#then severe pneumonia

[mialicassi]

bro how did i manage to get sick 3 times in a row????

[comfort-questing]

tending to injuries/"let's check the bandages, okay?"

for @whumperless-whump-event day 19... once again, Elevy and Nole, thankfully now out of the river

-

help came soon after daylight - Saf and Morna and Edmund, and one of the Royal Mail couriers trailing after them, looking entirely out of place and probably there just to make some semblance of being useful. Nole wasn't shivering anymore, or not much past the ordinary amount, pale and drowsy in Elevy's arms with her breath fogging the chill morning air.

"grace and glory, El, we didn't think you'd actually find her," said Saf, and shrugged off her own coat, in a rare helpful impulse of remorse. "c'mon, Edmund, help me carry her back."

Nole didn't seem quite aware of the world around her, after the hollow half-swallowed shriek she gave as her injured leg was jostled; she spent the journey back to camp gazing empty-eyed here and there, watching the dying leaves and the stark branches pass by above and now and again focusing on the faces closer to her. Elevy walked beside her, a hand to steady her on Edmund's back, Saf doing the same on the other side; their eyes met occasionally in a worried moment of connection over Nole's huddled form.

"does this sort of thing - happen a lot - " said the courier, faintly.

"look," said Morna, from the back of the line, "why do you think your superiors pay us all this money to escort you through the wilds?"

the courier had nothing to say to that.

-

Morna collected her medic gear straightaway, when they reached camp again, and waited just long enough for Nole to swallow a few bites of breakfast and a mug of strong tea before crouching down next to her and unrolling the top of her satchel.

"oh," said Nole, blinking a little.

"let's check the bandages, okay?" Elevy tried to keep her voice light, putting her arms around Nole and leaning closer. "it won't take too long. we need to make sure nothing gets infected."

Nole nodded, slowly, her jaw tightening as Morna began undoing the makeshift bandages from the night before. the slow bloodstains from the bite wounds had merged now with the ghastly dark bruises crawling up her ankle and down from her mishappen knee. Elevy tried to stifle her gasp.

"could've been worse," Nole mumbled, through clenched teeth, and stared fixedly at the campfire smoke rising into the bright morning air above them.

"could still be worse," said Morna, grimly. "El, hold her still."

Elevy flinched at the words, but she already had her arms around Nole, supporting her friend's shaky form. she tightened her grip a little as Morna started to work, though Nole didn't draw away, only froze still as the grave and drew in a sharp breath now and again. the shivers had returned, long panicky shuddering fits between intakes of breath.

draining and bandaging the bite wounds was the simple part, painful as it was; aligning the messy fractures in her ankle took longer, and splinting that and her knee with two long flat lengths of wood padded with more bandages. by the time Morna had finished Nole's lips were white again, dotted with blood where she'd bitten down, and Elevy had been blinking back tears of her own.

be brave, she tried to tell herself, be brave but she was so very, very tired, and sore, and cold despite the campfire, shivering along with Nole's shivering. the warmth of the sunlight was welcome at her back, slight as it was. they weren't going to be moving out today at this rate.

Nole coughed, a small sound, but Morna's head jerked up at it.

"you've been in the river," she said.

"thought you knew that," said Nole, tiredly, "wasn't that the whole thing? besides the monster of course." she closed her eyes again and leaned into Elevy's shoulder. "can I sleep now?"

"yeah, might as well." Morna patted her shoulder, but her eyes found Elevy's with a warning in them, over Nole's bowed head. "keep an eye on her," she said.

"yes." that at least Elevy knew she could promise, as she reached for her half-finished breakfast dish with her free hand. "I'm keeping her with me."

Nole laughed, muffled, into her coat, and then coughed again.

[queernarchy]

things might be going to shit in my actual life but if you think about it from a macro level it's kinda balanced out by the fantasy high junior year/percy jackson era happening right now so law of equivalent exchange i suppose

[theiceandbones]

It’s always on a work night that I get the most soul crushing news delivered to me hahaha

[korvidian]

Got my 6th covid vaccination today, I feel like I should get one of those stamp cards and I should be able to get a free drink or something at least

[snarp]

Very freaked out by Uncertainty the Cat's ability to lie about the seriousness of his medical situation.

The wound on his side is WAY bigger than I thought - I didn't get a good look at it until I got him into the vet's this afternoon. If I'd realized, I might have taken him to an emergency vet when we got home Saturday night... but he just rolled around and purred at me like normal, so I didn't make an effort to part the fur. Little man, you have a new mouth on your side! Where is the DRAMA?

