days when whoopsie my incision site started leaking CSF fluid, and I mean leaking, it was all over my pillow cases and soaked the back of my sleep shirt, a nice steady stream of CSF fluid, it wouldn't stop. So I got driven to the ER and was in the hospital for another few days before they put me under again on August 18th. Turns out the graft that was put in disintegrated. According to my Dr, he never saw anything like that before and it was really hard to fix. During this surgery is when I got an EVD drain put in at the top of my head to help regulate the access CSF fluid, this was when I was in the ICU for a month. Third surgery was because during the 2nd surgery I got meningitis. My incision site kept leaking a bit again(not as bad as the first time) so the Dr did a wound wash and sewed my incision back up and that was on October 11th, during this time for 4 weeks- I had to drive to the hospital everyday to get heavy duty antibiotics to treat my meningitis. So yeah, that was my journey.

I'm not sure if anyone will actually read thus, but if you do, sorry for the long rant. . .I'm just so tired from everything. This really all stemmed from me just wanting to sleep for once. :/ I've got no motivation for anything. Even showering feels like a chore. . .anyways, yes I'm safe, no I won't do anything. And thank you for taking the time to read this. I've attached some pictures of my journey through surgery.

Right before/after first surgery leading up to the leaking:

After 2nd surgery:

I can't post anymore pictures, but yeah that was that hahaha

[thebleuroseproject]

On Helena: #1

Context: I am playing Helena in a Vampire, the Masquerade game. Setting is Boston, Necropolis, 2015. Helena is mortal, currently a ghoul to another player character (Klaxon). The player characters are Klaxon (Nosferatu), Elyas (Tremere), Keri (Gangrel), Garreth (Gangrel). Our DM is Gore. Some of this conversation will be edited out as I have done this to focus on Helena and her character.

Garreth OOC: -points to Helena- baby

Alex: Helena agreed, but is also aware Garreth is also baby, so it's like the same feeling you have for the baby sitter that's two years older than you are.

***

Gore: Garreth and Klaxon have to make it out alive as they went into it. But y'all split the party on me so I can't gaurantee that.

Alex: Helena will probably come rushing back. I don't think she will move in just due to how complex her plant/heat lamp set up is.

Gore: She could leave them with her plant dealer, Gus?

Alex: She could but it's like leaving your cat with your best friend. You trust them but that's your baby, and you will worry constantly.

***

Alex: She wouldn't cope well with Klaxon having monster sex- she heard something about him fucking a demon, and having also SEEN Necropolis...so she looks at her dorm and values the quiet.

Gore: He can't bring them topside, so Helena's safe.

Alex: I don't think she knows that.... but I do think she'd miss him then.Oh my god is she the mum friend? I think she is! "AT WHAT TIME DO YOU CALL THIS?? YOU DIDN'T TEXT ME I WAS WORRIED?". Either way, she's still on the fence about her dorm and I can't push her any which way.

***

Gore: Has she heard stories about how brutal U.S cops are?

Alex: No, she's pretty shut in. She came to America for study and books, so thats EXACTLY what she's doing.

Gore: She's not aware of the political climate of it?

Alex: No, she's one of those 'I don't read the news'

Gore: Aight

Alex: I never really thought about it but I guess she is autistic. The 'outside' world doesn't really interest her on a larger scale. She's more about tasks and interests. The only reason I'M not like that is because of my flavour of anxiety being worried that I'm not a good person. I think Helena's is more about just interacting with people and her routines. She DOES love the World and humanity, but she's much more of a fan of nature because she's always found it hard to connect with people. This doesn't mean she's NASTY, she's nice to everyone and wouldn't hurt a fly - she just simply doesn't understand things like racism/homophobia on an emotional level. Historically though, of course she does.

***

Gore: What happens if one of her friends gets hurt?

