#from other parts of the clinic unrelated to me. while the monitor is like a little aria singing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

inkskinned · 10 months

Text

so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.

first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.

it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.

and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.

you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.

and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.

your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.

in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.

in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.

so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.

you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.

once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.

and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"

you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?

hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!

you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.

we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?

#where's the word woman in this u might wonder if u suck #good news i am nonbinary and have a uterus so that is something that can happen #im also gender fluid tho which means im immune to certain psychic damage bc if u call me a woman i'll be like <3 okay <3 #writeblr #the tightrope of ''ppl need access to this''#and like also #''what the fuck is going on over there'' is like. so difficult as an activist #i was <3 punctured <3 during mine #and almost bled out on the table :) they didn't have anyone standing by bc it's ''just a little insertion''#so i started crashing and i vaguely remember apologizing for the fuss as i heard my heart rate monitor start going <3 tachycardic <3 #she wasn't even a bad doctor tbh #ps btw the reason i even HAD a heart monitor is that i have a genuine heart condition and they knew GOING IN that there was a chance #i'd crash on the table #like my heart just likes to do fun little tricks and <3 stop working <3 (i do not want to discuss the specifics ty i am okay im ontop of it #and they were like 'oh u will be fine' and then she did do a puncture thru my uterus . pop!#and im sitting there dizzy and feeling my heartrate start to drop bc it feels almost. beautiful. like. the whole ground just #woosh! out from under you. and shit is like grey's anatomy. i'm looking up at her grey eyes #she's old she wears this nice shawl she's like got Cool Lesbian vibes and people are sprinting into the room #from other parts of the clinic unrelated to me. while the monitor is like a little aria singing #and shes like hey youre okay stay awake stay with me something went wrong we have to keep trying #and i remember thinking - i was trying to think of nice things. i have so many beautiful places that now overlap #with this terrible memory #i became dimly aware that there was too much on her wrists and hands. like #that was too many liters #and then when they had finished all this. i packed up and drove myself home #i have had (bad thing) happen to me. and the same feeling happened after #that numb almost lamblike bleating. you cry without noise. like. ur body is so shocked and ur mind so empty #you just stare at the road and everything everything is happening behind glass and static and you are standing so far away from it #while you hold ur hands at 10 and 2. and something in ur brain is SCREAMING at you - IT WAS BAD AND IT SHOULDNT HAVE HAPPENED #and ur just watching the alarms in your body going off and youre thinking. a little pinch! ha. i think i just lost something important.

9K notes · View notes

groggycascade · 4 years

Text

Breaker Campus - Frosh Week, Pt. II

All credit to Sean D.

Kelly, Sarah and Beth walked over to the next station. There was little doubt in their mind about what "Handball" would entail. They giggled. "Can I ask you girls something?" Said Sarah.

