#medical discussion

[thediktatortot]

TLDR; Developed a fear of needles about a decade ago and now I'm going through medical testing. Advice?

Back in 2014, I was in my 4th year of the Navy and had a bit of a mental break, speaking up to a friend about a previous assault I had experienced by a ship mate before I was of age to drink. Ended up spending a few days in the mental health ward because I voiced how depressed I was and how I didn't know if I was going to survive working another 4 years with the same guy who assaulted me.

Anyway, I was getting my blood drawn at the VA and the technician was brand new and could not get the needle in the vein. He poked me a little over 4-5 times in each elbow before trying my hands twice. I was dehydrated and I was shaking with pain by the time I was asking for a new technician. In hindsight, I should have spoke up sooner, but I was in a very controlling environment and was really nervous about where I was.

I ended up with bruising about 6in long on both my elbows and big blotches on the backs of my hands. I was sore for weeks and when I eventually got home a few months later, I started getting really bad nightmares about needles and hospitals. I already have some bad experiences with needles as a kid, having to be held down as a toddler and then a dentist who was abusive and only got caught when and adult overheard what he would say to the kids.

So lol I found out about two years later I developed a severe phobia of needles when the flu shot dropped me for a few seconds. Woke up with the nurse hovering over me.

How do you guys deal with the anxiety that comes with needles when having to go get work done? Like surgeries and tests etc. I've been experiencing hospital visits a lot due to emergencies, and getting the IV is like being back in 2014 all over again. It also makes it hard to want to touch my own arms, even after the soreness has worn off. Is there any rubs or vitamins that help with healing bruises maybe?

I think the worst part is the intrusive thoughts, I’ve been wearing soft long sleeves to stop any gross feeling from accidentally touching my arms in certain spots.

[farsight-the-char]

Getting blood drawn for testing did not go badly, which is good.

Now we wait for results.

[cassyapper]

so i did a little research about how jotaro's injury at the end of stone ocean would impact him if he had survived, cause while cutting through all that thick bone with just a butcher's knife wouldnt lead to much cutting of the brain even with pucci's speed, it would still cut a Little. and that's the frontal lobe dude. so it Would impact him. so i did some minor research and this is what i got

i think his memory is fine cause that involves processes further back in the brain, however i think he has difficulty with fine motor function (has trouble holding things, definitely can't write with a pen anymore or use silverware the same, it's hard for him to shave, etc) afterward and his expressions become even flatter than they were before. ironically however, since this is the right frontal lobe, he'd get a bit wordier, so that part evens out (ie he loses some of his nonverbal communication but he becomes a bit more verbally communicative so)

however he has a lot of difficulty with spatial awareness afterwards, not even just cause of his eye making him lose depth perception, but cause the frontal lobe deals with stuff like that. so i can see him get a cane to help him with balance and to help him. for example he can tap forward to double check his estimation of a distance is actually the same distance in reality

but yeah since it's not very deep i dont think he undergoes much personality change. he gets a bit wordier and a little more prone to mania rather than depression than before but that's about it i think

[menthol-drops]

about your post about menstruation and testing- your uterus is not just for menstruation, it also regulates hormones, supports your pelvic floor, etc. it's not something that can just be taken out like a mr. potato head doll it's a very invasive surgery that also puts you at higher risk for certain cancers if i'm not mistaken

best wishes

Aw hey, thank you! Yeah, one of the unfortunate aspects of having a body is that things tend to have more than one function.

I have a few medical issues involving my reproductive system, hence the need for testing. i just don’t go into a lot of detail about it online usually, and I won’t go into further detail but i am under the care of an endocrinologist for both my transition and some of these issues, and am looking for a new OB/GYN due to changes in my medical network (fucking American insurance hellscape).

Also! Fun fact, you can have a partial hysterectomy done (take out the uterus, leave the ovaries), or tubal ligation which would reduce the need for supporting hormonal replacement but that’s something that’ll be discussed with the doc as far as what the best option would be given that i am trans and my hormonal goals/balance are different from a cisgender (or healthy) person’s. Personally i would prefer to have a full hysterectomy given my conditions but realistically i know that my doctor may recommend something different.

I have done research into this and discussed with my current and previous medical team, which is why we are at this point :) I appreciate the concern tho!

[metalheadsagainstfascism]

Using terms like "mutilation" for gender affirming surgery is really weird to me. Because like...

Tw for gross medical discussion.

I had a friend that had a double mastectomy due to breast cancer. For some reason it didn't show up on scans well so the doctors were not mentally prepared for how bad it was when they went in. And like looking back after the surgery they can kind of see it on the scans, but before they legitimately couldn't. It's one of those "when you see it" type of things.

So what was supposed to be a one to two hour surgery ended up as an all day surgery. And when the doctor came out to tell us how she was doing. It was graphic. It was gross. It was disgusting.

Are we gonna say her double mastectomy is less valid because they had to scrape cancerous tissue off the skin?

Using gross words to describe gender affirming surgery doesn't make the gender affirming surgery less valid. Surgery is just gross.

-fae

"When people talk about gender-affirming surgery using words like “mutilation,” that's not very nice. Is that how you think about people who've had surgery for other things? It's a disgust reaction, and I do not take disgust into account as a legitimate point of discourse. I don't have to entertain it and I'm not going to. It's a waste of everybody's time, it's knee-jerk, it's not grounded in reality, and it's not useful. And it's a squeamishness about medical intervention. I think the idea of making legislative or cultural decisions in and around [that] is laughable. Your squeamishness is not what the world turns on; it doesn't matter."

