#then medication conundrum

[nd-babblinggoblinfromthevoid]

So medication from the ER was sent to my pharmacy, unknowingly right before they closed... for the weekend.

So I managed to find ONE pharmacy open today. Called the ER back. They changed where they sent the scripts. All good. Until.

Husband became too sick to drive up to grab them. I called my grandmother (who I REALLY did not want to bother) to ask if she had free time/energy today for such a task.

She did, bless her, and told me she would throw herself together once we hung up and she'd go get it. While I was on that call, I had missed a call from my mother. So I called her back.

She was out and about, and happened to be right up the street from said pharmacy. So SHE said she could grab it. So we got off the phone and I called my grandma back, to let her know hey this worked out!! All was well.

Mom drove through, got my meds, and was going to head my way. Then her car started making sudden, loud, concerning noises. She called her husband (who's a mechanic) and he instructed her to go straight home.

She called me to let me know. I told her about the brief plan for grandma to do it so I'd ask if she was STILL willing/able. Called her. We just. Laughed. Cuz what else could we do about this ridiculousness.

Grandma picked up my meds from mom, and is now on her way to us.

*exasperated sigh*

We cannot catch a break apparently!!!

(Btw thermostat still hasn't been replaced partly due to all this sickness and partly because I guess we can't actually do it afterall?? Has to be the tech?? Idk. Idc at this point. Just want the house, and our bodies, to be working again T_T )

[9w1ft]

Don't you find the strict rules of society in Japan overwhelming for you and the kids?

not one bit

[jevilowo]

FUN FACT

Ms Pauling can be seen in the background of MEET THE MEDIC at 0:56 and 1:22 (thank u tf2 wiki). Spooky.

[some-assholes-familiar]

God, did anyone else in the trans community get hit with the “All or Nothing” Facebook parent conundrum when trying to get family to call you by a new name / pronouns?

[geraskier]

developing rough hands--calloused around the knuckles, dry from handwashing+refrigerated workspace, scaly fingertips. but i regularly move 40 pound crates around that refrigerated workspace. but i can't lift stuff above my head too much! if i don't take my midodrine in the morning i can't really raise my arms up without feeling a head rush. slinging 10 pound gallons of milk into wire shelving at an apparently impressive pace. bruised and scraped knuckles from poor spatial awareness. i cannot afford to move carelessly or i *will* hurt myself. however, i am so stubborn and used to ignoring pain that i can push myself extremely hard in the short term. if i don't wear braces at work my wrists buckle.

[violentdevotion]

it's so over

[si-cucumber]

So I've been having real bad heel/foot pain to the point where I am now struggling to walk without my cane. I know I gotta get it checked out but like....

How much we wanna bet they just tell me to lose weight and be on my way lmao

[kraniumet]

soooo funny to experience a collection of debilitating symptoms that without fail make people say "oh. that's a physical manifestation of stress 👍". I'm not stressed I'm a chill dude

[reasonsforhope]

"Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have made a critical breakthrough that promises better outcomes for pregnancies threatened with pre-eclampsia, a condition that arises due to insufficient blood flow to the placenta, resulting in high maternal blood pressure and restricted blood flow to the fetus.

Pre-eclampsia is one of the leading causes of stillbirths and prematurity worldwide, and it occurs in 3 to 5% of pregnancies. Without a cure, options for these patients only treat symptoms, such as taking blood pressure medication, being on bed rest, or delivering prematurely—regardless of the viability of their baby.

Making a decision to treat pre-eclampsia in any manner can be a moral conundrum, to balance many personal health decisions with long-standing impacts—and for Kelsey Swingle, a doctoral student in the UPenn bioengineering lab, these options are not enough.

In previous research, she conducted a successful proof-of-concept study that examined a library of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs)—which are the delivery molecules that helped get the mRNA of the COVID vaccine into cells—and their ability to reach the placenta in pregnant mice.

