#scribbling this did more for me than 100 hours of therapy

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

can't wait to see him again tomorrow! Tomorrow!!

#scribbling this did more for me than 100 hours of therapy #he's so soothing.... #just what i need on this Festive Occasion! a fucking chill pill!! #i hope he has a great day tomorrow! #i also hope he feels loved! because he is! so much! #i simultaneously hope hes Thriving but also Experiencing The Horrors yk yk #scribble garnish #welcome home #welcome home puppet show #wally darling #every time i see his full name i need to take a second to Feel Things #darling... so fucking accurate... he Is darling... The darling.... absolutely darling lad.....

[lymechallenged]

Written December 9, 2022

THE NEUROLOGIST....Not Sure Where or How He Got His License!!

I will get back to the beginning of my #lymechallenge after this post. I absolutely must tell about the Neurologist I saw today. This is where the 100 trains are all trying to take the same track at the same time, so bear with me. The conductor has had one hell of a day!

I was referred to a neurologist by my PCP because of the severe pain in my lower back and knees. She had referred me to physical therapy on 4 different occasions and not once did I get relief. Most times PT only aggravated the pain. So off to a neurologist I go. My first visit with him was on September 6, 2022. I was told to be there 30 minutes early to fill out needed paperwork. I checked in at the front desk 30 minutes before my appointment time and had a seat in the waiting room to fill out the papers. Same old papers you fill out at every new doctor appointment. I normally have pretty neat handwriting but sitting in an uncomfortable chair, in severe pain, trying to write on papers on a clipboard on my lap…it was not a pretty sight. But then I thought to myself if the receptionists and nurses could read the doctors handwriting, surely they could decipher my chicken scratches, and I stopped worrying about it, scribbled answers and turned in my paperwork thinking the sooner I got it turned in the sooner I would get called back to see the neurologist. That was wrong. I waited, in the front waiting room for an hour and a half. Maybe it took the receptionist that long to decipher my handwriting. Who knows. I didn't care. I was hurting more by the minute and getting more impatient by the second. Finally a nurse opens the door and calls my name. We go back, she gets my weight, leads me to an exam room where she proceeds to take my vitals, while asking what my symptoms were. Gets her part of the job done and asks me to get on the exam table. Y'all, I am 5' 3" tall. And I am not bean pole skinny by any stretch of the imagination. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that this particular exam table was possibly the tallest one I had ever come across! It literally hit me somewhere around the boobage area. And it had one tiny little step 3 inches off the floor. This table was made for a 7 foot tall person that could not have been bigger around than a fence post. Remember, I am in severe pain, with weakness in both legs. I am short and round. There was NO way I was able to climb up on that table. Even with the nurses help I could not get up there. I get to sit back down in the chair. And thank goodness I could not get on that table because I sat in that exam room waiting on that doctor to come in for another 45 minutes. I would have done fell off that table had I had to sit up there for 45 minutes!

Finally the doctor, for the sake of this post I am going to call him…hhmmm. I don't think I can call him that except in my head. Okay so Dr. CJ. Finally Dr. CJ makes it into the exam room with me. The first words out of his mouth were, "I do not know why you were referred to me. You should have been sent to a neurosurgeon." Dude? You haven't even looked at anything but my eyes yet. Then he promptly tells me to get on the exam table. Where I promptly wanted to tell him where to stick that exam table. (Maybe after waiting so long I had a tiny bit of attitude, or Lyme rage.) He tries to help me on the table. I honestly tried. I honestly could not do it. So he examines me while I am sitting in the chair and I had to stand up a couple times. Walk across the floor, try to stand on my tip-toes without hanging on to anything. I am sure that was comical to watch. And then he starts asking me about my symptoms, where was the pain, what makes it worse, what makes it better…blah blah blah. He then said that he was going to send me across the road to the hospital (the same hospital that he works for) to have an MRI of my spine.

I had to tell him that he should already have the results of the MRI I had done a month before. Then he asked if I had any previous MRIs from any other hospitals. Yes sir. In 2019 at the hospital in Mountain Home and I had them send your office a copy two weeks ago. "Oh, yes. Here they are." While he is comparing the two MRIs, he says, "Excuse me." and takes his cell phone out of his pocket. I am thinking he is calling another doctor to confer with or something of that nature. Boy was I ever wrong.

He, no joke, called someone and made lunch plans! Excuse me?!? EXCUSE ME!?! That was when I should have got up and walked out but I, for some reason, was rooted to my chair. He finally gets off the phone and tells me he is going to send a prescription for Gabapentin to my pharmacy. I TRY to tell him that I have taken Gabapentin in the past and it did absolutely nothing to help the pain. He said, "Up the dosage. I am referring you to a pain clinic. I will see you back in 3 months." (Pain clinics are for another post.) He walked out of the room and shut the door. Can someone please tell me if my appointment is over? Should I wait here? Should I go to check out? Am I supposed to practice getting on and off the exam table? Are you holding me hostage? Are you buying me lunch? I open the door and the nurse was just about to come in. I probably could have gotten on the exam table then because I am sure I jumped at least 6 feet! She had my appointment for the 3 month follow up. I grabbed it and was out the door promising myself that I would not even entertain the idea of making it to that appointment. The following day I received an email from them wanting me to fill out a survey on how my "experience" was with Dr. CJ and his clinic. I often get these surveys from doctors offices, clinics, hospitals, etc. that I have been to. I usually do not fill them out. This particular one, I did. I told them about him getting on his cell phone in the middle of my exam to make lunch plans. I told them he was rude, obnoxious, and the wait time was horrendous, and the building was in in need of a makeover. Inside and out. God knows they should have enough money to renovate! I got a "thank you for taking the time to fill out this survey" email and pretty much forgot about it.

I changed my mind and made it to that appointment. I thought well maybe he was having an "off" day, as was I and I should give him another chance. All I can say is the ceiling tiles that had water damage had been replaced, the torn chairs had not, and the doctor was still rude and obnoxious. The wait time was no better even though they weren't half as busy as they were the last time I was there. When the nurse came and called my name to come back, again she weighed me, then took me to an exam room with a much shorter and newer looking exam table. And I am thinking to myself that at least they upgraded that! And this is what took place: the nurse told me I could have a seat in one of the chairs, which I did. She got my vitals, asked me some questions and then told me that she would be back and move me to another room as soon as one was available. What? What is wrong with the one I was in? And then she told me that if the lights went out while I was waiting to just wave my arms and they would come back on. Again…WHAT? I guess I fidgeted enough that the motion sensor on the lights kept them on and I did not have to wave my arms like I was trying to stop traffic. After about 10 minutes she came back and took me to the other side of the building, the side I had been on the first time I had been there. As a matter of fact, it was the same room I had been in before. With the 7 foot tall exam table. The nurse did not ask me to get on it. Said the doctor would be with me in a few minutes. Uh huh, we shall see. While I am sitting there impatiently waiting, I notice a bright pink piece of paper on the opposite wall from me that was not there at my last visit. I seriously wondered if they put that sign up for the patients benefit or for Dr. CJ's.

I got a little chuckle out of that one. My chuckle didn't help my impatience at having to wait on this slug of a doctor. I heard him enter the exam room next to me where a very loud man immediately started talking. I heard every word he said. The entire office probably heard every word he said. Just one of those people with a booming voice that carries for miles. The only problem was…he did not shut his mouth. I never heard the doctor say a word. If the doctor did speak, the man must have just kept right on talking over him. I couldn't tell you why the man was there to begin with but whatever his problems were he was positive they all started "several years ago when he got into a fist fight with a man." I am losing even more patience because the guy would not shut up and let me have my turn!!

My appointment was at 9:45 a.m. It was now 11:13 a.m. and Dr. CJ finally comes in the room. And he again promptly tells me to get on the 7 foot tall exam table. And again I gave it my best shot. It was a no go…again. Too much pain in my back and legs. Table too tall. I am just too short. He does the same things he did last time I was there and refers me to a neurosurgeon. Says he wants to see me again in 3 months. Well, if he wants to see me in 3 months or 3 years, he can damn well come find me because I refuse to go back to him.

Has anyone had horrible experiences at a doctors appointment? Feel free to share even if it is not Lyme related.

Until next time…

lymechallenged

Kelly 💚

#lymechallenged #lyme disease #tick-borne disease #chronic illness #chronic lyme #chronic back pain

[a-small-batch-of-dragons]

No, It's Definitely Funny

Prompt: Can I request a second part to "Let's Call It Funny" where Bucky, Sam, Steve, and Peter unite forces to confuse and concern all the other avengers (with at least one instance where two or all of them respond to something by pretending to jump off a building?) Love you! -Auggie

Does it count as being back on my bullshit if I never left?

Read on Ao3 Part 1

Warnings: none, unless you need a warning for gen z humor

Pairings: it's still found family hours

Word Count: 2259

Peter’s gonna be honest, he may or may not have some competition for the funniest person in the Tower right now.

