#sheilz shares

[asokatanos]

So the other day I went for a little walk with friends and I brought them to this lake nearby I had been to about a year ago with my mother. She and I had determined it was a bit too wooded and secluded for me to safely wander around by myself.

My friends and I got there and walked from some far off parking area all the way to the lake.

Only. It wasn’t there.

There was an older, white haired man standing there on the “shore” and he heard me swearing up and down to my friends that no, really, there definitely used to be a HUGE lake here! He looked at me with GIANT SAD eyes and asked if maybe I had walked over from down the way, where the canoe launch used to be, and is there maybe water over there?

Unfortunately we had not come from that direction, but I expressed that I was shocked that the lake was just uh, missing? And this man, looking for all the world like a cartoon with his sad, slumped shoulders, his defeated, dejected posture, the absolute baffled bewilderment on his face… this man just nodded at me and said that he had caught his first fish here with his dad when he was just a little boy, and now the lake had just disappeared along with all its fish. After that, he turned away, and stood silently there, staring out at the missing lake, for a long time.

[wayfaring]

twinbatons replied to your photoset “Studying is all about the aesthetic… right? | central London | ig...”

the first one!!

<33 ((but also yeah that cafe is really nice except their wifi sucks))

[asokatanos]

NYCC was back this year and I was so lucky to be able to go!! There was strangely zero SW content but there was this amazing ST panel for Discovery and I got some pretty good seats! Sonequa Martin Green is stunning and eloquent, and everyone else is also very much like their characters, it was pretty cute!! She and Mary Wiseman kept singing to each other across the stage 🥺 And David Ajala is a man of very few words but everyone was teasing him about Book and Burnham’s relationship (with tons of innuendo that made him blush) lmao

Shining moment was Wilson Cruz who talked about Dr Culber’s role in the upcoming season and how it was about taking care of the crew but also himself in a time of crisis - and how real life doctors and frontline workers have been going through all this trauma throughout the pandemic while serving everyone else. As a completely unpaid frontline medical personnel who’s been taking plenty of psychic damage through the last couple years I felt very seen 💛

[asokatanos]

Oh my god surgery fucking sUCKS it’s not even that I don’t like being in the OR (I don’t) but the hours???? They round at 6am and we have to get there before that so we can see our patient and present it on rounds. Today. Today they’re doing a lecture at fucking. 6:15 am so we had to be here. At 5am. For rounds. What the fuck

[asokatanos]

I had the weirdest, WEIRDEST day today and since every other social media is practically public guess I’ll have to put it here

anyways today was the... very first time in 26 years I remember having even a fleeting thought of wishing I was white passing (thankfully it was a fleeting thought; also I’m way too brown to ever pass). I was grateful all day that my accent sounds about 99% American usually tho.

I’m on my pediatrics rotation in a. garbage. part of New York that is DEEPLY Republican and after three weeks at a hospital I was assigned to a private clinic for like, two days. And this doctor... I’ve never felt cognitive dissonance like this. He was VERY NICE to me, called me bright and wished there were more patients for me to see and told me he would help me out finding electives next year... and he was singing to his littler patients and stuff.

But he also said (only very slightly paraphrasing):

China controls the idiotic WHO and they need to answer for their crimes and what they knew all along

The democrats want to kill off anyone over 86

Single player healthcare is terrible I hope it never happens it’s so bad and you know half the country didn’t vote for that!! I can’t believe 80 million people decided to vote for Joe

75% of people don’t go to college why should they have to pay for the ones who do

Fauci is an idiot he keeps vacillating and now he’s gonna be in charge?!?!?!!!

The cdc and the who keep changing their minds constantly

We need to all just go back to school and work and reopen the economy this is really taking a toll on people’s mental health ((okay the last part I agree with but then:)) and the democrats are keeping everything closed on purpose because they don’t want to reopen the economy

Something about rahm emmanuel’s brother admitting to wanting death squads or something like that

At some point I was just very nervously nodding and making uh huh noises so I don’t even know what else he said. my knee jerk reaction to anyone asking me where I’m from is and almost always has been “New York” and THANKFULLY he did not ask “but where are you really from.” I guess??? He either decided that I must be a Republican despite my youth and brown skin and million years of higher education OR he just decided he didn’t care and inflicted that.... fucking weirdass and lowkey frightening propaganda at me and I guess some of the patients who also seemed to be agreeing with him. Which I couldn’t tell if it was about trusting their doctor and agreeing with his presumed educated intelligence or if it was about also independently believing that kind of codswallop

I don’t even know why I was unsettled and kind of scared all day since he was nice to ME but it was just all so jarring because I KNOW the next step is to hate immigrants and I wanted to be able to pass as someone who couldn’t possibly be an immigrant or child of immigrants. Anyways. I have to go back on Wednesday and then I will soon be free of this HORRIBLE ISLAND

[asokatanos]

Vaccine Update!