Alex: She's never had that problem before really. The best example so far is with Patrick (NPC)when she was like OH GOD OH NO. Her first thoughts were practical though "I have to find him and give him first aid or whatever I can do". She has her panic attacks but like when Klaxon had his she throws it out the window and focuses on what needs to be done. She wants to be useful, she wants to help if she's needed in a people situation. Those situations are rare though, she's always been in her own little world, her parents hoped she'd get better with this but she's managed so far.

***

Gore: What if (helping) gets her into more trouble?

Alex: Hm. I think she takes things as it comes. If she was an element, she would be Earth. She's not selfish, she weathers the storm as best she can. THAT attitude has got her into trouble though, as she's still learning to be like "I need sleep" and "I don't want this.

***

Gore: Sometimes the Earth gets shaken. Would she take a direct attack to defend one of her new friends or have one of them defend her?

Alex: Hm, she would take a hit. She is vaguely aware people usually need to defend her, and feels bad about it. She's still never really had friends though, so this is new...AND in her mind she can always patch them up - even if that isn't strictly true.

***

Gore: How far can she go w/o realising she needs to patch herself up?

Alex: I mean she rushed out the door to help someone else at MIDNIGHT. For comparison, I would call the authorities and get some sleep since I would be useless sleep deprived. Helena doesn't even really put that as her first thought because she hasn't had anyone to really rely on (aside from her parents) so she feels like she has to do everything herself. She is Very respectful of authority figures but doesn't expect them to solve her problems, even with her parents, she realises in their old age she can't rely on them anymore. As a result, I think she'd go pretty far because she KNOWS the body and how it works. She will always think she can take a little more, but in reality she can't predict the impact and just how hard the next hit will be.

***

Gore: So if her legs are gone, she would still crawl to others to heal them?

Alex: Oh yeah, if she can move and has bandages. If not, she would at least move to be with them. Helena would be happy to go and then come straight back if Klaxon told her to and if she was given a use. Go there and come straight back we need to you to X for this thing.

***

Gore: You are a Brit in Boston in 2015 I gotta say that as well...

Alex: She's been fine at Uni

Gore: Up until now

Alex: It's only been a day for her, she doesn't get that yet. At Uni she does largely what she's told if given a clear reason.

Gore: Yeah but here's the thing about med school. It is highly competitive and people are always looking for excuses to flunk people out.

Alex: True. But she is VERY GOOD at what she does. I imagine that does annoy others but also it's hard to be mad at her because she's quiet about it as well as sweet, lovely and helpful to most people she meets. She knows her place with people in general, and it is at the bottom.

Gore: Some Boston people would say that you belong in the harbour with the tea

Alex: and she would clam up and walk on by.

***

Alex: Teachers like her because she's polite, studies hard and is VERY earnest in what she does. Helena making a mistake is rare, so when it happens, some shit is going down.

Gore: It sure will be

Alex: She's going to have to rush in and lie to teachers, she won't like that at ALL. Helena is a good girl but she ain't saying shit about Necropolis. She doesn't fully understand why, but she feels it in her heart to shut up.

Gore: Why?

Alex: Klaxon said they've (kindred) been around forever and have functioned this way. The heart doesn't know the lungs exist but functions anyway, yet NEEDS those lungs. She isn't loyal to humanity like that, her interest lies in medicine and they (kindred) don't seem malicious, from what she's seen.

***

Gore: Wouldn't it be a great medical advancement to study those undead and cryptids?

Alex: Yeah, but not on a huge scale. She knows about medicinal cruelty. How many have been mutilated or hurt in the name of study? With the world as it is now, no. Sure, an ideal world in Helena's mind would be all species working and living together but she KNOWS that isn't going to happen.So she will study by herself, and she's fine with that.

***

Gore: If embraced, would she study herself

Alex: Yeah, absolutely.

Gore: To what degree?

Alex: Not to like 'remove arm' degree, she would do it as needed. Like when they test new skincare on humans "I put this swatch on to see how it works". Blood samples, skin samples, bone study - she would see if she could get books on anatomy for surgery and healing.