Because let’s look at the list here:

Traumatized? Everybody and their private jet’s worth of vintage and designer baggage needs therapy.

Queer? If you think Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, or Sam Wilson is straight, you need to tell them everything they’ve ever done to make you think they’re straight so they can stop doing it immediately.

Superhero? Yeah, okay, shush, now you’re being stupid.

Neurodivergent? Have you seen the way these men behave? Definitely the model of Perfectly Normal Person™, what on earth are you talking about, absolutely 100% Normal™.

The only things he’s still got going for him that the others don’t are high-schooler and trans. That’s not a lot when it comes to the fact that hey, two of them are from the Great Depression—let’s be honest, they’re the OGs when it comes to fatalistic humor—and they’ve all got years of practice.

Sure, Peter’s got some trauma-given raw talent, but it’s not refined by years and years of throwing yourself off of buildings and out of planes to avoid having conversations about your emotions.

The day Aunt Nat dropped all of SHIELD’s files on the Internet and Peter found out that Steve yeeted himself out of a plane—without a parachute!—to avoid Nat’s prodding about getting a date was the best day of his fucking life.

“Don’t you go stealing my moves there, kid,” Steve had scolded playfully, winking over the rim of his mug.

“Try and stop me, I dare you.”

“And this is why,” Tony had sighed, looking every bit his 79 years—“Hey!”—as he watches this interaction go down, “you have a parachute built into your suit.”

“I’ll just wear my old one, don’t worry about it.”

“That heinous thing that’s just a cut-up old hoodie and goggles? Peter, no, that thing is being held together with safety pins and hope!”

“I mean, me too, so it’s fine.”

“Peter!”

“Also, like, it’s the one I almost got crushed to death in, so it’s got the emotional trauma seasoning already.”

“Wait—“ Bucky had sat up— “you almost got crushed to death by a building? Sheesh, kid, you’re really flirting with the reaper, huh.”

“It wasn’t so bad, I had training from the years and years of carrying the weight of my sins crawling on my back.”

“At least ask Death for his number next time, he’s not returning my calls.”

“Sergeant, I swear to God—“

“Actually, Death uses they/them pronouns, I asked when I met them last weekend.”

“What the fuck did you do last weekend?”

“Really? Oh cool, well, can you get their number for me? We had a date back in ’45 that they missed.”

“Yeah, sure, no problem.”

“Tony, why are you screaming? Not keeping dates is a very serious matter.”

“Trust me, I speak from experience, Tony, it’s not a good habit to get into.”

“You should respect your elders and not scream while we’re talking to you, mister.”

“All of you shut the fuck up.”

See? On one hand, it’s great to have more partners in this venture of making Tony’s hair turn grey—he’s that age, it’s bound to happen any time soon now— “One more crack about my age, kid, I swear.” — but on the other hand, Peter is seriously losing his massive lead on funniest person in the Tower.

The other thing he’s worried about is Sam’s ability to make it so the others can’t actually worry about him.

Because—listen, Sam Wilson is a fucking national treasure and all you fuckers better acknowledge that. It’s no secret that the Captains take turns going out with the shield, all of them answer to ‘Captain America’ because that’s what they are, but no one—and Peter will never say this under threat of death because he does not need any more of the Steve Rogers’ Puppy Dog Eyes™, thank you very much—no one does it better than Sam.

And that means that Sam fucking Wilson can turn a fatalistic, self-deprecating joke into a motivational speech that doesn’t feel disingenuous or cliché at all and everyone is too busy processing the philosophical revelations they’re having to scold him for his, frankly, outstanding sense of humor.

It’s not fair and Peter can’t do it.

He tried. Once.

Didn’t go very well.

No, he’s not gonna talk about it, let’s just move on.

Sam has offered to catch him a couple of times when he gets himself a little too deep into the Mamma Spider™ or Iron Dad™ trap of feeeelings, and he gratefully scoots out of the way when Sam sits down next to him and just makes another joke.

Sam is also a fantastic role model for the brand of ‘I’m going to the store and only have twenty bucks, stop asking for your will to live back’ jokes.

“Hey, Pete!”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go, bodega run.”

“Can we pick up some hopes and dreams, too, all of those got scribbled out in fat red Sharpie yesterday.”

“I said bodega run, not Court of Miracles run.”

“But Sam~”

“Listen, kid, if you manage to find your hopes and dreams in this bodega, keep an eye out for your childhood innocence, that might be on the next shelf over.”

“Deal.”

“Do you two need some more therapy appointments?”

“Only got fifteen bucks, man.”

“I’m literally a billionaire!”

Peter eagerly studies under this pinnacle of humor and keeps his worries to himself.

Because if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and Peter’s sense of humor is wonderful, but he is a tad intimidated by the amount of variety the others have got going for them.

“You’re a fucking terror, Spider-ling, that’s what you are.”

“Not true! I was ‘a pleasure to have in class.’”

“Oh, is that why you’re taking ‘Little Shit’ lessons from Barnes and Rogers?”

“And Sam! Don’t forget Captain Wilson, he is an invaluable part of this team. I’m surprised at your ignorance.”

“Pete—no, that’s not—“

“I’m ashamed for you, Mr. Stark.”

“Listen here you little shit—“

Anyway…

Steve and Bucky have a habit of telling these like, really awful jokes that have Peter in stitches for half an hour. It’s not fair and he doesn’t get why they’re so funny because they aren’t, and yet here he is, laughing anyway.

It’s probably some combination of Steve’s perfected innocent face that he wears when he has to do interviews and Bucky’s habit of not giving a single solitary fuck. But they’re able to make the worst jokes with completely serious expressions and it’s not fair.

“Hey, can you guys come help me with something?”

“Sure, Peter,” Steve says instantly, bounding over with his 95-year-old Golden Retriever energy as Bucky trails behind him like a cat that’s sitting in your lap because he wants to, not because he likes you or anything, “what’s up?”

“I have a history project on WWII due tomorrow and I haven’t started it yet.”

Bucky snorts, taking a swig of coffee and sitting down on the floor. Which, same. “You got your eulogy planned?”

“Drafted, sighed, notarized, but Aunt May said no so I gotta do this.”

“Well, if Aunt May says no then I guess that’s that.”

Tony, from far away in another part of the Tower, has a sickening feeling that May Parker has once again proven that she is the most powerful parent and there’s nothing he can do about it.

“I, um,” Peter mumbles, fidgeting with his pen, “I want to be respectful of your boundaries, and if you don’t want to talk about anything then—“

Because it’s one thing for someone to make jokes about their trauma and another for someone else to go poking and prodding at it.

“Hey,” Steve interrupts softly, nudging him with his knee, “first off, thank you for saying that and we appreciate your respect, but we got you. You worry about enough, sweetheart, let us take care of ourselves.”

Peter gives him a look.

“When it comes to this,” Steve amends, having the decency to look a little sheepish, “we’ll take care of ourselves.”

Bucky scoffs. “Uh-huh.”

“We will, Buck.”

“My therapist will be real happy to hear that.” He looks up at Peter and winks. “Besides, what good is our trauma if we don’t pin it up and display it for good grades?”

Peter huffs, the joke undercut a little by the way Bucky knocks his foot against Peter’s and Steve’s arm stretches over the couch behind him.

Peter has to resist the urge to lean his head onto Steve’s shoulder, because then Steve’s hand will come up and ruffle his hair and Peter’s eyes will droop slowly closed as he loses himself in the warmth and safety of Steve’s embrace and then Steve will lean down to press a kiss to his temple and—

Right. Homework.

“What’s it on specifically,” Bucky asks, clearly spotting the temptation on Peter’s end, “home front? Overseas? Time period?”

“Uh, it’s an analysis of total war.”

“Like, how much of the country was devoted to the war effort?”

“Yeah, basically. It’s talking about how the Nazi War Machine made their war total and how that extends to a lot of other countries, but also about the reasons why the war was fought—“

They delve into a conversation about total war, Peter pointing out how Italy’s motivation for territory keeps it from being a total war on their part, Bucky speaking to how the different dynamics worked in various countries and the fallout, Steve bringing up how much of the home front was devoted to bringing attention to the war being fought overseas. Then, of course, as is inevitable, they devolve into storytelling.

Peter’s notebook—with notes! He did his job!—is set aside as he gives in to the need to let Steve cuddle him on the couch. Come on, the man is warm and big and gives good hugs, how is he supposed to not? Bucky sprawls out on the floor, leaning back on his hands as he smiles fondly.

“You know,” he remarks casually, “I fought a Nazi in my pajamas once.”

Peter blinks sleepily. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, though how he got in my pajamas, I have no idea.”

Peter snorts. Then he giggles. Then he’s collapsing into Steve’s side, positively sobbing with laughter.

It’s not funny.

It’s really not that funny.

But here he is, fucking dying, and he doesn’t even have the wherewithal to welcome the sweet embrace of oblivion.

