#same for my a1c

[rcmclachlan]

One of my most persistent headcanons is that the 118 and the 217 work together in secret to try and get Buck and Tommy back together because none of them can take it anymore. They're all sick to death of the moping, the constant checking of phones, the sad, wistful smiles, the baking—oh god, they're so sick of the baking. Hen's ready to throttle Buck because Chimney's A1C levels are through the roof and if he becomes pre-diabetic she won't be responsible for her actions.

Not to mention the sad playlists. Lucy has been forced to listen to "Wasted Time" by the Eagles so often that if she ever sees Don Henley on the street she's gonna beat the ever-loving fuck out of him.

It isn't long before someone from one station reaches out to the other, because enough already, and then the 118 and 217 are meeting every Friday to brainstorm ways to get these idiots in a room together. But, oddly enough, it feels almost like the universe is working against them.

For one thing, their shifts never line up, even though Bobby and Captain Carson coordinate almost daily on making sure Buck's and Tommy's schedules match. They've even roped a few folks over at Dispatch into it to ensure the 217 and the 118 work the same calls. Despite this, there's a slew of emergencies that manage to mess up all their planning, pulling the 118 and the 217 to opposite sides of the city—or, in some cases, keeping one on the ground while the other is called to the sky.

Once it becomes apparent that The Great Reunification™ isn't going to happen on a call, they shift their efforts to group outings. The 217 are regular haunts of The Naughty Pig—they have a designated table and everything, right next to the staircase. So Eddie starts making noise about wanting to check out this one bar in West Hollywood that he hears is really cool and unpretentious, with an excellent selection of beer and cocktails, and after about a week of him dropping the most unsubtle hints in history, they get Buck to leave King Arthur and his flour in peace for a night so they can grab a drink at The Naughty Pig.

Except, when they show up, Tommy's nowhere to be found. While the others distract Buck by trying to get a table, Dana catches Hen's gaze and makes a small, throat-cutting gesture. They meet in the bathroom and Dana says Tommy went home sick earlier with what she suspects is pneumonia. Which means Hen's going to spend the night in this cool bar while Buck gets white girl wasted on Bud Light. By the time he's on his 8th and warbling into the table about Glee for whatever reason, Hen decides to call it a night.

A week or so after that, Eddie goes for broke and disconnects the battery in his car. That same night, Buck comes over to hang out and play video games (and offload a metric fuck ton of muffins), and when they decide to grab pizza, uh oh! Eddie's truck isn't starting.

He makes a big scene of looking under the hood, but he just can't find the problem. Buck's like "That really sucks but we can always take the jeep?" but no, Eddie needs his truck, how can he live and work without his precious Denali? He decides to call a buddy of his to come over and try to fix the issue, so he leaves the room and calls Tommy, who's surprised to hear from Eddie (which makes Eddie feel like a monster, because, yes, he hasn't really been in touch with Tommy since the breakup but he never meant for Tommy to think their friendship was collateral damage).

Tommy agrees to make the drive over, and Eddie walks back into the living, patting himself on the back, only to find Buck putting his shoes on. Maddie had called while Eddie was on the phone: Mrs. Lee was taken to the hospital by ambulance after a bad fall and Chim and Maddie need him to babysit Jee while they go to LA General. So not only does Eddie's plan backfire spectacularly in a way he can't even be mad about, but Tommy gives him shit for a week because Eddie apparently can't plug a loose cable into a battery on his own.

After that, the 118 and the 217 convene at their usual Friday spot and the mood is dour. Nico thinks it might be time to throw in the towel, and despite everyone making noise about it, no one can really argue with him. They'd given it their all, but the house won.

Then Lucy swans in, takes one look at their disappointed faces, and slaps a piece of paper down onto the table. It's a flyer for the Backdraft Ball next month.

Chim looks up at her, expression grave, and asks, "Do you really think this will work?"

"It's either this or I go to jail for murdering every single living member of the Eagles," Lucy says. "Which I might do anyway. I haven't decided."

"Well, we've come this far." Hen lifts her glass and surveys the rest of the table.

"And if it fails," Dana says, the corner of her mouth twitching like she maybe, possibly thinking about smiling within the next decade. "I can't say I haven't enjoyed this. It's been fun hanging out with you weirdos."

Rapping his knuckles on the table top, Eddie cheers, "Hear hear!"

"Your speaking privileges haven't been reinstated," Dana snaps. "Put a sock in it."

"I told you, the mustache was a toxic symbol! You can't still be mad about me shaving it!"

Dana sniffs and takes a dainty sip of her wine. "You look like a mutant four-year old."

"All right," Chim announces, standing. "Operation: Last Ditch Effort is a go."

They clink their glasses to seal the deal. When Dana knocks hers into Eddie's, his stein shatters.

A month passes and everyone's been talking about nothing except the Backdraft Ball, which Buck can't understand. In the eight years he's been a firefighter, they've never once attended.

"Didn't you once call it a pathetic get together for people who had to get their stomachs pumped on prom night?" He asks Hen, who's browsing the Local Eclectic website for earrings to go with her admittedly amazing jumpsuit.

Hen shrugs. "What can I say, Buckaroo? I've grown as a person."

Meanwhile, at the 217, Lucy corners Tommy in the Bell-205 and says, "If you don't go to the Backdraft Ball with me, I'm gonna tell everyone you said Elon Musk is a genius who's going to save the country."

Horrified, he says, "That's a fucking lie! You know I hate him more than my dad!"

Lucy smiles meanly. "I do know that. No one else does, though."

Later, when she's alone, she sends the group chat two emojis: a helicopter and a thumbs up.

Finally, the big night arrives and everyone's dressed to the nines. Even Buck can't help but be a little excited, because he's in a really nicely tailored tux, courtesy of Ravi for some reason, and there's a literal mountain of scallops wrapped in bacon, which he stands next to for most of the night until Maddie, who came as Chimney's date, wanders over and asks why he's not mingling.

"I dunno," he says, shoving his sixty-seventh scallop into his mouth. "I-I always thought... I guess I hoped I'd come to one of these with Tommy, you know? He's such a sucker for the whole all-eyes-on-you thing. He never went to any of his school dances, not even prom, because he wouldn't get to dance with the people he really wanted. I... I wanted to be that for him."

While Buck turns to the scallop mountain—which is more of a foothill now, thanks to his tireless efforts—Maddie looks across the ballroom where Lucy is talking to Tommy. Their gazes lock. Over Tommy's shoulder, Lucy jerks her head toward the dance floor, where they're playing some golden oldies and dozens of ancient captains are dancing with their wives to The Girl From Yesterday.

Maddie nods, then grabs Buck's hand. "C'mon. I want to get at least one dance in before the night's over."

Pulling a scallop off a toothpick, Buck squints. "Where's Chim? Isn't that, like, one of his duties as your husband?"

"Last I saw him, he was trying to convince Chief Simpson to install crazy slides in all the firehouses," Maddie says sunnily. "And honestly? Chief Simpson looked intrigued. So suck it up and take your sister for a spin."

Buck rolls his eyes and pops one more scallop into his mouth for the road, but he goes with her without complaint. Maddie stops at their table and says she's going to text their babysitter. She sends the group chat the green circle emoji. It's go time.

Elsewhere, Lucy slips her phone into her purse, then grabs Tommy's arm and says, "Great news! Dana's gonna make the DJ play something else before I burn the building down, which means we can get a dance in."

Wordlessly, Dana gets out of her seat and heads toward the front of the room.

Lucy drags Tommy into the crowd and makes sure to keep his line of sight away from where Maddie is doing the same to Buck. They've only got one shot at this and the timing has to be perfect.

Her cheek on Buck's chest, Maddie holds Lucy's gaze and gently leads him into a half circle, just as Lucy does the same with Tommy. Lucy gives a sharp nod of her head and, hands on Tommy's arms, spins him around so that when Maddie puts a hand on Buck's chest and shoves him as hard as she can, Tommy's there to break his fall.