"Sure" they replied. "Do you get wet when you rack a guy?" Beth replied without hesitation. "Oh absolutely." Kelly had been too caught up with all the different feelings coursing through her body to really think about it. But there was no doubt she felt a heavenly feeling of elation. "Yeah, I suppose it does turn me on," she said, as much to herself as to the others. The girls approached the next station, which was inside the campus clinic. This one was managed by Dr. Carla, a medical doctor who taught courses at the campus and ran its clinic. "Cool," said Beth, looking around at all the technology. For her part, Sarah noticed that all the boys were completely naked. And they were connected to monitors. The girls sized up all of their packages. Having been turned on from the last station, Sarah wanted to simultaneously ride them hard while also smashing their balls into smithereens. "That one's mine,"'said Kelly, who was thinking something else. She wanted the biggest pair of juicy nuts to torment. "Ladies," she said, ignoring the boys present as Professor Smith had done at the last station. "Welcome to my lab. You are going to assist me in furthering my research. I would not expect any of you to be familiar with my work because until recently taking my position at this college, my work was classified. Suffice to say that I helped our country get the information it needs to keep itself safe from the bad guys - and she stressed the word GUYS. I am a leading expert on the testicles, having conducted hundreds of... experiments. And last, and certainly not unrelated to the other two, I am an expert in the study of pain. She smiled and the girls all giggled along. "So cool," said Beth. "I want her job." Doctor Carla slipped on a white latex glove. Well it was sort of a latex glove but looked different. She explained. "You see that there are these ovals on the finger tips. These are a group of tiny sensors" - each oval was made up of many small dots that were each a small sensor. "When I press my fingers together like this" she pressed them, "this monitor here records the amount of pressure being exerted." She looked over to the boys, who were standing with their hands handcuffed behind their backs. They had straps around their chests holding them to the wall. They each had some cables connected to them and monitors beside each of them. "This is to monitor their pulse, blood pressure, and rate of breathing." She grabbed a camera sitting on a swivel arm and brought it down to the level of one of the boy's testicles. "Aah" he said as he flinched in fear. "Haha, calm down young man, I haven't even touched you - yet." There was now an additional image on the monitor. As plain as day, two orbs. The camera was working like an ultrasound or CT scanner. The girls were all mesmerized to actually be seeing his testicles inside the sac. Doctor Carla slapped on another glove and rubbed her hands together. "Now, a short demonstration." She put her thumb and forefinger from each hand on his dangling gonads. "Now, we start out with some light pressure." "Boy, tell me what you feel." "Uh, err," the boy stuttered. What should he say? She literally had him by the balls. "This is important for my research boy, you should tell me what it feels like." "Well, it is uncomfortable. There's this dull ache in my abdomen." "Do you feel any pain directly on your testicles?" "No." "Ladies, that dull ache is being caused by nerve strands running from his testicles into his abdomen. With a strong enough force applied to their testicles, this is why you may have seen some boys throw up." "Eeeeehhhh!!!!" A high pitched scream pierced the room. The pressure number on the monitor was now red. Doctor Carla was pressing down - HARD. "What about now?" She asked the boy. Her voice as calm and soothing as before. Her face betrayed no emotion. It's as if they were talking about the weather. The boy's eyes were shut tight. He banged his head forward and back. "Gaaahhh!!!" "WORDS boy. Put it into words. If you don't, well, I can always squeeze harder." "No,no,no," the boy managed to say hastily. "Gerrrr...aaaahhh...." he opened and then shut his eyes and was intensely trying to concentrate, desperately trying to prevent any more pain. "Lightning, electricity... gaaahh.... shooting from my balls." "Shooting where?" "My stomach... aaaahhh..." his voice raised an octave. "And my head... I, I can't see straight." "Ooofff" the boy shot out a burst of air as Dr. Carla released his balls from her death grip. He was silent and motionless. No one in the room moved. His face was frozen. His eyes wide with terror and pain as his body absorbed the pain. His face was turning redder the longer he went without air. Finally, there was a loud gasp as he loudly inhaled. "Now ladies, was anyone looking at the monitors?" Beth's hand shot up. She nodded to Beth. "Well, I noticed that his balls started to change shape. It was really cool!" The girls all laughed and Doctor Carla smiled. "Indeed, it is very cool. Well ladies, take your boy and we'll get started." Kelly went straight for the big-balled boy she had spotted earlier. "Hello," she said with an evil grin as she approached him. He looked down meekly. All ladies got into their positions. "Alright, you'll receive a range of instructions, and please follow along. The machines are recording everything and this live test will add to my database." "Instructions will be passed through to the monitor. I find it better when they cannot have any anticipation of what is coming." Kelly's monitor flashed - "Squeeze the left testicle hard for 10 seconds and then release. Commence in 5s...4s..." Kelly readied to move both hands to his left nut. The gloves were fairly thin and she could feel well through them. She could feel the warmth of his large ball, and could even feel his heart beat through his nut with the rhythm of the machine. "START" Kelly quickly switched her grip and brought both thumbs and forefingers to bear on his left nut. She squeezed hard. Her fingers and thumbs digging down into his hefty nutmeat. His hazel eyes seemed to turn a shade greener as his eyes opened wide. He made no sound. It was as if the breath had just been knocked out of him and he couldn't breath. His mouth opened as if to breath, but he couldn't. His face was getting redder by the second. For her part, Beth didn't even notice her boy, who was screaming at the top of his lungs as she brutally compressed his left nut between her thumbs and forefingers. Her concentration was on the monitor. She could see his nut becoming longer and thinner with each passing second. It was so fascinating. Dr. Carla was taking note of the heart rate of Sarah's boy, whose heart monitor was squeeling as his heart raced. She observed the boy and took some more notes. He was gritting his teeth and moaning loud. An alarm beeped signalling the girls to stop. Kelly reluctantly pulled her fingers from deep inside his nut. After she let go, Beth watched the monitor with fascination. His orb, which had become more elongated, slowly regained a more circular shape. Although she could see it becoming a darker shade on the monitor. Looking at his sac, she could also see it was becoming purple. "What's happening?" She asked. Dr. Carla approached. "The trauma just inflicted is causing minor blood pooling and you should start to see swelling..." Sure enough, his ball was growing in size on the monitor. "Cool!" Beth said again. "I love science experiments." Dr. Carla chuckled. The already big ball of Kelly's boy was also getting even bigger, to her satisfaction. "The intent of this first test was to go from a resting point to extreme pressure quickly. I will be fascinated to review their vital signs later and see how quickly their bodies reacted to the introduction of immediate and severe pain. "Now please look to your screens for some follow up questions." The first were for the girls to answer. The questions pertained to the boys' reactions, their facial expressions, noises, etc. They reviewed standard responses in a drop down list and could choose one that fit or they could add in their own response if they wanted. "Let's see, did your voice go up one octave or two?" Sarah asked her boy and giggled. "You have a beautiful singing voice when your nuts are in a vice. "What is it they used to do to get good male singers? Cut off their nuts? You should think about it, you could really go places." He looked at her with an expression of fear and horror, as if she were about to pull out a knife from behind her. "Ahaha ha," she laughed. "You're cute when your scared." She looked him up and down. He was tall, dark hair and brown eyes. And with a nicely sculpted body. Her heart began to beat a bit faster. She brought her mouth close to his ear and whispered, "Don't worry. WHEN I castrate you, it won't be with a knife. I am more partial to stilettos." She pulled her face back and they locked eyes. She winked. Next the girls asked questions to the boys to try to understand the level and type of pain they had experienced. Again, there were options to choose from on the drop down menu. They also had to rate the degree of pain. They all rated it a 10 on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the most painful. That made Kelly happy. "Well let's see what's next my boy. You never know, you may surprise yourself and feel even more pain next time." The next message popped up on their screens. The next test was a slow and steady increase of pressure. They should roll the balls around in their fingers as they do it. They should do green pressure for 30 seconds, then yellow for two minutes. The girls would ask them questions as they went and their answers would be recorded. They began. The green eyes of Kelly's boy were staring ahead with great concentration. He was trying to steel himself for the next round of torture. Kelly liked the grip that the gloves gave her. Like latex gloves, they stopped any slippage and allowed for a firmer grip. She painfully massaged his big balls, with his left one having swollen to now be even larger. Even at green pressure, he was wincing as she squeezed and rolled around his swollen ball. Beth watch the small dents that her rolling created in the balls' outer layer of her boy. "Do you feel anything?" She asked. "My balls are more sensitive now," he replied. "So it hurts a bit." Beth was a bit disappointed. Sarah loved rolling her boy's nuts around in her fingers. She eyed him seductively. What would she do next, he thought? Beyond hope, he wondered if maybe the next test would be a blow job. He imagined her mouth running up and down his cock. He started to get hard. "Naughty boy," Sarah laughed and stroked him a couple of times, encouraging him to get bigger. His body shuddered as she tightened her grip to yellow pressure. The pleasant massaging he felt before was now incredibly uncomfortable. He started breathing hard, trying to catch his breath between muscle spasms as his body tightened each time she would shift finger position and press down on a new area of his balls. His hard cock started to soften. "If you had to compare this pain to a throbbing headache, would this be worse or better?" Kelly asked her boy. "This is worse!" He shrieked. That made her feel all warm inside. "Does it feel like someone is sitting on your stomach?" She asked the next question. "It feels like someone is twisting my balls!" He shrieked again. She gave a good twist in response to his attitude. "It feels like someone has their hand IN my stomach and is playing paddy cake with my intestines!" He replied. Beth could see that with the pressure she was giving now, the outer layer of his balls were compressing in a significant amount. And they were getting darker as more blood pooled. She wondered if she were permanently damaging his balls. And that made her wet. For his part, he went from screaming and was now crying uncontrollably. Now came the final test. "You bitch," Kelly murmured under her breath in a light hearted way as she saw the next set of instructions. "What a tease." The instructions were that the girls should try to flatten the boys' balls to the breaking point - without breaking them. The school couldn't have all of their boys nutted in the first week. It would defeat the purpose behind the school. START Kelly nearly had to cover her ears as the screams erupted around her. She squeezed hard into his swollen nuts. His nutmeat shot outward as she pressed down on the centre of his big balls. Then she decided to switch grips, holding them around the sides, cupping them, and then squeezing her hands into fists. "Mmaaahhh!!!" He screamed so loud. "No, no - STOP!" He yelled. She loved the feeling of his nutmeat being compressed into an ever smaller space. She could see them getting smaller on the monitor. The pressure he must have felt was enormous. Beth had tried a different approach. She placed his nuts on her left palm and then placed her right palm on top and then pushed down hard. Her boy kept opening his mouth, as if to say something or maybe to catch his breath, she couldn't tell. He just kept trying but he couldn't breath or speak. She was so excited to see his nuts flatten out like pancakes on the monitor. They were nearly black on the monitor now. "Like juicy plums about to burst!" She said with excitement. Sarah squeezed her boy's balls between her thumbs and fingers. The gloves gave her such a firm grip. Balls that would normally slip one way or the other stayed perfectly in place under her latex grip. It was such a satisfying feeling to have his balls right where she wanted them. Her thumbs and fingers could nearly meet now. She pressed her body against his and could feel his writhing muscles, his pain racked body convulsing. "This makes me so hot," she whispered. She soaked in their close bodily connection. Her pleasure and his pain. She moved her mouth to his other ear. "I'm going to pop your balls now." Then she moved her face back and locked their eyes. Sheer terror was all over his face. "Please, please, pleeeeaaassee! No!" Sarah felt so close. Any second and his balls would explode. A cold voice spoke from behind. "Don't you dare young lady. You rupture his balls and you won't be so much as tapping a nutsack for weeks." It was Dr. Carla. Sarah weighed her options for a moment and then slowly loosened her grip. But only a little. "Next time. I don't have my stilettos here." She winked at him. The timer sounded. The experiment was over. For the time being...

