#its just my endo is growing back again and i only just got put back on temp birth control today

[alilaro]

sorry for all the crazy emotional posts lately. you can tell my endo is coming back/currently untreated because my mania and my depression are making me act feel like I did in 2019

[combat-wombatus]

Anti-Asian Racism (Pt. 2)

so if you haven’t read my (long) post about historical anti-asian racism, you can find it here. i tried my best to put things in chronological order, so you might want to read that before you read this one!

i got really tired writing that one bc it was super long and i only covered up to like...the 1920s?? and so here’s a second part bc i couldn’t fit it all into one post oopsies

WARNING: this contains some graphic descriptions of violence. i don’t want to accidentally trigger anyone, so please read at your own discretion. however, i do feel that it is important to be educated on the parts of history that schools often overlook, so if you can handle this, please read it.

the watsonville riots—january 1930

as US nationals, filipinos had the legal right to work in the US, and employers exploited these workers relentlessly as they assumed the filipinos were unfamiliar with their rights. they were paid the lowest wages among all ethnic laborers. the immigration acts of 1917 and 1924 allowed filipinos to answer the growing demand for labor in the US, and many young filipino men migrated to the US. due to gender bias in immigration & hiring, filipino men courted women outside of their own ethnic community, contributing to mounting racial tensions. white men decried the takeover of jobs and women by filipinos and resorted to vigilantism to deal with the “third Asiatic invasion”, and filipino laborers in public risked being attacked by white men who felt threatened by them. eventually, on january 19, this culminated in 500 white men gathering outside of a filipino dance club—owned by a filipino man—with clubs and weapons intending to take the white women who lived there out and burn the place down. they were turned away by security guards and the armed owners, but returned later to beat dozens of filipino farmworkers. they dragged filipinos from their homes and beat them, threw them off the pajaro river bridge, attacked them at ranches—and at a labor camp, twenty-two filipinos were dragged out and almost beaten to death. the mob fired shots into filipino homes, killing 22-year-old fermin tobera: no one was ever charged for his murder. in stockton, a filipino club was blown up—the blast was blamed on the filipinos themselves.

many filipinos fled the country. filipino immigration plummeted. anti-filipino violence continued in california in the months after the violence ended.

japanese internment camps—1942–1945

established during ww2 by FDR through executive order 9066. shortly after the bombing of pearl harbor, FDR signed the executive order, supposedly to prevent espionage. military zones were created in california, washington, and oregon—states with a large population of japanese americans—and the executive order commanded the relocation of americans of japanese ancestry. it affected the lives of around 117,000 people—the majority of whom were american citizens. canada soon followed, relocating 21,000 of its japanese residents from its west coast. mexico did the same, and eventually 2,264 more people of japanese descent were removed from peru, brazil, and argentina to the camps in the united states.

even before the camps, discrimination ran rampant. just hours after pearl harbor, the FBI rounded up 1,291 japanese community & religious leaders, arresting them without evidence and freezing their assets. a month later, they were transferred to facilities in montana, new mexico, and north dakota, many of them unable to inform their families. most remained incarcerated for the duration of the war. the FBI searched the private homes of thousands of japanese residents, seizing “contraband” (looting).

1/3 of hawaii’s population was of japanese descent. some politicians called for their mass incarceration. 1,500 people were removed from hawaii and sent to camps on the US mainland. japanese-owned fishing boats were impounded.

lieutenant general john dewitt prepared a report filled with proven lies—such as examples of “sabotage” (cattle knocking down power lines)—and suggested the creation of military zones and japanese internment camps. his original plan included italians and germans (because we were at war with them too!) but the idea of rounding-up americans of EUROPEAN descent was not as popular.

california’s state attorney general and governor declared that all japanese should be removed at congressional hearings in february 1942. general francis biddle pleaded with the president that mass evacuation of citizens was not required, pushing for smaller, more targeted security measures. FDR didn’t listen, and signed the order anyways.

around 15,000 japanese americans willingly moved out of prohibited areas. inland states were not keen for new japanese residents, and they were met with racist resistance. ten state governors voiced opposition, fearing the japanese would “never leave”, and demanded they be incarcerated if the states were forced to accept them. eventually, a civilian organization called the “war relocation authority” was set up to administer the plan, but milton eisenhower (from the department of agriculture) resigned his leadership in protest over what he characterized as incarcerating innocent civilians. 

no one really cared back then, but we appreciate the sentiment. however, this led to a stricter, military-led incentive to incarcerate the japanese civilians, so you didn’t really win, mr. eisenhower.

army-directed evacuations followed, and people had six days notice to dispose of their belongings other than what they could carry. anyone who was at least 1/16th japanese was interned, including 17,000 children under 10, as well as several thousand elderly and handicapped. 

these camps were located in remote areas, the buildings not meant for human habitation—they were reconfigured horse stalls or cow sheds. food shortages and poor sanitation conditions were common. each center was its own town, with schools, post offices, work facilities, and farms—all surrounded by barbed wire and guard towers.

in new mexico, internees were delivered by trains and marched two miles, at night, to reach the camp. anyone who tried to escape was promptly shot and killed, no matter their age.

when riots broke out over the insufficient rations and overcrowding, the police tear-gassed crowds and even killed a japanese-american citizen. three people were shot and killed for “going too close to the perimeter”.

in 1942, fred korematsu was arrested for refusing to relocate to an internment camp. his case made it all the way to the supreme court, where he argued that the executive order violated the fifth amendment. the supreme court ruled against him.

the camps were finally closed in 1945, after mitsuye endo fought her way to the supreme court once again. the government initially offered to free her, but endo refused—she wanted her case to address all of the internment camps. she was successful; the court eventually ruled that the the war relocation authority “has no authority to subject citizens who are concededly loyal to its leave procedure.”

the my lai massacre—march 16, 1968

during the vietnam war, US army soldiers entered a vietnamese hamlet on a search-and-destroy mission. they didn’t encounter any enemy troops; they did, however, proceed to set huts on fire, gang-rape the women, and murder around 500 unarmed civilians—including approximately 50 children under the age of four. army leadership had conspired to sweep this massacre under the carpet—the my lai massacre triggered a cover-up by the army that served to keep the atrocities committed a secret from the american public for 20 months during an election year.

american soldiers stabbed, clubbed, and carved “C [for Charlie] Company” into the chests of their victims (alive); herded them into ditches and blew them to bits with grenades. they cut off victims’ heads and slashed their throats.

this was more than spontaneous barbarism; for years, the army had dehumanized the vietnamese people as “gooks” and depicted women and children as potentially lethal combatants.

army officers who heard eyewitness reports of a massacre were quick to discount them. they issued a press release that informed news coverage—with lies. they claimed that their troops had killed 128 viet cong forces, even though they had been met with no resistance and suffered only one self-inflicted wound.

after word of the massacre reached the general public, more than a dozen military servicemen were eventually charged with crimes, but lieutenant william calley (the leader of the charlie company who was the main perpetrator in the massacre) was the only one who was ever convicted. pres. richard nixon reduced calley’s sentence to a light punishment—three years of house arrest.

three years of house arrest, and for only one person. for slaughtering 500 unarmed civilians. you do the math.

deportations

in 1975, more than 1.2 million refugees from southeast asia fled war and were resettled in the US—the largest resettlement for a refugee group in US history. in 1996, the illegal immigration reform and immigrant responsibility act (IIRIRA) expanded the definition of what types of crimes could result in detention & deportation—this broader definition could be applied retroactively, resulting in more than 16,000 southeast asian americans receiving orders of removal—78% of which were based on old criminal records.

islamophobia (article 2 preview) (article 3)

after the 9/11 attacks, islamophobia was especially prevalent in the western world, although it was also prevalent in other places without large muslim populations. from a small percentage of violence, an “efficient system of government prosecution and media coverage brings muslim-american terrorism suspects to national attention, creating the impression that muslim-american terrorism is more prevalent than it really is”, even though since 9/11, the muslim-american community helped security and law enforcement officials prevent nearly two of every five al qaeda terrorist plots threatening the united states. globally, many muslims report feeling not respected by those in the west, including over half of those who live in the US. in late 2009, the largest party in the swiss parliament put to referendum a ban on minaret (a tower typically built into or adjacent to mosques) construction, and nearly 60% of swiss voters and 22 out of 26 voting districts voted in favor of the ban—even though most swiss say that religious freedom is important for swiss identity. a network of misinformation experts actively promotes islamophobia in america. muslims are more likely than americans of any other major religious groups to have personally experienced racial or religious discrimination in the past year—48%, compared to 31% of mormons, 25% of atheist/agnostics, 21% of jews, 20% of catholics, and 18% of protestants. 1/3 (36%) of americans say that they have an unfavorable opinion about islam (gallup polls).