"H-Hey, what was th—" Buck looks up with wide, outraged eyes, but the words stick in his throat when he sees who caught him.

Tommy's mouth opens, but nothing comes out. Even if he'd been able to find the words, the sweet keys of an old piano would've drowned them out.

Smirking, Lucy shoves Tommy a little closer, just as Nat King Cole croons "Unforgettable... that's what you are."

Lucy makes a note to buy Dana lunch the next time they're on shift, because, damn, good choice.

Almost as if he's helpless to stop himself, Tommy tightens his hold on Buck's waist, wrapping his arm a little tighter around him, and Buck can't prevent a shaky gasp from punching out of him when he gets a whiff of Tommy's cologne. He puts a hand on Tommy's shoulder to steady himself, unerringly stepping closer until they're chest to chest.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't..." He trails off, caught in Tommy's gaze, and he doesn't blink out of fear that this is some mercury-induced hallucination from all the scallops.

Smiling a little, Tommy takes Buck's hand in his. "You're free to say no, but—"

"Yes," Buck says immediately, nodding, tightening his fingers around Tommy's. "Yeah, let's, uh. Yeah."

Catching Maddie's gaze, Lucy jerks her head back toward the refreshment table, where the rest of their group is waiting. Hen's got the biggest shit-eating grin on her face, and Nico is dabbing at the corners of his eyes with a corner of Dana's shawl.

"Nicely done," Lucy says to Maddie, who preens a little.

"If you'd let me in on your little scheme earlier, I could've had them back together in a day."

They accept the back slaps and high-fives they've more than earned, then turn just in time for Buck to rest his cheek against Tommy's as they sway together. Maddie squints a little, but she thinks she sees Tommy murmuring along with Natalie Cole. "No, never before... has someone been more..."

She sniffles a little and happily takes the plate of fruit and cheese that Chimney hands her.

"Save the Studio Ghibli tears for the wedding," he says teasingly, then adopts the weird Brooklyn accent he busts out sometimes. "Ya did good, kid."

"I did good," Dana breaks in. "And if they use this song for their first dance, I take full credit."

She looks over at Nico, who's using a toothpick—with a zucchini and goat cheese rollup still skewered on it—to get something out from beneath his nail, and smacks him upside the head.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but I've stopped shaving," Eddie says to her, gesturing toward his face with a can of ginger ale. "Am I allowed to speak again?"

She gives him a deadpan look. "Give it another week, then maybe. Right now you look like you're going through puberty again."

"Better than being four," he says cheerfully.

The group content themselves with watching Buck and Tommy for another minute, but when Buck tilts his head ever so slightly to brush his nose against Tommy's, Lucy makes a face. "I guess this means we don't need to keep meeting up on Fridays, huh?"

"Whoever said that?" Hen grins. "I still haven't managed to beat you at air hockey, Donato. I demand a rematch."

"Plus, my friend Josh has been a little unlucky in love these days and could use a hand," Maddie chimes in, then gestures toward the dance floor. "Our results speak for themselves."

The song has changed, but Buck and Tommy haven't noticed, too busy wrapped up in each other.

Lucy tilts her head and smiles. It looks like Tommy's exhaled for the first time in weeks.

Don Henley gets to live another day.

[scientia-rex]

I've been trying to figure out what the deal is with prediabetes so I can write a meaningful response to an ask I got about it, and I just keep going wait--okay--here's one paper--but here's another one--here's a Cochrane review--but here's a different meta-analysis--and here's newer data from an RCT...

It's nuts! It's bananas. And anybody who says we have good, crisp, clear guidelines around what prediabetes even IS, much less what to do about it, is FULL OF SHIT.

What I really need to know in order to feel more confident about my handle on whether to medicate pre-diabetes is the population incidence. Not prevalence. Because if I take the most optimistic studies about medication as an intervention, specifically, I could be looking at about a 30-40% reduction in risk of progression to diabetes. But! How many people is that, actually? Because medication is not without its harms! We need to compare number needed to treat with number needed to harm, we need to have high-quality evidence that says yes, if we give this medication to everyone who meets X level of criteria for pre-diabetes (it's different in different sources AND it's changed repeatedly over our lifetime!), we will see a level of benefit sufficient to justify making these other people who would not have progressed to diabetes without it endure the hassle and side effects of taking a medication for the rest of their lives.

AND HERE'S THE REAL FUN PART: we don't really know where tissue damage begins! We thought we did! 6.5-7ish A1c. But it turns out there is a marked risk of retinopathy beginning at 5.5! Which is considered normal. AND ALSO we should probably be thinking of it as at least three separate disease based on our current ability to measure--A1c is a broad marker that collapses multiple forms of dysregulated blood sugar, and when we use more fine-grained tests, we see meaningful distinctions that probably affect preferred treatments between people who have impaired fasting glucose, people who have abnormal values on an oral glucose tolerance test, and people who have both. We should treat these groups differently because they reflect different underlying pathways: elevated fasting glucose means your liver is breaking down too much glycogen while you sleep, which is one issue, while elevated post-prandial glucose means your skeletal muscles (OR SOMETHING ELSE they're not totally sure) are behaving abnormally in response to insulin. IT'S NOT THE SAME THING and people with both impaired fasting glucose and abnormal post-prandial glucose are at higher risk of progression to diabetes/tissue damage than people with just one of those. AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT, what is diabetes? What's the best cutoff? What's the best measure? How many underlying pathophysiologies are getting collapsed into the same group????

THE MORE I LEARN ABOUT THIS THE MORE QUESTIONS I HAVE and experts are all being serenely confident while contradicting each other so I have to actually dig in the data a lot harder than I usually do. I've been meaning to do this for months, but one of the presenters this morning made a comment about the benefits of putting prediabetics on metformin that made me go "hm, do I need to start doing that?" and I've gone from my kneejerk answer being "no, we studied this and it doesn't help" to "I don't fucking know and neither does anyone else."

...as always, Cochrane is probably right.

[running-swimming-living]

I went for a run and my socks matched my shirt. I got the socks from a good friend for Christmas’s because I asked for them lol. The run was good. I went with EarPods today because it was kinda gloomy and needed the pick me up.

I woke up today and had a psychiatry appointment. We talked about my mood and such. The plan is to reduce the clozaril which causes the weight gain to see if that helps instead of adding a new med. my A1C is perfect, my blood pressure is great and my cholesterol is pretty good.

We had a wind storm last night so the morning commute was a little chaotic. There were fallen branches and some of the streetlights went out. I arrived to the clubhouse a bit late. I did some filing and then hung with a friend. Then I went to lunch with the same friend who gave me these socks and we got chipotle.

I went to therapy which was great. Then I came home, ran and cooked dinner.

Food diary:

Breakfast - special k cereal and coffee

Lunch - chicken and fajita burrito bowl from chipotle

Dinner - yogurt with walnuts. Salmon, veggie fajitas and rice with seaweed. A popsicle.

[missionslimpossible418]

I had my pre-op appointment with my Primary this morning. I was SO excited to see her because she is constantly nagging at my weight. She walked in, didn't say a word and then went, "I thought you would've lost more." Excuse me?? 55lbs in about 5 months is already more than I'm comfortable with. So then I mentioned how the Fertility Clinic took me off Mounjaro and she FLIPPED. Like an actual small child. I was actually embarrassed for her... My favorite part though was when I mentioned how low my A1C is (which is such a victory to me) her response was, "Well we know you won't stick with it and it'll shoot right back up.". What. An. Actual. Bitch. I think it's safe to say I'm ready to find a new doctor....

But at the same time I'm pretty sure I just found my motivation to keep working my ass off 🤣

[terriblepersongreatseamonster]

(Please bear with me through this forthcoming ramble, because I've had all of 6 hours of sleep in the last two days and I'm a bit all over the place. Hopefully this will be coherent 😅)

I don't watch Bridgerton (that's a whole other post that I don't feel like typing out write now), but I've been fascinated by what I've seen on here from this newest season.