“Okay, note to self,” Bucky murmurs when he’s calmed down a little, wiping away tears, “sleepy spider likes corny jokes.”

“Just don’t break our baby spider, Buck, Momma Spider would kill you in cold blood.”

“Listen, if Natasha Romanoff kills me, don’t prosecute. That’s on me.”

Peter can’t do corny jokes. He really can’t. He just sounds like he’s a recording so old it’s unintelligible and it’s bad. He has a reputation to maintain here!

However, there is one sense of humor that Peter is very eager to learn and adopt, and hey, it might actually be Iron Dad™ Approved!

It’s a rookie mistake, asking Bucky Barnes for a hand, but in his defense, Peter was left unsupervised and was distracted.

“Hey, Bucky, can you give me a hand?”

“Sure thing, Peter.”

Something nudges his arm and he looks down. It’s Bucky’s metal arm, bumping up against his elbow.

It’s a cheap joke. It’s bad. It does not deserve Peter’s laughter.

He snorts anyway.

“That’s on me,” he says after a second, “you know what, that’s my fault.”

“What, is this not what you meant?”

“No, no, you’re fine.” Peter scruffs a hand through his hair. He looks down at the prosthetic again. “Well, that’s disarming.”

Now it’s Bucky’s turn to snort. “You gotta hand it to me, though, it’s a good joke.”

Oh, it’s on.

“No, no, of course, I understand. You really can’t let an opportunity like that slip through your fingers.”

Steve chokes on his next sip of coffee. “Stop making the kid shoulder the burden of making puns with you.”

Sam raises an eyebrow. “Don’t palm this off on someone else, Steve, you’re as bad as he is.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad.” Peter shrugs. “You just gotta knuckle-down and find the right one.”

“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve had to reach for puns?” Bucky hefts his arm.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say a lot.”

“Jeez, Pete, good one.”

“What, are you not finding them humerus?”

Sam’s gone, Steve shortly after. Bucky just grins proudly at him.

Then there’s a massive thunk from behind them. Peter turns around to see Tony slamming his forehead into the counter.

“You are all going to kill me,” he mutters, glaring up at them, “all three of you.”

“Oh, come on, Mr. Stark, Captain Barnes would never hurt you.”

Tony raises a skeptical eyebrow.

“After all,” Peter grins, gesturing to Bucky who is doing a very good innocent face—he must’ve been taking notes from Steve— “look at him, he’s completely armless.”

“Peter Benjamin Parker—“

Okay, so maybe it’s not Iron Dad™ Approved.

Oh, well.

#dragonbabbles #marvel #the longest running con in the mcu is people thinking steve isnt an extra hoe #mcu #marvel cinematic universe #peter parker #tony stark #steve rogers #sam wilson #bucky barnes #fic

[yikesharringrove]

maybe? 👉👈 steve taking a really long time with college (like on one year and off one yours year, on, off, on, off) and he still doesn't really know what he wants to do and he gets really frustrated bc billy just did college all in one go and steve is taking forever and he feels down on himself? idk im feeling the whump rn???

Steve had left high school having no idea what he wanted from the rest of his life.

That’s not true, he had some idea.

He knew he wanted to leave Hawkins, follow Billy wherever he was going. He knew he wanted to be with Billy for the rest of his life, he knew he wanted to leave the past behind and make new friends, people who were kind, and fun, and didn’t bat an eye when Billy pulled him into his lap.

But that’s about it.

So when Billy graduates high school, and gets a full ride to UC Berkeley, and they move into a cheap apartment in downtown Oakland, Steve is so happy that he got out.

He gets a job waiting tables at a restaurant down the street, pays half the rent and buys the groceries while Billy’s in class.

But then two years pass, and Billy’s soaring through college, working to his degrees, plural, because he just couldn’t decide between studying English Literature or Biology with a focus in research.

So he’s majoring in both and getting a minor in Italian because then I’ll know what you’re sayin’ when you start horny babblin’.

And Steve was at the same restaurant.

True, he was assistant manager now, and it came with a pretty okay raise, and he even gets dental insurance, but he feels so stuck.

So he enrolls in community college.

He starts with some general classes, still completely unsure of what he wants to study.

Billy said it was okay to just rule out things you don’t want to study, to nearly fail a math course and know that accounting is not for you.

So when Steve finishes his first year, he at least knows what he doesn’t want to pursue.

Meanwhile Billy has an internship at a lab through Kaiser Permanente. And he can read and write Italian than Steve can.

Steve is walking home from his job at the restaurant when it happens. He’s crossing the street, and gets hit by a car.

He’s taken to the hospital, where he’s informed of a fractured spine and another concussion.

He’s told his injury could’ve been much more severe, that he will not experience paralysis, but he needs physical therapy and walking will be difficult for a while.

Their finances take a big hit.

Billy’s internship doesn’t pay super well, and with Steve being unable to work for the foreseeable future, he’s fired.

Billy has insurance through the school, but because on paper, he and Steve have no real relation, Steve’s medical bills come out of pocket.

So Steve is bedridden for months. He can’t work or get groceries, or do fucking anything but lay there.

They can’t afford physical therapy.

But Billy has a friend studying to be a PT, and she comes over every Saturday, and practices her technique on him in exchange for ten bucks and a few beers.

And so the money Steve tucked away for school is rapidly diminishing.

By the time Billy graduates, Steve is a year into recovery. He still gets dizzy at odd intervals, and his back gets stiff when it rains, but Billy gets a job right away, doing research on flu vaccines.

And Steve goes back to work.

He gets a desk job, something he won’t have to be on his feet all day for. He works reception for a message therapist, which comes with free massages, which work wonders on his back.

So in the fall, he decides to give his education another shot.

He learns that history is not for him, and that his nutrition course was fine until they began looking into how the body processes nutrients, and he was fucking lost. He takes a few business classes, thinking, hoping genetics would take over and this is something he could do.

But his dad was right to take away the job opportunity at his own firm. Steve was not cut out for this.

After a year of research, Billy is promoted three times. He ends up working on some extremely important study that Steve does not understand for the fucking life of him.

But he sits and listens every time Billy explains what he did that day, even though Steve gets so sad when Billy mentions having to kill the lab mice to study their bodies.

So Steve is two years into community college, five years into living in Oakland with Billy, and he still is lost.

He takes a semester off, working more hours, trying to save up some money.

Because Billy is beginning to think about grad school, and that shit’s not cheap.

But Billy decides to postpone that, work for a few more years, and besides, he’s caught between studying something to put him in a research field, or just straight up going to medical school to study infectious disease.

Because Billy could. He’s smart enough for medical school, smart enough to research and be a doctor.

And Steve has a smushy spine and half a degree in nothing.

A semester off turns into a year.

A year and a semester.

Two years.

They’ve been in California for seven years, and Billy gets into grad school in San Diego. They move south and Billy spends late nights pursuing a Masters in Immunology.

And Steve works the front desk at a pediatrician’s office.

He’s flipping through a course catalog from the San Diego Community College when Billy comes home from his new job, the position he got after applying to only three labs.

He kissed the top of Steve’s head, moving to grab himself a beer from the fridge.

“You thinkin’ of going back?”

“I don’t know.” Steve slid the catalog closed. “Is it even worth it?”

“That’s something you have to decide.” Billy sat down, sliding the catalog towards him. Steve had crossed off the classes he had already taken, the ones he new he wouldn’t like.  “And you know, going to school isn’t the only option. You could get an apprenticeship, master a trade.”

“I can’t do anything where I need to bend over for really any length of time. So that rules out plumber, and car mechanic, and anything physical like construction, or landscaping or even general contracting is right out.”

Steve could feel the old shame, the doubt and the self hatred crawling up his spine.

“I have nothing to offer. I have no discerning skills, and in seven years I’ve only made it through two years of goddamn community college, and here you are, ripping through grad school like a fourth degree is easy.”

“Stevie, you’ve got a lot to offer. We just gotta find something that suits you.” He took Steve’s pen, turning to the back page of the catalog. “Okay, we’re gonna write down all of you strengths, and think of career paths that could fit those. I’ll go first, you’re extremely caring. You’d be good at any career where you care for people.”

“But I can’t study nursing or something, I barely understood my biology 101 course. Plus, nurses are strong. I can’t lift more than like, thirty pounds.”

“There’re way more caring fields than nursing, Pretty Boy. Although I would love if you were my nurse.” Billy smirked at him, leaning in to plant a sloppy kiss to Steve’s cheek as he rolled his eyes. “Another strength: your emotional intelligence is through the fucking roof.” He wrote it down. “Okay, I’ve said tow, so you say one.”

“Um, I think that I’m good at making people laugh?”

“Yes! You are. Perfect.” Billy scribbled it down. “You’re a good leader.”

“I’m pretty good at reading people.” Billy wrote Intuitive, can smell a douchebag from a mile away.