in the aftermath of 9/11, the US government has increasingly implemented special programs with hopes of “curbing and countering terrorism” and “enemy combatants.” these policies—such as the USA Patriot Act and the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System—have been targeted towards and disproportionately affects arabs, south asians, and muslims in america.

of course, the most lethal terrorist groups active in america are white supremacist groups, but people tend to overlook that because it’s always easier to blame something you have zero understanding of.

the non-profit advocacy organization South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) cataloged 207 incidents of hate violence and xenophobic political rhetoric directed towards south asian, muslim, middle eastern, hindu, sikh, and arab communities between nov. 15, 2015, and nov. 16, 2016. approximately 95% of those instances were animated by anti-muslim sentiment. also, “approximately 1 in 5 of the documented xenophobic statements came from president-elect donald trump.”

that’s who america hired to run our country in 2016. this was way before his misdeeds in office, yet it took us so long—and such a hard fight—to oust him. did it really take that long for everyone to catch on?

police brutality—(christian hall) (angelo quinto) (tommy le)

“CHRISTIAN HALL was a 19-year-old chinese american teen who experienced a mental health emergency on december 30, 2020. pennsylvania state police were called and requested to help de-escalate the crisis. rather than providing aid or assistance, the troopers shot and killed christian. his hands were up in the air as he stood on the SR-33 southbound overpass to I-80, posing no threat to the armed officers.”

they shot him seven times, with his arms up in the air.

“I miss my son so much. I love him so much but if his death is the catalyst for change, then so be it. Let his name be remembered. His name is Christian Hall.” —Fe Hall, Christian’s mother.

a video, shot by his mother, shows ANGELO QUINTO, a 30-year-old Filipino immigrant, unresponsive on the floor after officers subdued him with a knee to the back of his neck. the video shows him bleeding form the mouth after police knelt on his neck when he was experiencing a mental health crisis in his family home. he died three days later in the hospital without waking up. the antioch police had no body camera footage, nor has the department named the officers involved.

“I was just hoping they could de-escalate the situation,” his sister said in an interview. she called 911 when her brother had been experiencing mental health problems and paranoia. she says that she remains conflicted about calling the police that night: “I don’t know if I will not feel bad. If it was the right thing to do they would not have killed my brother.”

“TOMMY LE, a 20-year-old Vietnamese-American student, died hours before he was scheduled to attend his high-school graduation in June 2017. He was shot multiple times by sheriff’s Deputy Cesar Molina after responding to reports of a man armed with a knife. Deputies discovered after the shooting that he was carrying an ink pen, not a knife.

The office reported that Le had lunged at the sheriff’s deputies with a knife and had been threatening residents, shouting he was “the creator.” An autopsy showed that two of the three bullets that struck Le were in his back, and a witness said that Le was shouting he was “Tommy the renter.”

despite the challenges our communities face, AAPI communities receive less than one percent of philanthropic funding.

covid-19

i’ll try to keep this brief. there have been so many instances of violence perpetrated against the asian community during covid-19—not to mention the casual snipes at our culture, the microaggressions we face every day, the verbal and sexual harassment we encounter, sometimes even on the way to the grocery store for a supply run.

VICHA RATANAPAKDEE: a thai-american, he became known as “grandpa” throughout his neighborhood, where he’d made it a ritual to go on morning walks each day. it was during one of those walks on january 28, 2021, when the 84-year-old was forcibly knocked onto the ground. he was transported to the hospital, where he died two days later.

“He never wake up again. He [was] bleeding on his brain,” his daughter said in an interview. “I called him, ‘Dad, wake up.’ I want him to stay alive and wake up and come and see me again, but he never wake up.”

between march and december last year, the organization Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander Hate recorded nearly 3,000 reports of anti-Asian hate incidents nationwide. the new york city police department also reported a 1,900% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes last year.

i think senator tammy duckworth put it very aptly.

“Most people, I don’t think, think of Asians as being the subject of racist attacks, but we have been. And we’re the one community that’s often always seen as the ‘other’. I—to this day—still get asked, ‘So where are you from really?’“

i don’t think i’ve ever related so much to something a senator said.

actor and activist daniel dae kim talked about an encounter he had with a pollster who said asian americans are “statistically insignificant” in polling models in a congressional hearing:

“Statistically insignificant. Now all of you listening to me here, by virtue of your own elections, are more familiar with the intricacies of polling than I am, so undoubtedly, you already know what this means—statistically insignificant literally means that we don’t matter.”

do we matter? are we really “statistically insignificant”? blips in the machine, to be used and then thrown away once we become too “fussy” or demanding?

testimonies from victims showcase the array of xenophobic and racist insults they’ve encountered. i’ll put an (x) next to the ones i’ve personally heard.

“Go back to Wuhan and take the virus with you.” (x)

“You are the reason for the coronavirus.” (x)

“Damn, another Asian riding with me. Hope you don’t have covid.”

*fake coughing* “Chinese b—” *more fake coughing* (x)

now for some really “creative” ones that i’ve personally encountered:

“Cock up my dad’s botton, Chinease cunt”

“You don’t got the kung-flu, do ya?”

“Ever ate a dog?”

Along the same vein, “ever had any bats? Heard they’re delicious.”

“Wouldn’t want ya to pet my dog. Ya might steal it and cook it for dinner!” *hyena laugh*

a little personal anecdote

i debated whether or not to wear a mask to school in early march. my aunt lives in china, and she’s a first-responder (trained paramedic & contact tracer) and we knew how bad the virus was going to be in late february when we facetimed her, quarantined in her apartment. her toddler was staying with her husband at her parents’ house because she was afraid of infecting them. she didn’t see them in person for four months, working 14-hour shifts in the back of an ambulance decked out in a hazmat suit.

my mom cried when she facetimed us the second week of her grueling shift. i couldn’t stop thinking about her when i went to school that day. my mom sent me another picture during art class, and i just couldn’t control myself. i started crying during class.

i asked my mom whether or not i should wear a mask to school, and she said that if i did, i would be singling myself out. i wouldn’t be protecting myself—far from it. if i wore a mask to school, people would think that i had the virus, not that i was trying to protect myself from it.

gossip spreads like wildfire, and the next day, everyone knew i had relatives in china. most of my friends were sympathetic, but they were wholly removed from the situation. it was early march, and they never believed that the coronavirus would spread here. they were firmly rooted in their opinion that it was an easy situation, grossly mishandled by the chinese government, and that we’d do much better if it ever washed up on our shores.

i do hate the chinese government, and back then, i didn’t think too much of their antagonism. yes, the situation was mishandled. it was like a repeat of the SARS outbreak in 2003—first a cover-up by the local government, then a cover-up by the national government, and finally, a realization that no, in fact, they could not handle it in secret. yes, the media had to get involved. no, dead bodies were not piling up in the hallways while they waited for doctors to triage care. yes, we have capacity! look at these documentary mini-videos, forcing doctors and patients to leave a wing of the hospital empty and operate below maximum capacity so they could shoot propaganda videos for the lunar new year, boasting about how well they’re handling it!

i won’t argue that in the beginning, this was mishandled. i will argue, however, against the idea that asian countries are incompetent. that western approaches are oh-so-much-better.

in wuhan, they built a makeshift hospital spanning three soccer fields in the span of a week, with properly-functioning utilities, hospital beds, decontamination, and security. people rallied together and donated everything from money and supplies to food and ventilators, from all across the country. doctors and medical staff shaved their heads so they could better wear masks and volunteered to go to wuhan, where the situation was much more dire than in other areas. thousands of medical students from shanghai were transported to wuhan to fill the personnel shortages.

china reopened in june.

what did we do?