Liv Hewson in Teen Vogue (italics added by me for emphasis)

[rivetgoth]

It's honestly crazy that discussion around testosterone HRT skews so much towards the beginning stages of it (to the point that you have dozens of guys thinking their transition is "failed" if they don't pass by like a year in lol) and what the initial changes of the first couple of months to years look like, like the classic laundry list of those early basic changes like bottom growth, voice drop, etc, when IMO literally none of that compares remotely to the depth and intensity of the long term total masculinization you start to experience like 3-5+ years in.

[tabletop-hotdish]

now that I finally have a week that (currently) doesn't have any doctor's appointments for the first time since February, I've been taking inventory of all the different things I had to tackle. there are physical, mental, and emotional things that, individually, are asking for more than I've got. one of the biggest things is starting to talk to my therapist about maybe being autistic. there's too much baggage to unpack on that right now, but the one thing I have for sure learned is...

I know way too much about autism to take any of the do-you-have-autism tests and getting a genuine result. but, as it turns out, feeling more worried about answering the questions "right" than truthfully feels like a pretty clear answer

[hiddentreehouse]

unless you've literally been poisoned, just avoid the charcoal.

i know vitamin c basically neutralizes adhd meds but lemonade good

[abitofencouragement]

I had an appointment with a podiatrist today to talk about my foot pain. She mentioned that the floors in our new house might be if not causing then at lease exacerbating the problems.

I told my husband this, later, and he said, "Do we need to replace the floors?"

I just... I don't even... How did I deserve this person in my life? What is this kind of love?

[parisoonic]

TRICK OR TREAT

+ worthers orginals!

[gophergal]

You get wrecked by a Heavy+Medic duo and see one of these taunts before you respawn. How do you react?

(aka: @cursed--alien and I were bullshitting about potential taunts that would kill homophobic gamer boys on sight and these shitty doodles are the result)

[terrorbirb]

I honestly think we should consider adding "anti-intersex" to "anti-trans legislation". I think intersex people are explicitly also the target as much as trans people. Hormones save lives for trans people, but they also do for intersex people? If I do not have access to hormones for my condition I would bleed out and literally perish. Like I understand how "biological gender is only male or female" hurts trans people, but I don't understand why it's not said that it hurts intersex people as well? I feel like intersex people are just a "gotcha" to conservatives and not seriously considered past that.

[cartoonguy08]

I recently was looking at the TF2 sketches by someone who officially worked on a comic, and remembered that Medic has a wife lol

I got some headcannons, if anybody wants to read em 👍

- I think I interpret Medic and Makani (his wife) as like almost an open relationship? I consider it that because of this:

And this:

And that:

Need I say more?

- I think they love each other. They obviously do, there’s multiple sketches of them just being together and also are quite happy around each other (one of them has Makani kissing Medic’s cheek). But it also makes me wonder if it’s just platonic? (Stick with me 🙌) They could be married but not really like each other romantically (you know how some people marry cuz they’re closeted? I don’t wanna go there but that could be a possibility). But for now I’m just gonna go with that they do love each other. Besides these are really sweet:

That was me just thinking tho, I don’t think I’m gonna believe they only love each other platonically but there is always the case. 🤷‍♂️

- Um, Medic may or may not be bisexual (he is)

And if I COULD FIND THAT ONE PHOTO OF HEAVY AND MEDIC IN THE SHOWER ROOM TOGETHER I WOULD BUT I CANT FIND IT FOR THE LIFE OF ME- I would put it in here to prove my point but my ass can’t find it. If someone knows the photo I’m talking about please send it to me 💀🙏

- Oh and Makani is a doctor too! Or nurse, which ever, but man this is cool

My guess is that she COULD have worked with Medic if she wanted to, but since Valve hasn’t really said much about her I guess not? Not too sure, but I think it’s cool to headcannon that she visits Medic’s work sometimes. Just to say hi maybe.

- They live together, but Medic’s probably at work all the time so she can’t really see him much (which is why she sometimes visits).

Okay, I think to tie this all up on gonna actually tell my ships cuz I have a few:

BLU Soldier X RED Demoman

Scout X Miss Pauling (drawing this lovely woman soon 😌)

RED Soldier X Zahnna

Spy x Scout’s mom (RIP Scout’s dignity 😔🙏)

Heavy X Medic

And because Medic has a wife, Medic X Makani. The way I’m going to interpret it though is Medic is married, but it’s an open relationship, and both agree on it. Does that make sense? Hope it does

This entire post was just me yapping about how Medic is married but is very open with the fact he’s gay for Heavy lol, sorry if people get mad about this. 🙏

[polling-sonic-fans]

Thanks @l-art-stuff-l ! Polls for the Sonic fandom on just about anything. Share polls you like to get more data. Asks and submissions always open.

[spindrifters]

among other things, the wga strike is a shatterpoint moment in deciding how much of a critical profession within an industry can be reduced to a poverty wage gig economy while ai takes over

if you think this doesn't affect your job somewhere down the line, reconsider that thought

[vaspider]

Bringing this back for a reminder.

trans ramble, talking about medical decisions

cw: medical discussion, surgery, medical neglect, medical abuse