#ballbust

14 notes · View notes

ctrl-alt-cait · 6 years

Text

I’m Fat, and People Need To Get Over It.

When you deal with the medical system regularly (and when you deal with the general public, people at your gym, people at your school, your friends, your family, your neighbors, etc…) you probably know what an emphasis everyone puts on weight.

You get measured for BMI in public school PE, your doctor probably has it on your chart, and if you’re over (or under) a specific number, you’re going to hear about it. A lot. And there are a TON of reasons why the BMI chart is not scientifically sound in the first place: a few, summarized, you can read here. There are a lot of issues with basing health off of weight, and “ideal weight” off of health. Systems like this often ignore the amount of muscle, bone, water, and fat that your average human has, for example. And then, beyond that, even when you do body mass composition scans (which are way more helpful for health predictors), these numbers fail to take into account quite a few things which have bearing on your weight.

Sure, it’s easy to tell me that there are a string of numbers which should determine my body fat percentage. It ranges anywhere from 10-12% for essential fat to live, up to 31% as the borderline for acceptable edging on overweight. 32% plus is considered overweight. And this number can be helpful to me, because now I know that my body fat percentage is about 35%, at the lower end of overweight. And that tells me, in a truly scientific manner, what my chubby looking body is made up of. It still doesn’t take into consideration a lot of things we should look at when treating a patient: economic status, ethnic background, regional background, genetics, family history, mental illnesses, physical illnesses, comorbidity, or previous healthcare. You can hypothesize about why I’m fat all day long, why anyone is fat or underweight, why any of us are measured by this metric at all- it’s theoretical, and it’s interesting, until it’s you, and then suddenly it isn’t very fun anymore.

I have been, since I was 11 and hit menarche, overweight. It has fluctuated a bit over the years, as I’ve struggled with various health issues, and realized that I have at least three different competing illnesses that mess with your endocrine system and metabolism. And yet, I was a sports playing child. My parents emphasized eating your veggies, and limiting sweets. I go to the gym 3-4 times a week, now, and eat a pretty low carb, fiber and protein full diet. I cut out foods that I have gastrointestinal sensitivity to. I have my medical issues closely monitored, and my chronic pain is followed carefully. My heart passes all the tests I’ve had done on it. My liver is fine. My blood tests are well within average. My lungs are pretty meh, but that’s linked to chronic bronchitis. I can do 45 minutes of cardio and get that pulse rolling up at “weight loss levels” every time I visit the gym. I have tried super restrictive keto diets, anti-inflammatory diets, low fat diets, low carb diets, food tracking, visiting registered dieticians, taking nutritional classes myself, super calorie counting diets, etc.

But I’m still fat.

And I run into the roadblock of weight every time I see a doctor.

It has taken years for me to understand the true consequence of dealing with weight in the medical field. It’s simply true that overweight patients get worse care. Weight can be a huge issue in the social world. Obesity stigma has wide ranging public health implications. Being overweight makes you predisposed to eating disorders: being underweight does too. We are obsessed with physical appearance, and we ignore mental health quite handily, setting us up for a crisis of health, both mental and physical. I have had doctors I was seeing for entirely different issues, unrelated at all to weight, tell me that my problems would melt away if I would just lose weight. Some of the greatest hits:

The doctor who told me, in highschool, that I should just walk “for four hours a day after school” to force my body to lose weight.

The psychiatrist who told me that my mental health would improve when I graduated high school because “boys will stop being ashamed to admit they like fat girls, and you will finally get some attention, which will improve your self esteem.”

The doctor who, I found out recently, told my parents that gastric bypass would fix all of my problems, while I was in an urgent care clinic for completely un-weight-related complications.

The doctors who told me that my neurological symptoms were caused by weight, and not the permanent damage I had in my shoulder, or the other health conditions I had, and then accused me of lying about my diet.

And, of course, the psychiatrist who told me that it was okay to have an eating disorder for “a while, as long as you lose weight while doing it” when I expressed that being on a super-restrictive diet was giving me horrible physical side effects and what I feared may be long lasting mental ones too.

I have been recommended unsafe supplements, medications, diets, workout regimens, therapies, and lifestyle change plans to lose weight, all under the guise of helping me. Doctor after doctor has returned my truthfully filled out forms about my exercise and diet with doubt, and labeled me untruthful. Because to them, it is impossible- how can someone live healthily and still be overweight? People ignore the complications of healthcare in bodies that don’t fit a particular mold- take my friend who’s lost her appetite and a clinically significant amount of weight without meaning to, and can’t get a doctor to take her symptoms seriously, because isn’t that what women want? To be thinner? Or, for example, the doctor who was recently in the news for ignoring the symptoms of cancer in an obese woman so long that it metastasized and killed her. Our culture disregards the fact that simply because we know some health complications can come from being overweight doesn’t mean we need to stop looking for a definite conclusion. People of all weights need to be tested, and diagnosed accurately, because assuming all health issues stem from being over or underweight in anyone who doesn’t fit the flawed BMI chart is a public health risk we should not be taking. Perhaps part of the issue is that people of lower incomes and certain ethnic groups are more likely to be outside the range of accepted BMIs, and so they don’t have the recourse to demand the kind of testing the wealthy can. Perhaps part of the issue is that, when it comes down to it, doctors are only human, and humans have an inextricable bias to them that is heavily influenced by their culture.

This bias kills people of non-white ethnic groups, marginalized religions, different body types, non-straight sexualities, and gender-nonconforming people all the time. We have to realize, at some point, that doctors can be, and frequently are, wrong. That doesn’t mean you need to give up on allopathic medicine, and live in the woods with your essential oils to cure everything. But it does mean that we have to consider that maybe some people aren’t getting the best care, the care they deserve, because they are fat. There is a link, in certain cases, between being overweight and heightened risk factors for comorbid diseases. You are more likely to have sleep apnea, gout, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular issues, and gallbladder problems. This has, so far, been pretty well linked. But what drives me nuts about the concern-trolling comments on pictures online of overweight women, on articles about loving your body, on research about health, and in person from doctors and everyone else under the sun: that doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to be heard, to be cared for, and to be thoroughly diagnosed. Fatness does not come first.

An example of fatness coming first when, for patient quality of life, it should not, would be certain styles of pain management. This is a field of study that I’m very familiar with and have also been a patient in many times. If I go into my doctor and complain of a full body pain that fatigues me, and makes my life difficult and miserable, I would expect to be treated for the pain. I would expect a pain medication to be prescribed, and tests to be done. Which, side note: I wasn’t asking for opiates. I was asking for a longer term anti inflammatory type of pain relief medication that would hopefully also lower system irritation. But, in my personal case, as a fat woman, I was denied pain medication, told to lose weight, and referred to another doctor.