we didn’t ask the asian countries for experience. china, japan, and korea had handled the 2003 SARS outbreak and knew what kinds of things needed to be done. from the beginning, they wore masks. they halted travel, they did routine testing, performed contact tracing, set up programs for bringing food to the immunocompromised, elderly, and disabled, and worked as a cohesive community.

on the other hand, we resorted to childish infighting, political games, shunning masks and blaming it on asians, when we could’ve learned from them instead. we didn’t do contact-tracing. our testing systems were sorely inadequate. borders were closed with china, yes, but the majority of the cases in the US arrived from italy and other european countries who had already been infected. banning travel between the US and china was nothing more than a political gimmick.

states fought each other for basic medical supplies. there was no national unity. we were fractured in two, and COVID became more fuel for the fire dividing the two parties, when it could’ve been something that unified us.

and instead of blaming china, we would’ve been better off recognizing our own failures.

you can say that the virus caught china by surprise.

it shouldn’t have done the same to us.

we knew it was coming. but we still botched it.

blaming the virus on asian communities is a sign of immaturity and a lack of accountability. own up to your failures.

anyways, my mom was right. whenever we wore a mask in public, people really did think that we were “dirty, foreign chinese.” we stocked up on groceries so we wouldn’t have to go out, because every time my mom did, people would look at her weirdly. they didn’t wear masks.

one time, she was accosted by a blonde woman when we were at a supermarket. i’d gone with her that time because it was right after practice, and i was in the car anyways. the lady came up to us (without a mask: this was in may) and said, “excuse me, you don’t have the virus, do you?” with a pointed look at my mom (who was masked up).

my mom, being the polite person she is, simply responded “no, i don’t.”

the woman didn’t let us go after that. she pushed even more. “well, you see, i was just making sure...with this chinese virus going around, it’s scary, you know?”

i wanted to ask her why she wasn’t wearing a mask if it was “so scary”, but i couldn’t get a word in before she asked another question.

“by the way, y’all aren’t chinese, right?”

yes i am. yes we are. why does it fucking matter. we’re wearing masks, you’re not, get the hell out of my face.

honestly, i don’t know how my mom does it. she has the patience of a saint. she said “mhm”, grabbed a gallon of milk, and walked to the self-checkout area. the lady looked at me and raised her eyebrow, and i said “so what if we are?”

she looked like she’d been slapped in the face. i turned and followed my mom, but she said “now hold on young lady!” i ignored her and kept walking.

i don’t owe her anything. why do people think it’s okay to talk to others like that? we’re human beings too. we’re allowed our basic dignity. basic respect. we’re not something for you to joke at, to laugh at, to fetishize or bully into submission. i don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to realize that. i don’t understand why it’s so hard for people to treat others like human beings.

to people like that lady in kroger:

why do you feel the need to do it? is your opinion of yourself really that high to think that you’re superior to others who are different from you? are you really that conceited to think that you’re the perfect image of a perfect human, and anyone not like you is unworthy, considered lesser? or is your opinion of yourself really that low, to think that whatever you say, it doesn’t really matter anyways? why do you find derogatory jokes and demeaning comments funny? why do you think it’s okay to harass a stranger just going about their day? is your life really that boring, and you have nothing else to do with your time? why? would it be okay if i came up to you and asked if you ate rotten shark meat, then laughed it off and said “oh, i thought you were from iceland”? is that okay? can i ask if you eat cockroaches? how would you respond if i asked “where are you from?”? you would say america, right? and if i asked again? europe? where in europe? oh, you don’t know? are you illegal? was your mother a prostitute? are you a communist? why are your eyes so big? do you speak europeanese? crut iveroij aeish poient. oh, those aren’t words? well i think they sound like european words. what’s your name? je-re-mi-ah? like jeeryyy-miiiaaaccchh? oh, that’s not right? sorry, my tongue just won’t bend that way. your names are so weird! why would your parents name you that? oh, it means something? well, i don’t know the language, so don’t expect me to say it right. have you ever eaten haggis? oh, that’s scottish? oh, you’re not scottish? sorry, you all look the same to me. scots and italians are just so similar, you know? what’s your name? your last name is anderson? i know an anderson! she lived in texas. are you related to her? oh, you don’t know her? sorry, i thought you were all related. yeah, like i said before, you all just look so much alike, you know? are you lazy? oh, nothing, i just heard from my dad that all french people are lazy. oh, you’re not french? well, you still look lazy. are you good at english? oh, nothing, i just assumed that all white people were english. i know you like to assume that we’re good at math. oh, you got an A in english? isn’t that normal? i can’t help it, you’re just smarter. you probably don’t even study. oh, you do? well, you’re smart anyways, so it doesn’t matter. you’re so good at math for an american! oh no, nothing, i just assumed that all americans were bad at math. *starts playing with her hair* oh, that’s making you uncomfortable? but your hair’s so silky, and it’s so smooth. what kind of hair products do you use? i want to learn how to make my hair look exotic like that. oh, you’re not exotic? but you’re foreign. of course you’re exotic. you know, *leans in and whispers* men like you this way, yeah? they just looveeee exotic ladies. *winks*

can you see how this is demeaning? can you see how this diminishes our culture, our hard work, our accomplishments?

racism isn’t funny. it’s not cool, it’s not a joke, and it’s hurtful. it makes us question our capabilities, forces us to have unrealistic expectations of ourselves, makes us feel unworthy and “other”. just stop? stop making hurtful comments. stop stepping on other people to feel better about yourselves.

[autismisaokay]

As a fair warning this post is a time where I break my NSFW rule because it has to do about my body and health. So as a warning I will be talking about some heavy stuff.

I wasn’t sure when there was going to be a good time to really bring this up. A while back I brought up that I was doing research on trans man. Lately I’ve also been reblogging some trans support and resources. I just got a question asking if I was trans and the answer is, yes I’m a man. More specifically I’m a trans man.

Honestly this whole process has been just that a process and it’s no where near from being done. I’ve been terrified to bring this up for multiple reasons that I can’t even list all here. I was going to wait until I was on T before I started to really choose. However my insurance won’t pay for my HRT until I have a psych eval and I’ve been living as a man (again without T) for 12 months. An people have really started to pick it up irl and it was only a matter of time until people started to figure it out here.

This hasn’t been fun for me and I had to come out twice in the span of three days to my mother. Who says she will not respect my pronouns or my name until I’ve gotten them legally changed and gotten the psych eval. (The fact I also need to do a psych eval in the first place is really degrading to me) She also told me that since I never played with trucks as a kid or didn’t show signs to her that I can’t be trans. She would have accepted me if I had shown the signs early on and she knows trans people and I can’t be one. I tried telling her I was scared and I hid it. She also told me that my grandmother knows and my grandmother asks that I, “Please wait until she dies.” To transition or else this will be the thing that kills her and she doesn’t have long left anyway. My grandmother was my first best friend in the world and I thought would be until the day she died and the family member I was closest to. I’ve also been told by my mother that I’m being selfish and that the rest of my family wouldn’t accept this. Which I told her I understood.

My mom thinks I’m doing this for attention, I got caught up in one of my “phases”, and because it’s a “internet trend.” When I told her this is who I am she said that, “this is who I am” is the buzzword for the trans internet right now and to try again and give her another reason other than that. She also believes being trans is a trend right now. Which is another reason why I was scared to come out here. I know a lot of people are transitioning here and I was horrified of looking like I was doing this for attention or trying to take attention away.

She wants me to go to my endo appointment and an eval and she says she’ll only accept this unless they do because “she has to” at that point. She doesn’t want to do any of this and in order for me to get any respect I have to hold her hand. I understand she’s grieving a child but I feel like my whole family just died and she kinda confirmed they did, metaphorically.

This is my coming out letter I wrote that I got to read the second time I came out that I couldn’t read to her the first time. I think it will help explain what I’ve been going through.

“I’ve been receiving a variety of questions on my appearance and mental health from multiple people. “Why did you change things up?” Or, “What’s been going on with me?” Lately I have had a lot of time to consider seriously what I’ve wanted out of life as well as my identity as a whole. What could make and, in many ways, would make me the happiest. To put it bluntly, I figured out I’m a man. I ask that you please save all questions or comments until the end of what I have said, thank you.