***

Alex: The idea of studying forever appeals to her, but the passage of time scares her. She's not ready to be a vampire but she might be if she lost all her connections on the outside. I don't think it would be healthy for her though.

The joy of a mortal life is that you (hopefully) realise eventually that you have to self actualise or you WILL DIE and things will be WRONG.

Gore: What value is your own health when there's injured people?

Alex: Exactly. But I don't think she'd be her own person, she'd dedicate her life to a cause.

***

Alex: She's still developing as a person

Gore: You can develop as a kindred, it happens.

Alex: I think she thinks she might get there (being a kindred) but not at the drop of a hat.

Gore: Funny thing about death, you aren't always ready for it.

Alex: I know that, and she knows that a little. But Klaxon said she could choose, and she would like to. When it comes to big decisions I think she's slow and deliberate, like a plant. She really doesn't like change all that much.

***

Gore: You can't trust those Tremere, they can and will sell you out or use you for a ritual.

Alex: She won't see it like that, she is individual by individual. Like with her plants. HER Aloe Vera is not like any other aloe vera if you look on a deeper level, which she does.

***

Gore: She wanted to be a war medic right, has she done any internships at that level?

Alex: Not yet. She wanted to do her degree first for the skills, learn as much as she could by the boos because it's not something you can or should wing.

***

Gore: Would she squee if she met a moss or grass person?

Alex: Probably. Absolutely. Maybe quietly. She would probably love to learn to help them if they get sick. In retirement I can see her as being the best GP ever. The nurse that gives you breathing room if you have needle anxiety. The doctor that believes you and gives you a refferal. She is GOOD and I love her.

[ma-gic-gay]

In Port Charles, New York, there was never a large amount of time without someone having a near death experience, death, or traumatic event.

Michael and Willow had been pretty fortunate, ever since they got married the only bad thing that had happened was Wiley being kidnapped and they had all recovered from that, mainly. Granted, they still checked on him twice a night, but it didn't matter. Everyone was healing and the pair were trying desperately to tell each other what they felt without actually saying the words.

So it seemed it was time for them to deal with a traumatic event, according to whatever controls what happens with people in this town.

Whatever controls these people's lives decides to make them get caught up in a gunfight, where Willow was about to get shot. She had been kidnapped hours before and was being used as a pawn in a scam Cyrus had concocted against Sonny. He knew Sonny cared about Michael's family, but that he couldn't get Michael himself or he'd be killed.

When Jason and Sonny fired their guns at Cyrus and his guys, they'd fired back at a tied up, scared Willow. Michael jumped in front of them, his own gun firing as he was shot in the chest. The bullet just grazed Willow, and though she was in intense pain, the worst she'd ever felt, her first concern was Michael. He needed medical attention immediately, or else he'd die.

That brings us to the present, where Willow got shot in the shoulder and Michael's still in surgery to try and save his life. When they'd had her sign something earlier for it, a medical form she didn't know quite the details of, it had really set in. Michael could be dead because he was trying to save her life. Willow's bullet had been a through and through wound; they were able to get her all taken care of quickly. She's bandaged and traumatized, but fine. Michael, on the other hand, could be bleeding out on an operating table for all she knows. He got shot in the chest and the doctors think it's in an artery.

There are no words to describe how she felt, finding out that her husband had a large chance of death. Cyrus, stupid Cyrus and his mob games he had to play with Sonny. Stupid, stupid Sonny. If he wasn't in the damn mob, Willow never would've been kidnapped and Michael never would've been shot. He wouldn't be fighting for his life on an operating table right now, trying not to die. This was Sonny's fault as much as it was Cyrus's.

Sonny enters her room cautiously. "Willow, I'm so sorry you got caught up in all this. You never should have been involved in this situation in the first place and I have no clue why you were even on Cyrus's radar in the first place."