“You’re good under pressure.”

“Sometimes.”

“Every time I’ve seen. You’re good at keeping calm and keeping others calm.”

“I guess.”

“Nah, Stevie. Positives only. Say a strength.”

“I’m, uh, I’m good at, bilingual?” Billy stared at him. “Like, I’m bilingual.”

“Are you sure? I don’t think that was English, even.” Steve slapped his chest, Billy laughed. “I’m joking. You are bilingual. You’re also really good at making others feel safe.”

“I was always pretty alright at public speaking.”

“You’ve got a great eye for detail.”

“I’m good at teamwork, and delegating.”

“You’re really compassionate, too.” Billy drew a line under the strengths side. “Okay, so now we’ve got some of your strengths, think about what you’d want in a job, and we can match everything up and think about some careers that could fit.” Steve nodded, racking his brain.

“Um, I would want to work with kind people, I would kind of like to do something, you know, worthwhile. I’d like to be in charge of something. Like it’s fine if I have a boss to answer to, but I’d like to be fairly independent.”

“I already have so many ideas.”

“Lay ‘em on me.” Steve sat back, closing his eyes to try and picture everything Billy threw out.

“I’ve actually always thought you’d be a really good teacher. Especially if you did like, kindergarten. Just got to be around little kids all day.” Steve could actually see it. “I also think you’d be a could social worker, like to work with Child Protective Services, or something. Um, you’d be good at even planning. Or I think you’d be really good working at a nonprofit of some kind. Maybe you could be the event planner for a nonprofit.”

And Steve was sitting there, and suddenly, he had four career paths, just sitting right in front of him. Four super attainable career paths.

“Wait, wait those make sense.” Billy beamed at him.

“Yeah, that’s because I know you, Pretty Boy.” Billy opened the catalog. “So, I think if you choose to enroll, you should pick a few classes, like, Intro to Social Work, Early Childhood Education 100, and maybe like, Sociology, and see from there.”

Steve stared at the course descriptions for what Billy circled.

“Thank you for helping me. I’m sorry this has taken me so long.”

“It’s okay. Everyone is on a different timeline. And it’s not like you got to explore options in high school. You were told business until your dad decided that nevermind. So it’s understandable that this took you a minute. Plus, you went through hell with your back.”

Steve sat up straight, stretching out his back.

“But, I mean, the back thing kinda happened to you too, and you still made it through all your schooling.”

“Sure, I watched you go through it, but I was not in the pain you were. And like, emotionally, it fucking sucked to watch the love of my goddamn life go through something, and I couldn’t even afford therapy. Like, I felt so helpless, but that’s nothing to what you went through literally experiencing it.” Steve took Billy’s hand, linking their fingers together, pressing a kiss to his knuckles.

“You did the best you could. Everything was shit for like, that whole year.”

“I cannot telly you how many times I would go into an individual study room in the library and just like, sob for a while.And then I’d get so mad at myself, thinking of you at home, hurting and not even able to get yourself out of bed, and I’d race home feeling like shit.”

Steve scrubbed his fingers through Billy’s hair. He had cut it a while ago, kept it short these days.

“You were doing everything you could for me. I would just sit in bed all day, and think about how amazing you are. Like I would just think about all the good times we’ve had together, and how much I love you.”

“That explains why we didn’t fight for like, that whole year.” Steve laughed. Billy leaned to kiss him softly.

“And you know, even now we’ve done this, there’s still no rush on you. You don’t have to go back to school this year, of this decade, or anytime until you’re ready. Until you want to.”

“Well now, I feel like there’s a fucking light at the end of the tunnel. I’m almost, excited. Is this how you feel? Excited to go to school?”

“Welcome to the nerd life, Sweet Thing.” Billy drained the last of his beer. “You wanna go out tonight? Celebrate?”

“Like, go out to dinner, or go out?”

“Oh, just like dinner. Be home by eight thirty, in bed by nine, missionary with the lights off, and asleep by nine fifteen.”

“Sign me the fuck up.”

#billy is based a lot on my sister in this #and steve is based on her best friend #any life path is valid #there's kind of a lot of set up but yeah #also i live for them settling down and becoming a totally boring mundane couple but they're just SO HAPPY toghether that's my shit #yikes writes #steve harrington #billy hargrove #steve harrington x billy hargrove #billy hargrove x steve harrington #harringrove #harringrive #harringrove fic #harringrove ficlet #harringrove drabble

[fineastin]

( nick robinson , twenty , cismale , he/him ) FIN EASTIN , don’t think that you have gotten off easy because i haven’t told the school that REDACTED . sweetie , no one can hide from me - not even a BROTHER of GAMMA. oh no, your secret is most certainly not safe with me. you know , i asked around about you & most people said that you reminded them of DANIEL DESARIO with FALLING BY HARRY STYLES playing in the background , that’s very interesting - i wonder how accurate they are.

sharpie scribbles on bar napkins, fallen branches on a dysfunctional family tree, thrifted jean jackets and converse worn years past their worth, a room decorated with emptied bottles, loose-leaf shoved to the bottom of a bag, heavy eyes that just can’t close.

yellow! i am dew, she/her, and i’ll be writing this messy of a human. before i jump into him, a little about me. i am 27 (omg, still unreal to write) and i’m a server-bartender. just got a lovely cat named monroe who i love. i’ve been rping for nearing a decade now, with brief hiatuses in there. excited to get started with all of you!

name: fin elijah eastin pronouns: he/him age: twenty birthday: march 1st zodiac sign: pisces hometown: cooperstown, new york major: journalism fraternity: gamma phi gamma clubs: school paper

“so you're numbin' the pain, stuck in your ways”

fin grew up in the suburbs of new york. it was kind of laughable how picturesque it was: white picket fence, businessman dad, homemaker mother who substitute taught and made mean chocolate chip cookies. there was even a dog, a mini schnauzer named mickey — an ode to his father’s favorite baseball player.

baseball. fin thinks that may have been his first moment of disappointment. not the homerun hitter his dad imagined cheering on from the stands. he wasn’t even bad, he was just fine. second disappointment had to have been his grades. a report card consisting of mostly c’s. studying never going anywhere aside headaches.

ALCOHOL  / ADDICTION TW: there were definitely other disappointments in between but the big one started the first time fin got caught sneaking in through his bedroom window, drunk from a classmate’s party. the yelling was supposed to have been a lecture, a lesson, a reason not to do it again but fuck if fin didn’t want to wash away the words and the disappointment with a bottle. jack daniels did a good job of drowning out his father. liquor bottles were carefully selected and drained from the cupboard — fin knowing well enough to leave his mother’s grey goose alone — and refilled with water. money was stolen out of wallets. he needed to spike his soda at pizza night just to get through. that train of thought continued on and on until the water bottle in his math class smelled of straight smirnoff.

the summer before his junior year, his parents shipped him off to some summer camp. rehab in the woods. doctors with canoes. didn’t realize it then but that was fin’s last summer with his parents and he saw dr. haskell more than he saw marc and kathleen. 

no parents in the picture, fin went to stay with his grandfather, george, in florida. a single, retiree, george spent most of his days donning a hawaiian shirt, walking the pier, and betting horses. he was almost like a roommate and less of a guardian. was it bad for fin to say that it was a breath of fresh air?

the last conversation fin had gotten to have with his dad, he’d promised to go to college. was meadowbank what marc eastin had in mind? likely not. but it had dorms, tuition payments, and after four years a degree. so promise kept... or on target to.

now he’s a sophomore ( behind one year academically ) and majoring in journalism. it’d nearly been business and then almost communications, but his advisor had suggested journalism. fin had always liked writing, though it was always more of a form of personal therapy. or maybe better put, a way to drain the thoughts from his head. pen to paper. screw the digital aspect of it. just wasn’t the same. and, hey, if it worked out maybe he could wind up doing some of those weird interviews he’s seen on youtube. imagine getting to ask keanu if he’s immortal to his face?

“and I know you've been hurting, think you deserve it”

currently has three tattoos. the first was a shrimp on his forearm, a piece from his favorite childhood book on his calf, and a drunken decision on his ribs.

against popular assumption, fin isn’t all that bad at math. now, let’s be clear, he was near going to pass calculus or score 100s on even his algebra tests without a cheat sheet but basics are pretty down pat. perhaps the whole buying and selling ounces and grams wasn’t for nothing... aside from a high.