There was this over looming anxiety I couldn’t quite put together throughout the process of figuring this out. There was this “entity” we will call it, I had always put to the side or hid for years. Because in the end I didn’t even really have a discernible answer for it. And if I could keep pushing this to the side, it must not be that big of a deal or even affect me that badly. I would always find, or was, in some sort of distraction to keep from digging any deeper into my identity then I was ready for.

When I discovered I’m autistic for the first time for a while it seemed to solve many of my questions, and I was able to put things to bed for a while. Until those self-reflective questions, feelings, and thoughts on who I am woke up in a panicked scream again a couple of years later. Yet I still tried metaphorically placing a pillow over its head to try and force it all “back to bed.” I repeated this cycle again and again, and each time events in my life would cause those questions and feelings to resurface. Becoming worse and worse each time, until I finally had to sit down and face this.

What are these questions though you are probably asking yourself at this point? They are as follows in no order that I’ve asked myself throughout my life, and yes some even in childhood. Why have I always been so self-conscious about my image? Why did my body feel so disgusting and wrong other than inability to love myself? Why did I feel like I had too much of some parts and too little of others? Why was I angry that my voice would not get any deeper? Why did I imagine myself wearing suits but was too scared to do and say so and pushed it aside? Why did the way I pee not feel right? Why when I drew myself as a boy growing up did it feel so good but so bad enough to hide it? Why did I secretly go on boy’s puberty sites as a teenager and feel like it was a game of connecting the dots when anything matched with the boys? Why were the dreams I had as a boy feel so natural?

It all came to one answer, I am a man.

To be honest, I didn’t understand any of this fully or was able to come to terms with this up until the end of March of this year. I had always been trying to do the best with what I was given, in fact I wanted to. Somethings that are perceived as “girly” by certain people I even enjoy which made things doubly confusing.  I thought I was just over blowing things and that for a while being autistic seemed to explain many things, but not everything. Or that I had penis envy, or I didn’t think highly enough of girls and that made me bad. More than anything I was afraid to come to these realizations in fear of what people would think or what would happen. Or that it would be dismissed away, which really scared me. To figure out something as immense as this and not be able to maybe finally be more comfortable and know myself better. That terrified me.

Due to the misunderstandings of trans individuals I feared I would be thought of as a pervert. I even came to think that I was one for being this way. I feared being thought of as incompetent to decide this for myself due to being autistic. A pulsating fiery raging scream stayed buried deep in the pit of my stomach from these thoughts.I started to experiment, to be more certain of coming to terms with this.

I did research and made things like a starter packer. Which are socks bunched together to make a bulge shape like a penis and testes to wear. This gave me enough euphoria to know I wanted more. So, I bought myself a packer (a silicone prosthetic) and something called a STP (Stand To Pee device).  Which gave me so much euphoria I cried the first time I used my STP because it felt so right. At that time, I was speaking with Julia (therapist) to help sort me through this journey since around late March early April. I went on to buy men’s pants and undergarments and cut off all my hair and bought a binder. (Safely compresses my breasts) In addition, I also chose my name and came out to some friends who accepted me and used my correct pronouns. With Julia’s aid she also advised me the biggest thing I could do right now is speak with the community. So, I did and since then I’ve found an online support group and a local support group that I’ve been going to meetings for. It’s helped me place myself and instead of feeling like I didn’t belong I felt like things made more sense in many regards.

I still have many other fears and adversities I will continue to face while living as my true self. One of the things that has really challenged me is that I feel like my words do not have any bearing anymore advocating for autistic people who identify as girls. Now that I’m coming out as a man. As much as I know I’m a man I feel like I’m a bad person for identifying this way since there’s so much stuff out there saying that men are toxic, trash, and unfeeling. And I’m trying to learn how to best be a good and responsible man in this world.

The real me has always been out there and I’d like to be able to live my life the way I was meant to. As a man and on my way to medically transitioning. I am saying all of this because I care, and I want to be able to finally get this out of my system and help elevate this confusion to the best of my ability.

My name is Ren Jason P***, I’m your son, big brother, grandson, friend, colleague, classmate, autistic advocate, and fellow human being. Please don’t turn away the little boy and man, who shouldn’t be dictated by a body he didn’t ask for. 

As Princess BubbleGum says:

“People get built different.”

“We don’t need to figure it out. We just need to respect it.” “

[shadowdianne]

1st @yaminoendo

You know, I remember you from a fuzzy memory of my first year here. And you, alongside with  @italymystery-swanqueen were kind of the first tumblrs I remember feeling utterly giddy and grateful to have ever made the decision of following. I cannot get enough of the evil ways in which you make my heart swoon with either catradora, kigo or your very acute and always perfect book recommendations. Thank you, friend, for being there when I needed it. I truly hope that this year brings everything good on your way. You deserve it tenfold.

-          Endo asked for an AU Bellamione with Narcissa being the enabler of a blind date between both brunettes. He also asked for an almost but not really marriage proposal. This is already to a good start. (Also, Voldemort never existed on this version of events. Let’s just say that Endo knew very well how to make me write these two)

In hindsight, Hermione should have guessed that her always-poised yet slightly mischievous boss was up to something when she told her that her sister would be delighted to have a date with her. It wasn’t exactly a policy for the young witch to evade possible dates, not even if they came from her boss, but she had felt a tendril of doubt curling on her stomach when Narcissa Black had laughed a little with a toothy grin trapping a string of words she hadn’t dared to ask what they had meant.

“Trust me, you are just perfect for Bella. And I know of a place that she really likes…”

She didn’t outright refuse her gut feelings, she always had had a more brain-type approach to anything that required a little bit of thinking after all, but she had actively fought against the nervousness as she nodded to her boss, flustering a little at the way the blonde’s eyes twinkled with something that was definetely amusement.

And now, as she nervously looked at the woman that had entered the small coffee place Narcissa had recommended her at the further side of Diagon Alley, close enough that even Knockturn’s could be seen from the windows at her right if she tilted her head in just the right angle, she had the distinct impression that Bellatrix Black definetely didn’t know who she was going to meet.

Recognizing her had been easy; despite the obvious difference between her boss and the strikingly beautiful woman both carried a similar weight on their shoulders. The kind of one Hermione thought came with their upbringing as purebloods in one way or other. She also moved gracefully, less slowly than Narcissa perhaps, brusquer, as if her brain was way quicker than her legs.

What came after the door closed behind her, the whiff of an apparition spell still circling her and even reaching Hermione despite of her being on the far end corner of the coffee as she had been instructed, was what made Hermione consider if this thing hadn’t been a mistake.

Eyes scanning the small crowd inside the shop, the brunette stopped on her for a brief second, her eyes going back to searching until her lips pressed into a tight line; a look of what couldn’t be nothing but utter shock running through her face as she looked back at her. Feeling suddenly naked under the intense gaze, Hermione couldn’t do anything but remain still, her own eyes holding the other Black’s sister eyes.

Yes, she thought as she waited, the other woman sighing despondently before approaching her table, her movements quick as her right hand quickly hid the wand she had still been holding on it, this hadn’t been a bad idea.

Stopping in front of her with a movement so quick Hermione was almost waiting for her to feel a gust of air against her face, the dark-haired woman glanced at the table that laid between them in where the young witch’s coffee waited, steam coming out of it despite Hermione’s decision of arriving thirty minutes before the actual hour. Something that made the young woman feel just as naked as those eyes kept on looking at her, as if waiting, searching for something.

Clearing her throat and deciding to simply go for it as leaving now would probably be for the worst, Hermione stood as calmly as possible while letting a small smile escape her stiff lips, a dry shallow grasping her throat as she did so.

“You must be Bellatrix.” She said and there was a shift on the other woman’s posture, a barely-there tremble that curled the dark-haired woman’s fingers, pressing them against the dark ensemble she wore. “I’m Hermione. I work…”

“With who I thought I was my sister but I’m seriously considering to not think of her like that anymore.”

Her voice was smooth, deep, and hold a roughness to it that got Hermione mentally stumbling as the older woman sighed deeply before seating somewhat unceremoniously on the chair in front of Hermione’s. Something the young witch quickly followed as she felt a sudden void of embarrassment growing on the back of her mind.

“I…” She began, only for the other to interrupt her once more, her tone firm, veering into the rudeness of someone who had very clear what she wanted.