I turn 40 this year, and depending on your age you either think that's getting old or you think that I'm still relatively young. I bring this up, because what I'm seeing about Penelope and Colin is honestly something that I never thought I'd see.

Since I was twelve, I've dealt with weight issues. (At this point in my life, I know it's due to PCOS and some other health issues). I am barely 5'0" and typically fit into the 18/20 size clothes.

Being a teen in the late 90s/early 00s meant I didn't see people who looked like me get to be the romantic lead. Girls who looked like me were relegated to being the funny, supportive friend in the background. We got bullied and reminded that we weren't worthy of love or success because of our size. We went to school dances alone and sat on the bleachers while our friends slow-danced with their dates. We didn't get the love story, we got to watch someone else have the love story.

For such a long time I believed that my value as a person was tied to my weight. No matter what I did the weight wouldn't budge. Hell, I'm on Ozempic for my diabetes and I'm starting to think I'm the only person on the planet it doesn't cause weight loss for (it does however do a marvelous job of controlling my blood sugar, and at this point a healthy A1C is the thing that matters most).

I went on a few dates in my 20s with men who used my size as their reason to not continue dating (and yes, they all knew my size when they asked me out). When I started dating my husband, I went into it fully anticipating that no matter how much fun we might have he wouldn't be able to see past my size. I was wrong, and am so grateful for that.

It was only about 2 years ago that I started learning to see that I was far more than my weight. That whether I was my current size or managed to somehow be 100 lbs lighter, I'd still be the same person on the inside. I'd still have the same talents and skills, the same personality and humor. And while I've grown to see & love myself for who I am, it's still a day-by-day thing that I struggle with.

So, seeing this:

And this:

It hits me in a way that is hard to explain. I never thought I'd get to see something like this. Never thought I'd get to see someone my size and shape shown as beautiful and desirable.

Look at this woman, she is absolutely lovely:

I don't really know how to end this because now I'm crying. I guess my main point is that I feel seen and it's been an emotional rollercoaster.

And I may have to turn Netflix back on so I can see this season 😅

[thelivingautomaton]

SEVEN SONGS ON REPEAT

belatedly responding to this tag by @oldxenomorph, tysm as ever <3 <3

tagging: @queenofbaws @eyeronmaus @glomofnit @simonroe @gayazrael @hemo-goblin-a1c @beancalzone and anyone else who wants to share their taste in music, which means 👁️ YOU

Rules: Pick 7 songs you would listen to on repeat. Just for fun, to write to, or for inspiration. No repeating artists. So tell me what you picking?

during the actual process of writing i almost exclusively listen to classical/instrumental music, so i'll make this list a smorgasbord of "writing music" + "inspo music" just to liven things up

true love waits (live in oslo) - radiohead you all know what the fuck is up here HAHAHA -- even if i changed the lyric just a tad, from "true love waits in haunted attics" to "true love waits in haunted houses". i actually prefer this acoustic version to the more polished one that was eventually released -- it hits a little harder for being raw and rough around the edges, at least imo. but this song is mary and james to me, from start to tail: "i will smother myself, i will wash your swollen feet, i will haunt the attics in your mind subsisting on crumbs and sweet dreams -- (just don't) (even if you) leave me."

slave knight gael - yuka kitamura holy shit did y'all know that the soundtracks for dark souls 1-3 finally got added back to spotify. life-altering news for me specifically. ANYWAYS, this piece is an utter masterpiece -- cinematic, sweeping, tragic and apocalyptic. the changes in tempo that align with different phases of the fight are also brilliant. slave knight gael is still my all-time favorite soulsborne encounter and the music plays a huge role in that. huge shout-out also to this piano orchestration by uprisinggrand!

get famous - the mountain goats the single for this dropped just a few months after the start of my long-running d&d campaign (still going 5+ years strong!) and was absolutely 100% formative to the characterization of my Guy Of All Time, henry doran. more than anything, henry dreams of being a hero -- but he's had to ask himself more than a few times whether that's out of a desire to do right and make the world a better place, or if he's really only interested in the fame and glory that attends would-be heroes. i think by now he's largely settled on the former, but the jury's still out on whether the henry doran of today "shines like a cursed star" or is destined to fade away.

november 25: the last day - philip glass philip glass is, of course, a goddamn titan of contemporary classical music (not to mention a native son of baltimore, maryland!) and has been one of my favorite composers for...i think 15 years? (i first heard his music excerpted in battlestar galactica, of all things, but a bunch of his pieces also feature heavily in the truman show, which has been a top film of mine for almost as long.) paul schrader is unfortunately a total cunt, but mishima -- and its ending, over which this piece plays -- is transcendent.

love and destroy - franz ferdinand if i had a nickel for every time a major rock group was inspired by the novel the master and margarita to write an absolute banger of a song, i would have three nickels. which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened that often. (the other songs are both much more famous -- the rolling stones' sympathy for the devil and pearl jam's pilate!) but there's something about this song that hits just right: the driving bass line, the dissonance of pairing "love" with "destroy", "live" and "die"...it's just good shit, right? would kill to see it performed live

scheherazade, op. 35 - nikolai rimsky-korsakov (conducted by yevgeny svetlanov and performed by the ussr state symphony orchestra) this might not count as a single "song" per se but WHATEVER, who gives a shit. i'm pretty sure this is the exact same as the recording i would put on repeat whenever i was studying/taking exams in college, so by now every note and fuzzy imperfection has been seared into my brain. and it's GOOD, too! love me my 19th century russian composers.

one more soul to the call - akira yamaoka and mary elizabeth mcglynn akira yamaoka i will love you until the day i die. mary elizabeth mcglynn i will also love you until the day i die. incredible vocal work, great lyrics even outside of the context of the game they're connected to, lovely guitar sounds to chew on. this song to me has the chill of autumn, something that is always welcome imo <3

[fantasiawandering]

Continuing the attempt to find silver linings right now -- storytime. After mum's death in 2019, my greatest source of comfort were her wedding rings. I hadn't realized how much I was using them as a fidget/stim until my stint in the hospital. After I went septic and almost died in 2021, I dropped 20 pounds in the two weeks I was living off an IV. I rebounded bad after that, to the point where mum's rings didn't fit any more. I wore them on a chain around my neck, but it wasn't the same. And mum was TINY. The cuffs on her wedding dress were so ridiculously small I had to measure them -- 15cm around. I, on the other hand, inherited my paternal grandmother's highlander build, which is more like most of the Vikings in How to Train Your Dragon. I'd already spent $500 having the bands rebuilt so they could be sized up to fit me after she died. I had nothing left in my savings to size them up again. So chain it was.

For the last year or so, through all the chronic illness roller coaster rides, I discovered I was in the beginning stages of Type 2 diabetes, and my doctor enrolled my in a special program for diabetes reversal. During the group counselling sessions, I had said that aside from diabetes reversal, my primary hope was to be able to wear mum's rings again. Turns out, the one thing I actually got a handle on in the health mess was the small changes in my diet needed to regulate insulin (lots more protein -- SO much protein -- increased fiber, and substituting foods with a low glycemic index). My A1C is now back in the normal range, and many of those habit changes, designed to reduce fat around the liver, which can affect insulin resistance, have led to loss elsewhere on my body as well. Including my hands. And, as of last week...

I feel like a part of me was missing and now restored. It's a very small thing in the sea of everything I'm trying to navigate in my life right now, but it's kind of amazing how disproportionately good it feels to have them back.

[3liza]

Saw your post asking about insulin resistance without high blood sugar, and yeah I have experience with that exact thing. Everyone in my family has some sort of awful blood sugar issues, but despite having something clearly wrong with me my glucose tests and a1c's were coming back thoroughly normal. I got lucky with a decent doctor and she ordered an insulin test (usually more accurate with fasting I believe, but the result was rather high anyways) and she noted that it was high and told me to try out a diabetes diet to see if it helped.