In her latest study, published in Nature, Swingle examined 98 different LNPs and their ability to get to the placenta and decrease high blood pressure and increase vasodilation in pre-eclamptic pregnant mice.

Her work shows that the best LNP for the job was one that resulted in more than 100-fold greater mRNA delivery to the placenta in pregnant mice than an FDA-approved LNP formulation.

The drug worked.

“Our LNP was able to deliver an mRNA therapeutic that reduced maternal blood pressure through the end of gestation and improved fetal health and blood circulation in the placenta,” says Swingle.

“Additionally, at birth we saw an increase in litter weight of the pups, which indicates a healthy mom and healthy babies. I am very excited about this work and its current stage because it could offer a real treatment for pre-eclampsia in human patients in the very near future.”

While further developing this cure for pre-eclampsia and getting it to the market for human use is on the horizon for the research team, Swingle had to start from scratch to make this work possible. She first had to lay the groundwork to run experiments using pregnant mice and determine how to induce pre-eclampsia in this animal model, processes that are not as well studied.

But, by laying this groundwork, Swingle’s work has not only identified an avenue for curing pre-eclampsia, it also opens doors for research on LNP-mRNA therapeutics addressing other reproductive health challenges...

As Swingle thinks ahead for next steps in her research, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, she will also collaborate to further optimize the LNP to deliver the mRNA even more efficiently, as well as understanding the mechanisms of how it gets to the placenta, a question still not fully answered.

They are already in talks about creating a spin-off company and want to work on bringing this LNP-mRNA therapeutic to clinical trials and the market.

Swingle, who is currently finishing up her Ph.D. research, has not only successfully led this new series of studies advancing pre-eclampsia treatment at Penn, she has also inspired other early career researchers in the field as she continues to thrive while bringing women’s health into the spotlight."

-via Good News Network, December 15, 2024

[princesssmars]

victoria with lab tech reader…nsfw.

when you were approached at your basic post-grad biomedical science research program with the opportunity to "study and develop a potentially groundbreaking medication", you immediately, but politely, called bullshit. but your boss and coworkers encouraged you once they heard the pay, so you accepted.

it was…challenging to say the least.

the lab and the workers were shady as hell, not telling you any details about the company you were working for, if you were even working for a company, what exactly this medication was for, etc etc. but the pay really was good, enough to help you splurge on yourself while also saving and paying off your student loans, so you couldn’t really complain.

after about two months of great work and progress on your tasks, the leads of your team told you that one of the head donors would like to “talk about utilizing your full potential”. you were expecting further praise for your work and maybe a pay boost, not to walk into an office with the super attractive congresswoman you’d seen on tv sitting at the desk.

she has just as much mysterious charisma as she had then, keeping eye contact as she pulls out your chair, waiting for you to sit before she places herself on top of the desk, pantsuit-covered leg only a few inches from yours. she gives you a mini rundown of why she personally picked you out from your university and she's been keeping a close eye on your personal progress to develop a cure for an unknown but deadly disease you had been keeping track of.

"so that's why im here? we're working on a disease?"

"yeah, you could say that."

her smile unnerves you but you don't mention it. nor do you bring up how weird it feels that a congresswoman would be following your manic studies over a disease that only ten thousand people in the world had. you do have to reel in your ego slightly, figuring this meant that your theories were legitimate.

things are weird after that. now that you have some more hints about what you are actually doing your work starts to move along slowly, even impressing your lead with the progress you started to make.

ok, maybe a tiny little part of it was so that when victoria came in on her weekly walk-throughs she'd observe your work and give you that pretty smile of hers, maybe even a 'great job, hun' if you were lucky.

as the weeks went by and the medication came along her affection only grew in intensity, from leaving coffee at your workstation to inviting you to take lunch breaks with her. it was odd and completely unprofessional, but when those slender fingers would move one of your stray hairs back in place while telling a story you couldn't find it in yourself to care.