“I thought I was going to meet Cissy’s new employee.” It wasn’t a question per se, but Hermione nodded to it either way as Bellatrix casted a quick look to the waitress that had been gazing at the little display they both had created somewhat boringly. She seemed to be a usual because the short girl nodded quickly and went to the counter, quickly placing a cup of tea in front of Bellatrix before scurrying back to its post, eyes never truly leaving them both.  Intertwining her fingers, resting her chin against them, the dark-haired witch returned back to Hermione, her brown eyes narrowing, undaunted. “She failed to mention that the blind date she was orchestrating was between me and…”

She stopped for a long second and Hermione felt her heart do a somersault as an impossible idea assaulted her; despite the pureblood upbringing Narcissa hadn’t given her any sings she shared some of the old ideas that still run around in some old blood circles but, for a moment, the witch considered if that point of view wasn’t shared by the woman she had in front of her. Even if it would have been impossible for her to tell with just a glance, an old fear arose within her. One she hated, despised it even. Feeling her muscles beginning to ache, she rose her chin, some of her Gryffindor pride shining through as she gritted down her teeth; waiting for the blow to come, ready to deliver it back if necessary.

Of course, she would need to find another job, even if the bookstore was being just her dream job for the time being.

“A woman.” The Black sister finished, and Hermione felt her whole body shag; the realization that Bellatrix had obviously been led there under the pretense of her being a bloke snuffing out every other worry that had already starting to ricochet inside her brain.

“You didn’t know?” She asked, and Bellatrix scoffed at that, a half-shrug her only answer for a moment as she took a sip of her tea, prompting Hermione to follow through with her own coffee, the enchant on the cup probably about to wear off.

“She didn’t also mention…”

“The age difference.” This time Hermione didn’t need to think twice, and her voice rose above the other woman, a mirthless laugh escaping her lips afterwards.

Eyes still narrowed, the older witch leaned back on her chair, one arm atop the chair’s back, long fingers fidgeting, trembling in some complicated patrons Hermione was unable to decipher.

“Yes, that. But somehow, I guess I can’t truly say that I’m surprised, Cissy always had a knack for pushing me into these things.”

“Dates with strangers?” And despite the still present feeling of nervousness and dread Hermione smiled more freely when Bellatrix laughed at that; a whole body laugh that caused a few patrons to look at them with obvious curiosity before the dark-haired witch straightened back on her chair, a lock of jet-black hair falling over her left eye. Puffing it out of the way, the woman nodded.

“Among other things.” She said, and Hermione smiled inwardly a little at the way she didn’t seem all that much fazed by her anymore. Or annoyed.

“How about we just talk then?” She said quickly and, flustering just slightly under Bellatrix’s gaze, she shrugged, trying to feign a nonchalance she didn’t truly possess. “I work for your sister. Eventually we will meet again. So… how about we use the opportunity?”

Bellatrix eyed her for the longest of seconds before nodding.

“Deal.”

“Hermione?”

The young witch blinked as she was brought by to the present, Bella’s curious eyes gazing on her as she was reminded of their surroundings. The quiet coffee place hadn’t changed all that much ever since that day three years ago, but she still raked the walls around both the dark-haired witch and herself, focusing on the slightly crackled old wood that covered them all with its fake paneling. Glancing back at Bellatrix, she tilted her head as the older woman raised her brow, waiting for her.

When she didn’t speak, far too focused solely on the way Bellatrix’s hair bounced the dim light of the magicked candles around the place, the older woman sighed, the ghost of a smile pulling her lips into her usual crocked smile. One Hermione had fallen in love far too quickly with.

“Weren’t you going to ask me something, love?”

The quiet but incisive nudge startled Hermione enough for her to rattle both her untouched coffee and the teaspoon she had put at the side of the plate, the few drops of coffee still resting on it splattering under her mortified eyes.

“Yes.” She quacked, and Bellatrix laughed a little at that, placing her hand on top of Hermione’s right one, a quick wave of worry flashing on her brown eyes when her thumb grazed the inner side of her wrist, the cold calming touch probably finding her quickened pulse.

“Get a grip.”

Extricating her hand beneath Bellatrix but smiling softly at her, signaling that nothing was truly wrong, she patted the pocket she had enchanted a few hours before, so the bulge of a small ring box wasn’t obvious through the thin fabric.

“Yes, I have something to ask you.”

[coll2mitts]

Thyroid Follow-up Scans - Year 1 and Year 2

So, 2 years later, here I am again with this thyroid bullshit.  I started writing about this last year and never posted it, so here I am posting a whole year’s worth of crap.

If you’re ready for a lot of angst and general bullshit go ahead and read below the cut.  There’s gifs and pictures, though, which I think makes it better.

A year ago, I went in for my appointment with my endocrinologist, and asked him if it was possible for me to do my follow-up testing at Beaumont’s Farmington Hills campus, because it’s 5 minutes from my house instead of 30 minutes, and, if you remember, I wasn’t a super big fan of my nuclear med doctor.  He was very distressed when I asked him this, and insisted I stick with Beaumont Royal Oak because “just because it says Beaumont on the door doesn’t mean you’re going to get identical treatment.  They’d just perform the scan on you, they wouldn’t even have you meet with an oncologist.  It’s only once a year, you can handle going to Royal Oak once a year.”

Yeah, except it isn’t “once a year”.  It’s 5 different appointments (minimum) I have to take time off of work for, and as much as I love fighting through rush hour traffic to get to the hospital for a 5 minute appointment, I don’t want to do that.  The endo also gave me the (false) impression that maybe they’d just give me a CT scan or something instead of making me go through a month without meds.  I was like, cool, yeah, if I just have to go in for one scan, I don’t give a shit, sign me up.  So, I called in mid Feb to schedule my one-year follow-up.

(Sidenote: I don’t think my endo was wrong about Farmington Hills, especially considering my interactions and my mother’s interactions with that hospital, but the dismissal of the amount of effort it takes to get there when you’re hypothyroid and feel like you’re gradually turning into stone was frustrating.)

I hate how they used to do scheduling at Beaumont, it’s the worst.  You get put on a list, and then a person calls you back several weeks later when they get their schedule for the next month and you can then work out a date and time.  They actually didn’t forget about me this time, and scheduled me for a consultation appointment at the end of March.  I decided to take my boyfriend with me and test out a new theory that if I prove that SOMEONE cares about me, the doctor would.

One very early morning in March, I dragged my poor boyfriend out of bed to get to the hospital.  Of course, when I got there, they had no record of me being in the system, so I have to wait 30 minutes to even check in at reception.  Then I sat in another waiting room waiting for the nuclear medicine doctor.  They ran me through the same questions they did last time, and handed me a sheet with all of my prescheduled dates for dropping the meds, starting the diet, drinking the radiation, etc.  Of course, they hand me this sheet and I’m like “wait, so I’m going through the whole process again?” and the PA just says, “Yes...?” as if it was a weird question to ask.  Then he took my pulse and was like, “Are you anxious?” “Yes.” “OK.”

The nuclear medicine doctor came in after that and was like, “Oh, I remember you!  But you (pointing at my boyfriend), you’re new!  This a new husband, significant other, friend?” “New boyfriend.  Just brought him so he could take in the whole experience.”

Like, legit, my boyfriend rarely talked the entire time and she couldn’t stop going on about how much she loved him.  Then she talked directly to him about how cranky I’d get, and how I’d need to go on the diet, and how he should be supportive, and then follows that up with, “But it’s only 3 weeks, you’ll barely notice a difference!” staring directly at me.  Yeah, sure, no difference.

The dates they had me scheduled were starting May 1st to drop the meds, with the scan being in the later part of the month.  They wanted to make sure that the spot in my jaw was gone.

This is where my confusion sets in.  Initially, the spot in my jaw didn’t show up as part of the scan - it only showed up when they did the full radiation dose to kill the cancer.  What makes them think it’s going to show up this time?  Also, my endo told me that they would be monitoring my Thyroglobulin levels, and if they were zero that would mean I was cancer free.  They have been zero the last two times they’ve done it and they’re still making me do the scan.  Is testing the Thyroglobulin levels not indicative of cancer being present in my body, then?  Could cancer be growing and now show up in those levels?