"I think that you should know damn well why I was shot, Sonny! The same reason Michael was, because you're in some territory fight with him. You're lucky Carly didn't get shot or another innocent bystander in your fight with him. Your mob war is fine, but I don't want anything to do with it. I married Michael, and I knew that it meant I was marrying into a mob family with you being his dad and all, but I didn't expect this! Your son is fighting for his life on an operating table right now because of you! I got shot because of you! My son could be in danger or on the radar of a known mobster right now because of you and your actions!" Willow angrily shouts at him.

The mobster is confused before he responds, "Don't you think I know that, Willow? Don't you think I feel terrible about my son having to fight for his life because of me again? I'm not a monster, despite you apparently seeing me as one. This life- it's not what I ever thought my life would be. In some ways, it's so much better, but in others, it's terrible. I don't know how you got to be involved in this, or if Wiley's on their radar, but my guys will take care of it."

"Take care of it meaning you're going to put us on house arrest like you did your entire family because you can't control the mob wars you start? Or maybe we'll have a guard following us everywhere we go like Joss. I'm sure I could get some pointers from her about how to live your life with a guard following you," she fires back, heart racing and angry.

"My family means everything to me. I-I would never do something that I thought could put my family in danger. I'm having one of my guys check right now and see if Wiley's on their radar. They're gone, the bad guys. No one is hurting any of you because you're all good people. Michael's the former head of ELQ and lives at the Quartermaine mansion, so I don't know if he was on their radar because of his last name, but I also don't know why you're the one they took. If they wanted to kidnap someone, Michael probably would've been easier to than you were," Sonny ponders, clearly apologetic about his actions.

Thinking for a moment, Willow breathes deeply, wincing slightly. "I'm sorry I blew up, but I'm anxious right now. I mean, my husband is on the operating table. Not exactly a great thing for me, or Wiley. I also got shot, which isn't exactly a fun experience. Add in the kidnapping, I'm pretty sure that there's such a high amount of adrenaline in my system right now I could be having a panic attack."

Jason enters the room with Sam and Dante. "How you holding up?"

"Shot, kidnapped, angry, scared, traumatized. I'm wondering, why did they pick to come after me? Sure, Cyrus and all them know I'm married to Michael, that's not old news, but if they wanted to get mad at Sonny, why not take one of his kids?" Willow asks, trying to distract herself from the fact that her husband could be bleeding out right now and that she's in a hospital bed with a gun wound.

"Well, Michael and I are adults. We've dealt with this stuff before, it'd be harder to just kidnap us. Avery is at Ava's, and they don't want to mess with Julian or Nikolas. Donna's got so much security around her, it'd be near impossible to, and Kristina would make an absolutely terrible hostage. Joss has a guard following her, and would also be a bad hostage. All of us wouldn't be good targets to kidnap, and so there could be the argument he could have taken one of Jason's kids, but they're all innocent in everything and Jason would go ballistic. It just wouldn't make sense. You, however, are new to this life, married to a Corinthos, have a child with one, and don't really seem like you've been kidnapped before," Dante explains.

"So I was the easiest target for them to take, pretty much?" Willow asks and they nod.

Sam speaks up now, "It makes sense that if they wanted Michael, they'd take you. Wiley's a bad target, considering that there's so much energy put into making sure he's okay at all times. You're his wife and he loves you, so they want to lure him in, they take you. Tell him exactly where to find you, exactly what to do to get you back. Only thing is, they didn't count on Sonny and Jason being there too. So they saw them and got scared. Shot at you since you were still tied up and Michael, being Michael, saved you. They wanted to hurt Sonny and the best way to do that is by hurting his family. You were the easiest target and collateral damage."

Willow sighs, angry and hurt. "So in an effort to hurt Sonny and Jason, they wanted to hurt Michael. They knew that they couldn't take him, so they take me instead and make him come get me and try to kill us both?"