Hi everyone!! I got my second dose of my covid vaccine and wanted to share my experiences so you might be able to make a more informed decision.

Dose 1 post with details on the process and updates from every few hours post vaccine (tl;dr of which is that my arm started hurting 6 hours later and continued to be sore for a little over a day)

Dose 2: So I got dose one on Jan 5th, which makes me technically due for dose 2 on February 2nd exactly 28 days later (it’s 28 days for Moderna and 21 days for Pfizer). However, there was a massive snowstorm and I was very concerned that getting to the vaccination place (a nearby hospital) would be impossible, so I actually went on 1/31 before the storm hit. I went at the end of their vaccine hours so they could give me my shot if and only if they had extras.

Unused vaccines that have already been thawed out have to be thrown away! Pfizer needs to be stored in an ultra-cold freezer between -80⁰C and -60⁰C (-112⁰F and -76⁰F). You cannot refreeze it when thawed. Moderna needs to be stored in a freezer between -25°C and -15°C (-13°F and 5°F). You cannot refreeze it when thawed.

the clinical trials allowed +/- 3 days so I am not concerned with efficacy issues here.

Anyway, they had three extra doses left over at 1:47pm on Sunday! Yay for me. Also glad I did it because there is more snow than car on my car rn. Can’t go anywhere.

Side Effects: Statistically, there have been more reports of side effects following dose two than dose one. This makes sense biologically too because after dose one, your body should have made antibodies already. When dose two enters your arm, your immune system’s kill bill sirens go off, full klaxons blaring INTRUDER ALERT. Dose one puts out a body-wide bolo out for that damn spike protein, so when dose two comes in, we are READY TO GO and we are NOT aboutta forget what spike looks like.

anyway, I was a little nervous. My dad got his moderna dose two a week or two ago and he was knocked out for a day with chills and fatigue. Mom got her Pfizer dose two last week and had chills for a few hours. (we all work in healthcare)

I just got arm soreness this time. Turns out, anecdotally, that young people haven’t been getting as bad side effects. Only anecdotally, but it’s nice to know. Not getting side effects dose not mean that your vaccine isn’t working! You’re still making antibodies don’t worry.

In any case my arm near the injection site started hurting (and also felt warm) within an hour of the shot this time (Sunday 3pm), all thru Monday, and it still twinges a bit if I raise my arm above the level of my shoulder on Tuesday morning. Acetaminophen/Tylenol/Paracetamol or NSAIDs (naproxen/aleve, ibuprofen/motrin, etc) actually have been dramatically reducing the dull soreness, and aren’t thought to be minimizing the antibody production response, so they’re safe to take if you’re suffering.

Please feel free to ask me if you have questions about the vaccine/the science, about side effects you may have heard of that are scaring you, etc. I have been talking to patients every single day about it and I’m happy to talk to you too. Just can’t provide any direct medical advice!

[asokatanos]

Every time I work myself up to “okay definitely gonna cut my hair now” I wash it and it springs up and shrinks like TWO FEET omg it’s sitting just below my shoulders rn but pulled taught it’s still almost butt length shdjcjdjsk

[asokatanos]

Love being home for all of three waking hours and setting my 4:20am alarms so I can get snarked at in the hospital before sunrise 🙃

[asokatanos]

I finished my week rotating through the inpatient child psychiatric ward (got two more weeks to go in different types of adult units) and I have one conclusion: there’s no way I will ever be capable of working in child psych full time. Not a chance

Because I finished this week ready to fist fight almost all of the parents of these poor kids. Don’t get me wrong, most of the kids did in fact have issues and all of them did need help, but so much of it was neglectful parents and parents who couldn’t cope (I get it! Caring for a child with serious psych issues can be hard! But you don’t fucking throw them in the hospital the minute it gets too hard. You get some help!) but by far the WORST was seeing kids whose issues were compounded by transphobic parents and parents who were hyper Christian and others who were at times physically abusive.

I never met any parents because with covid there’s no visitation (and think about that. These parents committed their kids, KNOWING that there’s no visitation.) but hearing the stories from these kids - even with the understanding that some of it might be magnified or even falsified from the kids because of their psychiatric illnesses - I want to fight these parents so badly. And I hate knowing that there’s little I can do to fix things for these kids.