I'm on a strict low-glycemic index diet now and it's really improved my health, mostly my mental health, but my skin has been upgraded from "abysmal" to a firm "mediocre."

Do I know what's wrong? No. Probably never will, but I'm feeling a lot better at least.

huh. thats useful info. im about to get a new doctor, i wonder if she'll be willing to entertain this sort of weirdness

edit: i just feel Bad and Sick if i eat a sufficient amount of sugar. systemic symptoms, skin gets worse, actual skin pathology like wounds not healing or eczema/psoriasis/fungus gets worse, migraines get triggered, pain flares, etc. not normal person "i ate too much sugar i feel temporarily sub-optimal" halloween candy coma, but i will get actually sick for a few days if i over-indulge. but i crave sugar constantly, which doesnt really mean anything, lots of people crave sugar because It Tastes Good so its not exactly diagnostic. sometimes the sugar cravings seem uncontrollable, like "i need to get out of bed where i am trying to sleep and eat something sweet or i cant think about aything else" kind of stuff. my parents do this same dance with carbohydrates and sugar, they feel awful, eat a cookie, feel awful, recover, say stuff like "oh i shouldnt eat the cookie", and it cycles. some of it is eating disorder crap, which is real hard to differentiate from other issues. some of it is being underweight/underfed from gastroparesis (which I have, pretty badly) which means certain circumstances of calorie shortages, bad digestion, whatever, can align perfectly to trigger I Am Starving I Need to Overeat Right Now Or I'll Die programming in the ape brain, and again, thats real hard to separate from blood sugar symptoms and eating disorder symptoms because they all get tied up together.

however, if i manage to grocery shop in the correct way to provide myself with ample available appropriate food, and i can eat ketogenic or nearly-ketogenic with focuses on dairy fat and just regular animal meat and fresh veg, with minimal or no grains, starches, and sugars, i feel like 60% better on all axes. my dad, too, eventually, after he got diagnosed, was instructed to stop eating most carbs etc and immediately lost all the extra weight he was uncomfortable with his whole life, and immediately got less chronically crappy-feeling. so there's something going on, i just dont know if its medical or genetic or what. some people just dont do well with a lot of grains and theres no particular medical reason.

[asteralpine]

This continuous glucose meter changed my life, man.

I was diagnosed relatively late for Type 1--at the very start of 9th grade (so I was like 14 or 15 years old). I was a gold-star diabetic patient for a few years: I tested all the time, I was dedicated to carb-counting, my A1c was pretty damn good. Every time I saw the doctor, she gushed with praise for me.

(Once, there was a nasty snowstorm on the same day that I had an appointment, and when my dad and I got there, the nurse told us that they'd been calling a lot of patients to cancel their appointments because of the weather, but they didn't want to cancel mine because they knew it'd be fantastic or something.)

But then other stuff happened (depression came rushing back) and I started to neglect that stuff. I didn't test very often, so I was mostly guessing about how much insulin to take, which made my numbers all fucky, which made me want to test even less because the highs felt like a failure, and so on.

And then CGMs. Once my depression and anxiety had been sort of dealt with (better living through chemistry!!), I brought up the idea to my doctor, and it only took a couple of months before I had my very own Dexcom. My A1c is in a good range now (at my last appointment, I was still in the habit of pushing praise aside, so when my doctor mentioned how good it was, I said "I know I can still get it lower" and she straight up said "Uhh, please don't. If we get much lower, it's going to be putting you in dangerously-low ranges for too long, and I don't like that") and I'm way less wound-up about what the numbers mean.

When I did finger-pricks with a regular glucose meter, I usually hesitated. In the few seconds before it showed the results, I would have to brace myself because ugggh it's going to be high because I'm the worst, but this morning I did a finger-prick and it was just...nothing.

I've still got a lot of work to do to get back into carb counting and doing better about exercise and making better snacky choices, but so much of the weight of diabetes has been eliminated just because my Dexcom has allowed (forced) me to be very familiar with my glucose levels on a constant basis. Wonderful!

[justablah56]

HEY IM PISSED RN AND WANNA COMPLAIN TO SOMEONE!!

I went to the dr 2 months ago for a check up, i got this weird rash on the back of my neck and he looked at it for 10 seconds and said i had *some really big word i forgot* rash i asked what that meant and he SAID

"Well basically that means your pre diabetic."

BTW YOU CAN ONLY DIAGNOSE DIABETES AND PRE DIABETES WITH BLOOD WORK

He asks 0 questions about my diet or exercise habits what so ever, and told me to eat less processed foods and sweet and go on walks more and maybe work out BITCH I ALREADY DO 3/4 OF THOSE THINGS??? (He wouldn't know! He didn't ask!)

fun fact 3/4 of my grandparents are diabetic and one of them DIED FROM IT! So I'm now scared shitless and start eating like 1400 calories a day cus i DONT WANT TO DIE LIKE MY GRANDPA WHO DIED 8 DAYS BEFORE I WAS BORN!!!

I just got my blood work done (something the first doctor didn't do or even tell me to do i had to google it to learn i had to get blood work before it could be diagnosed) at a different hospital by a different dr

GUESS WHOS BLOOD WORK IS FUCKING FINE!!!!

My A1C is 5, 5.7 is the minimum for pre diabetes

And my glucose is 78 mg/dL 110 is the minimum for pre diabetes

IM IN PERFECTLY NORMAL RANGE ALL OF MY SHIT IS 100% NORMAL AND AVERAGE

NEW DR LOOKS AT THE RASH

ASKS ME SOME QUESTIONS

I HAVE FUCKING ECZEMA! HE MISSDIGNOSED FUCKING ECZEMA AS PRE DIBEATES BECAUSE HE SAW A FAT FUCK AND ASSUMED I HAD TO BE EATING MY BODY WEIGHT IN CAKE EVER DAY

WHAT PISSES ME OFF MORE

I cant talk to my youngest sister and step brother anymore after i cut off my bio dad and step mom, but i do get updates of there lives from my other siblings, a few months ago my youngest step brother (a chubby kid) got diagnosed pre diabetic

We live in two small ass towns close together, there is only 1 pedestrian in a 45 minute drive radius

The same one i went to who wrongfully "diagnosed" me with pre diabetes when it was eczema

My youngest step brother has eczema

He (most likely) went to the same dr

Has the same condition i do

And we are both fat

And we were both diagnosed as pre diabetic

My step mom (his mom) is also known to medically neglect her kids (all three of them have been to a dr a total of 6 times over the past 19 years and 4 of them were er visits) (shes has insurance and money she just doesn't care)

Theres no way in hell she got my step brothers blood work done, and shes got him on a crazy diet, like if he wants a sandwich it has to be homemade bread, amish cheese and meat. Hes NINE and this kid didn't get any candy all of halloween Christmas new years or valentines and knowing my step mom he wont get any for years!

BECAUSE ONE DUMB ASS DR

THINKS BEING FAT + ECZEMA = PRE DIABETES

sorry for the rant im soooooo fucking pissed aether i cant even begin to describe it in words, im going to fucking kill that man

killing that doctor with knives and hammers, that's actually disgusting, what the fuck. I'm angry for you now, that's fucked

[the-raindeer-king]

Went to the endocrinologist today. First time going without my dad, as I don't have a car and he usually drives me. But it went well. A1c was the same as last time, but also the closest I've gotten to being in a good range. 7.2! :)

[dionysus-is-my-dude]

had to go to the hospital to get blood work done today after the 2nd time suffering from symptoms that me and my coworkers think are episodes of low blood sugar. BUT, my A1C levels were normal, HOWEVER, I had an older order to have my thyroid checked and decided to get that done at the same time.....

y'all, i might have hashimoto's and hypothyroidism....my TSH level was on the higher side, and my T4 was real low....it explains so MUCH. But it's also terrifying, 'cause these episodes of leg weakness, breaking out in a cold sweat, and feeling super tired all of a sudden have me terrified that, if I don't immediately sit and take a glucose tablet (which helped me immensely after my episode today), am i gonna pass out? am i gonna have a seizure? i need answers, so i'm definitely calling my dr's office first thing tomorrow morning.

y'all, imagine that i can FINALLY lose the weight i need to, that i actually have the energy to exercise, that i no longer need to take naps, imagine me finally feeling BETTER instead of feeling worse and worse. fingers crossed, my dudes.