He just rubbed his wound on me. They didn't give him anesthetic or anything, does this orange boy just not feel pain correctly...? He's acting like it just itches.

[battle-subway-ghost]

🔍

// Paris doesn't like ice types... He used to, but after an... incident, he became afraid of them. He's mostly gotten over it, they just unnerve him now, and touching them freaks him out.

[an-undercover-bi]

Mom’s been really sick all day now too (coughing, lightheadedness, a high fever). Please pray for her.

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

oh that is a near perfect physical description of my little brother... not the squeaky voice though he sounds like a fucking edm bass beat

[tcypionate]

it is really exhausting to try and beg everyone i live with to wear masks to no degree of success. like no matter what angle i go at, from bringing up continued numbers of cases/deaths/strains, to "please you know i have lung issues i cant afford to get covid" they just stop paying attention the moment i say the word mask. and it isn't even just my family, the last time i actually saw someone else wearing a mask was when i got a covid booster in february

[erb23]

All heroes should have fall and winter outfits, no matter who they are.

[takemetodragonstone]

u guys im really scared for my mom rn she’s been in the ER all day with severe covid and was just admitted to the hospital bc it turns out she also has pneumonia. her overall health isn’t great either and idk what’s going to happen

[brolapse]

It’s so cold at my job rn I might just get pneumonia again

[mewvore]

gloves

I didn't want to write up a long explanation since its kind of obvious and straightforward like it basically happened just like this

but I did want to say that my dad's doing his best. I didn't draw this as like an indictment of his stubborn character or to paint him as transphobic or something. I know he's trying and hes old, so it'll take him a while to get used to me having transitioned. I get frustrated with him and do want to be mad at him sometimes when I get misgendered especially in public but he doesn't do it maliciously.

I can tell hes scared of a lot of things that come with getting to his age; it takes a serious effort to get him to the hospital sometimes and he ended up with pneumonia a few months back. hes seen his mother in law die to dementia and told me several times if his mind starts to go, drive him out to the woods to let him wander then leave. so I can't imagine whats going on in his head with all that worry when the person who basically looked just like him for 20 years suddenly... doesn't

I won't ever be able to properly portray it, but the look on his face when we compared hands was a little heartbreaking, for a split second I knew he didn't see his son anymore but it was someone he doesn't immediately know as his daughter.

[infiniteglitterfall]

know someone who enjoys horror stories? share this one! it's true!

hahahahahahahahahaha aarrggghhhhhhhhhh 3,000,000 deaths due to COVID-19 last year. Globally. Three million. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. The reason people are still worried about COVID is because it has a way of quietly fucking up your body. And the risk is cumulative.

I'm going to say that again: the risk is cumulative.

It's not just that a lot of people get bad long-term effects from it. One in seven or so? Enough that it's kind of the Russian Roulette of diseases. It's also that the more times you get it, the higher that risk becomes. Like if each time you survived Russian Roulette, the empty chamber was removed from the gun entirely. The worst part is that, psychologically, we have the absolute opposite reaction. If we survive something with no ill effects, we assume it's pretty safe. It is really, really hard to override that sense of, "Ok, well, I got it and now I probably have a lot of immunity and also it wasn't that bad." It is not a respiratory disease. Airborne, yes. Respiratory disease, no: not a cold, not a flu, not RSV.

Like measles (or maybe chickenpox?), it starts with respiratory symptoms. And then it moves to other parts of your body. It seems to target the lungs, the digestive system, the heart, and the brain the most.

It also hits the immune system really hard - a lot of people are suddenly more susceptible to completely unrelated viruses. People get brain fog, migraines, forget things they used to know.

(I really, really hate that it can cross the blood-brain barrier. NOTHING SHOULD EVER CROSS THE BLOOD-BRAIN BARRIER IT IS THERE FOR A REASON.) Anecdotal examples of this shit are horrifying. I've seen people talk about coworkers who've had COVID five or more times, and now their work... just often doesn't make sense? They send emails that say things like, "Sorry, I didn't mean Los Angeles, I meant Los Angeles."

Or they insist they've never heard of some project that they were actually in charge of a year or two before.

Or their work is just kind of falling apart, and they don't seem to be aware of it.