“journals” on whatever loose piece of paper or paper-adjacent item is nearby. napkins, book pages, bibles pamphlets handed out by old ladies on campus: all wind up with chicken scratch sharpie brain dumps. 

his room is a mess but at the very least his bed is nearly always made. it’s a small way he’s hoped to combat the bouts of insomnia. clean bed, maybe he wouldn’t have such a hard time fucking falling asleep. maybe the past and his thoughts and all the reasons he’s a screw up wouldn’t keep him up at night.

because he struggles to sleep, fin can often be found taking walks at odd hours of the night. and then asleep on a bench near the science building. which usually means an empty seat in his writing class. that participation grade is hurting.

enjoys breakfast more than any human anyone’s ever known.

his wardrobe is primarily thrifted and or *cough cough* stolen. he’s a big fan of shirts with strange slogans or proclaiming they’re the best grandpa. but worn jean jackets have become his main staple.

skateboards as a means to get around campus. capable of a few tricks under the right mind but fin’s always more the type to vibe down a slow and steady hill. that fleetwood mac, ocean spray guy essentially lived his dreams.

writes for the school paper, but tried to worm himself out of the basic sort of stories. he more tries to write stories about hidden gems on campus, interviews with quirky professors, following up on urban legends.

kinda anti-baseball.

will pet any dog he sees. fin is a fan of celebrating anyone’s birthday aside from his own. he usually prefers to gloss over it completely. he’s not worth the celebration.

when was the last time he checked his academic email? unknown.

okay been working on this over at least three episodes of freaks and geeks and i think this is all i got for now. if you have any questions, ask away! apologies for not listing connections ideas right now but i am very open to ideas and plotting!

#intro #bio #about #meadowbank.intro

[ticklygiggles]

The Good Old Days

My squealing Santa for @amazingmsme I’m sorry it’s fashionably late, I had so many ideas that I started over at least 3 times. I hope you enjoy anyway! (Secret Santa)

The evening hours are quiet around Stark’s upper floors, as hard as that is to come across in a large building in the middle of an even larger city, but Steve isn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. Quiet time is a rarity in itself for people like him and he won’t waste it dwelling on the brevity of it, no sir. He’s going to spend some quality time with a bottle of fine wine and Charles Dickens and -

The elevator dinged.

“Whoever said Sunday is a day of rest was a dirty fucking liar and I hate them.”

Steve chuckled as he continued pouring himself a drink. “ Do you mean God?” The sound of heavy boots accompanied his amusement, followed by a familiar soldier rounding the corner.

“Yeah, that guy. You’d think the government would lead by his example for how much they kiss his ass.” The two men traded grins as Bucky pulled a seat up to the bar, though Steve shook his head.

“Language.”

“Fuck off.”

Oh really now? Steve raised an eyebrow. “Rough day?”

Bucky shrugged, twisting his lip in a dismissive gesture. “Nah. But you know how it is. Busy.” He accepted the glass that was pushed his way, filled with something dark red and musky. Undoubtedly expensive and fancy as shit, just like the man that owned it. But he didn’t care. Alcohol was alcohol.

“Yeah, I get it. Then again, when has the government ever lead us by God’s example?”

Bucky smirked around a mouthful of Dark Red. “True,” Steve was probably the best leader that he’d ever known, but like hell he would say that and let it get to Captain America’s big head. “All I’m sayin’ is they have got to stop riding our asses so hard.”

“Why, because you’re so old? Maybe you should consider retirement.”

Bucky stopped, drink halfway to his mouth as he stared back at the 100-year-old-fart that dared to insult him like that. Steve just shrugged as he carried his drink to the couch, barely containing a smug smile. “I’m just saying.”

“You’re a real asshole, Rogers.”

“I’m just saying!”

Bucky scoffed with a roll of his eyes, snatching the bottle Steve left off the counter before getting up to join his friend. “Always starting fights.”

Steve sipped from his glass, resting an arm along the back of the leather couch. It wasn’t all that comfortable, but he made do. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The cushion dipped as Bucky’s weight settled beside him, and he could hear the man’s eye roll almost as clearly as his Scoff of Disbelief. “Mhm.”

They staid that way for a while, drinking quietly. The sky became darker and darker as the minutes ticked by, and the atmosphere calmed between the two men slightly.

“You know, things were a lot different when we were younger.” Bucky pondered, swishing the liquid in the wine bottle around.

“Understatement of the year, Buck.”

“No, no, I know - I mean before the war. You were smaller then. You really looked young for your age, even then. I honestly couldn’t figure out why you wanted to go war. You know. Until I realized you were a punk.”

They both chuckled slightly at that, Steve nudging Bucky’s arm. “I guess. You were different, too, though. Seemed like you had your whole life planned out.” And you had both arms, which he doesn’t add because he doesn’t want to spoil the evening-turn-night that they’d stumbled into.

“Me? Nah, not back then. But look at us now, like old men on a porch. All old and nostalgic.”

Steve shrugged, gaze lingering on the other man a little longer than usual. It was true that they were older, but Bucky would always seem like the wiser of the two of them. At least, in some ways. “I don’t know, man. I think you look pretty good for your age.”

Bucky glanced away from the windows across the room, meeting Steve’s look and briefly glancing at his lips. “…Good. Damn skin therapy cost me an arm.”

Steve laughed at that, as inappropriate as the joke was. “Bucky! Don’t talk like that.” He expected some sort of witty banter in return, but his friend just moved in closer, an even wider grin on his face.

“Damn, you know what that reminds me of?”

Steve eyed the other man suspiciously. “Should I?”

“Don’t you remember any of those wrestling matches we had? On the couch cushions, no less. Every time you got in a pissy mood ‘cause you were a sore loser, I’d just…” He chuckled a little, moving closer. “You were so easy, Steve.” He made a wiggly motion with his fingers.

Steve took that advancement for what it was and shifted an entire cushion over, muscles tense and ready for a chase if necessary. “Bucky, I think we outgrew all of that crap a long time ago.” That was grown up talk for ’don’t you fucking dare.’

But Bucky was never one to back down from a challenge. He saw that look in Cap’s baby blues and that look was good old fashioned fear, alright? The fun kind. “If you say so…” He trailed off, setting the wine down next to the glass that Steve had ignored for a while. “But aren’t you even the slightest bit curious if it still works?”

Still works? Steve raised an eyebrow. “Uh, not really? I’ve had a lot of o- umph!”

The blonde was silenced with a couch pillow to the face, which threw him completely off guard in the two seconds that it took for Bucky to tackle him to the (thankfully carpeted) floor.

The struggle actually lasted longer than most of their childhood matches had ever gone. Now that Steve actually had meat on his bones and the muscles to go with it (not to mention special training), getting himself free by maturely smacking at Bucky’s face was easy!

Except Bucky didn’t have an arm made of vibranium when they were kids either, and Steve couldn’t shove that weight off his chest if he wanted to.

Did he even want to?

Steve sputtered as he continued to push against Bucky’s iron (ha) hold of his upper body, using his heels to push against the floor - but that only pushed him father back into the bastard’s chest. “Buck- James - damn it, let go!”

“Language, Captain!” The other man teased, a little breathless from taking down 200 pounds of American Beef but otherwise unharmed. “Now what was that you were saying earlier about how I should retire?”

Steve was about to snap something snarky in response, but then he felt fingers “adjusting their grip” on his ribs and he stiffened completely. “Bucky. Stop it.”

Bucky grinned knowingly, loving how absolutely screwed his captive was under his grip. Steve might have gotten bigger, but he was still a snot nosed kid, and he was going to get his ass handed to him again. Just like the old times.

“I don’t know…” He tsked. “I mean, I knocked you down just like that, Rogers. Maybe you need another lesson, huh?”

“Oh, you got lucky! I- I’m drunk! You’re drunk! Let me gohoho - no!” Steve squirmed against the fingers that rippled against his ribs on either side of the tight hug he was trapped in, biting his lip and grunting.

“C'mon, Steve! You remember this now, don’t ya?” Was it too evil to enjoy the hell out of something that childish? Even if it was, Bucky didn’t care. Listening to his friend laugh was always a good time and he wouldn’t give it up for the world.

Meanwhile, Steve suffered. He wrenched against Bucky’s hug of death so so so so many times and yet he couldn’t escape those deft fingers for the life of him. It felt so bad. It was awful horrible, cruel torture, but more than anything it tickled. so. bad. And when those fingers dug inbetween Steve’s lower ribs?

He cracked.

There he was, Captain America, a hero. Giggling like a little bitch because the winter soldier was tickling him to relive his sadistic memories. Of course.

“Was that so hard, Steve? It’s gotta be coming back to you now, right?”

“I hahate you!!” Steve squealed - squealed for Christ’s sake! - slipping down further in Bucky’s grip to the point that his head pushed back against Buck’s shoulder.

The most horrible part was that Steve did remember. He remembered being a sore loser and whining about losing unfair wrestling matches and then - then there was this. Bucky pinning him, getting him to laugh so hard his stomach hurt, those quick hands and that warm smile…

It went on for minutes before Steve slumped back against Bucky entirely, limp and twitchy despite the fact that fingers were still exploring his ribs and sides with gentle scribbles and spidering up-and-down movements that never seemed to lighten up.

“I-I give! I gihive, plehehease…” He breathed, giggling interspersed within his begging.