What do I do in the interim? Suffer in pain, because weight loss is not exactly a quick and easy option, especially after all the things I’d already tried? Be miserable, because a doctor didn’t believe me that I’d put in years of good faith effort to be healthy, and passed almost all the other metrics for it? That’s exactly what I did. I suffered in pain, because no one I saw would give me a prescription other than “weight loss”, and I waited patiently for three months to see the other doctor. When I got to the other doctor, she grilled me about my lifestyle habits, accused me of “not wanting to be better”, told me she wouldn’t prescribe pain medication, and only decided to do a physical examination because I literally described my symptoms in textbook detail. She did what could have only been a 3 minute evaluation of my pain symptoms, pronounced that I was correct about my own damn body and did have fibromyalgia, and then reiterated that she wouldn’t prescribe pain medication until I lost some weight.

So we have multiple doctors in this practice network, now, that know full well I have a debilitating pain condition, who will not prescribe me as needed pain medication because I’m too fat.

Well, unfortunately for them, and me, I didn’t lose weight. I couldn’t lose weight. There was absolutely no healthy, no fad or yo-yo diet way for me to lose weight at this point. There still probably isn’t- I take several supplements that can support weight management, but aren’t contraindicated with my other medications. I live my healthy lifestyle. I am still in pain.

I am still fat.

I will always agree that finding the cause of pain, or discomfort, or disease is necessary to a patient for them to live a good quality life. We shouldn’t be out here blindly medicating people. But we also shouldn’t allow people to suffer while standing on a perceived moral high ground, dangling the carrot of relief over them as though somehow, when they jump through a high enough hoop, we will be able to say, “see? It was your fatness all along.” and the problem will be gone. Even in the face of plain diagnostic results, fatness becomes a quicksand to medical intervention. In part, I imagine it has to do with that aforementioned moral high ground. We have come to view weight as a moral marker, beyond even our cultural obsession with looks. There are “bad” foods and “good” foods- no in between, no moderation, no internal discussion about the harmfully dichotomous nature of declaring fatness a moral failing and thinness an idealized dream. We look down upon “fat slobs” and mock them in our comedies, our dramas, our romantic movies. A fat woman is not desirable, and a fat man is a travesty. Conversely, we will also mock thinness when it goes outside of the accepted range- women with “pancake” chests and men with “noodle” arms. This cultural bias is popular, it’s deeply held, and it is dangerously intertwined with the doctoral hands that hold our lives, our health, and our happiness. Even among overweight people, I’m still nowhere near as stigmatized as people a few sizes bigger than I am, and that breaks my heart.

The biggest thing nagging at my mind through all of this, as I talk about all the ways in which I’ve tried my best to fit into the medical idea of what “healthy” is, is that people deserve care regardless of whether or not they are willing to, or are trying to lose weight. People deserve care, love, acceptance no matter whether they are unhappy with their weight or not. Beyond even the issue of how I have been pressured to make many lifestyle changes, most of which I’m happy with, is the issue of people who should not have to conform to any standard but happiness to get a good quality of life. There are only so many plates you can juggle in your life, and I would never begrudge someone spending the hours of daylight I spend on fitting into an allopathic definition of “trying to be healthy” on something more enjoyable and fulfilling for them.

I could philosophize more about being fat, and the many issues we face in this culture: about the lack of affordable and comfortable clothing, the stigma of working out at the gym, the mockery, the bullying, the laughter, the jokes, the culture of abuse that has led me to psychological issue after psychological issue, the body dysmorphia I struggle with, and the healthcare battle ahead. After all that, though, I will still. Be. Fat.

So I would like to cordially invite all of my doctors, and everyone who has had the passing thought, or the gall to mention it to my face, all of the people in the society I have to coexist with, to get over it. Get over my weight. Get over the hump of grilling me on my daily habits, and tsking like some overblown moral judge when I decide I want to eat a cupcake. Get over your reluctance to take me seriously when I come in with a genuine medical issue. Get over your inability to prescribe me medications that would let me live my life happily. Get over the euphemisms for being overweight, and the skirting around your own implicit bias towards fat people. Get over “heavier girls” and “curvy girls” and “husky men”. Get over all the terrible connotations you have towards the word fat, and the immediate need to correct me like you’re doing me a favor when I say that I am, in fact, fat. I get that you want to be kind. But when you treat the reality of my existence like an insult, it can feel kind of shitty.

It’s not an insult. It’s not a psychological disease. It’s not the body dysmorphia talking.

I am just, plain and simple, a fat woman. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. There are so many things to love about my body- it is functional in so many ways. It carries me to school and back. It enables me to learn amazing things, and experience wonderful days. My body can take me through the forest, my legs can get me to the top of a hill. And if yours can’t? That’s just fine too. Body positivity gets a lot of flack for “normalizing and romanticizing unhealthy behaviors”. But hardly anyone (save a few outliers that the world wide powers of the internet will enable you to find) sees the body positivity movement and decides to become unhealthy because of it, not to mention the fact that average sized people rarely receive that kind of feedback for other “unhealthy” behaviors. It is not a bad thing for us to love ourselves, whether we are disabled, or fat, or outside the cultural beauty norms for any other reason. When I look in the mirror, I struggle with my appearance because other people have told me to for so long that it feels like it’s stuck in my very bones. Would it be such a bad thing for me to not feel that way? Would it be bad for children to grow up loving their bodies for being such miraculous things, without struggling to access fair healthcare, job opportunities, and peer groups?

I’m fat, and I’m happy. It’s time for the world to stop worshipping the God of Outward Appearances, and leave my personal healthcare business alone.

#fatphobia #body positivity #chronic illness #medical bias #fat acceptance #body acceptance #positivity #spoonie life #medical journey #personal opinion

6 notes · View notes

sally-mun · 7 years

Text

Knux & Finitevus shipping meme!

As an apology to the folks that’ve been waiting far, far too long for me to answer their Knux/Fini RP asks, I’ve decided to fill in a shipping meme I just saw with all answers about them! Thank you to those that took an interest in my RPing and I’m SO SORRY I’ve had this big gap of answering your questions. Think of this as an Easter treat to those that follow it!

(Also, just a heads up: the second half of the questions are NSFW.)

SFW

Who cooks?

They both do, tho in different ways. Fini’s not exactly a chef but he knows how to make a reasonable range of domestic foods, whereas Knuckles falls back more on survival skills and will occasionally cook things that he’s hunted over an open flame outside. He does try to cook modern dishes sometimes, but he’s had mixed results with that. Half the time they eat out anyway, so I suppose it’s a fair balance.

Who’s the messiest? The cleanest?

Easy to say that Knux is messier and Fini is cleaner, since Knuckles spent so much of his life surviving in the wild (and still spends a hefty amount of time outdoors even now) and Fini has clinical standards for cleanliness. I will say that over the years Knux has made strides in trying to be cleaner for Fini’s comfort, BUUUT there are also times when he gets home from a patrol and hunts down Fini specifically to get him dirty. While doing so he refers to Fini as his “blank canvas.”

Who fixes the vehicle after a breakdown?

They don’t actually own any vehicles. They typically warp to the general vicinity of where they need to go and then walk the rest of the way.

Living space has a leak! Who fixes it?

If he can, Fini. If not, they’d probably call Elias.

Who buys the groceries?

Almost exclusively Fini. I imagine Knuckles has too strong of an appetite to be trusted to go shopping alone. To his credit, though, Knux kind of does his own form of ‘shopping’ by occasionally bringing home fruits or other plants he’s gathered while out on a patrol, hunting wild game, or going fishing.