Anyway I have even more sympathy for those of you who have shitty parents now. I promise you are worth more than they make you feel you are. I can’t do much for you but if you ever need an encouraging word, I’m here.

[asokatanos]

Science and math and statistics were, as tika put it, like fuck sheila specifically today

This morning I had to do a case presentation and I was talking about a weird thing I saw last week that was scary and also rare. Really rare. One study out of Denmark polled the ENTIRE population in like 2003 or something and found that less than 0.01% of people had it. That’s less than one in Ten Thousand. Another study estimated like 0.005% in the general population bc the genes could be higher in Denmark specifically. Anyway so at 9am I’m presenting this to the doctor in charge of me...

...By 5pm today I saw two more cases. That’s three separate people in different age ranges in five days. The chances of that happening are ridiculously low given how rare this thing is but my doc in charge must have thought I was so dumb lmao claiming this thing is rare and then we see two more on the same fucking day

[asokatanos]

Like most teens I used to think my parents were just unbearably lame and uncool. Have been spending a whole lot of time with them since quarantine etc - I’ve been watching a show with them (I’m rewatching they’re watching for the first time). The other night I caught them arguing about what the kiss between character X and character Y MEANT and whether it was a dream sequence or if X and Y were together. god.... they’re still unbearably lame and uncool but in the exact same way that I am, which is just so funny. If they’d grown up with the internet I’m SURE that they’d have gotten into fandom

[asokatanos]

peace lilies are the MOST DRAMATIC plants ever omg I brought mine up to my room (east facing plenty of sunlight) to sit with my two new snake plants and she got SO MAD AT ME all her leaves wilted like overcooked noodles by the end of a week. So I took her back downstairs to her spot with her usual friends (aka all my mom’s plants) and less than 48 hours later all her leaves are perky and shiny????

This PLANT has a more active social life than me

[asokatanos]

🌼💕 get to know your mutuals!! when you get this, it means someone wants to know more about you, so list 5 things about yourself you want your followers to know. they can be as simple as your age or as complex as your deepest fear, as long as it’s something you’re comfortable with sharing. when you’re done, send this to 10 people you want to get to know better!! 💕🌼

Thank you for the tag darling <33

Let’s see... are there ANY facts I haven’t already overshared publicly to the entire internet....

I really like sci fi! This is in NO WAY a secret nor is it a new fact for anyone who has been following me for even five minutes but. I actually do enjoy sci fi a lot!

I grew up reading and being REAL into fantasy - you know, magic and swords and lady knights (thank you @tamorapierce and also @tabarronauthor). The TA Barron books got me into Arthuriana, which is how I ended up watching BBC Merlin, which is how I got the majority of my followers on this blog I think. Anyway I just passed on a few books to a little cousin and he was devouring them at the same feverish pace I used to and it made me a lil emotional ngl

I think it’s like, an unpopular opinion on this site, oddly, but I HATE rainy days. I like the sound of rain, yes, but I’m like one of those dramatic bitch plants and I absolutely WILT without sunlight. I have no energy at all and just want to sleep all day. I still love the petrichor smell, though I’ve rarely smelled it anywhere in the global north; I think you really need MUD to smell it and that just doesn’t exist up here.

This is the very first time of my entire life I haven’t had a valid passport, because it expired in July and with covid related backups with the Dept of Homeland Security or whatever I just didn’t bother until this week. Feels real weird. My family travels a lot I’m extremely lucky

I adore languages. I’m a medical student, which I think I say in every other post of mine because it absolutely DOMINATES my life, but before that and before my Masters I was a student of Linguistics. I’m pretty good at picking up languages too, just watching tv. Right now I’m watching a show in Brazilian Portuguese~

[asokatanos]

so i've had an odd and exciting time in the ER so far. it's like...90% not a great thing but 10% very interesting from my myopic perspective as a student ((not a great thing for the patients i mean. i'm learning bizarre and possibly useless things which is fun for me.)) but like on my last two shifts we had cases that just. made no fucking sense

yesterday it was a KID who was presenting in such a way that if she were 60 we would immediately call a stroke. except she was like a ninth grader or something and everything we ordered on her came back negative - at the end of the day our best guess is she had some wild migraine variant?? poor girl must have been SO SCARED but at the same time i was very. fascinated (?) by her case. that sounds very clinical and detached and i do not mean it to be but seeing weird shit as a student is exciting (oh! and to be clear as far as we could figure before she was transferred - she was recovering from whatever it was just fine; she’s not like, brain damaged or anything)

today it was a college kid with psychosis that should have been simple psych things. but then one of his labs came back SUPER weird and completely inexplicable and we in the ER fought with both psych and medicine floors to admit him... but neither wanted him because both thought it should have been the other (because it made NO DAMN SENSE). in the end psych was like bro idk maybe it was a designer drug or something? we don’t know what to do with this! and medicine were like okay we'll take him and see what we can figure out but also fuck u! ((this is not to say no one wants to care for the patient; it's just that you get the best care if you're admitted to the right place - you don't want a psychiatrist to fix liver failure or a hepatologist to attempt schizophrenia.))