[thewolfwaitsbelow]

I love when they take my a1c in the same room I’m gonna be seen in and I get to watch the machine count down and I’ll know it as soon as the machine does

[flameunquenched]

tw for disordered eating/deliberate self-starvation discussion under the cut. it is, however, overall a happy ending!

ever since i got diagnosed with diabetes in early 2022, i have struggled with disordered eating (not necessarily an eating disorder) and deliberate self-starvation. a lot of this stemmed from how controlled and restricted my diet was in the immediate aftermath of the diagnosis, in an effort to bring down my a1c as quickly as possible. my family, without meaning to, worsened this severely. my dad's wife has a family member (her father) who has diabetes and she has been working with him for a long time on his. however, her methods are incredibly outdated and that transferred to me in the form of severe restriction on what and how much i could eat.

my mom, bless her, was about the same way. for several months, i subsisted on salads (which i love tbh), lean protein like chicken, and eggs. they forced me to eat breakfast, which at the time i hated because i tended to get sick from eating too early.

all of this lead to, once i had my own place and was living alone, barely eating for most of the day and then gorging at night. there were days i would go hours and hours without eating at all, sometimes up to 18 hours when you factor in the fact that i was sleeping. and when i would eat, i begrudged myself every single bite.

i'm diabetic, i'd tell myself. i don't deserve to eat [insert whatever food i was eating, 'healthy' or 'unhealthy']. and so because of the fact that i believed that i wasn't worthy of eating, i'd starve myself. 'oh if i don't eat until tonight, i can have whatever i want.'

this monday, i had my second diabetes class with a lovely woman named zina. we spent two entire hours discussing food and how food and eating affects diabetes. i learned, for the first time, from a professional, that starving myself through the day was doing more harm to me than good. i learned that eating smaller meals every fourish hours or so can help kickstart my metabolism again. i learned that just because i'm diabetic doesn't mean that i have to self-starve in order to deserve to eat.

guys, i can't tell you how life-changing this is for me. i have warred with myself for every bite of food for years now. i have punished myself for every calorie. i've hated myself for every cookie or bite of ice cream or roll at a restaurant. but zina helped me to realize that moderation is the key.

it's gonna take time. i have to unlearn starving myself and i really probably am gonna need therapy for the disordered eating and talking with a nutritionist is probably a good idea. but i think i may finally be able to start healing my fucked up relationship with food in 2025.

[scrapsovereign]

That One Time I Got Kidnapped By An Evil Vampire Lord Ch. 2

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57838303/chapters/147393754#workskin

Summary: To say that Mackenzie's day starts off on the wrong side of the bed is an understatement. A stranger shows up at her work and is about to make her day a lot more interesting.

Pairings: past Ascended Astarion x Evil male!Tav, Ascended Astarion x Original Female Character

Trigger warnings/Tags: cheating, intimate partner violence, abusive relationships, medical settings, body shaming, internalized fatphobia

Renton Highlands, Washington  

Thursday, August 21rst 

8:30 AM 

“What’s the deal with Nurse Brad? He blood sugar shamed me, which I think was low-key fat-shaming,” Mackenzie complains, her mouth full of breakfast sandwich. “I’m getting bro podcast vibes from him,” she says out one side of her mouth as she chews her food with the other.

She reaches into Rob’s cup holder and takes a sip of the Annihilator she’d ordered from Dutch Bros. She takes a moment to savor the taste of 6 espresso shots, half and half, and white chocolate macadamia nut while Rob finishes chewing to say his piece.

“Lo-ki? I need the Thor-ough details- ohwhoathere!” Rob’s eyes go wide at the Tesla that almost side-swiped his Subaru Outback as he drives down the road to Mac’s.

“He said that if I went paleo and went to his CrossFit gym my A1C wouldn’t be so bad. Like excuse me, I’m on my feet all day already, and today’s the first time in weeks I’ve had fast food and a fancy coffee drink. Oh! And that I need to start reframing my paradigm to embody a ‘high value female’,” Mac rants, imitating the tone of voice Brad used with her earlier. “What does that even mean?!”

“I hate it when dudes say ‘females’,” Rob says, letting his long, salt and pepper brown hair down from its bun. 

“Right? It's so Ferengi-coded. Like, try me again when you have the latinum, small-ears…you haven’t got the lobes,” Mackenzie snickers, Rob utterly lost on what Star Trek deep lore she’s referencing.

“Is that the Star Track? What do they say, ‘Live long and let the force be with you’?” He says with a mischievous grin, turning down Mackenzie’s street.

Mackenzie sighs, taking another long sip of her coffee drink to hide her annoyance. “Yep. And also with you,” she says, deadpan. 

Rob pulls up on the side of the street across from the house she rents with Ari and turns the car off, squinting at her driveway. “Whose car is that?” 

Mac feels that all-knowing lump inside her gut solidify as she sets eyes on her car beside the other in the driveway.

“That’s Ari’s friend Jasmine, they met at ECCC this year,” Mac says blandly, taking another bite of her half-finished breakfast sandwich. 

It turns to ash in her mouth.

She gulps it down, wrapping up the other half and shoving it into her work backpack. Hopefully she’ll remember to eat it on the way back to work. 

Her phone buzzes in her hands- it’s her boss, Amanda.

“Hey-“

“Are you okay? How are you feeling? Are you still there? Do you need someone to come get you?” Amanda blurts out in a run-on sentence.

Mackenzie’s throat feels tight contemplating Amanda’s concern for her. 

Rob’s attention perks up from his phone. “Is that A-man-da Hug n’ kiss?!” He asks excitedly.

“Is that Bobbertina I hear? Heeeeeey Bobby boy!” She shouts, her voice easily heard through the phone’s speaker.

“You know, you can do this over text, or the D and D sessions where you see each other every week,” Mackenzie says flatly, watching Rob shake his head.

“Nah, it wouldn’t hit the same, you know? Hey, so, how you feelin’ Mac? Should we see you tomorrow?” Amanda asks, offering Mac the out if she wants to take the day off. 

Mac sighs wearily, rubbing her forehead. “Nah…I’m coming in. I don’t have any PTO left for a full day. Probably about 10 at the latest?” 

“Hmmm…if you’re sure…okay. Dr. Anderson called off, so it’s inbasket hell- I mean, fun for you today. I’ll help cover until you get in,” Amanda says proudly, her car door closing in the background of the call. 

Mackenzie feels a chill come over her- Amanda working in anything else other than her nurse triage inbasket is a nightmare. 

She’d better get to work before Amanda makes too much of a mess in there.

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll see you then,” Mac says lamely. She likes her unhinged grand-millennial manager, but always feels awkward wrapping up a conversation with her.

“Okay, see you soon!” Amanda exclaims before ending the call. 

Mackenzie slumps in the car, closing her eyes for a moment to steady the flip-flopping of her stomach. 

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay home?” Rob asks, his brow furrowed in worry. “Ari’s home, he could help take care of you.”

“No…he’s streaming today and I don’t want to impose on him…” Mac slides further down in the seat, hoping that it renders her invisible. 

Rob’s jaw tenses, his fingers tap on the steering wheel. “You’re too nice. He’s supposed to do that for you, you know that, right? Sickness and health and all that?” He states to the road ahead of them, turning to look Mac in the eyes.