Going out to eat: Who pays? Who orders the most food? And who has dessert?

They more or less have unlimited funds at their disposal, as Fini just sorta leeches small amounts of money from a loooooot of different people so they won’t notice the discrepancy. (He actually also has a day job, but his salary there versus the money he just freely takes is almost inconsequential.) You can probably assume that Knuckles eats the most since he has a Guardian metabolism, but they both have dessert. Fini just doesn’t have nearly as big of a serving.

Would they go to the beach?

As a matter of fact, they love going to the beach. Fini’s more interested in laying in a chair to listen to the ocean rather than swimming, but he will occasionally swim if Knuckles is persistent in asking. About a year or so ago Knux had Elias help him build a dock that goes pretty deep into the water and has a little cabana-type thing at the end, so they can lounge around and go fishing at their leisure.

Who knows how to swim? Who doesn’t?

We know from Sonic Adventure 2 that Knuckles is an excellent swimmer. Fini swims well enough to get where he’s trying to go, but he’s not especially good at it.

Is someone multilingual? Do they try to teach another language to the other? How does it go?

Knuckles can read and write ancient echidna text, tho come to think of it I don’t know if it’s spoken any differently. It’s never even crossed my mind. In any case tho he’s able to read the text, and he’s shown a few things here and there to Finitevus, but never with the intention of teaching him any fluency.

Any pets? Or plants?

As a small child (before he was abandoned) Knuckles had a monitor lizard named Chomps, whom he absolutely adored and dragged around with him everywhere. Thankfully Chomps was about as chill as an iceberg and allowed puggle!Knux to do pretty much anything he wanted.

In the present, Knux has a little gecko named Squirt. He likes to perch on Knux’s head, buuut the problem is this lizard’s a bit unpredictable and frequently flings itself into the wild blue yonder, which gives both Knux and Fini a small heart attack each time they just barely catch him. He also makes a peculiar noise that would probably scare the shit out of a burglar if one ever managed to get in their home, as it sounds like a person distantly making a “HEE HEE HEE” laugh.

Baths or showers? Together or separate? Any bubbles or bubble fights?

When Knux bathes, it’s really just for the purpose of getting clean, but when Fini does, it’s both to get clean and to relax. When they’re alone, Knux will shower to get to the point and get out while Fini will take a bath with bubbles and salts and the works to unwind. When they bathe together, it’s usually a bath.

Can they stand silence? Who talks the most? Who talks the least?

In terms of silence meaning “no one is speaking,” neither one of them seem to mind it too terribly. They frequently hang out in the same room doing their own things without interacting, I suppose to enjoy each other’s company but not be in each other’s faces. If by “silence” this means “no sound,” Fini handles it much better than Knux. Fini’s used to an extremely quiet lab, whereas Knux is used to something making noise outside. There are a lot of times when Knuckles will sit in front of the TV while doing something unrelated just because he wants the noise.

Who stays up late? Who sleeps the most? Does the other have to force them to sleep/wake up?

Fini and Knuckles go to bed around the same time, but Fini’s usually the first one up. It actually used to be the other way around in the VERY beginning, but after weeks and months of living in Fini’s original base without a daylight reference, Knux’s body got used to sleeping until he was ready to get up rather than waking at dawn.

Unfortunately, Knuckles does have a few problems with insomnia that he inherited from his father. Whenever something is upsetting him or bothering him, he tends to get stuck on it and can’t go to sleep. In the beginning, Fini didn’t think anything of this until he realized Knux was staying awake for days at a time and recognized him exhibiting Locke’s same symptoms of paranoia. At this point in the relationship, however, managing Knuckles’ occasional insomnia is simple enough for Fini. If he wakes up and realizes that Knux never went to sleep, they talk a bit about what kept him awake, and then Fini makes him a drink that he slips a small dose of sedative into. As a result Knux gets the problem off his chest and then gets some rest, and once he gets back up they address the problem again now that Knuckles has a clear mind.

Who is the highest maintenance? Does the other mind?

Honestly, I think they’re both high-maintenance in different ways. Knuckles has wrestled with separation anxiety stemming from his abandonment, and he’s extremely sensitive about his intelligence and being perceived as stupid. Fini has some lingering PTSD related to having been a prisoner of war in the West Acorn Republic for a while, and he’s still occasionally haunted by guilt from when he’d attacked Albion in the past (usually when he witnesses how it’s affected people’s lives).

I know managing a high-maintenance person is typically depicted as draining and irritating and time-consuming, but I think in Knux and Fini’s cases it helps strengthen their bond. Given that they each have trauma in their lives that interferes with how they function, it makes them pretty compassionate toward each other’s conditions. I suppose the fact that they take care of each other makes them all the more secure that they’ll be taken care of themselves when they need it.

Vacation ideas: who decides them? Where would they go, if anywhere?

Obviously traveling isn’t exactly difficult for them since they can warp wherever they want, BUT they do still take trips simply for the fun of the experience, or occasionally to learn something new.

NSFW

How often do they have sex, if at all?

I’d say they have a pretty healthy sex life. I’d estimate they go at it at least a couple times a week, tho what it is they’re doing will vary quite a bit because they’re pretty adventurous.

Who brings ideas? Who initiates?

They both initiate at this point and and they both bring up wanting to try new things, although it amuses me how differently they go about finding new things to try. In Fini’s case I just simply imagine him to be well-read on various types of kinks and play and fetishes, whereas Knuckles just sees people doing things in porn and asks if they can give it a shot too.

Any kinks they clash on?

For the most part they have pretty similar boundaries, buuuut there is one serious divide that they’ve had friction on since the beginning: Fini thinks it’s super hot for someone to lick up jizz after giving a blowjob, but Knuckles thinks it’s the most disgusting thing ever and absolutely refuses to do it. Knux has allowed Fini to push him into lots and lots of things he wasn’t completely comfortable trying out, but this is one area where he digs in his feet and WILL NOT budge. Doesn’t stop Fini from trying, tho, so this has been an ongoing argument.

Oddest place they’d have sex?

Oh lord. Provided that they don’t think they’ll be recognized (as they occasionally dye their fur to disguise themselves when they’re trying to infiltrate certain areas or whatnot), Knux and Fini have gotten pretty bold from time to time. I know they’ve done it on the roof of a building that was surrounded by taller buildings, for example.

Favourite positions?

Well there’s one position they’ve come to nickname “the tripod”, aka standing on your knees and putting your chin on the ground, because they use it so often and in so many ways. Another favorite is when one sits face-to-face in the other’s lap because, if the lap-owner is feeling generous, they might give a blowjob at the same time.

I also recall that in the beginning Fini got a kick out of making Knux lay on his side; this is because when IRL echidnas mate, the female lays on her side while the male goes at it, which we’ve translated in-game as being the ‘standard’ position for echidnas (like an equivalent of the missionary position). Fini liked to tease Knuckles about ‘taking it like a woman.’

Dom/top? Sub/bottom? Any switches?

Initially it was exclusively a dom/sub type of relationship, with Fini dominant and Knuckles submissive, but at this point in the relationship the bulk of that has chipped away. Fini is still usually the one in control, but moreso because that’s the way they both prefer it versus Knux not having a choice. Knuckles prefers to be on the bottom but he still tops Fini every now and again.