[asokatanos]

adkfjosjsjd so I had this best friend in college and after I graduated (a year before him) he got really really bad at keeping in touch and at some point just ghosted me completely. Anyway so sometime last year I bumped into his ex gf on the street and caught up with her and she told me this whole weird tale of how he had ghosted her too and that apparently he had gotten married?? and when some friend of his told her he ghosted that person too?? I was skeptical because honestly... why on earth would he hide a wholeass WIFE from me. Hiding from an ex gf is one thing but he and I were never in any way involved beyond being close friends? I figured he was just generally being a dick and giving up on staying friends; whatever man your loss etc, I gave up trying to reach out to him

Anyway today I was like, scrolling on fb (listen. when tumblr is slow I resort to that hell site sometimes. It’s fine.) and?? fb decides to show me he had commented on some ikea page complaining that he and his WIFE hadn’t received wtvr furniture they ordered or something and honestly I did not ever expect that I would ever see the secret wife thing confirmed on my own feed??? Tf

[asokatanos]

answer 17 questions and tag 17 people! (please make sure to create a new post rather than reblogging!)

thank you @gracevanpelt and @pjane for the tag!!

1. name: sheila

2. age: 26 (sometimes... i’m baby, sometimes i’m the cryptkeeper)

3. zodiac: gem but i don’t know a damn thing about the zodiac and don’t care to

4. height: 5’4 and a little bit. the little bit is clearly very important. i get a couple extra inches when my hair is big tho!

5. hogwarts house: i simply do not see it i can’t read suddenly

6. last thing i googled: um. the alveolar-arterial oxygen gradient. listen i’m studying rn. the last INTERESTING thing i googled was probably conspiracy theories about elvis. or “fly me to the moon” so i could listen to it on yt

7. song stuck in my head: FLY ME TO THE MOON AND LET ME PLAY AMONG THE STARS (was sinatra canceled? i don’t know. but i have two songs stuck very firmly in my head)

8. number of followers: idk somewhere over 1500 but i think only approximately seven are actually active. i see you, my seven friends

9. amount of sleep: i try very hard to get at least 7 hours!!

10. lucky number: 8

11. wearing: PJS BAYBEE i don’t even remember owning real clothes. rn its pastel striped shorts and a v soft star wars shirt

12. favorite song: i will have a different answer for you probably every time you ask me this. i don’t know. which language?? which genre?? what’s the VIBE rn

13. favorite instruments: in my Youth™ i played uh... the flute, the piano, the violin, the recorder (lol), and i sang. but i don’t have a single musical bone in my body so didn’t stick with any of it. LOVE listening to cellos tho

14. favorite author: hm. this... also changes. i don’t BUY a lot of books (library!) so of the ones I actually own, my favorite book is East by Edith Pattou. It’s a retelling of beauty and the beast but with ice trolls and things. Uh, Markus Zusak is pretty great? Carlos Ruiz Zafon (god... RIP. his Cemetery of Forgotten Books series was so good. he passed recently). Renee Ahdieh. Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Tamora Pierce and Garth Nix who I loved as a kid. Jane Austen! Sabaa Tahir. Andy Weir. TA Barron, who I also loved as a kid. Julio Cortazar - I haven’t read much but one of the short stories I read of his when I was sixteen has literally never left me. Garcia Lorca and Garcia Marquez too, though again I haven’t read a LOT.

15. aesthetic: sunshine, crushed lavender and jasmine flowers, dressing to the nines for daily activities, the petrichor smell after rain, the smell of sea salt in the air and the sound of water, showers of falling cherry blossom petals, candlelight, cities at night time

16. favorite animal sound: have you ever heard a cheetah purr. this is very important. i think i have a few posts on here, go look!

17. random: i have been dying to escape and sit on the sand near a body of water for three months, possibly with either no one around or with a couple of friends i’ve known for most of my life

i’m not tagging seventeen people because i’m sure i don’t KNOW seventeen people who haven’t already done this. if you’re one of my seven active followers who hasn’t done this yet and you want to, consider yourself tagged!!