But we move forward, and come the end of April I stop taking my meds (a day early, because at this point I wasn’t taking my pills on Sunday).  I start the diet 5 days earlier than they told me to, because a week didn’t seem long enough, and I don’t want to fuck around with the results.  The first couple days off of the meds weren’t great, but then it became pretty manageable and I thought, “shit, this is lucky, maybe it won’t be as bad as before!” and of course, after I say that, my body decides to shut the fuck down.

I started to have weird dreams again (although not as bad as last time), my body would ache constantly, and I didn’t have any strength left.  The week before my thyroid scan I decided to go up 4 flights of stairs to get to a meeting at work and it almost killed me, so I figured that was the point where I should start taking it easy because riding the elevator doesn’t make you a weak person.

When I called for the results of my TSH, I barely crossed the finish line at 44.  Thank god.  I went in the following Monday to get the tracer dose, and at this point I’m in super high spirits because I’ve been drinking the optimism kool-aid.  Everyone has been telling me I’ll be fine, that I won’t have to be on the diet again (everyone is SO FUCKING FIXATED on the diet aspect of this whole process like that’s the worst part instead of, I dunno, being off your meds and dealing with the anxiety of getting a cancer scan).  I’ve been the one peppering my statements “if everything looks ok”.  So, the nuclear medicine doctor comes in and is like “OK, hopefully this is the last of it, although you did have thyroglobulin levels present, so we have to figure out where that’s coming from.”

Oh.

Then nurse wheels in the dose, I drink the radioactive material (shown above stored in a lead egg - I asked the nurse if it was OK to take pictures and she’s like “YEAH! Let’s open it up so you can see inside!”) and drive into work with a now-familiar sense of dread.

That’s the vial they store the iodine in.  What’s shoved inside it is the plastic straw I used, because now that’s radioactive, too :P

Of course, when I get to work, I immediately start digging in the thyroid cancer forums (DON’T DO THAT) and got super depressed and thought great, now I have to go into surgery again, or do beam radiation or chemo, or maybe it’s spread to all my organs and this is it, I’ll be part of the 3% of people who die from thyroid cancer.  But 6 hours later I realized the only thing that I know, for sure, is that this changes the best case scenario to “I have to do all this bullshit again next year to make sure the second round of I-131 works”, and I’ve *done* that before so it’s way less scary.  Worst case scenario, we find out it’s not iodine avid and I have to do something else.

So, I go in the next day to measure my radiation levels, and what was normally supposed to be a 15 minute appointment turned into an hour because they sprung a neck scan on me.  No time to get anxious about it, cause there I was, under the plate, cursing god and all that is holy I’d have to do this twice this year.  They don’t say anything about the results, send me home, and I go with Beau-James to the full-body scan the next day.

This is the machine they use to find the radioactive material in your body.  You lay on the bed on the right (where the amazing heated blanket is balled up), they literally strap you down (feet and body) so you’re essentially a firmly wrapped burrito, and then the machine wheels you into the area with the flat plates.  Then, the nurse adjusts the plates so they get REALLY FUCKING CLOSE TO YOUR FACE, and over 40 minutes it guides you through the machine to see if it can find anything.  At least they let you wear headphones.

I laid there for a head scan, the full body scan, and then to really freak me out, a chest scan.  Then, after waiting for what fucking felt like an eternity, the doctor comes out and is like, “You’re gonna be fine, it’s still that spot in your neck.”

“What spot in my neck?” “The one that showed up after the treatment last year.” “I thought that was in my jaw?” “No... no.  In your jaw?  There’s no spot in your jaw, it’s in the middle of your neck.” ...The middle of my neck.  That was causing tightness in my neck, that caused me to go to the ER.  That all my doctors convinced me was a result of my anxiety.  Was fucking thyroid cancer.  Cool.

The spot was so small, though, that she said she didn’t want to treat it because treating it would cause me more harm than good.  And she didn’t want to send me for a CT scan because a scan for any thyroglobulin level under 11 wouldn’t be approved by my insurance (mine was 3).  Her recommendation was to: a) come in the next day to get ANOTHER neck scan, b) get a ultrasound on my neck to see if we could find any other masses, and c) wait it out until next year.  Which meant another round of testing.  Joy.  

Her hope was that was it would just burn itself out since it was so small.

I went in the next day for neck scan #3 of the year, and she said the spot was already fading on the scan, so she felt optimistic.   But I know my body and it’s ability to fight things on its own, so I wasn’t feeling super great about it.

Flash forward to now, year 2 of thyroid cancer (third time being scanned), and I get the ultra sound (doesn’t show anything), and I do the blood cancer scans (zero thyroglobulin), and still ramping up for the tests this year I know I’m gonna be fucked.  Because those tests have never been an indicator of what is really going on with my body.

I go in for my initial appointment again, do the song and dance of “how are you feeling, what are your symptoms?” etc, which doesn’t mean anything because they operate on what the blood tests and the scans show you.  The last 4 or so months I could tell I was hyper... I was super angry all the time and hungry constantly.  BUT I kept telling myself, no, that wouldn’t make sense, because I’m tired all the time and have gained a stupid amount of weight.  And literally the nuclear medicine doctor tells me, “I don’t know why you’re tired all the time, it must be something else, because your last blood test showed your TSH level at .4.”

My last TSH test was back in November.  And I didn’t know that before because my endo *snail mails* me my results and they’re hand written and say things like “keep taking the meds, you don’t have cancer”.

Now, I had called to schedule the appointment to see the nuclear medicine doctor back in February, even though last year my scans were in May.  They schedule me to go meet her in early April, but then rescheduled for late April.  When she hands me over the dates for going off the meds and the scan, I’m expecting May again, but this time it’s late June, “So you’ll be out of school.” “I’m not IN school, I’m 31.” “You’re still young enough to be in school.” “...But I’m NOT.”

Doesn’t matter.  I get to be in a hypo daze for 2 of the few months of summer we have in Michigan.  Want to go hiking?  Biking?  Walking?  Fuck you, hobble around, have a nap and cry at Serta Mattress commercials.

For the third time in my life, I go off my meds and start chugging along.  It’s hard for me to climb stairs, I start having dreams about animatronic dinosaurs without skin on trying to eat my face, I cry at the dumbest things.  I can’t sleep for more than 3 hours at a time, and when I wake up I don’t necessarily feel like I’m awake.

I manage two teams at work, neither of which have been around long enough to know about my cancer, and a new boss who also has no clue what’s going on.  I try to hide feeling like utter garbage, because this year hit me way harder than last year.  After being nudged by my friend Erin, who has also suffered through Thyroid cancer, I finally broke down and took the week of my scan off of work.  Even then, I STILL thought I didn’t have to tell anybody because I’d just be gone for a week, and that doesn’t seem weird.  I just didn’t want to be known as “Cancer Girl”.  Or, more importantly, make people think that I couldn’t handle my job because that insecurity runs THAT deep.  Being a female who works in software is super fun.

When I finally got my blood test done, my TSH level was at a 54.  And my thyroglobulin level doubled to 6.  Whomp whomp.  I went into work the day I found out my results and basically told everyone what was going on, because if they had to treat me, I wasn’t going to be an radioactive idiot who worked from home like last time.  Unlimited PTO means I get to use it, right?

So, I go in for the tracer (this is literally what they do to you to make sure you don’t spit radioactive material everywhere), the 24-hour uptake, and the scan, and they haven’t even finished my chest scan when the doctor bursts in and says, “Well, I can’t see anything.”   Apparently the thyroid tissue in my body is no longer iodine avid, so they can’t treat it with 131.  She wanted me to come in the next day for another scan just to be sure, but she was going to recommend a PET scan to see if that would show anything.

It took an entire week of her fighting with my insurance company to get the scan approved.  The year before she told me they wouldn’t approve a scan for anybody with under 11 thyroglobulin, but she was advocating HARD.  When they finally got approval, I had to go in the day before for a blood test to make sure my TSH levels were over 20, and I couldn’t eat any carbs or sugar because they needed my blood sugar level to be under 200.  The idea is that cancer tissue eats lots of sugar, so a radioactive sugar concoction will show up on the scan.