"These people run off of trying to find a soft spot. This one matched for both of them. Carly was probably their second choice, except she's an absolutely terrible hostage and they know it would've been too obvious. If they could kill you and Michael, Sonny lets down his guard because he's grieving and probably raising Wiley. I'm grieving, everyone involved in the business is grieving. They can take over Port Charles. It's unfair and cruel, but true," Jason summarizes to her.

Portia comes into the room then, looking somber. "Is he okay? What-what's happening with Michael?" Willow asks immediately, frantic for news on her husband.

"Willow, the bullet that hit Michael was in one of his arteries. We were able to remove the bullet, but we don't know if he'll survive. The surgery was intense, and the damage he took to his heart was as well. His body, like yours, has faced a huge trauma, but since his was to his heart, we're not comfortable yet with anything," the doctor tells her and the brunette bursts into tears. It's like her heart is slowly cracking and they're dragging out what's happening.

"Portia, just tell it to us straight: What are the odds?" Jason asks, face emotionless.

"Michael has a 50% chance of survival," Portia admits. "The next 24 to 48 hours are going to be crucial to getting more exact odds. Right now, he's not allowed any visitors, but we will be changing that in a few hours. I'm so sorry I don't have better news."

Those are the words it takes for everyone to be crying. Jason, in a rare showing of emotion, looks like he's going to break down. Sam's face says it all: She's heartbroken. Michael's practically a son to the both of them, especially Jason. But Sonny, his face is the truly heartbreaking one. He breaks down right then and there, sitting on the floor of the room and crying. Dante looks shocked, like he's not processing this. "What the hell?" He asks. "Dad, what the hell is it with you and killing my brothers? First Morgan, now Michael?"

"Dante, your brother is still alive. He is in critical condition, but alive. The odds of survival will likely increase after I go to check on him in a few hours," Portia calmly explains as Carly runs into the room, crying.

Carly runs to the space in between Jason and Sonny and asks, "What's wrong with my baby? Why won't they let me see him? Is he alive?"

"Yes, Michael is alive. He was shot in the chest and it got in an artery. The surgical team was able to save him, though he is in critical condition with what I'm predicting is a 50% chance of survival. He will be allowed visitors in a few hours," Portia spiels, everyone understanding it more now and the room more tearful than before. "Carly, if you want, Joss and Dev are more than welcome to stay with Trina and I for the next few days, since I know you and Sonny will be here, and I presume Jax will be as well."

"Thank you, Portia. That would be great if it's not too much trouble," Carly thanks her, tears still streaming down her face.

"Of course," Portia smiles before leaving the room. "Jason, that offer extends to Danny and Scout too."

"That's nice, but they're gonna be staying with Elizabeth and her boys. Thank you for offering," he says solemnly, tears building up in his eyes.

The room has an aura of sadness as everyone processes the information they've been given. Michael has a 50% chance of dying, and a 50% chance of surviving. All because of Sonny's stupid fight with Cyrus. Despite what she may have said, Willow is still beyond upset with Sonny, as is Dante.

"Sonny, you caused this. Not Cyrus, you. By starting that stupid fight with him, you put all of our lives on the line. Now, Michael's fighting for his life in a hospital bed and Willow's been shot too! The only reason we're in this situation is you and your stupid mob war. You're lucky I'm not PCPD anymore, or I'd arrest you for all of your illegal activities and put you behind bars because none of us deserve to have this be our lives!" Dante shouts at his father, angry and needing someone to blame but truthful.

"I know that, Dante! I know that I'm the reason my son could die. I'm the reason Morgan did too, I know. I'm so sorry, Willow, that you got caught up in this because they wanted Michael," Sonny tearfully tells his oldest son.

Willow takes a deep breath, calming her sobs. "I am angry at you, but I know that it's Cyrus's fault I got kidnapped and that Michael and I got shot. Why I was kidnapped, I still don't fully understand, but I can see how badly you feel about this. So I accept your apology, but I can't forgive you for this yet."