“I do,” Mac sniffles, fidgeting with a straw wrapper in her hands. “It’s funny. I spent all night wishing he would reach out and now I don’t want to go inside and see him. Or talk to him.”

Rob sits quietly with her, allowing her the space to feel her grief as it permeates the silence between them. 

“Kim said they couldn’t find anything wrong,” Mac says after a few moments, unable to tolerate the intensity of her unspoken sadness any longer. “She thought that maybe I was pregnant, but my HCG was negative and nothing showed up on the imaging. Which is fine, I don’t think I could take care of a kid right now.”

“I agree, one kid is enough,” Rob observes, curling into a ball, his gangly limbs shielding himself from the straw wrapper that hits him in the face. 

“Hmmph! Give not into anger, for that is the path to the dark side! Much fear I sense in you, young Skywalker.” He exclaims in his best Yoda impression. “But no really, Maccy. You’ve gotta be having some big feelings, you have health stuff going on, and you need some support. Have you tried to explain how you feel to him with your ‘I messages’?”

Mac huffs a laugh, wishing it was that easy. “You think I haven’t? Nursing school Jedi Mind tricks don't work.”

“Have faith in the force, padawan,” Rob says dreamily, switching to his rather good Obi Wan Kenobi impression.

“Listen. I did that when I went full motivational interviewing interrogation mode on him after he gave me COVID the first time. He said I’d picked it up from work, but then I found out about Sara, and that he got it from her and gave it to me because they were…you know.”

“I…” Rob flexes his arms, rolls his neck to the side to stretch it. “I know you’ve forgiven him, but I haven’t,” he states evenly, quietly. A sign that Mac knows he’s angry. 

Mac unintentionally twists the ring on her finger as he mentions it. “Yep, that’s…yep. Well, if anything we’ll have a chance to talk about it tonight when he wants to bang and I have to explain why we can’t. I should probably head on in and get cleaned up. Thanks for letting me crash in that empty stock room after I got discharged.”

Rob yawns and nods, leaning over the seat to give Mackenzie a tight hug. 

“No problem, facilities owed me a favor. Anything for you, anytime. You need help inside?” His brows pitch upwards, ready to spring into action. 

Mackenzie winces as she gathers her things, opening the car door, seeing it scrape on the brown grass of the curb.

“I’ll be fine,” she smiles. She’s lying to him.

Rob smiles back and turns the key in the ignition. He knows.

Mackenzie trudges to the door, goes to open the lock, but feels no resistance. She opens the door quietly, mindful of the background audio that might pick up on his stream. 

She steps over the craft foam and fabric, pins and half-finished garments as she makes her way to the kitchen table. She lets out a heavy sigh in disapproval when she sees the cookie sheet that lies directly on it littered with bagel bites, half-eaten and grown cold.

She has her work backpack almost empty when she hears the sounds of two voices moaning together, one male, the other female.

A wave of nausea surges through her, her limbs going numb.

No. That can’t be it. He’s not cheating on her with Jasmine in their bed. Mac is just being crazy again. He’s probably just watching porn. Yeah…Ari’s just taking a break from streaming Minecraft speedruns to jerk it, it’s not the first time he’s done it.

Her guts ache, a ripple of deep knowing washing over her so strongly it almost knocks her over. It helps her remember Jasmine’s car is still in the driveway, helps her see the line of discarded clothing in the hall... 

“Mmm, Ari…you fuck my pussy so good, ” the female voice echoes from the bedroom door.

Mackenzie has to be hearing things. 

Yes, it’s just an intrusive thought, she’s more than likely going crazy and hearing things others can’t hear. It would make sense- she’s sleep deprived, not feeling well, and she’s in pain. She’s just losing it, she didn’t actually hear anything, she’s imagining things.

That is, until she hears it again, accompanied by a rapid cacophony of combined moans and wet flesh slapping together.

“Yes, Ari…yes just like that…I’m gonna fucking cum on your dick daddy, ooohhhh…Ariiiiiii… ”

“That tight little hole feels so good, Jas! Cum for me, cum for daddy… ”

The floorboards creak underneath her feet as Mac tries to stealth down the hall, giving her presence away. 

Mac takes a deep breath or five to still her pounding heart. 

“Get dressed Jas, I think Kenz is home… ”

Ari’s panicked instructions all but confirm what her intuition is telling her. It did the same when she had caught him in the act with Hayleigh, a 16 year old fan that he’d brought to their hotel room at PAX last year. Mac recalls with deep shame that Ari had almost successfully gaslit her into thinking the whole thing didn’t happen. Ari might have gotten away with it if Hayleigh’s father hadn't shown up at their door 2 months later, angry as hell and demanding $750 to cover the cost of her termination.

She walks quietly towards the hall closet, opening the door carefully, pulling her go-bag out that her therapist insisted she make. 

She wraps her tingling hand around the master bedroom door, making a mental checklist of the additional contents in her room she needs to grab, keeping her mind busy to forget the sudden urge to vomit all over the floor.

The open door reveals Ari and Jas, but not in the position she expected to find them. She takes stock of what she sees, trying to ground herself in the facts. 

Ari and Jas are sitting on the bed next to each other against the headboard, disheveled and flushed, wearing what could be interpreted as sleepwear. They’re an odd pair. Jas is a tiny thing that couldn’t be taller than five feet and some change and a hundred pounds soaking wet, Ari being a few inches over six feet tall and built like a comic book hero-well, a retired one. He had a bit of a gut and some fat under his chin that he’s self conscious of.

If she had only given Ari a brief glance, he would pass her inspection with flying colors. He’s been known to walk around the house with only gym shorts on. The sight of his broad, naked chest with the slight bit of a tum hanging over the elastic waist isn’t suspicious. 

The pillow he has on his crotch is, though. 

So is the musky, slightly fishy odor of sex lingering in the air. 

Mac notices Jas’ long black hair has been pulled into a tight, hasty ponytail. Her small, slender body is slick with what she thinks is sweat even though the shirt of Ari’s she has on is dry. Her dark eye makeup around her jade eyes is smeared in streaks down her face. 

Mac then turns her scrutinizing gaze back towards Ari. He beams at Mac with his ice blue eyes, sweeping back his bleach blonde hair to show its mousy brown roots, putting his muscular, trembling arm on display. 

“Oh…ah, hey there Kenz. Aren’t you supposed to be on your way to work?” He inquires with his SoCal accent (that he claims isn’t an accent), his thumb drumming on the pillow he has atop his lap.

“Yes,” Mackenzie says calmly as she desperately tries to keep her shit together, “Usually I am.” She throws extra clothes into the bag unceremoniously, turning sharply to grab her ADHD meds out of the bathroom.

“Kenz…it’s good to see you,” Jas calls politely from where she’s perched on the bed. 

Mackenzie ignores her, looking down at the bathroom trash can briefly. 

It’s clean for once, after two months of reminding Ari to take it out.

Interesting.

“Is it?” Mackenzie asks, her eyebrows raised, her voice pitching up to a squeak.

“Why would you say that babe?” Ari asks, swallowing thickly. 

Mackenzie stares at him, emotionless. 

“Look, you guys,” she starts, zipping up her pack, throwing it over her shoulders. “It’s pretty clear what was going on before I came in.”

“We…we were uh, just waking up,” Jas stammers. “Ari was about to start streaming and I was going to keep working on our cosplays,” she says playfully, twirling her ebony hair idly with her long, manicured nails.

Nails that match the welt marks forming on Ari’s shoulders. 

“Gotta rise and grind, huh?” Mac snarks, her voice catching in her throat. 

She looks at her bedside alarm- she’s lingered too long, she’s going to be more than a few minutes late if she doesn’t leave for work now.

“You know it babe! ‘The Might Way is the right way’,” Ari smirks, parroting the way he says his catchphrase from his stream. 