The actual day of the scan I asked Beau-James to come with me for moral support, but then found out it’d take 2-5 days for an oncologist to read the scan and send it over, so I wouldn’t hear anything that day.  Basically, they injected me with the radioactive material, we got to hang out in our own private room for an hour and a half while my tumors ate the sugar, and then they sent me in for the scan.

I know I’ve mentioned before how fucking claustrophobic I am, and how goddamn terrible the nuclear scans were.  Beau-James has sat in the room with me for a few of them, and this last time I was like, “Oh god, I always forget how CLOSE they get to your face,” and he says, “Eh, it’s like 2 inches away,” AS IF THAT ISN’T TERRIFYING.  When I had asked the nurse if the PET scan also gets close to your face she’s like, “If you can handle the other test, this will be a breeze.”  I think she was being generous with her definition of “breeze”, cause they do stick you in a tube, and it does feel close, but she was correct in the fact that it didn’t bring me to unparalleled levels of anxiety where I want to claw my way out of the machine and run screaming, which was nice.  It moves you around a lot, too, giving you some variety on position, and I spent a lot of the 25 minute scan with my head outside of the machine, so it wasn’t too bad.  After it was done, they sent me home, and Beau-James and I drank beer and ate burgers because I no longer had to worry about any funky diets.

Today I got the results back from the PET scan, and I was both like 0% surprised by the results, and simultaneously terrified by them.  The head/neck/chest scan showed nothing, so they still don’t know where the thyroid tissue is.  The nuclear medicine doctor said at this point we’ll just “watch and wait” for the tissue to present itself, which is both annoying and slightly relieving.  The other part of the scan, though, was the curveball.  Apparently my left ovary picked up a lot of material, so they want me to get it checked out.  I’ve been complaining to my doctor about this ovary for about a year because it makes my periods FUCKING UNBEARABLE to the point of me crying on my bed praying for death because the pain is so bad.

So, watch this space, cause I might be providing ovarian cancer updates next.

Sigh.

[benjaminreevesart]

WHY DOES FORTUNA DISAPPOINT ME SO?

In November of 2018 DE released its latest OpenWorldTM Fortuna, an update I had been waiting for with bated breath from the edge of my seat since its announcement last year. At the time of launch I was logging in every day just for the chance to be one of the first to experience it.

Now over a month later, I sit here struggling to convince myself to go back. Yes, even after the heist update. A sentiment seemingly shared among many others in the community. So as with all things in life we must ask ourselves… why?

-Aesthetic: they decided to drop this thing in November, so I guess instead of going outside to play in the snow users could stay inside log on to warframe and play… in the snow. Yay.

I find myself missing the familiar exotica of not-africa and its kind-of-alive-but-not-really-except-its-made of-flesh-and-you-can-eat-it-wtf-DE? tower. (that bothers me). Just standing in these updates’ respective hub-areas and listening to the ambiance of the environment speaks volumes. The plains has haggling traders, merchants announcing their wares, wind rustling through the many canopies and tent flaps of hand hade fabric, it feels alive where fortuna feels like a cold mechanical day job. If you say that’s intentional… well, I hardly think boredom is anything to aspire to.

I get that they’re going for a sci-fi-punk feel, but it just comes off as monotonous, hopeless, and impersonal.

-Personal connection: Sure Saya’s Vigil was stupid romantic melodrama, sure onko’s decision is lame, sure it was kinda dumb to give newby players a warframe blueprint they couldn’t build until after reaching the mid-game, but ya know what? It worked.

I know who saya and konzu are, i have been with them on their story, every time I see konzu standing there with his girl I know that is because of me. My journey, my struggle, my effort brought these people together. Its simple its small, its human.

I mean who the hell is eudico anyway, why does she fight? Why caste shade on biz’s origins, and are we just going to gloss over an innocent person getting their head chopped off and their organs harvested in the open fucking street???????? There are constant references to people being “brain-shelved” which I can only assume means they get their brain put in a jar and thrown in someone’s freezer, and we get ZERO resolution for that! I mean sure there are fragments to find and scan, but they don’t really tell us anything that couldn’t already have been inferred. With exception to the relationship between biz and little-duck, not that it seems to play into any of their interactions at all. The business does have his conservation thing, which is a part of his character, an old war veteran understand the fragility of life and working to preserve it through peaceful means. But the spirit of it is robbed when they give the same shtick to the random bird guy from cetus. Why? while I could buy Nef Anyo hunting whole species to extinction for profit, nothing about the setting of the plains suggests the animals are in any kind of danger from the grineer. Its just pointless. I mean you could’ve just used the business for both, maybe he’s building a zoo for critters from all over the system, I wouldn’t have questioned it. Heck, it could even have been a nice little unlock to see the place once you catch one of every animal.

Weirdly enough the one character I think is kind of done right here is ticker. Yeah, the kiosk guy above biz’s shop whose only purpose is to sell you debt bonds so you can increase your standing. Maybe its just a dumb stereotype but I like tickers flair for the theatrical, I find it charming. Plus, his first fragment is so terribly depressingly human it just makes me want to give the poor dude a hug.

But at least there’s plenty of snow in the sandbox… er…

-The sandbox is full: I may not be in the console market these days but there have been a lot of sandbox games as of late, like… ALOT! Its basically the only game Ubisoft makes anymore. A wide-open area filled to burst with pointless shallow time wasting minigames of no real importance. OpenWorldTM. The announcement said Orb Vallis would be twice the size of Eidolon and good god does it feel like it! The very construction of the map itself restricts you from moving around it. With its massive board blocking Tim Burton mountains, and how those same mountains prevent you from utilizing the full freedom of the hoverboard, a new vehicle introduced with the update. Sure, there’s a new pet and new guns, but we already had fishing, we had mining, we had a new faction of peaceful traders and merchants to interact with. Outside of new shooty-tubes and endo dumps I don’t really see what’s so special here, especially when the terrain itself renders the races more chore than a challenge without delivering on any significant or memorable locations. Which is weird since there are interesting set pieces in the Vallis that are just never used. Of all the bounties I did getting to “old mate” rank the only location used was a data vault spy mission. You know, the building with the profit taker on it, yeah, you know the one the worst part of the map. Its built like a maze, is too easy to get lost in, has too many BIG rooms going into tiny vents you need an eagle eye to find, and its just an unenjoyable mess. This is especially infuriating as there are numerous more interesting locals around the map, they could use for practically any of the bounties. But no, its never the big Nef Anyo statue we’re fighting under it’s that damn farm thing again. Its never that cool cavernous road through the mountains, its that same damn bridge right in front of Fortuna. Its never a big base filled with enemies and tons of vertical platforms, its always that one generic outpost just down the road.

-Environmental Story: what’s even worse for the environment is its total lack of connection to the rest of the universe. The Plains weren’t just some vaguely African safari area, it was a battlefield. Haunted with the remains of shattered sentient contained within a massive forcefield that also happened to protect it from the deadly radiation and poisons of the outside world. The strange rocks which dot the landscape are the remains of alien spacecraft and its soils are stuffed with all manner of deadly armaments and tools. So, it makes perfect sense that the grineer or other factions would covet this area for its agricultural and military resources. The vallis just looks like a giant sink of effort and resources that could be put to more productive use elsewhere, doubly so considering it’s the corpus funding the whole operation. Which is even more sad given that environmental stories are the one story telling mechanic exclusive to video games. There is no other medium which allows a reader or a viewer to experience its world at their own pace to seek information in their own ways. Making this literary opportunity not only a waste of warframes universe but of the medium itself.

This is naturally only compounded upon with how the resources of the vallis seem even more restricted to fortuna than the plains did to cetus. The toroids are the worst offence in this, but I think I’ll save my thoughts on this growing problem in warframe for when I get around to covering the jovian concord as the issue of resource gating is more blatant there.