Dante breathes, trying to calm himself, as he says, "They took you because Michael loves you and they wanted him to get to Sonny. It's stupid and rude, but the truth."

Love? That four letter word hadn't been said by either of them yet; they were getting annulled for God's sakes!

That would probably be getting put off indefinitely while Willow and him were recovering from their gun shot wounds. It would be easier on everyone because Monica would be there if something bad happened to either of them and Wiley wouldn't have to move around or anything.

Noticing her silence, Sam asks, "You didn't know that?"

"Is it that obvious?" Willow asks, noting that the pain of the wound is starting to go down.

"Yeah," Dante laughs. "It's really obvious. Stupidly obvious, to be honest. You two, I presume, have been in love with each other for at least a few months by now. It's just that neither one of you wants to say it because you're scared you'll ruin your friendship somehow or whatever."

There's a quiet laughter in the room for a few moments before the air turns somber again and tears come back full force. It's evident that all of them are in pain, emotionally and, for Willow, physically.

Several hours later, Willow's entire hospital room is full of people. Maxie, Spinelli, Anna, Finn, Monica, Bobbie, Brook Lynn, Ned, Jax, Joss, Dev, Cam, Elizabeth, Franco, Nina, Lulu, Lucy, even Sasha and Chase are there. A lot of people know Michael, and a lot of them care a lot about him. It warms Willow's heart to see that, to know that the man she loves has so many people who love him and care about him.

Portia comes in the crowded room with Trina, who envelopes Joss in a hug. "Michael can have guests now," Portia tells them, "but only one at a time. He may still be a bit woozy from the anesthesia, if he's even awake. He will likely be confused somewhat and drifting in and out of sleep. Don't talk about anything serious with him, or he'll get more confused."

As she leaves the room, Joss says, "I think Willow should go first. If there's anyone Michael would want to see first, I think it would be her."

Everyone nods their agreement and Elizabeth goes to get Willow a wheelchair. Sitting in the chair is fine, standing and walking isn't. She already hates how much this is slowing her down, considering that she's always been so quick to go and do things. This is pretty much just a shitty situation.

Elizabeth comes back, wheelchair in tow, and Willow moves to get in it, wincing in pain but ignoring that. She's got a husband to see. "You know," she jokes, "Michael and I never had a honeymoon. I guess this is the closest we'll get before our annulment."

"If I hear one more word about that annulment," Carly threatens and Monica agrees.

"I'm not letting you two make this decision, no annulment!" Dante smiles and everyone laughs for a minute except Chase and Sasha, but it's obvious that they mean it.

"Our fans grow," Willow chuckles as Elizabeth wheels her into Michael's room, which isn't far from her own.

"For what it's worth, and not that my opinion has anything to do with your marriage to Michael because it doesn't, you two do make a very good couple in a way I don't think we've seen around here in a while. Again, not my spot, but still, I think you two have some talking to do before you agree to end your marriage," Elizabeth tells her. "Count me as a fan."

Chuckling, the pair go into Michael's room, where the energy is instantly changed to more of a sad, somber energy. After all, he is in a hospital bed, hooked up to a lot of tubes and machines. Willow was lucky, her IV could go with her. Michael's setup is much more complicated.

Willow's wheeled up to his bed before Elizabeth leaves, telling her to just text someone when she needs to get wheeled away again. It's evident Elizabeth can't stand to be in the room much longer.

When she leaves, tears start streaming down Willow's face. This is more difficult than she thought it would be, though she was trying to joke her way through it. Her heart aches seeing him like this, the man she married fighting for his life in a hospital bed. It's heartbreaking, knowing that she's got a chance of him not making it, that he'll die on her. She knows he'll fight like hell to stop it, but at the end of the day, you can't always get what you want.

It's this thought that makes her want to say what she's been feeling, confess like she's in some movie or something. The words have been on her mind for weeks, but she couldn't bring herself to say them because there was a chance he didn't feel the same.