but then it happens - that dreaded period in any medical science where just one stupid little thing stumps you for a week. you should be used to it at this point, having been through this process since you bought your first microscope in middle school. it doesn't make it any easier to power through though, especially when you know everyone on your team is depending on you to finish up your labs.

so now you've resorted to this, three red bulls and a heap of paperwork around you while you frantically rework the math on some of the work you need to turn in. you're a few minutes away from slumping over when a loud door slam forces you upright, looking to the entryway to make eye contact with victoria.

you dont know how it happens but you go from hunched over in your chair to lying on the comfy couch in her office, a short blanket draped over your body as you drowsily explain your conundrum to the older woman. she nods along the entire time, a soft hand rubbing up and down the bare expanse of your arm while she listens to your rambling.

'what on earth are you doing?' your brain asks yourself when you shift closer to her body that's sitting next to you, head delicately resting in her lap. 'are you really going to jeopardize your career like this?' when your eyes flutter when she runs her hand over your cheek and down your neck. she leans her head down ever so slowly until her lips are just barely pressing into yours, corners pulling up when she sees you arch your back in wait for her neck action.

"but you'll figure it out for me, won't you smart girl?"

you solved the problem the next morning.

i dont even wanna write for her GIVE HER BACK TO ME

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Palantir’s NHS-stealing Big Lie

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me in TUCSON (Mar 9-10), then SAN FRANCISCO (Mar 13), Anaheim, and more!

Capitalism's Big Lie in four words: "There is no alternative." Looters use this lie for cover, insisting that they're hard-nosed grownups living in the reality of human nature, incentives, and facts (which don't care about your feelings).

The point of "there is no alternative" is to extinguish the innovative imagination. "There is no alternative" is really "stop trying to think of alternatives, dammit." But there are always alternatives, and the only reason to demand that they be excluded from consideration is that these alternatives are manifestly superior to the looter's supposed inevitability.

Right now, there's an attempt underway to loot the NHS, the UK's single most beloved institution. The NHS has been under sustained assault for decades – budget cuts, overt and stealth privatisation, etc. But one of its crown jewels has been stubbournly resistant to being auctioned off: patient data. Not that HMG hasn't repeatedly tried to flog patient data – it's just that the public won't stand for it:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/21/nhs-data-platform-may-be-undermined-by-lack-of-public-trust-warn-campaigners

Patients – quite reasonably – do not trust the private sector to handle their sensitive medical records.

Now, this presents a real conundrum, because NHS patient data, taken as a whole, holds untold medical insights. The UK is a large and diverse country and those records in aggregate can help researchers understand the efficacy of various medicines and other interventions. Leaving that data inert and unanalysed will cost lives: in the UK, and all over the world.

For years, the stock answer to "how do we do science on NHS records without violating patient privacy?" has been "just anonymise the data." The claim is that if you replace patient names with random numbers, you can release the data to research partners without compromising patient privacy, because no one will be able to turn those numbers back into names.

It would be great if this were true, but it isn't. In theory and in practice, it is surprisingly easy to "re-identify" individuals in anonymous data-sets. To take an obvious example: we know which two dates former PM Tony Blair was given a specific treatment for a cardiac emergency, because this happened while he was in office. We also know Blair's date of birth. Check any trove of NHS data that records a person who matches those three facts and you've found Tony Blair – and all the private data contained alongside those public facts is now in the public domain, forever.

Not everyone has Tony Blair's reidentification hooks, but everyone has data in some kind of database, and those databases are continually being breached, leaked or intentionally released. A breach from a taxi service like Addison-Lee or Uber, or from Transport for London, will reveal the journeys that immediately preceded each prescription at each clinic or hospital in an "anonymous" NHS dataset, which can then be cross-referenced to databases of home addresses and workplaces. In an eyeblink, millions of Britons' records of receiving treatment for STIs or cancer can be connected with named individuals – again, forever.

Re-identification attacks are now considered inevitable; security researchers have made a sport out of seeing how little additional information they need to re-identify individuals in anonymised data-sets. A surprising number of people in any large data-set can be re-identified based on a single characteristic in the data-set.