Favourite erogenous zones?

For Knux it’s the neck and the base of his tail. For Fini it’s the ears and inner thighs.

Quickest turn ons? Immediate turn offs?

Fini can get wound up pretty quickly if he sees Knux lifting something (since he’s extremely turned on by his muscles), or if he sees Knux tangled up in something since they sometimes use bondage. Knuckles can get excited over a nice view of Fini’s ass, and surprisingly enough, he now finds it a turn-on to have his chaos abilities nullified. We’re pretty sure he associates it with sex since he had that collar the first few times he and Fini hooked up, but after all these years it’s now become a kink to him. I guess it boils down to him getting off on feeling helpless, especially since it facilitates Fini being dominant.

First to orgasm? Last to orgasm? Who comes the most? Does someone ever end up unfinished?

When Knux is on top he tends to have a pretty short fuse, which I think is part of why he’s typically on the bottom. Fini has surprisingly good control over when he wants to finish. He’s mentioned before that he doesn’t like to get “primal” about it, so it may just be a skill that arose out of being a control freak.

There have been times when one finished long before the other, but they never leave it at that. Normally they’ll just switch to something one-sided until the other gets there too.

Favourite romantic gestures during sex/orgasm?

Hmm, how to put this delicately... Knux and Fini aren’t terribly into romance while they’re having sex. They may do some sweet things leading up to it, but once the dicks are out, iiiit’s mostly about grunting and drooling and clawing and one of them (read: Knuckles) being made to beg.

How are their afterglows?

Not very exciting. They usually just go to sleep. Half the time they don’t even move to a cleaner part of the bed.

Who’s loud? Who’s quiet? Does one try to make the other louder/quieter?

Fini gets a kick out of trying to make Knuckles scream. He likes it even more if it’s obvious Knux is trying to be quiet. (For example, Fini talked him into going at it once while they had a house guest, and Knux agreed under the condition that they had to keep it down.)

Lights on or off? Do they look at each other? Or is someone embarrassed?

Neither one of them really seems to care about the lighting, so, not much to say here.

Open or closed relationship? Do they sometimes share?

Fini’s never really been interested in hooking up with anyone else, but prior to being married, Knuckles was free to still hook up with women if he wanted to. He’d have an occasional fling with Rouge here and there and sometimes hooked up with a friend of theirs named Candy, but since they’ve tied the knot I’m 98% sure it’s been monogamous. If it hasn’t been I’ve just simply forgotten about it.

#Sallymun RPs

9 notes · View notes

stephenmccull · 4 years

Text

Hospital Workers Complain of Minimal Disclosure After COVID Exposures

Dinah Jimenez assumed a world-class hospital would be better prepared than a chowder house to inform workers when they had been exposed to a deadly virus.

So, when her boyfriend, an employee of a popular seafood restaurant in Seattle, received a call from his boss on a Sunday in late March telling him a co-worker had tested positive for COVID-19 and that he needed to quarantine for 14 days, she said she assumed she’d get a similar call from the University of Washington Medical Center. After all, the infected restaurant employee worked a second job alongside her at the hospital’s Plaza Cafe.

That call never came, she said.

Special Reports

COVID-19

Lost On The Frontline

By The Staffs of KHN and The Guardian May 12

America’s health care workers are dying from the coronavirus pandemic. These are some of the first tragic cases.

Jimenez, 42, said she returned to her job as a cashier at the hospital cafeteria two days later, and “it was like nothing had happened. They didn’t say anything.” She said the infected worker, a fellow cashier, was stationed just 2 feet from her during a typical shift and that neither had been wearing a mask. “He was as close to me as the person sitting behind you in an airplane,” Jimenez said.

Word slowly spread among the cafeteria crew that a co-worker had the virus, she said. In the days that followed, two more workers fell ill. But communication about the outbreak was not broadly disseminated through the ranks, according to Jimenez and other employees interviewed. It wasn’t until April, Jimenez said, that the hospital started providing workers with one mask per day. A few weeks later, workers said, they learned a fourth staff member had tested positive for the virus.

From cafeteria staff to doctors and nurses, hospital workers around the country report frustrating failures by management to notify them when they have been exposed to co-workers or patients known to be infected with COVID-19. Some medical centers do carefully trace the close contacts of every infected patient and worker, alert them to the exposure and offer guidance on the next steps. Others, by policy, do not personally follow up with health workers who unknowingly treated an infected patient or worked with a colleague who later tested positive for the virus.

Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

Please confirm your email address below:

“It’s an enormous issue,” said Debbie White, president of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees, a union representing nurses and other health care professionals in New Jersey. “When a patient is positive, our expectation is that the employer would go back and do their due diligence in terms of investigating who was participating in that patient’s care.”

Instead, she said, union members often report “there is very, very little follow-up” to inform them after an exposure.

The disconnect between hospital policy and worker expectations often centers around the lack of clear, direct communication with individual workers who have been potentially exposed to the coronavirus. And when workers are informed about an infected colleague or patient, some say that the efforts to conceal that person’s identity can make it difficult to gauge the level of risk.

Melissa Johnson-Camacho, a nurse at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, California, said she was informed that another nurse in her unit tested positive, but not which one.

“I don’t know who that nurse is. I don’t know if I had lunch with that nurse. I don’t know if I helped that nurse with a patient,” said Johnson-Camacho, who is a chief nurse representative for the California Nurses Association.

UC Davis Health spokesperson Charles Casey said federal and state privacy laws prevent the hospital from identifying individuals who test positive. HIPAA, the federal privacy rule, does permit some disclosures of personal health information to health care workers during an outbreak of infectious disease, but only the “minimum necessary,” according to recent guidance from the Office for Civil Rights, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Other hospitals contend that because community transmission of COVID-19 is so widespread, workers should assume anyone they encounter, inside or outside the hospital, could be infected and adapt their behavior accordingly.

OHSU Health Hillsboro Medical Center, a major provider outside Portland, Oregon, for example, recently sent an email to all employees saying that because COVID-19 is widespread in that community, “you will no longer receive notification from [the Employee Health program] after caring for a patient with COVID-19. Instead, we ask that you serve as our eyes and ears and report any concerns for exposure to Employee Health as soon as possible.”

Based on similar reasoning, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued updated guidelines in April to say hospitals should consider forgoing contact tracing for their workers — a fundamental of public health work that involves identifying people who have been exposed and asking them to quarantine — in favor of universal masking and screening for symptoms at the beginning of shifts.

We Want To Hear From You

Do you work on the front lines of COVID-19? As a medical specialist, health care manager, or public official or employee?

Tell us what you’re seeing, and help us report on important, untold stories. Contact us at [email protected].

Send Us A Tip

While all hospital employees, from food service to custodial staff, are vulnerable to exposure, nurses and other direct-care providers who interact closely with patients are at greatest risk. Informing them of patient exposures is generally less important in intensive care units and wards designated for COVID-19 assessments, where patients are assumed to have the virus and proper protective gear should be used. But when providers care for a patient hospitalized for an unrelated condition who later tests positive, workers say the information can be crucial.