Opening her mouth to speak, Willow notes that only a sob comes out. It's not a pretty sound by any means, if anything it's an ugly one, but it's okay because Michael's still alive. "This, what I feel for you, it's hard to put into words but I'm going to give it my best shot. I fell for you because you're you. That makes no sense, I know, but that's why I fell for you. I fell for you because you're so unapologetically yourself, even when it's causing an issue. I fell for you because I want the whole thing, the stupid little fights and the joking, the love that's always there. I fell for you because when I look into your eyes, I stop thinking. I fell for you because that look you give me, that keeps me up at night trying to figure out what it means. When we kissed, I can still feel it when I go to sleep at night. You, without my knowledge, walked into my heart and just decided to get comfy. Falling in love with you was beyond my control, but I'm okay with it. This- falling for you has been the scariest thing in my life because I'm giving you the power to destroy me. You're destroying me, not knowing if you'll make it or not. It breaks my heart, knowing you could die because of me. I couldn't deal with it if you die. So hang on long enough for us to watch movies while eating a pizza we just bought in a Walmart. Hang on long enough to have stupid pillow fights with me in bed at three am because Wiley's starting school tomorrow and we can't fall asleep. Do it for me, do it for him. Do that for us. I love you, Michael, and I don't see that ending so please, just wake up."

By the end of her beautiful proclamation, Willow's full on crying. Tears are streaming down her cheeks and her heart is broken. Even though he's not dead, Willow just spilled her heart to him. It could be the last thing she ever says to him when he's alive, that she loves him. That thought terrifies her, that he could die and never fully know if he knows she loves him.

"I don't know what it is, but somehow, you can always make me smile even when I'm feeling the worst I've ever felt in my life. Without me even thinking, I can see a future with you. A future full of a couple more kids and happiness. Don't get me wrong, I know romance isn't always happily ever after. But still, I know loving someone the way I love you is so uncommon, especially so quickly. I love you, and I'm going to tell you that because it's true. You deserve to know the truth, and simply put, that's the truth. Those three words that terrified me have been so common in my brain thinking of you. And telling you, it makes me feel relieved. Because you deserve to know these things. At the end of the day, you deserve to know I love you," Willow tearfully tells him. "So you can't die on me, okay? I love you and we haven't even started our story yet, so you've got to survive so we can have our happy ending."

No response from Michael, nothing. His vitals are the same and he looks the exact same too, still great but wounded. He looks frail, lying in that hospital bed.

Maybe her words can't save him. Maybe he's already gone, already left her. It's sad to think about and makes her breakdown, sobs coming from her mouth with tears so plentiful she can't even see anything. She takes his hand, holding it in hers. This, this is the moment in all those movies where he would squeeze her hand, wake up.

Life isn't a move though, she realizes, as she continues speaking. "I get it if you're already gone and your heart's still beating, but selfishly, I want you to wake up. I want you to wake up and we can stop the annulment, fall even more in love. Selfishly, I want a huge love story where we're together for so long that people ask if we're still together and wonder how we are because we've been together so long."

"And so you have to be okay, you have to wake up from this, you have to. I get it if you don't know entirely, or if you don't fully want to, but Wiley and I need you to. Everyone here, and everyone in the waiting room, everyone crowded in my room needs you to wake up. I love you," Willow tearfully reminds him.

She pulls out her phone and texts Elizabeth she's okay to leave the room, that someone else can come in, and within a minute, Carly's in there, staring at her son, equally as heartbroken, if not more, as Willow is. Carly's been through this before; Michael was in a coma for a year and a half at one point. That doesn't mean it's less heartbreaking or easier; if anything, the opposite is true.

"I'm so sorry this is happening to you," Willow says to Carly. "I can't even imagine what you're going through."

"Thank you. I know exactly what you're going through, Willow. Sonny and Jason have been through this enough, I know just how bad it hurts and how worried you are. But Michael's strong, he'll survive this. I have faith he will survive long enough for you both to have a happy family and me to have more grandbabies. Don't even try to say that I'm wrong, because he loves you as well," Carly smiles sadly at her, tears still streaming down her face.