“I’m sure it is,” Mackenzie clips out as tears sting the corners of her eyes. She makes her way out of the bedroom, the fibers of the tan carpet crushed underneath the stomping of her feet.

“Kenz,” Ari calls out as Mac walks swiftly down the hallway, ignoring him. “Kenz!”

She grabs her keys and her work bag, ready to walk out the door when his large, calloused hand grabs around her wrist.

“Hey. What’s going on? You didn’t come home last night,” Ari asks, his voice low and soft. 

“Yeah, well, that’s because I was in the ER,” Mac snaps, wrenching her hand away from him. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?,” he furrows his brow in worry, reaching up to cup the side of her face with care. “Why didn’t you text or call?”

Mackenzie flinches, pulling away.

“I could ask why you didn’t do the same. You know, I had been in the ER alone for almost four hours when I saw you replied with kissy heart faces to Jas after she’d tweeted about coming over,” she counters. 

“You’re acting crazy,” he coos, brushing his thumbs that smell like somebody’s else’s genitals against her cheekbones. “It’s just an emoji, it doesn’t mean what you think.”

A strong wave of nausea rips through Mackenzie- she really is going to vomit all over her husband if she doesn’t leave now. She backs away from him and opens the front door to leave.

Mac pauses and turns around to look Ari dead in his arctic blue eyes.

“You know what? This is stupid. Ari, I heard you and Jas when I came home. I know why you didn’t check on me. You were so busy fucking Jas you didn’t even think about me, where I was. You know where I slept last night until Rob was done with his shift?” she rasps, wiping away the fat tears that drip down her cheeks. “A closet. I slept in a storage closet with a pile of musty hospital blankets while you screwed and slept in our bed! Rob had to bring me home-“

“Rob brought you home ? You’re cheating on me with him, aren’t you?” Ari recoils in disgust.

Mackenzie shakes her head, so angry with him she’s unable to think of a reply she won’t regret later. 

“I have to go to work. At least I’m getting paid to get fucked over when I’m there,” she sobs out, barely able to see the sidewalk as tears stream down her face, power-walking to her ancient Toyota Camry. 

“Wait, Kenz, please,” Ari whines, following her to the driveway as she tosses her bags unceremoniously in the car and pauses to hear him say his piece. 

“What are we doing for dinner?” He asks like he hadn’t just accused her of cheating on him.

“Un-fucking-believable,” Mackenzie curses under her breath, slamming the door, turning the ignition and peeling out of the driveway faster than her sedan was built to do.

She doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry as she sees Ari chase after her car barefoot down the street in nothing but his gym shorts, so she does both.

…until she sees her check engine and her gas light flicker on.

Downtown Seattle, Washington  

Mercy West Medical Group Primary Care Clinic

Thursday, August 24th 

10:30 AM

“Hey boss, I’m here- what happened to you?” Mackenzie’s eyes rake over the crime scene of a nurse manager.

Amanda closes her eyes tightly shut as she tips her head back, holding pressure to a nose stuffed with cotton balls that had dripped blood into her mask. 

“So…we had a walk-in for chest pain…no insurance, of course, not our patient. And so I figure I’ll just grab him, do a quick EKG, make sure he’s not dying,” she gestures with her free hand. 

“When I go to grab him and take him back…Mackenzie Elizabeth Eriksson, with the Flying Spaghetti Monster as my witness, I didn’t think the anime thing of having a nosebleed was real,” she nasally groans, changing hands to continue holding pressure. “I was today years old when I learned it was real.”

“Did you get vitals? Does he still need an EKG?” Mac inquires smoothly, positively dead inside. She prays to whoever’s listening that Amanda can’t tell.

“Yeah, orders are in, machine’s in there. He’s in room 7. His name’s Rion Ahncooneen. Ankhunin? I didn’t ask him how to say it, you get the idea. And uhh Maccy? You might wanna prepare yourself for this one. You ever seen Labyrinth?” Amanda side-eyes her, lifting the tissue to check and see if her bleeding has stopped.

“A long time ago, why?” Mac asks, all business as she writes his name and exam room on a sticky note, her gut tingling in an odd way she can’t explain.

“You…uhm. You’ll see what I mean. I didn’t think people that pretty existed in real life, but here we are,” she chuckles, tipping her head back again. “Hey, you alright?” 

Mac cringes at being called out. Of course Amanda can tell she’s upset. She can always tell.

“No, and if I start talking about it, I’m going to start crying and I won’t be able to stop,” Mac sets down her personal and her work bag on the chairs in her boss’ office, grabbing her stethoscope. 

Amanda eyes her go bag with somber recognition.

“I’m here for you, Cheesy. Anything you need. I have a copy of my house key in my desk- top right drawer. You can take the spare bedroom, I’ll wash the sheets and everything-“

Amanda must really be serious if she’s calling her Cheesy, the name Mac had received from an angry patient while they worked together at urgent care during the early days of the pandemic. Mac gives her a quick side hug in reply, avoiding her eyes, and marches down the hall, catching a generous glob of hand sanitizer foam when she reaches halfway there.

She opens the exam room door, rubbing sanitizer over hands that don’t feel like they belong to her, putting her best patient care game face on. 

“Hi, I’m Mackenzie, I’m one of the medical assistants here. I’m going to get an…an…” Mackenzie’s brain shorts out, her stuttering words robbed of her as she stares at the shirtless man in the exam room. 

Amanda calling him pretty is the understatement of the century.

The corners of his eyes tug up at her with a cocked eyebrow. He leans back on the exam table where he sits, playfully puffing out his hairless, smooth, perfect tits as if on purpose. 

Oh no. He knows he’s pretty. 

Mac exhales, annoyed at his preening. He’s one of those. Great. Just…great. 

She rakes her eyes over him critically; down to the slender, cut muscles of his abdomen and back up to the sharp, delicate features of his face covered by the blue surgical mask.

This is a man who takes great care in his appearance, unlike Ari. His skin practically glows in the fluorescent light of the exam room. His short nails are impeccably manicured with a layer of clear polish, his silver brows shaped to perfection, with a hint of kohl lining his eyes. His black lightweight woolen trousers hug his waist perfectly. She eyes the crisp white linen shirt that hangs on the door with a blazer that matches his pants- they probably cost as much as her rent. 

“Yes darling, you were saying?” he states airily in a posh British accent that sounds like silk velvet would feel, carding an elegant hand through his impossibly perfect, long silver waves. 

“EKG. Yep. What’s your name and birthday?” She requests, flipping the machine screen up to put in the information. 

“Rion Ancunìn. October,” he pauses to think about it, his head tilted to the side. “October the fourth…1983.”

Huh, a Libra. That explains the pompous airs he puts on. 

“Birthday’s coming up soon. Any plans for the big 4-0?” She inquires with empty interest. 

“You could say that,” he drawls flirtatiously. “Nothing set in stone as of yet, but I suppose a bit of hedonistic debauchery might be in order for the occasion.”

Mackenzie pauses and blinks after she takes out the leads and alcohol swabs from the machine, reflecting on the phrase ‘hedonistic debauchery’. She’d more or less grown up under a rock, she doesn’t know the first thing about what that’s supposed to be. She’s dying to know more, but isn’t a question like that inappropriate?

Mac’s impulsivity wins. “I might regret asking this, but what does ‘hedonistic debauchery’ entail?”

“It’s better experienced than described,” he purrs seductively, giving her a once over with half-lidded eyes.

Mac almost starts laughing. 

Is this guy hitting on her? Is he fucking for real?

“Sounds like it’s different than the usual board games and beer that’s popular ‘round these parts,” she chuckles politely. 

“I’m going to have you lay down for me,” Mac instructs, avoiding his gaze that follows her as she comes closer to him. She pulls out the table extension, turning her back briefly to sanitize her hands and put gloves on. 

When she turns around he’s watching her keenly, like a cat would observe a mouse. 