Bucky stopped then, grinning down at the pile of blonde mush he’d created. “Got you good, didn’t I?”

Steve didn’t have the energy to answer, so he tried to make his breathing sound disgruntled as he recovered from that ridiculous assault.

Bucky let go of him slowly, and Steve pushed at him sluggish the moment he did.

“Just remember that the next time you decide to disrespect your elders, yeah?”

“ Screw… you. ” Steve huffed, but he clearly wasn’t as angry as he pretended to be.

Bucky knew that. And he smiled as he stood, ruffling Steve’s already-mussed hair. “Oh, and by the way?” He stopped to pick the bottle of wine off the table, reading the label. “Neither of us get drunk anymore. Perks of working for the government, remember?”

Steve heard the elevator ding a few minutes later, and all he could do was smile.

“Yeah. I remember.”

#avengers #long post #SS2K18

[toddhowardxreader]

adhd asks: 4, 9, 14¿?

thx romeo <3333

     4. what’s your oldest hyperfixation?

POKEMON!!!! absolutely. pokemon. it starts to make me weird out if i think too hard about it, not gonna lie, i learned to read from pokemon ruby and some of my strongest childhood memories are attached to the game. i remember in first grade for “100th Day” (this is something idk if other areas dO???? but we had a WHOLE celebration for the hundredth day of school. it was an entire affair) we had to make a booklet of 100 items and in class we would share it with the class. most kids did, like. one hundred stickers, one hundred pasta pieces glued to paper, one hundred polka dots, one hundred candies, that sort of thing. i was an over-achiever then as much as i am now, and i personally drew one hundred pokemon on construction and computer paper, colored them in and cut them out and pasted them for this entire booklet for this first grade event, looking back on it i have no fucking idea how. i just remember the day of the event a couple kids were mean to me because i think i miscounted in ONE section.

but to this day i love pokemon very much and would talk about it for hours if given the chance

     9. favorite stim / one you do most often?

the first that comes to mind is: i learned very early on in therapy that having A Anything in my hands to fiddle with when forced to talk at length, greatly enhances my ability to Speak. i would always bring some little figurines or keychains or tiny plushes to my meetings to tuch when talking at length abt my feelings. is part of why i curse customer service for denying me the culturally accepted ability to do so, if i could hug a wooper plush while ringing up customers then of COUrSE i would.

other than that i like... biting/chewing things... i made sure to never borrow pens or pencils from people because i would beaver the whole way through em

     14. what most often distracts you?

literally fuckin everything lol

idk this is probahbly the area of my adhd that manifests the most because what DOESN’t distract me. even if i eliminated internet (social media, messaging, memes, photos, clocks/timers, what have you) i am eternally able to distract myself by anything in my immediate surroundings, or if i am being tested, the software or materials being used to test me

i remember i took a final in precalculus several summers ago and half in hour into the test realized i did not know any of the answers and part of me wanted to break down and cry for the rest of my time remaining, but the more rational half of my brain broke through and instead i spent two hours drawing an elephant on the back of the testing booklet with a hastily scribbled “sorry i failed this class” note. give me a pencil and paper and i Will be able to entertain myself for any period of time

#analogromeo #ask

[bigyack-com]

A Doctor’s Diary: The Overnight Shift in the E.R.

My choices as a doctor in the emergency room are up or out. Up, for the very sick. I stabilize things that are broken, infected or infarcted, until those patients can be whisked upstairs for their definitive surgeries or stents in the hospital. Out, for everyone else. I stitch up the simple cuts, reassure those with benign viruses, prescribe Tylenol and send home.Up or out is what the E.R. was designed for. Up or out is what it’s good at. Emergency rooms are meant to have open capacity in case of a major emergency, be it a train crash, a natural disaster or a school shooting, and we are constantly clearing any beds we can in pursuit of this goal.The problem is, traffic through the emergency room has been growing at twice the rate projected by United States population growth and has been for almost 20 straight years, despite the passage of the Affordable Care Act, and through both economic booms and recessions. Americans visit the E.R. more than 140 million times a year — 43 visits for every 100 Americans — which is more than they visit every other type of doctor’s office in the hospital combined.The demand is such that new E.R.s are already too small by the time they are built. Emergency rooms respond like overbooked restaurants during a chaotic dinner rush, with doctors pressed to turn stretchers the way waiters hurriedly turn tables. The frantic pace leaves little time for deliberating over the diagnosis or for counseling patients. Up, out.Private exams on stretchers in hallways, patients languishing without attention for hours, nurses stretched to the breaking point; all of it has become business as usual. I think about this on nights like tonight, when I start my shift inheriting 16 patients in the waiting room. I think about what I will learn that these people need, and about what I will fail to provide.Image

10 p.m.

Work starts simply enough. Twenty-two-year-old was drunk and drove into a tree, now has a sore elbow. The X-rays are normal and he is sober enough to walk: discharge home with girlfriend. Woman with a migraine holding a towel over her eyes and a crumpled blue emesis bag in her right hand, for when she vomits. I start the standard “migraine cocktail” of IV drugs and turn off the lights in her room. I will wait until she feels better, then discharge her, too.More. A woman six weeks pregnant with cramps and vaginal bleeding; I check whether her miscarriage is inevitable. A drug overdose, likely a suicide attempt; I clear for psychiatric care. Homeless man with foot pain, back pain and a cough, but here mostly because it’s too cold outside. I hand him a sandwich.Then an ambulance crew rolls a gaunt man with one leg toward me on a stretcher. The paramedics hand over a thick packet of paperwork from his nursing home and walk away. I read the label: Jean-Luc. Age: 38.Jean-Luc doesn’t have a typical amputation stump. His left hip is also missing. According to his file, 10 months ago an aggressive strain of bacteria attacked his thigh and quickly began to liquefy his flesh. Antibiotics would not work fast enough; the only way to stop the bacteria’s spread was to cut out the infected parts.The paperwork tells me nothing about who Jean-Luc was 10 months ago. All I know is that those few hours of surgery rendered him dependent on nurses for most things he used to do himself.I leaf through Jean-Luc’s packet and find a scribbled nursing note. Someone was concerned that his urine looked different the past few days, and this morning he spiked a fever. Did he have a urinary tract infection? Jean-Luc’s belly is tender over his bladder, and his urine looks cloudy and smells pungent. I send some samples to the lab.

1:18 a.m.

You get little hints about the quality of nursing homes from the patients they send us. If a patient’s hair is combed and his clothes are neatly pressed, the nursing home is probably decently staffed. Most impressive is healthy skin. The skin of a bed-bound patient is paper thin; keeping it intact, like the unbroken film on a French pudding, requires a herculean effort.Jean-Luc’s skin had not been so fortunate. He had a bed sore; it was less than an inch wide, but I could probe an instrument through it to the bone. Once such holes form, doctors don’t really know how to coax the skin to heal itself. Creams, high levels of oxygen, even maggots — nothing works reliably. This is going to be a problem, I think to myself.Forty minutes later, the lab results come back positive for a urinary tract infection. I start Jean-Luc on antibiotics. The E.R.’s role is considered completed at this point. Up, not out. The waiting room is busy; I should admit Jean-Luc to the hospital for IV antibiotics and free up his stretcher.I look over from my desk. Jean-Luc is polite and not a complainer, but I can tell he is depressed. A month ago the nursing home put a catheter through his penis and into his bladder, presumably because emptying a bag is easier to schedule into a shift than running over every time he rings a call bell asking for help, and safer than letting him sit in his own urine, which would further break down his skin.But for bacteria, that plastic tube is a boulevard into the body. He would be better protected by a condom catheter, which catches urine the way a condom catches semen. I start to mull this over when a nurse calls me: “Gina, Bed 5 is vomiting and says she needs more pain meds.”

2:28 a.m.

Cynthia, in Bed 5, recently completed a round of chemotherapy. She tells me her pain and nausea have been unbearable, just as they were two weeks ago, when she was here after her previous treatment. I examine her, check her labs to make sure there isn’t another reason she is dry-heaving and type in a request for a hospital bed.Cynthia is on a state-of-the-art cancer therapy, available only at a few of the top centers in the world. It is also expensive, experimental and extraordinarily taxing on her body. The discussion with her oncologist must have been difficult: the possibility of improvement weighed against the risk that the treatment could cause her to spend most of her remaining days in hospitals, hooked up to IV drugs.For the E.R. visit, Cynthia will be charged more than $1,000 plus about $600 in professional fees for the few minutes of critical thinking I expended on her. That is the thriftiest part of this arrangement: Her admission stay for several days in the hospital will be billed at about $10,000.To the hospital’s finance department, each case like Cynthia’s is another base hit, a fuss-free bill to collect from the insurance company requiring minimal work from E.R. personnel. But to what extent will this hospital stay prevent Cynthia from returning in two weeks, when she is again due for chemotherapy?Maybe a different regimen of cancer drugs would sit better with Cynthia. But finding it involves trial and error and is seen as work that doesn’t have to be done — work that could get the oncologist in trouble for rocking the boat, that exposes the hospital to liability. A plan focused on keeping Cynthia out of the hospital would require more frequent check-ins at her home, which the hospital isn’t set up to do. We are choosing the path of least resistance for us, even though it is the path of last resort for her.One in five people who stay in American hospitals are on the same morbid merry-go-round as Cynthia and Jean-Luc and will wind up back in the E.R. within one month of leaving. We tell ourselves the E.R. is meant only to stabilize patients, that someone else will handle the rest. But the problems I punt in the E.R. are also punted by the hospital’s doctors upstairs and by primary care doctors outside. No matter where I send patients, these gaping holes in care fester, like bed sores tunneling to bone.So I wait in the E.R. for the same patients to return even sicker and even more dependent on the hospital. I’m thinking about this when an overhead speaker calls me to the resuscitation room for a “Level 1,” the highest level of urgency in the E.R. I hang up on Cynthia’s oncologist and head to the north side of the department.