Given all this, anonymous NHS data releases should have been ruled out years ago. Instead, NHS records are to be handed over to the US military surveillance company Palantir, a notorious human-rights abuser and supplier to the world's most disgusting authoritarian regimes. Palantir – founded by the far-right Trump bagman Peter Thiel – takes its name from the evil wizard Sauron's all-seeing orb in Lord of the Rings ("Sauron, are we the baddies?"):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/01/the-palantir-will-see-you-now/#public-private-partnership

The argument for turning over Britons' most sensitive personal data to an offshore war-crimes company is "there is no alternative." The UK needs the medical insights in those NHS records, and this is the only way to get at them.

As with every instance of "there is no alternative," this turns out to be a lie. What's more, the alternative is vastly superior to this chumocratic sell-out, was Made in Britain, and is the envy of medical researchers the world 'round. That alternative is "trusted research environments." In a new article for the Good Law Project, I describe these nigh-miraculous tools for privacy-preserving, best-of-breed medical research:

https://goodlawproject.org/cory-doctorow-health-data-it-isnt-just-palantir-or-bust/

At the outset of the covid pandemic Oxford's Ben Goldacre and his colleagues set out to perform realtime analysis of the data flooding into NHS trusts up and down the country, in order to learn more about this new disease. To do so, they created Opensafely, an open-source database that was tied into each NHS trust's own patient record systems:

https://timharford.com/2022/07/how-to-save-more-lives-and-avoid-a-privacy-apocalypse/

Opensafely has its own database query language, built on SQL, but tailored to medical research. Researchers write programs in this language to extract aggregate data from each NHS trust's servers, posing medical questions of the data without ever directly touching it. These programs are published in advance on a git server, and are preflighted on synthetic NHS data on a test server. Once the program is approved, it is sent to the main Opensafely server, which then farms out parts of the query to each NHS trust, packages up the results, and publishes them to a public repository.

This is better than "the best of both worlds." This public scientific process, with peer review and disclosure built in, allows for frequent, complex analysis of NHS data without giving a single third party access to a a single patient record, ever. Opensafely was wildly successful: in just months, Opensafely collaborators published sixty blockbuster papers in Nature – science that shaped the world's response to the pandemic.

Opensafely was so successful that the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care commissioned a review of the programme with an eye to expanding it to serve as the nation's default way of conducting research on medical data:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/better-broader-safer-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis/better-broader-safer-using-health-data-for-research-and-analysis

This approach is cheaper, safer, and more effective than handing hundreds of millions of pounds to Palantir and hoping they will manage the impossible: anonymising data well enough that it is never re-identified. Trusted Research Environments have been endorsed by national associations of doctors and researchers as the superior alternative to giving the NHS's data to Peter Thiel or any other sharp operator seeking a public contract.

As a lifelong privacy campaigner, I find this approach nothing short of inspiring. I would love for there to be a way for publishers and researchers to glean privacy-preserving insights from public library checkouts (such a system would prove an important counter to Amazon's proprietary god's-eye view of reading habits); or BBC podcasts or streaming video viewership.

You see, there is an alternative. We don't have to choose between science and privacy, or the public interest and private gain. There's always an alternative – if there wasn't, the other side wouldn't have to continuously repeat the lie that no alternative is possible.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/08/the-fire-of-orodruin/#are-we-the-baddies

Image: Gage Skidmore (modified) https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Thiel_(51876933345).jpg

CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

[creative-clawmarks]

Longass Vampire AU Loredump

I feel I should preface this with the most important fact of this AU: supernatural beings are not actually a part of this world.

What I mean by this is there is no secret society of vampires, there is no chapter in the medical books on lycanthropy, and ghost hunters still have not found conclusive evidence. As far as you or I or anyone else knows the cast of MH are the only things like them in existence.

Because the Operator did this to them.

It's a parasite, and its strategy is to make people into predators then mop up the trail of bodies they leave behind.

