#my mother decided in her infinite wisdom not to get a flu shot this year because she thinks she knows how immunology works

[sabraeal]

Hard Talk Theater: I’m Not Well

Hey guys. I know I’ve been...erratic on here and elsewhere lately, and though I’ve talked a little about what is happening on my twitter, I’ve definitely been dragging my feet updating here, where the bulk of my followers are at.

Here’s the short of it: I went into the ER two weeks ago with what I thought was an allergic reaction to some antibiotic and ended up staying 10 days while remaining mostly a medical mystery. They found one autoimmune disorder (ulcerative colitis), and suspect that there may be another that they haven’t found (I have a LOT of follow up to do in the next few months).

I’ll be okay. They’ve ruled out a lot of the scary options, and we’re left with some more rare, head-tilty ones, but ultimately I’m going to heal up and get everything in order.

It’s just...going to take a while. Longer than I’ve ever really let myself have a break for.

I’m still here. Everything just currently takes....so much more effort than it ever has as I heal, and I’m realizing I really won’t just...bounce back in a week, ready to write up more fic. It’s actually been weeks since i had the energy to READ fic. But I am slowly improving every day, and I’m hoping it won’t be long until I’m back, interacting and creating as much as I always have.

It just won’t be as fast as I like

That being said, I’m so glad for all of you. These arrived for me today and I had a good half hour sob once my husband informed me my fandom ladies had wanted to send on their well-wishes. The hardest thing about all this is that I come from a big family, and I have some of the best IRL friends on this planet, and if we weren’t in the middle of all this social distancing I would be buried under their well-visits and food and any other help they could possibly offer-- but for the safety of everyone, we all have to stay away and it’s very...frustrating on all sides. So getting this little reminder of how lucky I am to have made this obiyuki family came right when I needed it most <3

Thank you guys so much for being there. I know I’m on what is probably just the beginning of a long, rocky journey toward recovery, but having you guys here to support me means the world. I love you all so, so much <3

[carterashofficial]

The Toe Incident

Otherwise known as Easter 2010

So because @aearyn and @greyias asked for it, here’s the story of how 14-year-old me managed the feat of cutting almost the entire bottom of my right baby toe off.

Warning: lots of humor (I hope), blood, needles, hospital talk, etc…

It’s also gonna be long. Like, really really long.

Okay so before I begin, i have to mention that I am the idiot child. Not when it comes to smarts, but when it comes to common sense. Because I am lacking that in abundance.

So.

I was a clumsy and awkward thirteen-year-old. I unfortunately did not grow out of either trait. Ever. I’ve still got both, but now I’ve learned how to make people laugh over my clumsily awkwardness.

But when I was fourteen, it was bad. I was in eight grade, the boy I’d had a crush on for years was in my PE class, acne, middle school, what even was fashion- you get the point. Awkward middle school early-teen stuff.

At home, however, I was Cool. My eight-year-old sister Bug looked up to me like I was the greatest thing ever, we’d just rescued Scout and he was still puppy-ish. I even had a new Ipod Nano for my birthday.

That Ipod made me lose a quarter of my toe.

The year was 2010, the beginning of the era where the 2000-something sunglasses fell out of fashion during new years. It was Easter. So naturally Bug and I had found our Easter baskets wherever the Easter Bunny hid them.

I got an Itunes gift card (I do not download illegal music. The FBI will find me. Imagine if that’s why I don’t get a job when I’m out of college. Like during the interview they bring up the time I got arrested and are like ‘what for’ and I’m like “i downloaded Nickleback illegally off the internet when I was 14”. I’d probably not get the job more on my 8th grade music choice than that fact that I wasn’t slick enough to not get caught.)

Okay back to the actual story.

It was a beautiful Southern California day.

And so naturally my dad wanted to go to the beach. My dad loves the beach. He’s from Michigan (i mean both my parents are but Mom doesn’t like the beach, probably from taking me and Bug as small children all the time). So we decide to go to the beach to see the sunset.

So I booted up the family Windows XP desktop and got Itunes up to use my giftcard on some new music. Nothing like siting in the car for half-an-hour with new songs, right?

This is where I mention that the XP desktop is in my parents’ bedroom in this 100% early 90′s aesthetic hutch thing. Next to it is a bookshelf full of Mom’s textbooks for her master’s degree. And in front of the bookshelf is it:

The Trash Basket. (being used for not trash, but recycling. So the name’s a lie).

This Fucking Trash Basket was EVIL. Did I know that? No. Was it full of my mom’s old papers and notes from earlier classes? You betcha.

So this is where Idiot Child me earns the official Idiot Child badge.

I can’t multi-task. In general. So there’s awkward, clumsy, 14 year old me trying to put headphones into my Ipod, unplug the syncing cord from said Ipod, and scroll through Ipod to get to new songs.

And I walk into The Trash Can.

Papers go EVERYWHERE. Ipod is dropped. I stumble forward. And then I throw everything back into The Trash Can to pretend it never happened.

And thats when I see it.

A little red splotch of blood on the carpet.

I figure I scratched my toe on the metal of The Trash Can’s bottom. Nothing a band-aid, neosporin, and wearing shoes at the beach wouldn’t fix. I step into Mom and Dad’s bathroom, stick a small wad of tissues under my toes, and then proceed to search the entire fucking bathroom and adjoining closet for the damn band-aids (we were out, apparently). 