“A lot of nurses are caregivers, too, and we have people at home who are in the high-risk group,” said Johnson-Camacho, the UC Davis nurse. “No one wants to take this home to their family or someone they love.”

Knowing about an exposure might make the difference when deciding whether to hug your children or move out of the family home, Johnson-Camacho added.

At Stroger Hospital in Chicago, nurse Elizabeth Lalasz said she contracted the coronavirus after spending several hours with a patient who came in with what initially was believed to be a chronic respiratory condition, but who later was sent home with a presumed case of COVID-19. Lalasz said the hospital never followed up with her about the presumed exposure, even though she had not been wearing proper protective gear. She said she subsequently fell ill and tested positive for the virus — and that her co-workers were never informed about her condition.

“The contact-tracing idea didn’t even exist,” Lalasz said.

Cook County Health, which operates Stroger, did not directly respond to questions about its policies on informing workers about exposure to the virus. But spokesperson Deborah Song said the system is following CDC guidelines.

At UW Medicine in Seattle, where the cafeteria outbreak played out, spokesperson Tina Mankowski said the hospital is not doing contact tracing when workers or patients test positive for COVID-19. She said that is because the medical center is not asking workers to quarantine at home following a potential exposure.

Under current policy, if an employee contracts the virus, that person’s manager is notified in general terms, and is supposed to share that information with other staff members. Employees are asked to self-monitor for fever or upper-respiratory symptoms, and to stay home if they are ill.

Mankowski confirmed that four cafeteria employees had tested positive for the virus. She said employees were notified but did not provide specifics about how or when.

“The safety of University of Washington Medical Center patients and employees is our top priority,” Mankowski wrote in an email. “If an employee tests positive for COVID-19, the manager is informed that one of their employees has tested positive and then discusses this with the staff in that area.”

Jimenez and three other workers said that was not their experience and that communication about the outbreak was muted.

Luis Rios, a cook at the cafeteria for 17 years, said he was not informed after the first colleague tested positive, though he had chatted with the sick cashier in the staff locker room several times, no more than 2 feet away. A few days after that worker was diagnosed, Rios said, he was taste-testing a dish when he noticed his sense of taste was dulled, a symptom of COVID-19. He also felt cold, even in the warm kitchen. He was tested at an area medical clinic, and became the unit’s second confirmed case.

“Honestly, I don’t know if UW or my managers care about workers’ lives,” said Rios, 49, who spoke through an interpreter. “They only care if we can go in and work.”

Justin Lee, communications director for the Washington Federation of State Employees (WFSE), which represents the cafeteria workers, said supervisors did post a copy of an email from the employee health department to cafeteria directors notifying them in general terms when the first worker tested positive. A printout was tacked near the employees’ time clock. But many workers did not see it or may have been unable to understand it because it was written in English, according to Lee. Information shared days later in a small huddle did not reach the whole staff, he said.

In early April, cafeteria workers delivered a petition to hospital management, with the support of WFSE and Service Employees International Union Local 925, with 450 signatures. They requested the hospital close the Plaza Cafe for a deep cleaning, install a temporary protective barrier around the cashiers and bring in a medical professional to educate all cafeteria staff about COVID-19, with translations in other languages.

The cafeteria was not closed, but Mankowski said the hospital has disinfected it and all workstations, and now requires workers throughout the hospital to wear masks. The hospital has declined to install Plexiglas barriers at the cafeteria, she said, because it believes the universal masking offers the necessary safety precautions.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has no rule requiring that employers inform workers of exposures to infectious diseases. But Dr. Alyssa Burgart, a bioethicist at Stanford, said hospitals do have an ethical obligation. She acknowledged the challenges: With dozens of employees going in and out of a patient’s room each day, tracking every single one can be difficult, particularly with limited resources. Hospitals are trying to figure out in real time exactly what they need to disclose and how to do it.

“Everything is a disaster now, and no one has time to answer anything. So you’re seeing organizations fumble when figuring out how to do this in a way that meets their ethical obligation to protect employees but doesn’t violate federal privacy laws,” Burgart said.

“The typical way these decisions would be made would be over a very long deliberative process, and that is a luxury we do not have right now. Some organizations are going to miss the mark the first time.”

Hospital Workers Complain of Minimal Disclosure After COVID Exposures published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

0 notes

dinafbrownil · 4 years

Text

Hospital Workers Complain of Minimal Disclosure After COVID Exposures

Dinah Jimenez assumed a world-class hospital would be better prepared than a chowder house to inform workers when they had been exposed to a deadly virus.

That call never came, she said.

Special Reports

COVID-19

Lost On The Frontline

By The Staffs of KHN and The Guardian May 12

America’s health care workers are dying from the coronavirus pandemic. These are some of the first tragic cases.

Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

Please confirm your email address below:

Instead, she said, union members often report “there is very, very little follow-up” to inform them after an exposure.

Melissa Johnson-Camacho, a nurse at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, California, said she was informed that another nurse in her unit tested positive, but not which one.

We Want To Hear From You

Do you work on the front lines of COVID-19? As a medical specialist, health care manager, or public official or employee?

Tell us what you’re seeing, and help us report on important, untold stories. Contact us at [email protected].

Send Us A Tip

Knowing about an exposure might make the difference when deciding whether to hug your children or move out of the family home, Johnson-Camacho added.

“The contact-tracing idea didn’t even exist,” Lalasz said.

Mankowski confirmed that four cafeteria employees had tested positive for the virus. She said employees were notified but did not provide specifics about how or when.

Jimenez and three other workers said that was not their experience and that communication about the outbreak was muted.

“Honestly, I don’t know if UW or my managers care about workers’ lives,” said Rios, 49, who spoke through an interpreter. “They only care if we can go in and work.”

from Updates By Dina https://khn.org/news/hospital-workers-complain-of-minimal-disclosure-after-covid-exposures/

0 notes

gordonwilliamsweb · 4 years

Text

Hospital Workers Complain of Minimal Disclosure After COVID Exposures

Dinah Jimenez assumed a world-class hospital would be better prepared than a chowder house to inform workers when they had been exposed to a deadly virus.

That call never came, she said.

Special Reports

COVID-19

Lost On The Frontline

By The Staffs of KHN and The Guardian May 12

America’s health care workers are dying from the coronavirus pandemic. These are some of the first tragic cases.

Email Sign-Up

Subscribe to KHN’s free Morning Briefing.

Please confirm your email address below:

Instead, she said, union members often report “there is very, very little follow-up” to inform them after an exposure.

Melissa Johnson-Camacho, a nurse at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, California, said she was informed that another nurse in her unit tested positive, but not which one.

We Want To Hear From You

Do you work on the front lines of COVID-19? As a medical specialist, health care manager, or public official or employee?

Tell us what you’re seeing, and help us report on important, untold stories. Contact us at [email protected].

Send Us A Tip

Knowing about an exposure might make the difference when deciding whether to hug your children or move out of the family home, Johnson-Camacho added.

“The contact-tracing idea didn’t even exist,” Lalasz said.

Mankowski confirmed that four cafeteria employees had tested positive for the virus. She said employees were notified but did not provide specifics about how or when.

Jimenez and three other workers said that was not their experience and that communication about the outbreak was muted.

“Honestly, I don’t know if UW or my managers care about workers’ lives,” said Rios, 49, who spoke through an interpreter. “They only care if we can go in and work.”