As for why their monstrosity takes the specific forms it does? The Watsonian Explanation is that we will never really know, such things are beyond people's understanding. The Doyalist Explanation is that I have taken the character's metaphorical roles and made them literal to give myself an excuse to draw sharp teeth.

With that out of the way, here's what these freaks are actually capable of:

Alex (Vampire):

Standard package of fast healing, unnatural speed, and unbeating heart. Probably immortal but I guess now we'll never know.

Drinks blood, of course. But I like my vamps fucked up so there's a good dose of gory cannibalism for flavor.

He won't combust in the sun or anything, but his skin is especially sensitive to heat and his eyes are especially sensitive to light.

Heightened hearing, he could hunt someone down with his eyes closed just by tracking their heartbeat.

Venomous, specifically paralytic toxins. Once he's bitten you there's no running away, you're basically screwed.

Fangs and claws are retractable. I also gave him a forked tongue because he's like a terrarium snake to me :)

"Once more I have seen the director go out in his lizard fashion."

He can purr. Because I know what the people want.

Tim (Werewolf):

Standard package of fast healing, unnatural strength, and canine features. Would rather not think about whether or not he's immortal.

Does not hunger for human flesh. If given the opportunity he might maul a deer tho.

Burned by the touch of silver. He also personally thinks wolfsbane is gross but that's unrelated.

When in human form he's mostly that, human. Sure his senses are sharper and he can grow out his teeth and claws a little bit but otherwise he's normal.

When in wolf form, on the other hand, he is DANGEROUS. I'm talking bite through steel tear you in half only thing that can stop him is a silver bullet dangerous.

The wolf form is analogous to Masky in this AU, as in he turns against his will whenever he's threatened or misses a dose and he won't remember much whenever he eventually turns back.

The only time he can change under his own power with his mind intact is during the full moon. He looks forward to it every month because without the threat of loosing control being a wolf is rad actually.

If you scratch him under the chin he goes boneless. Doesn't matter what form he's in.

Brian (Ghost):

Standard package of walk through walls, disappear, and fly. I don't think the term immortal applies to this situation tho...

You know the excuse that ghost don't just physically manifest cuz they don't have enough energy for it? Yeah he's so incandescently pissed that he's tangible more often than not.

Its actually kind of the opposite conundrum where he has to focus and calm down to actually use his ghostly abilities.

Salt circles will totally work on him, but good luck catching him first lol.

Even if you can't see him you can still sort of feel his presence, the room will get colder and the shadows will get deeper.

If you catch him on a bad day he can pull some Poltergeist TM level shenanigans.

Can't really communicate like he used to, his mind is too broken and detached from what it once was. That's why all the ToTheArk videos look like that.

If you were to put a spirit box in the room with him all you would hear coming out of it is his death screams on loop.

Jay (Mortal):

He's just a guy lol, poor bastard doesn't stand a chance.

Why yes, he has read Twilight. Why do you ask?

[avelera]

Weird Arcane worldbuilding question/conundrum but… do they have doctorates in Piltover? And if so, do Jayce and Viktor have them?

I was going to say they don’t have them at all, but then I remembered that Cait calls Singed “Dr. Revek” so actually yeah, doctorates do exist.

But when Ambessa calls Jayce “Mr. Talis” he corrects her to Councilor Talis. Now, technically Council as a rank probably outstrips Dr. so in terms of etiquette it would be correct to defer to.

(Personally, I think it would have been very sexy to have Jayce say, “Actually it’s Councilor Talis. Or Dr. Talis.” But it could have also come off as insufferably arrogant which… also would have fit S1 Jayce very well.)

And of course, it’s a running theme that Zaunites don’t have surnames, that maybe you need a House for that, so Viktor would just be Dr. Viktor which sounds… odd. Clearly they’re just avoiding titles in that respect. The one exception so Zaunites not having surnames is Sky Young being referred to as Ms. Young, even though she’s from the Undercity, and even though it’s very possible she has a doctorate (or is working towards one in their lab).