I get the neosporin, a Q-tip, and I’m about to go and get a sock to protect my slightly-scratched-toe when I realize that the tile floor feels…

Sticky.

I look down.

Blood is smeared all over the floor. The wad of tissues is crimson. and I can’t feel a damn thing when I reach down and touch my toe.

That’s when I get dizzy and sat myself down on edge of the bathtub.

Bug takes that moment to come in to tell me that we’re leaving for the beach as soon as Mom gets back from taking Jewel (our other Dalmatian) for a walk. She sees the blood. Sees me sitting on the edge of the tub and bracing myself on the counter.

Apparently I really scared her when I said “Get Dad. Now.” because I’d never heard her actually yell.

“DAD! DAD, CARTER’S BLEEDING!”

In all honesty, I think he may have been expecting a different kind of bleeding. Like, the feminine nature kind.

Because Dad walked into the bathroom, took in the sight, and that was the first time I heard him say the F-word.

“Fuck.”

Dad gets me to elevate my leg over his bathroom sink, Bug gets me a pillow from Mom and Dad’s bed so my head isn’t on tile, and Dad calls Mom’s cell phone, since she’s out walking Jewel.

From downstairs we hear her phone ringing.

“Shit,” says Dad.

At this point I’m feeling 100% Fine. Like, I can see the blood dripping down my heel into the sink, but nothing hurts. At all. My toe is completely numb. My dad (gently) washed it with mild soap by dripping it down my foot. 

My dad was both disgusted and fascinated by it. He kept tapping different parts and going “can you feel that? what about that? This?”

I didn’t feel anything but lightheaded and nausea.

Then Mom got home.

Bug went thundering down the stairs, hollering how I cut the bottom of my toe and Mom had to look at it.

So Mom came upstairs, looked at my toe, and almost fainted.

You know how I mentioned earlier that she was getting her Master’s degree? She was getting it in Nursing.

Ten minutes of her and Dad discussing what to do ended with me propped up on their bed with about 5 pillows under my foot and my mom next to me, sipping water and trying to not pass out. I felt fine. Dad bandaged my toe, and helped me hobble downstairs onto the couch where my foot could be propped up higher on the coffee table.

Just with the trek down the stairs made me bleed through my bandages. And Dad replaced them.

We were not going to the beach.

So Bug and I settled in on the couch to watch re-runs of… I don’t remember. But Scout was allowed on that couch, so he was the Lap-Dog (this is before he got fat), and Jewel was in her customary spot of laying against the couch directly under Bug because Bug would sit forward and give Jewel a belly-rub with her feet.

This goes on for about an hour until Grandma calls. Mom’s mom. Who is also a Nurse. (TV gets turned off so us kiddos can talk to Grandma).

Mom and her mom discuss my toe. Forever.

While the mothers are talking, the couch starts to shake.

I think nothing of it. It’s Jewel licking one of her back feet, and it’s made the couch shake before again.

But then I feel the floor moving too.

I live in Southern California.

It was an earthquake.

And my mother, in her infinite wisdom that we’ve never let her live down, hangs up on her mother in Florida with “I gotta go, Mom, we’re having an earthquake.” and forgets to call grandma back for 5 hours.

Now my seat on the couch was directly under the ceiling fan. I started to get up, damning the toe because hey, I did NOT want the fan fall on me. Mom pointed at me, gave me her patented Mom Voice, and said “Stay.” it worked on me, Bug, and the pups.

The earthquake ended, I got up the bathroom, and once again bled through my bandages. It’ been about 3 hours since the Incident. And my toe was still bleeding something awful.

Dad decided to take me to ER. Mom said there was nothing they could do, the cut so was so awkward it’d be almost impossible to stitch. Maybe steri-strips?

I was loaded into the car, and Dad and I buzzed away to what’s been dubbed as “The Toe Hospital” since this day.

We arrived, I got put in a wheelchair, and it was completely empty inside. My dad started to make a crack about it and the various nurses all shouted for him to not jinx it.

The nurse took one look at my toe after removing the bandages and sent me to a different room.

“You did quite a number on this,” she said as I left.

I was wheeled into a new room with a bed and a new nurse came in.

“You really did a number on this,” she said. And she couldn’t stop staring. “You might need stitches. Let me get the doctor.”

The doctor walked in.

“Wow, you did do a number on your toe.”

At this point I just wanted to know if the numbers added up to stitches or nah.

And they did.

Doctor Dude got supplies, and made the tragic mistake of standing in my line of sight while he extracted the numbing stuff with a really long needle.

I have an intense phobia of needles. Like, I’m 21 years old and I almost started crying when my mom suggested I get a flu shot over text. Blood drawn, I’m fine. Something being injected in? Someone’s going to have to hold my arms and legs down and I’m going to be screaming. Loud.

My dad swears he still hasn’t regained feeling in his hand because I had it in a death grip, sobbing, while Doctor Dude numbed up my toe and gave me twelve stitches. There was a little TV in the corner of the room and so I got to watch Chuck Norris in some cowboy TV show.

We got home, Dad threw out The Trash Can (apparently part of my toe was stuck to it…). I was on crutches for three weeks. Missed two months of PE. To this day I have minimal feeling in my toe, the nail hardly grows, but if I bang it on the corner of something, I am down like for a good 5 minutes because holy hell does it hurt.

And that, everybody, is the Toe Incident.