Willow can't help the smile on her face when she hears that. "It's good to know someone's sure of that, because I'm sure as hell not."

Carly laughs, incredulous. "How do you not see it, Willow? He's told me, flat out, that he loves you. It's so obvious that you two love each other that the fact you're both denying it or not thinking about your love for each other is getting annoying."

"I don't know. I guess I just didn't think he loved me back, but I'm going to wait for Elizabeth."

Elizabeth walks in and wheels a teary eyed Willow back to her room. "I take it that he's not up yet?"

"Nope, he's still not up. I spilled my guts to him and he's still asleep or whatever he's doing," Willow explains to her, showing off her lack of medical knowledge.

"Well, I'm sure he'll be up in a few hours, Willow. This is Michael we're talking about, he'll pull through. He always does."

When she says that, the pair have reached the room, which is still crowded with people. Willow gets herself back in bed, despite the pain that causes. After all, it's not like she's going to die getting in bed.

More time passes, and everyone goes into Michael's room until everyone's visited and he's still unconscious. It's heartbreaking, knowing that the longer he takes to wake up, the lower his chances of survival are. Medical odds are terrible sometimes.

Jason goes back into Michael's room, noting that his phone was left there on accident. Willow nods her head, pretending she heard what he said.

When he comes back, there's a huge smile on his face very unlike what you have happen when you find your phone. "Michael's awake," he says.

Tears of sadness are replaced with tears of joy as the room gets a much happier energy. "Can I go see him?" Willow asks, already getting out of bed and into the wheelchair that has been left at her bedside.

"He's asking for you," Jason says, hugging Sam tight to him.

Willow smiles widely as Dante pushes her down the hall. "Please let this make you two say how you feel about each other," he smirks.

"I already have, but I don't know if he heard it," Willow smiles at him.

"Well, sister in law and cousin in law in a completely unconvoluted way, I think he did and know he feels the same so if you two aren't together by the end of this, I will be very upset," Dante jests as they reach Michael's room.

He steers her up to his bedside, as close as she can get, and then leaves the room.

"Willow," Michael says, voice quiet. It's probably because he's just speaking again after major heart surgery.

"I'm right here," Willow smiles, grabbing his hand gently.

She watches as a smile comes across his face and he looks at her with the look he always gives her. "Good. I don't want you leaving me alone in here. This room is kinda creepy and very boring, but you make it happier. You make everything happier. I heard what you said earlier. Well, parts of it. It was beautiful and if I wasn't coming out of an anesthetic because I got shot, I'd probably be able to say something much more beautiful than I'm about to, but I love you. So please stay married to me."

"I would love nothing more than to stay married to you, Michael," Willow tells her husband truthfully. "You scared me for a while there, I was so worried that you'd die on me before we could have our love story."

"Hey, I'm not that bad. I would never die on you and Wiley. But our love story has already begun, because it's been brewing since we met. Now, it's just turning romantic officially," he smiles at his wife. "If you think of it, us getting shot was kind of a great thing because now we're telling each other what we otherwise wouldn't be."

"Thank you for showing up when you did," she thanks him, "and for saving me. I would've died had it not been for your bravery."

"I wasn't being brave, I was so pissed I wanted to kill those bastards but I needed to keep you safe. So I took a bullet to the chest, but it's worth it," Michael explains. "If you died, I would have never forgiven myself. So thank you for being a good hostage to them so that no one actively wanted to kill you until I got there with my dad and Jason."

They both let out a chuckle, though Michael winces in pain a few times. "That wheelchair can't be comfortable for your back, do you want to come up here? There's plenty of room."

"I don't know if Portia would allow that," Willow smirks at him, "but I doubt she'd object too harshly."

Several minutes later, Willow's in the hospital bed next to Michael and they're both fast asleep.

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