So I think my conclusion is that Arcane decided to default to Doctor being a term only used for medical professionals, not engineers or other disciplines with an advanced degree. Heimerdinger is never referred to as Doctor, though as an immortal and the Dean of the Academy he certainly has the highest degrees available, one would assume.

So only Dr. Revek/Singed as a medically inclined professional gets the Doctor title. Jayce and Viktor as Hextech scientists continue to be “Mr.” despite almost certainly having advanced degrees themselves.

(RIP my desire to have Jayce correcting someone who thinks he’s an idiot by reminding them he has a doctorate, it lives on my heart.)

[captainfantasticalright]

You’ve probably seen this newspaper-style ad for Good Omens around! The Nice and Accurate News!

It features a series of headlines that tie in with the story from the book:

ANGELS AND DEMONS WALK THE EARTH!

Top Psychic Tells You How to Spot Them!

"I SURVIVED RAIN OF FISH!" -Trout tells of miracle getaway.

And just about everything else you can read.

Also a witty conundrum about its authors:

WORLD'S FUNNIEST BOOK WRITTEN BY TWO PEOPLE WITH ONE HEAD EACH!

Top scientists have declared themselves baffled by the astounding case of these two one-headed men. Not only do they not have any limbs or vital organs in common, but they have been separated since birth-which for Terry Pratchett occurred an amazing 12 years before the birth of Neil Gaiman! Even more astonish-ingly, they have written a book together.

"The Apocalypse has never been funnier," says Clive Barker, director, author, and famed celebrity of the Gaiman and Pratchett collaboration GOOD OMENS. "Their partnership has produced a riotous romp through Revelations, brimming with blissful daftness and wry one-liners." Incredibly, while they have between them two heads, four arms, four legs, and two torsos, these medical marvels don't look anything alike! (Full story and pictures inside.)

Someone who was selling their copy said this:

“I have never seen another of these, nor can I find any information on this very, very cool addition to the book. The book itself was given to me as a gift many year[s] ago and the paper was folded inside it. The paper is in perfect shape.As I said, this was given to me many years ago and I hate to part with it”.

This ad was apparently included during the first U.S. printing of Good Omens back in 1990 (by Workman Publishing Co.) as a promotional item!

I would love to know more about it. Perhaps someone here has more of these that they’d like to share!

[copperbadge]

Well, the Small HVAC Leak that I noticed two weeks ago when changing the filter is now a Large HVAC Leak, thus solving the Adderall vs Weed conundrum. Stimulant medication it is!

The guys who installed the unit, which is still very much under warranty, were coming to look at it tomorrow morning anyway, so at least I don't have to pay Memorial Day Plumbing Emergency prices. The leak isn't so massive that a couple of towels and very judicious use of the AC can't handle it until then, but the cleanup has been a bit intensive.

I may need to bump up my plans to at least redo the bathroom floor. Maybe that'll be a big project for November. I should have the HVAC paid off by then...

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! First I want to say how much I appreciate this blog, and how cool it is that so many different people from the disability community have come together to share your perspectives on this blog!

Onto my question!

There are numerous characters existing in books, comics, tv shows and movies that have disabilities. Many of them are well known and beloved characters. But 99.9% of the time their disabilities are used as plot devices, traumatic backstory’s, and forgotten unless their disability is useful to add drama or make a slapstick joke. As a fan fiction writer who sees myself in many of these characters, I want to fix this poor and ableist representation when I write these characters. My question is, how can I do that? I want to maintain what makes these characters who they are, including their disabilities, while still keeping them true their development. I want to add that I have researched all of these disabilities in depth, and the information I’m seeking now is how to include them with proper representation.

For example Steve Rogers’ (Captain America) entire origin story is rooted in the erasure of his disabilities. He goes from being disabled and mocked and bullied because of that, to a super hero, who is strong, fast, has enhanced hearing and sight. He’s ‘magically’ cured. What we love about his character is that his newly acquired super powers don’t change his morals and beliefs. But his disabilities have still been erased.