People talk about how they don't want to get the person in trouble, so their team just works around it. Or they describe neighbors and relatives who had COVID repeatedly, were nearly hospitalized, talked about how incredibly sick they felt at the time... and now swear they've only had it once and it wasn't bad, they barely even noticed it.

(As someone who lived with severe dissociation for most of my life, this is a genuinely terrifying idea to me. I've already spent my whole life being like, "but what if I told them that already? but what if I did do that? what if that did happen to me and I just don't remember?") One of its known effects in the brain is to increase impulsivity and risk-taking, which is real fucking convenient honestly. What a fantastic fucking mutation. So happy for it on that one. Yes, please make it seem less important to wear a mask and get vaccinated. I'm not screaming internally at all now.

I saw a tweet from someone last year whose family hadn't had COVID yet, who were still masking in public, including school.

She said that her son was no kind of an athlete. Solidly bottom middle of the pack in gym.

And suddenly, this year, he was absolutely blowing past all the other kids who had to run the mile. He wasn't running any faster. His times weren't fantastic or anything. It's just that the rest of the kids were worse than him now. For some reason. I think about that a lot. (Like my incredibly active six-year-old getting a cold, and suddenly developing post-viral asthma that looked like pneumonia.

He went back to school the day before yesterday, after being home for a month and using preventative inhalers for almost week.

He told me that it was GREAT - except that he couldn't run as much at recess, because he immediately got really tired. Like how I went outside with him to do some yard work and felt like my body couldn't figure out how to increase breathing and heart rate.

I wasn't physically out of breath, but I felt like I was out of breath. That COVID feeling people describe, of "I'm not getting enough air." Except that I didn't have that problem when I had COVID.) Some people don't observe any long (or medium) term side effects after they have it.

But researchers have found viral reservoirs of COVID-19 in everyone they've studied who had it.

It just seems to hang out, dormant, for... well, longer than we've had an opportunity to observe it, so far.

(I definitely watched that literal horror movie. I think that's an entire genre. The alien dormant under ice in the Arctic.)

(oh hey I don't like that either!!!!!!!!!) All of which is to explain why we should still care about avoiding it, and how it manages to still cause excess deaths. Measuring excess deaths has been a standard tool in public health for a long time.

We know how many people usually die from all different causes, every year. So we can tell if, for example, deaths from heart disease have gone way up in the past three years, and look for reasons. Those are excess deaths: deaths that, four years ago, would not have happened. During the pandemic, excess death rates have been a really important tool. For all sorts of reasons. Like, sometimes people die from COVID without ever getting tested, and the official cause is listed as something else because nobody knows they had COVID. But also, people are dying from cardiovascular illness much younger now.

People are having strokes and heart attacks younger, and more often, than they did before the pandemic started. COVID causes a lot of problems. And some of those problems kill people. And some of them make it easier for other things to kill us. Lung damage from COVID leading to lungs collapsing, or to pneumonia, or to a pulmonary embolism, for example. The Economist built a machine-learning model with a 95% confidence interval that gauges excess death statistics around the world, to tell them what the true toll of the ongoing COVID pandemic has been so far.

Total excess deaths globally in 2023: Three million.

3,000,000.

Official COVID-19 deaths globally so far: Seven million. 7,000,000. Total excess deaths during COVID so far: Thirty-five point two million. 35,200,000.

Five times as many.

That's bad. I don't like that at all. I'm glad last year was less than a tenth of that. I'm not particularly confident about that continuing, though, because last year we started a period of really high COVID transmission. Case rates higher than 90% of the rest of the pandemic. Here's their data, and charts you can play with, and links to detailed information on how they did all of this:

Here's a non-paywalled link to it:

https://archive.vn/2024.01.26-012536/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates

Oh: here's a link to where you can buy comfy, effective N95 masks in all sizes:

Those ones are about a buck each after shipping - about $30 for a box of 30. They also have sample packs for a dollar, so you can try a couple of different sizes and styles.

You can wear an N95 mask for about 40 total hours before the effectiveness really drops, so that's like a dollar for a week of wear.

They're also family-owned and have cat-shaped masks and I really love them. These ones are cuter and in a much wider range of colors, prints, and styles, but they're also more expensive; they range from $1.80 to $3 for a mask. ($18-$30 for a box of ten.)

[teddytoroa]

having an incurable autoimmune disorder is like ok do you wanna be in pain and sickly and fragile your whole life? or do you wanna take a potentially toxic medication that will make you sickly and fragile in a different way.