Hospital Workers Complain of Minimal Disclosure After COVID Exposures published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

0 notes

enzaime-blog · 6 years

Text

Cancer Care Inspires Kim DeBolt to Join the Mayo Clinic Team

New Story has been published on https://enzaime.com/cancer-care-inspires-kim-debolt-join-mayo-clinic-team/

Cancer Care Inspires Kim DeBolt to Join the Mayo Clinic Team

It was a quiet, rainy morning in 2002 at the Gift of Life Transplant House in Rochester, Minnesota. Kim DeBolt was staying at the hospitality house while recovering from a stem cell transplant at Mayo Clinic to treat acute myelogenous leukemia. Family members were often with her at the house, but Kim was alone that day, and she felt blue. Gazing out her window, she saw on the sidewalk a smartly dressed woman, briefcase in hand, holding an umbrella, heading downtown.

“As I watched her walk by, I thought, ‘I want to do that, too. I want to have a normal day, get up in the morning and walk to work. And I want to work for Mayo Clinic,'” Kim says. “I never forgot that moment. I kept it in the back of my mind for a long time.”

Four years later, Kim fulfilled that ambition.

“I’m so glad to be in the place that helped me so much and helps so many people not just live longer but have joy in their lives again,” she says. “I’m proud to work for Mayo Clinic.”

Although she achieved what she set out to do, Kim’s path to her new workplace and to renewed health was filled with obstacles. Even now, she needs regular checkups to keep an eye on her condition. But she’s been able to move forward with the support and encouragement of her care team at Mayo Clinic.

A life-changing diagnosis

Kim’s journey with leukemia began more than a year before that rainy morning at the Transplant House. In the summer of 2000, Kim was 37, working as an administrative assistant for a frozen food company, and living with her two children in the town of Marshall, Minnesota — located in the southwest corner of the state. She was getting ready for a big transition in her family life as her oldest prepared to go to college that fall.

But health concerns started to crowd out the excitement. Kim suffered from persistent, severe headaches. She felt fatigued and weak. She had several evaluations with her primary care physician and visited a chiropractor regularly. Nothing seemed to help. Finally, her chiropractor recommended she have blood tests to see if they would reveal anything. Kim followed through on that suggestion. The findings from those tests changed her life.

“As soon as they got the results, my doctors sent me to a hospital in Sioux Falls, South Dakota,” Kim says. “My mom and a friend drove me over there. When we arrived, I was so weak I couldn’t walk from the car to the door. They had to get me a wheelchair.”

“As I watched her walk by, I thought, ‘I want to do that, too. I want to have a normal day, get up in the morning and walk to work. And I want to work for Mayo Clinic,'” says Kim DeBolt.

Kim was admitted to the hospital. There, physicians diagnosed her with acute myelogenous leukemia, or AML. The condition is a cancer of the blood and bone marrow — the spongy tissue inside bones where blood cells are made. Because it can be aggressive and often progresses quickly, Kim needed to start treatment right away. As she considered her options, Kim knew how she wanted to proceed.

“My family and friends really wanted me to go to Mayo Clinic,” she says. “I was all for it. I had a previous surgery at Mayo Clinic, and I knew what it was like. That’s where I wanted to be.”

The appointments were arranged, but Kim had to tackle another problem. She was too sick to make the three-and-a-half hour drive from Sioux Falls to Rochester in an ambulance. So the Mayo One Airplane came to pick her up and take her to Mayo Clinic’s Rochester campus.

A goal achieved

Soon after she arrived at Mayo Clinic, Kim met Mark Litzow, M.D., a hematologist who would help direct Kim’s care for years to come.

“Dr. Litzow has been my doctor since I was brought here on the airplane. I think very highly of him,” Kim says. “And while he’s in charge of my case, I know that because I’m at Mayo Clinic, he’s not making all the decisions by himself. He’s consulting with colleagues and sometimes experts from other places, too. I feel like I’m getting the best care in the world.”

To treat her condition, Kim went through five rounds of high-dose chemotherapy over the course of 11 months. After that, she returned home and went back to work. But the normalcy was short-lived. In December 2001, the cancer came back. Her care team recommended a stem cell transplant.

Fortunately, one of Kim’s family members was a perfect match to be her donor, and she underwent the procedure on Feb. 14, 2002. Although she had to overcome several complications following the transplant, including graft-versus-host disease, that fall, Kim was again able to resume life with her children in Marshall. That’s how things remained for the next four years. In the summer of 2006, after her daughter graduated from high school, Kim saw an opportunity.

“I loved the idea of working for Mayo Clinic and living in Rochester,” she says. “With my daughter going off to college, I decided it was time to make that happen.”

Kim applied for several jobs and got two interviews. She received an offer to work in Mayo Clinic’s Department of Information Technology. She accepted, moved to Rochester, and started her new job on Nov. 13, 2006.

“It was a great move for me,” Kim says. “I like the community. I met my husband here. I like the people I work with, and I love Mayo Clinic.”

Another hurdle overcome

Although she required periodic checkups to monitor for leukemia, Kim was happy to be working for Mayo Clinic and content in Rochester. Her daily life settled into comfortable routines and moved forward smoothly. She became a volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House in Rochester. In 2011, she transferred to a new position and began working in Mayo Clinic Administration. In 2013, Kim was thrilled to welcome a granddaughter to her family.

Then, in 2014, Kim noticed some odd bumps on her skin. At first, she didn’t think much of them. When she visited one of her health care providers for an appointment unrelated to her leukemia, Kim pointed out the bumps and asked if she should have them checked out. The physician didn’t hesitate. The answer was a definitive “yes.” That triggered another round of intense medical care.

Kim’s leukemia had come back. This time it was in the form of an unusual strain of the disease called leukemia cutis, which affects the skin. Throughout 2014, Kim had chemotherapy and took a variety of medications to battle the recurrence. That helped for a while, but it wasn’t enough. Dr. Litzow recommended another stem cell transplant.

“It hasn’t been easy. But throughout it all, my team has always been there for me. The support I’ve received has been great,” says Kim DeBolt.

“That was tough because I knew what was coming,” Kim says. “Other than the spots on my skin, I felt fine. I didn’t want to feel bad again with the chemo, and I really didn’t want to deal with a transplant again. I just wanted to spend time more time with my granddaughter and enjoy life with my family doing normal things, not medical things. But I knew that wasn’t realistic.”

On May 9, 2016, Kim had her second stem cell transplant, with the same donor stepping up again to provide the cells. Recovery took some time, but the transplant did its job and wiped out the cancer. Since then, Kim has had monthly blood tests to check that her leukemia remains in remission. She knows there’s always a chance the cancer could return, but Kim is confident in her Mayo Clinic health care providers and the choices she’s made.

“It hasn’t been easy. But throughout it all, my team has always been there for me. The support I’ve received has been great. I’ve had lots of questions over the years, and all the doctors, nurses and everyone on the team have been so helpful, caring and compassionate,” she says. “And going through this most recent transplant has made me even happier that I’m part of the team at Mayo Clinic. It feels really good to be working here.”

#acute myelogenous leukemia #Dr. Mark Litzow #Mayo Clinic Cancer Center #stem cell transplant #transplant #Leukemia

0 notes