For this character (and other characters who magically go from disabled to abled) would you recommend finding a halfway point? For example, Steve Rogers still gets tall and buff and gains super strength and stamina, but he still some of his disabilities like scoliosis, hard of hearing, or diabetes? Or keeping him how he looks before his transformation, but still having him have his super powers?

Another example (marvel again, because marvel uses disability and subsequent disability erasure as one of its main plot devices) is Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier. He is a forequarter amputee who is given a science fiction prosthetic. This prosthetic required invasive surgery and implants (all of which was non consensual). His prosthetic is very strong, stronger than his right arm (even with super soldier serum that already makes him stronger than other humans). This technology doesn’t exist in real life, and this prosthetic (and prosthetics in other media that has amputee characters) is treated like a fix all: like a new arm but even better so then the character who went through dramatic trauma for the plot doesn’t have to be disabled anymore. Here is my conundrum: the winter soldier has a prosthetic left arm that he can fight with is an important part of his character. To not write him as an amputee erases his disability completely, but to write him without his high tech prosthetic also takes away from other important parts of his character. So my question is, when writing this character (and other amputee characters with similar situations) is it best to find a halfway point? Let this character have his advanced super strong and dexterous prosthetic, but have him actually treat it like a prosthetic (for example, he takes it off, doesn’t sleep with it, and knows how to do tasks without it). Or would it be better to make the prosthetic more realistic? As strong as his other arm, he can’t use it like a battering ram, etc. Or would it be more appropriate to find different ways for characters to do what they do without advanced prosthetics?

I would love to hear specific suggestions for these characters but it would be great too if you had some broad suggestions for repairing disability erasure within any existing work of fiction. Thank you so much for all of the hard work you all put into cripplecharacters!!

Hello,

My time has come.

So Steve Rogers is a product of his time. Back when he was created, living with the disabilities he had was far harder. But nowadays we have medications and treatments his creators would've never thought possible- I mean, this was the time when smoking was the treatment for asthma- so consider incorporating those. For some of them, like what's probably rheumatic heart disease from the scarlet fever, a halfway point would probably be best (more on that in a second.) For other things, modern treatments will do just fine. If Howard Stark can create a flying car, he can create iron supplements and blood sugar monitors. Let's see what he has and how he can be accomodated;

Asthma- the serum can strengthen his lungs and lessen the severity, or you can skip that step and instead look at modern treatments for asthma, which include breathing exercises, slowly increasing exercise to improve the body's tolerance, and a lot of medications. Without knowing the type of asthma he has it's hard to know what his asthma attack plan would be, but considering he has no mentioned allergies, it's probably non-allergic persistent. This can be treated with a combination of long-term control medications, which are taken on a set schedule to help prevent asthma attacks, rescue medications that are used as-needed for asthma attacks, and possibly biologics, which are injected medications for people with severe asthma. These medications are a bit similar to immune suppressants, suppressing the body and immune responses that cause asthma attacks. He can also do breathing exercises to strengthen the lungs and slowly build up exercise tolerance. The bigger lungs due to his bigger body should also help.

Diabetes- there's a massive range of insulin pumps, blood sugar monitors, sugar tablets, and whatever else have you that makes life for diabetics. He'd also benefit from a diet plan, which will take in his level of diabetes, what his pancreas can handle, and potential problem areas to create a diet that works for him and helps him avoid hypoglycaemia and hyperglycaemia.

Astigmatism- contacts, or just some form of glasses or goggles. That's assuming his vision is bad enough to need correction at all, because some people with astigmatism can get by without. He's gotten this far without any form of corrective lense and he's not a long-range fighter, so he might not even need them. Still, they would be useful for him to have in his day-to-day life.