4:12 a.m.

A young woman is gasping loudly through the oxygen mask that paramedics put over her face, screaming, crying and thrashing all at once. She swats at the nurses trying to hold her arm down to place an IV, and at the technicians cutting her clothes off with shears. Her sweat prevents the electrical leads we try to attach to her chest from sticking.This is routine for us. Many things can make a patient acutely agitated: pain, drugs, rapid blood loss or a shortage of air. Until we know the cause, we carry on even when patients resist. With little explanation, we surround them on all sides, pin them down and undress them, placing probes and leads while we get our bearings.Someone tries to calm the young woman down while I scroll through her electronic chart. Mariah is 23. She has severe asthma and has been to the E.R. many times. She has bipolar disorder. The last time she was in the hospital proper, two months ago, she left abruptly once her breathing stabilized, before we could send her home with an inhaler and a steroid regimen for her asthma.As far back as I look in her records, I find no visit with a primary care doctor. Like many patients in the E.R., especially younger ones, she doesn’t see any other doctors regularly. In effect we have been her primary doctors, although we didn’t know it and didn’t do much primary care.I close the screen and look back at her. She is now on the monitor, the beeping display of her heartbeats and respirations scrolling along in green and red like a stock ticker at the bottom of the evening news. The numbers are terrible. She isn’t resisting us anymore, and her breathing has slowed. Mariah is starting to look confused.We had achieved a sense of control, but it evaporates in an instant. Everyone starts moving quickly, jumpily, trying to suppress the sinking feeling that this is not like the other asthma flares we see, that this person is too sick for us to save. We focus on our roles. I’m worried she will stop breathing, so I come to the head of the bed and tell her we’re going to sedate her and put her on a ventilator.Through the breathing tube and the IVs, we give everything we have already given, again: albuterol, epinephrine, magnesium, helium, antibiotics, lidocaine. Nothing is working; her lungs remain stiff and in spasm. Her heart slows, then stops. We start chest compressions and push more medications. We probe her heart and lungs with the ultrasound, trying to find something we can reverse. Nothing.I look at the senior doctor in the room. He knows I’m asking if there is anything else we can do, and he shakes his head. We record the time of death.

5:47 a.m.

There is a silent pause in the room. Before it passes, the unit secretary hands me the packet of paperwork for the deceased.A death certificate differs from other medical records. It presents not one lone diagnosis field but four nested together, each line asking for the proximal cause of the line above. In the first line I write the diagnosis: cardiac arrest. I consider why her heart stopped, and in line 2 — “CAUSED BY” — fill in: respiratory failure. Line 3, CAUSED BY: severe asthma exacerbation. I am ashamed, but I know the cause of this as well. In line 4 I write, CAUSED BY: no medications at home to control her asthma.This is the first patient all shift for whom the modern E.R. and I have acknowledged the root cause of illness. Our failure was not today but a few weeks ago, when she was last in the E.R. and we didn’t find a way to get her asthma inhalers to her at home. Maybe we assumed the medical team upstairs would handle it; maybe that team expected a primary care doctor would do so. Now our failure is the bottom line in black ink, pressed into the carbon-copy pages that will accompany Mariah’s body to the morgue.Should the emergency room treat only emergencies? More than 80 percent of our patients arrive without sirens blazing, by walking in or after parking their cars with the valet out front. A rash that won’t stop itching, a lower back that won’t stop aching, a child who won’t stop vomiting. If their problems aren’t in our manual of emergency conditions, we say they are misusing the E.R. and try to dispense of them as quickly as we can. But here they are, having waited six hours to see me, asking for help. What to do for them?I click a few perfunctory buttons in their charts. I say there’s nothing life-threatening going on as I hand them boilerplate discharge paperwork to sign. Someone calls me to see my next patient. I send them back to their families, jobs and responsibilities equipped with little more than these unceremonious goodbyes.Almost one in 10 — 8.2 percent — of these discharged E.R. patients return to an E.R. within three days. What I leave unaddressed — persistent pain, nagging uncertainty about a diagnosis, a social dilemma — tends to stay that way, begetting yet another visit. An E.R.’s success is measured by how fast it sees these patients, not by whether it breaks these cycles.The waiting room is empty now. I review the labs on an elderly man in Bed 3, enter the admission details for Cynthia and Jean-Luc, check that the woman with the migraine feels better and print her paperwork, and look at my watch: 7:00. My shift is over.

7:01 a.m.

Although the E.R. was built to quickly get the sick “up” into the hospital, it has exposed, better than anywhere else, what patients lack while “out” in their otherwise private lives. Patients like Cynthia and Jean-Luc will survive devastating diseases under our care “up” in the hospital, but we send them “out” unable to sustain their precarious conditions without us. Patients like Mariah make their needs clear in the E.R., but we are too busy to meet them, and by the time they come back it’s often too late.From 2012 to 2014 the federal government, recognizing that neither up nor out was solving the problem for a growing group of patients, financed an experiment at the University of Colorado. The typical E.R. has surgeons on-call to treat patients with broken bones; following that model, the E.R. in Colorado set up a team on-call for patients with broken homes.Disadvantaged patients who kept returning to the E.R. were matched to social workers, health coaches and doctors who visited them where they lived and kept in touch for several months. By staying involved after the E.R. visits and not letting details fall through the cracks, the team reduced these patients’ need to revisit the hospital by 30 percent compared with the need of those in a control group.The E.R. at Yale, where I work, addressed a different group in need. Elderly patients who came to the E.R. after a fall were offered a follow-up at home. There, they were screened for risk factors that might lead to another fall, such as loose rugs, medications that increased their risk of balance problems, or lack of necessary equipment or support at home. Over the next month, those who received such visits called 911 about half as often as similar patients who did not participate in the program.Programs like these are not considered the E.R.’s core business, so they often rely on grants — and they end if funding dries up. Of the slim resources that E.R.s do set aside to address patients’ barriers outside the hospital, most are put toward hiring social workers and care managers. But these employees, stymied by mountains of paperwork and unrealistic patient loads, never get outside the hospital to see their patients, either. The programs at Colorado and Yale succeeded by framing the E.R.’s resources differently. They recognized that the E.R. staff could identify problems that were destined to arise after discharge — and empowered those employees to help. Both programs orchestrated follow-ups outside the E.R; those teams worked on the day-to-day problems at home that go unaddressed in hospitals and clinics and can cause catastrophes.As I zip up my bag, I head to Jean-Luc’s room to talk to him about urinary catheters. But when I arrive I find only our custodian with a mop, pulling the crumpled sheets and throwing out the extra tubes of blood. Up or out; Jean Luc is already up. His fate is out of my hands now, and I worry that he won’t keep his spirits up, that his bed sore will never heal.Only a few minutes have passed, and the waiting room has filled up again. A man with a nosebleed has arrived. A nurse hands him a nasal-compression clip and a basin to spit in. He and his wife look around, wondering how long they will have to wait. By now, Jean-Luc’s bed is freshly made. For this couple, his quick move upstairs was a blessing. It means that, on my way out, I can tell them that they will be called back soon. A room just freed up. Read the full article

#Aerobic #athleticclub #Bodybuilding #crunchfitness #Diary #diet #Doctors #Exercise #Fitness #fitnessfirst #fitnessworld #fitnessstudio #Gym #health #HealthNews #healthtips #lafitness #lifetimefitness #loseweight #menshealth #Nutrition #Overnight #Pilates #planetfitness #Shift #WeightLoss #workout

[bridgetkat-blog]

Imposter Syndrome

           “You should be an English teacher,” my dad used to tell me.

           And I would respond with something along the lines of, “English teachers get paid shit.”

             I sat in a blue, plastic chair in the front of my Calc AB classroom—one of the only air-conditioned classrooms in my budget-conscious Catholic high school—as my teacher projected a piece of paper onto the front wall. Written on the paper was a distribution of scores earned on the most recent test.