Like she’s his prey.

“And you’re not going to join me? Pity,” he pouts, looking at her out of the side of his keen ruby eyes as Mac chokes on her own spit from his remark. 

She tears open the alcohol wipes and he hums as she quickly swipes them across his left ribcage. Touching him feels like playing Russian roulette with an electric fence, her nervous system sending lightning rods of electricity down to her core. She fans him with the plastic card that houses the electrode tabs to dry the alcohol and he groans. HE GROANS. 

“That feels rather nice. Are you looking for a job? Because I could pay you to do that all…day…long,” he drawls, his eyes closing in bliss. She feels a hot flush creep up her chest, a bead of sweat dripping down her back. 

She quickly assembles the leads with shaky, fumbling  hands, her brow furrowed in concentration as she hovers her finger over the button to run the test.

“I need you to relax for just a moment,” she says monotonously, feeling another bead of sweat run down her back.

“Difficult to do when a pretty thing such as yourself is near, but I’ll give it a go,” he smirks roguishly underneath the blue mask that covers his face, giving her a sly wink. 

Mac feels her whole body tense and ache as she watches the lines turn green on the machine. 

She presses the button to capture and print out the report. She should set some boundaries with him. She should tell him that was inappropriate. She’s pretty sure too that there’s a policy about this kind of thing, not that she’d ever had to look it up.

So why do her guts tell her that the attention from him feels right? Why do they beg for more? 

A flood of shame washes over Mackenzie from head to toe. Her sex drive had been dead for almost a year and a half, so what is it about this stranger that’s made it come alive so inconveniently? Why is her body betraying her like this? Can’t she stay in control of herself? 

While Ari had incorrectly guessed she was cheating on him with Rob, had he been able to accurately detect that she would have feelings like this for another?

The tears she’d held back successfully return at the thought of Ari enduring what he has made her suffer, flooding her eyes and fogging up her eye protection. 

No, no, no. She’d done so good holding her shit together for the last 15 minutes she’s been here! She’s not crying in front of a patient…

A warm, strong hand reaches out to grip hers with care. She looks up to see Rion sitting up on the edge of the table, his eyebrows soft over his gorgeous sparkling eyes. 

“What’s troubling you, pet?” He coaxes, rubbing his thumb in reassuring circles over the back of her hand. 

Try as she may, a waterfall from her eyes streams down her face, soaking her mask as they run down in a steady river. 

“I’ve had a pretty bad day,” She explains vaguely, tearing the sheet off to show the on-call MD.

“Obviously. It must be something truly horrid to upset you so,” Rion chuckles, one of his hands coming up to trace a knuckle down the side of her tear-soaked face.

Mackenzie casts her eyes downward, fat tears pooling in the clear plastic of her eye protection as she nods with a sniffle. 

A knock at the door startles her, reflexively moving a footstep away from him.

“Everything okay in here?” Amanda asks nonchalantly as she lays eyes on a shirtless Rion, her mask hiding the lecherous smile Mac knows she wears underneath.

“Yeah, I was just getting ready to show it to Dr.Calloway,” Mac sniffles. 

Amanda takes the EKG tracing and pushes a pretend pair of glasses further up her face like an anime character, humming as she looks the sheet of paper over. “I think you’ll be fine sir- are you still having symptoms?”

“The healing touch of your lovely colleague has cured me,” he confirms, giving Mackenzie’s hand a squeeze. 

Another bead of sweat runs down Mackenzie’s back as she tries to pull her hand away.

He holds her firmly in his grasp.

Amanda’s eyes squint at Rion, at Mackenzie, and at their joined hands.

“I think we can get unhooked and dressed. It looks normal to me, but I’m just going to run everything by our on call doc just to make sure you’re safe to be released into the wild,” Amanda advises, closing the door behind her. “I’ll be right back.”

Rion lets go of Mackenzie and she goes right into autopilot, unhooking the leads with practiced ease. 

“I think my husband’s cheating on me again,” she blurts out, the confession spilling at the impulse of her traitorous gut.

“Oh dear. Do you have a lawyer?” he inquires softly, Mackenzie shaking her head in reply. 

“Would you like one?” He hops off the exam table, taking a card out of a smooth metal case, presenting it to her with a flourish.

“Astarion Ancunìn

Attorney at Law”

She looks it over, turning the card stock in her hands.

Astarion’s an unusual name. She imagines it got him teased or bullied as a kid, no wonder he goes by Rion. She finds it interesting the card doesn’t have any contact information on it. It looks custom-pressed, the paper has a good heft to it, and she can detect the smallest hint of fragrance through her mask. 

“I don’t know if I could afford your services,” she says dejectedly. “And I don’t know if I want to get divorced just yet. I feel like we could still work things out, I still love him,” she explains, her eye protection fogging up as she speaks.

“Oh, my sweet. Look at me,” he raises her chin up, his eyes darting back and forth to search her own despite the barrier of plastic and condensation between them. “Love, true love is not self-sustaining. It is a choice, and one must make that choice every day. It takes dedication, sacrifice, hard work…mutual effort from the parties involved. Honesty. Clear, effective communication.” 

His hand drops and he turns away from Mac, slipping the fine linen shirt on, buttoning it up with nimble fingers. 

“Speaking of being clear- I would hate to mislead you. I fear that I am not a divorce attorney. My legal specialty is rather, shall we say, unique? That being said, I dabble in a few areas that are relevant to your…situation.” He shrugs on the coat of his impeccably tailored suit. “Join me for a drink tonight? We can continue this discussion in a more…appropriate setting. Think of it as an informal consultation of sorts.”

Mackenzie fidgets with the card in her hands nervously. He looks like he has champagne tastes, and all she has in her go bag is an extra set of scrubs, underwear, handmade linen shorts and a t-shirt. “I don’t know if I have anything to wear…ah!”

She cries out in surprise as Rion’s hands shoot out towards her and pull the royal blue fabric of her scrub top taut at the sides.

“What’s your dress and shoe size?” He murmurs his question, holding her at arm’s length to analyze her frame and the shape of her curves.

“Depending on who makes it, anywhere from a 16 to a 20, shoes are always an 8.5,” she grouses, ashamed of how much weight she’s gained in the last few years.

Rion tsks in what Mac fears is disapproval at her larger body size. “A pity that women’s sizing remains inconsistent across the realms. No matter. You close at 5pm, correct?” Mackenzie confirms his assumption with a nod.

“I’ll have the appropriate attire delivered to you by then. The address of where we are to meet will be included with the garments.” He sweeps her hands up to his mouth covered by the disposable mask on his face, lingering a moment too long as he presses his lips to them.

“I’ll be looking forward to it, darling.”

Mackenzie stares dumbly into space as he exits the room and disappears, the realization of what she just agreed to crashing down upon her. 

[xxxg0ryygurlll13xxx]

my thoughts on ozempic and hollywood weight loss

so to preface this i have a personal relationship with both of these topics

my mother has diabetes and is prescribed ozempic (i have her permission to mention this)

im fat and for a long time struggled w an ED

so ozempic is an injectable drug that lowers A1C, controls glucose and helps weight loss. recently there has been an absolute boom in actors, celebrities, influencers etc using it for weight loss. you can only be prescribed ozempic so they use off label versions of the same drug because of course the worst crime you can commit is being fat. using off label ozempic and using so much so often DOESNT LEAVE ENOUGH FOR THE PEOPLE WHO NEED IT. my mother has type 2 diabetes and needs ozempic and not only have we had to call multiple pharmacies simply to get it once we get it the price has increased a major fuck ton. luckily our insurance covers that but lots of peoples doesnt and its expensive, it can be over $1000 for one pen which has only a few doses. this extreme popularity in using ozempic as a "get thin quick" method has made it extremely hard for people like my mother to get ozempic. most pharmacies in our area rarely ever have it because its so hard to get the drug to even make the product now. its ridiculous and absurd.