Rheumatic fever- this is one of the biggest problems. Rheumatic fever and scarlet fever mess the body up bad, and I'm willing to bet these are what cause his cardiac arrhythmias (irregular heartbeat.) The serum could strengthen his heart. He can also use a vast range of hypotensives (for the high blood pressure,) any number of heart medications, maybe anticoagulants to reduce risk of blood clots, a pacemaker or other implants, maybe surgery to replace damaged heart valves, and regular check-ups on the health of his heart. If all else fails, a heart transplant might be on the table.

Bone deformity- the treatment is going to depend on which bones, the severity of the deformity, and the cause. They didn't specify, so you can find what you think you'd best be able to work with and go from there. Treatments can include surgery, braces, physical therapy, and some medications that can treat the underlying cause.

Scoliosis- probably can just be left alone, maybe a little physical therapy to help him reduce pain. If you've decided he has a severe case, he can get surgery to straighten his spine. (Personally, I would love to see a character with scoliosis who has rib cage deformity.)

Nervous trouble- probably an anxiety disorder, can be treated through a combination of therapy and medication

These writers didn't live in a time where a soldier could have these disabilities, but now we do. There are treatments available for him that can help him, things the writers never could have imagined back in the thirties. He can still be a super soldier with his disabilities.

As for Bucky, take my opinion with a grain of salt because I am not an amputee. But you're right, him losing his arm and Hydra forcing a replacement on him is a huge part of his story and would be incredibly hard to change. The easiest way about it would probably be to keep it the same, he loses his arm and Hydra gives him a new one, but he gets rid of the arm once he's free.

The arm has failsafes in place to protect his handlers and he has no idea what kind of risks it holds, like if it has a tracking device that could lead them right to him. It's a liability and could put him in danger. He also didn't want the arm in the first place and, based on the scratch-mark scars where the metal meets his shoulder, he has tried to remove it before. Plus, if something goes wrong, he can't fix it. That arm is centuries ahead of modern technology, created by Hydra top scientists, it's a titanium alloy, he has no idea how it works or anything about how it was made, the tools required to fix it are probably hundreds, thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars (or tools that only exist because one Hydra guy created them, meaning Bucky can't get them and probably can't recreate them-) look, he has a high school education from a century ago. There's no way he's going to be able to fix or even maintain such an advanced piece of technology. Even if he did somehow know how to do it, he doesn't have the funds to do it. Sooner or later, the arm is going to be a problem. So he would probably get rid of it. Tony Stark would jump at the chance to help him remove it, he would love to get to stick it to Hydra.

Getting rid of the arm can also be a freedom thing. It marks him as the Winter Soldier, it's a symbol of Hydra's control of him. By getting rid of it, he's one step closer to being free of their hold on him. He doesn't need the arm. The movies demonstrated that he's perfectly capable of getting by without it, showing him easily running his little goat farm in Wakanda without his bionic arm or even a realistic prosthetic, just using his remaining arm. (Additionally, did you see the look on his face when they gave him a new one? The exhaustion in his voice as he asked where the coming fight was? He did not want that new arm, he wanted to keep happily existing peacefully on his farm and having the arm meant he couldn't do that. He wouldn't want a new bionic.)

For Bucky, I would recommend letting him ditch the bionic as part of his quest for freedom.

In general, my main recommendation would be accessibility and medicine rather than magic cures. If you have any other specific examples because Marvel very, very rarely did disability representation right, feel free to ask if you need help improving them. It's my passion. You have no idea how excited I was seeing this in the ask box.

Mod Aaron

Hi!

Going from deaf or hard of hearing to having super hearing is a bit tricky. I'd recommend this way of doing both:

The ranges that are affected by his specific hearing loss stay hard to hear (with only very mild improvement if any).

The ranges that aren't affected get amplified, possibly even to a debilitating degree.

For many deaf/hoh people, hearing things, especially if the sound is louder than we expect, is very overwhelming. The solution above somewhat mimics the experience of wearing hearing aids, but since they are his powers they can't be removed the same way. (It would be very interesting to explore that through the lens of paralleling forced oralism...)

Mod Rock