-The warframes: so garuda and baruuk, while I find it strange that DE released two frames around the same time that where functionally immortal, I just find their acquisition boring. Garuda’s main blueprint is just handed to you after finishing the introduction mission, and baruuk is straight up just another item you buy. The only difference between buying baruuk for real money and buying him for in game currency is time, and a lot of it given how rare the resource to get him is. Now I know garas main was given at the end of sayas vigil too but there it was built up as an ancient relic of mystical origin. A man left his wife and home to keep this powerful artifact out of enemy hands, sacrificing his whole life and happiness to keep them safe. You weren’t building just another tank with tits; you were reviving a warrior of legend who slew giants and protected the innocent. Revenant as well, had a deific entity granting visions to a child guiding you to the grave of an ancient warrior who fought and eventually fell to the control of his hated enemy. This might sound like a re-tred of inaros for most of you but at least gara and revenent look their parts, rather than just a mish mash of infested gunk slapped onto a skeleton. Point is worldbuilding matters, especially for the warframes. Being the name-sake of the game they deserve some kind of gravitas behind them. Treating a new warframe like another commodity to be bought off a shelf or passed out like a gold star from kindergarden is just… condescending. At least hyldryn got a boss fight out of her release, which is more of a backhanded compliment when you realize almost every other warframe gets a boss fight by default. Soooo… yeah.

 Conclusion:

Maybe I’m jaded, just sick of snow, or maybe I’m projecting my exhaustion with the OpenWorldTM genre, I don’t know. There are a lot of reasons I find fortuna unfulfilling, but ultimately, I think its this; fortuna and the vallis were supposed to be an extension to the warframe universe, a playground to explore new perspectives and build on its mythos. It didn’t do that. We went from space travelling assassins trying to fight a war on many fronts to make the galaxy a better place, to a plucky resistance force against an evil conglomerate. It just doesn’t fit with the world we’ve already seen. everything “new” that was introduced here may be new to warframe but has been done much better within any title from the cyberpunk genre.

Its really a shame too as just looking a around can be breathtaking at times, some caves and structures are genuinely beautiful to look at. A lot of work was clearly put into this update, just not in the right places. Gameplay has a few upgrades, the environments are pretty if frustrating to traverse, but the story just comes up short. Sure, we can tolerate illogical grinds and only semi-complete mythologies for our new areas, but without a good story to keep us coming back, to tie everything together, its just disappointing.

-END OF LINE.

[marishasscott-blog]

The beginning of the End "o"

This is my story.

August 2016, I had just launched my first business & secured a great career in banking. All was going well. I was working, parenting, working out, flourishing as a young woman making a world for herself and child.

Every week I was teaching twerkout classes alongside my former partner, going to workout boot camps, doing private events, using coconut oil, hair was long, I was skinny, booty was getting bigger, no man problems. I was healthy. I was young. I was growing and flourishing. So I thought. Every week I was also bleeding until no end. I’m thinking yea, here we go again, just my period. Until 14 days later and I’m still playing peek a boo. One week I had gotten really sick and just wasn’t feeling my best. My former partner, who wasn’t the most emotional being, was even concerned so I knew it had to be serious. I remember sitting down on the toilet, during a really heavy cycle of course and when I wiped myself after going to the restroom, I looked on the handful of toilet paper and it was the biggest clot of blood I’d ever ever seen in all my years of wiping myself during my cycle. I panicked. I texted my former partner and one of my best friends Brittany Hart (who by the way makes any type of cake you could imagine and they taste amazing considering cake is all I could just about eat at this point <—– shameless plug ) at the same time telling them about the clot. All three of us are freaking out like OMG! We all immediately get on google and the first thing that pops up is miscarriage **stale face**. I’d only been dating my then boyfriend for like a month BARELY and he was on his way out the door, I immediately apologized to God for not making the best life decisions in men and then realized at that point, I HAD to go to the doctor. I hate the doctor. They just get too personal — much like this tea I’m spilling.

I made the doctors appointment and I go. As the doctor is all up in my grill, by that I mean I’m sure his whole hand was in my vagina while pressing on my already enlarged uterus **face palm**. He lets out a small sigh, “My dear, I believe you are pregnant”. I looked in disbelief. There’s only one way this could have happened. The doctor wasn’t sure, but was sure. He gave me some prenatal vitamins (I kept in my trunk because I didn’t want my mom to know) and told me to come back next week to get the results of the blood work and to go next door and get an ultrasound. When I went next door, I was expecting to see a baby. Yep. Nope. So I got confused. With my son, they couldn’t find him either so I was like great. This is happening all over again. The tech took pictures of nothing (so I thought) because my uterus was seemingly empty and I went home. Brittany was on my tail like tell me tell me tell me. I regretfully told her what the doctor said and she was like, “what are you going to do with two babies? Are you ready for that!?”

A week goes by. Yes I had been sneaking and taking the prenatal vitamins just in case. I have my follow up appointment. Where I thought my life was about to change because of one reason, a totally different one ensued. The doctor explained to me that my left reproductive side was completely destroyed. It was full of clusters of ovarian cysts, infection, my Fallopian tube was so enlarged because of all the infection trapped around it and the only thing he could do was remove it. And soon. I asked how soon (by this time it was September) and he said as soon as he could find an open surgery day. His next date was September 21 ! It had to be like the 11th already. Two weeks!

I had never had any major surgery before. Especially not one where he had to open me up right below my abdomen from side to side, the scar I still have to prove I’m a ninja warrior ! I was nervous! I was also excited that my problem would be solved. Ha! Pinned ya again!

Sept. 21 came and before I knew it I was in the recovery room. I was cured!!!!!!! I was noooottttttttt *sad face*

My doctor told me while performing the surgery, where he had already removed half of my baby factory, he found ENDOMETRIOSIS. I already knew OF it because of a friend who “mentioned” having it (in college I wasn’t worried about someone cramping, doubled over in pain because of her period – I now know) and because a family member has it as well. My OBGYN told me, its bad. It’s nothing I can do besides put you on a treatment called Lupron. I had NO more choices. Even with the Oophorectomy (removing ½ of my baby factory not that I had anyone to reproduce with) he said it was NOTHING he could do.

I was off work about 8-11 weeks recovering and I progressively got worse. I remember crying to my mom, standing in the shower screaming, I JUST DON’T FEEL GOOD! I could see the discomfort in my moms eyes, for she too had dealt with this and knew this was something I’d have to figure out on my own. It wasn’t like she could open up my scar and climb in there and massage my insides or have an Indian styled come to Jesus meeting with my hormones to tell them to leave me alone! I felt like I had been chopped open for nothing. I was still sick !

During the recovery and “getting used to” period, I was still trying to work and parent and I transitioned to Nashville for a job in what I thought was my career. Banking. I kept getting sick. I kept bleeding. January rolls around and I know I was in bed the whole month. I found a new OBGYN and asked a second opinion about the Lupron. She then told me first, she wanted to do ANOTHER surgery. To actually remove as much Endo as she could. Here we go again. Through call outs, pain killers, doctors appts, I made it through to February (the next available) and went under the knife AGAIN! In all I have 5 scars and I still have the endometriosis. That recovery from the laparoscopic surgery was the WORST! And I STILL have the endometriosis.

After the recovery, the Lupron was ordered. I was told it can go two ways. Either it helps and no symptoms or it can help and make you feel the worst you’ve ever felt in your life. I guess you can decipher between the two and figure which side of the spectrum I’m on. Blah. I’ve been on treatment for 4 out of 6 months and it’s been the hardest of my life. I can’t work. I’m always sick. I’m always moody. I’m always crying. I’m always hungry but I’m limited to only eating air if I don’t want a flare up. I’m always dissatisfied with weight. I’m always tired. Im always hot and having a hot flash. Im always telling people I’ll call them back. I’m always taking medicine. Im always calling the doctor. I’m always always always! Lupron is a form of chemo. So only imagine how strong this medicine is. Everyone says “IDK why u out yourself through that”, “That’s why I can’t take medicine”, “I wouldn’t do that to myself”. Well, when it’s the only option besides ANOTHER surgery, I can only pray and take my chances. Endometriosis has stopped me from doing everything. I’m literally a living vegetable. Ironic ! It’s too late to turn back now and too early to tell if I’ll ever be normal (one of my daily prayers) again, so I’m stuck in the middle. Only way to know if it works is to keep following my journey with me as I keep torturing myself each month with treatment ! *fingers crossed* And before you say it, yes I’ve tried natural self care remedies.. natural isn’t always the answer. Especially at stage IV (4).

Endometriosis is more than a period. It’s a disability. You can’t look at someone and tell they have Endo, but you can have more compassion for them when they are “just cramping”. My journey is far from over, and it’s a struggle I deal with by the minute ! It will get better !

My name is Marisha, and I have Endometriosis.