           “One person did get a hundred,” my teacher said as he gave us a run-down of the score distribution. “This is the first time someone has ever gotten a hundred percent on this test.”

           After he had finished discussing the scores, he began passing the graded tests back to the students. After anxiously awaiting the news of my score, he finally handed me my graded test. Bright red ink was scribbled on the top of the paper:

100

           Math was my niche, my safe haven, where I always knew I would succeed. Where I never feared failure.

             I’ve never been good at reading. It was always my lowest-scoring section on standardized tests. I read slowly, and sometimes I realize that I haven’t been paying attention for the last two pages. My eyes scan through the words, but they kind of just go in one eye and out the other. Not only did this make reading difficult for me, but the frustration it caused made reading utterly unenjoyable.

             I come from a family of health-care providers. My father is a physician, my mother is a PA, my uncle and his wife are both physicians, my grandfather is a surgeon, and my older sister is in medical school. My dad could always tell me if I had strep or not. He once used his stethoscope on me at home because I thought I was dying[1]. On another occasion, I had the stomach flu, and he called in a prescription anti-nausea tablet for me—it was that easy. When I had cramps, my mom would tell me, “the prescription dose for ibuprofen is 800 milligrams, so you can take four.” I couldn’t go to the grocery store with my dad without running into four different people that he either worked with or treated. When I got the stomach flu again in college, by parents were able to tell me everything from the best position to lie in to the best over-the-counter medicine to buy.

           There was never any explicit pressure for me to follow in my family’s footsteps, and I never felt any implicit pressure either; health care was just all I ever knew.

             Before I was an English major, I had some pre(mis)conceptions of “The English Major”: obsessed with books, wears big hipster glasses, spends free time reading The Great Gatsby while drinking tea in locally-owned cafés. Has read the entire Harry Potter series three times. Mildly, endearingly socially awkward, but otherwise unremarkable. At one point, I thought people chose to major in English because they weren’t good at anything else. That’s why I was hesitant to become one myself. Why would I be an English major when I’m good at other things – “more useful” things, “more impressive” things? Why would I give people a reason to think I was unremarkable?

             As I approached high school graduation, I never felt confident about what I wanted to do in college. I never felt like thinking about it. I told myself that I knew what I wanted to do just so I could stop worrying about it. I knew I was confident in math, and I was above average in science, so I decided on biomedical engineering—the same major my older sister had already been studying. It just made sense—I could use my talents in math and science, I could be involved in healthcare, and best of all, I could make good money. It made sense, didn’t it?

             I vaguely remember one day in 3rd grade when my class was having silent reading time. My teacher—who I did not particularly like—came over to my desk and told me that I shouldn’t mouth the words while I’m reading. I didn’t understand why doing that was bad, and I still don’t really understand now. I’m not sure if it was solely for that reason or if other evidence was involved, but my teacher ended up making me do one-on-one reading practice with a volunteer parent. This is the earliest memory I have of feeling stupid.

             I went into the semester optimistic—lots of people on my floor were in engineering, my older sister was a tutor in the College of Engineering, and I expected to enjoy all of my classes. But within two weeks, I decided I hated engineering and Engineering Problem Solving I[2]. “Everyone hates EPS 1,” they all said. “It doesn’t mean you hate engineering.” How exactly does one not hate engineering? was my only thought. I stuck with my engineering math class because it was basically just Calc II, and I wasn’t against advancing my math expertise.[3]  

           At this point, I was back at square one. So what the fuck do I do now? I decided to jump right on something else I had considered in the past: physical therapy. I had been interested in it since my senior year of high school[4], so the next semester, I began my work as a major in human physiology on a Pre-Physical Therapy track. It made sense, didn’t it?

             You know those fat literature books you get in middle school? I always read the dumb little stories but hardly could remember what they were about. In high school, I Sparknotes’d my way through Huckleberry Finn and Of Mice and Men. I think I actually read about 50% of To Kill A Mockingbird. And I still got an A in American Lit, presumably because I’m good at bullshitting[5]. I got a 2190[6] on the SAT because, unlike the ACT, there is no reading portion.

              One day — after a year in Human Physiology, a week of shadowing, and semesters full of bullshit classes — I had an epiphany: I fucking hate this. Maybe it was the professors; maybe it was the three-hour labs in windowless rooms; maybe it was the fact that every class made me cry on at least one occasion. But I knew that I hated it. And besides that, how does a painfully shy five-foot-tall girl work as a health care provider, anyway?

           So for the next couple of weeks, I panicked and obsessed over what I was going to do. There I was, a second-semester sophomore, looking to completely start from scratch as I went into my junior year, and the self-reprimanding thoughts began. Can you pick something you actually enjoy for once? This is the rest of your life we’re talking about. Stop letting other people’s expectations make decisions for you and get your shit together.

               But I’ve loved writing since I took my first creative writing class in high school. As soon as I was formally introduced to it, creative writing became my coping mechanism for any and all things. It was my way of sorting out the jumbled thoughts in my head into something I could translate into words. And my composition teacher was constantly astounded by my flawless grammar. So, despite my less-than-ideal track record in reading, I chose to be an English major. Am I actually, diagnosably insane? Probably. But more than a year later, do I regret it? Not even a little bit.

             I need to make one thing clear for those who have the mindset I used to have: English is not easy, or useless, or unimpressive, or unremarkable. STEM students see English as a cop-out major, but ironically, those are precisely the students who are most likely to fail miserably in an English class. STEM is numerical, logical. English is subjective, creative, and abstract. Throw a stereotypical Engineering student into a Chaucer class or a creative writing class, and they are bound to have difficulties. But they don’t think so. They think it’s easy. I’d like to see a STEM major write a three-page paper on four lines of The Canterbury Tales. I’d like to see a STEM major read one of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and even have a clue what it’s talking about. I’d like to see a STEM major write five pages on the symbolism of fire in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. I’d like to see a STEM major read five novels in four weeks. I’d like to see a STEM major take a class entitled “Chaucer” and even make it out alive.

             I don’t read for fun, but maybe I would if I had the time. I don’t read or study in cafés because I can’t concentrate if I can discern nearby conversations. I wear glasses, but only because I need them to see, and contacts make my eyes itch. I’m socially awkward, but neither mildly nor endearingly. I’ve never read The Great Gatsby, or Gone with The Wind, or Great Expectations, or any books of the Harry Potter series[7]. I do drink tea, but only to calm my clinical anxiety.

           I always thought I had to go into math and science because I was especially good at those subjects. To me, there was never even a question of what I enjoyed; what mattered was what I was good at. People always asked me, “Why do you want to be an engineer?” or, “Why do you want to be a physical therapist?” And my answer was always based on the fact that I excelled in math and science, not that I enjoyed those areas. It only dawned on me that I should enjoy my career when I was halfway through college and it all suddenly became real.

           Why had I never considered a career in English, you ask? Because in 21st Century America, a successful career in English[8] is “unrealistic,” a “fantasy.” Doesn’t pay well[9]. Most people don’t even consider pursuing a career in English because it’s generally accepted that it’s not even a valid option, unless you want to be “stuck” teaching or working as a full-time barista, sharing a four-bedroom apartment for the rest of your life. And so what if someone does want that?

           Sometimes I worry about how I’ll be able to teach English if I’m not particularly gifted in reading – literally half of the subject. But then I realize that that is exactly the reason I will succeed as an English teacher. Some teachers are so gifted in their field of study that they don’t know how to help people who don’t understand it immediately. When you’re naturally talented in an area, it’s hard to explain it to someone else. It’s when you actually have to work to learn the material that you understand how to teach it to someone else. The best teachers are the ones who understand how it feels to struggle and know how to help. I’m going to be that teacher for someone.

           But yeah, I’ll probably get paid shit.

 [1] I was not, in fact, dying.

[2] Engineering Problem Solving I, or EPS I, is a core introductory course for all engineering students.

[3] I ended up getting an A.

[4] Throughout high school, I had a chronic muscle knot near my right shoulder blade—a result of cheerleading, show choir, and bad posture. Eventually, it got so bad that I started going to physical therapy. In my efforts to relieve this massive knot, I became infatuated with muscles and how they functioned. And that’s how I got interested in the field of physical therapy.

[5] A lifetime of mandatory religion classes in a Catholic school system gets you good at that kind of thing.

[6] Out of 2400. This is approximately equivalent to scoring a 33 out of 36 on the ACT.

[7] I have seen all of the Harry Potter movies, though; I don’t live under a rock.

[8] Besides teaching.

[9] Includes teaching.

#nonfiction #personal essay #english major

[connormurphyobsessed]

Worth It (Evan Hansen x reader imagine)

A/N: Hii! I wanted to start on requests today, but I actually had a really rough day so I just wrote and out came this! It was really interesting to write for Evan. I feel that we are pretty similar so it was odd that it was a little challenging to write his dialogue, but I think it turned out okay. Let me know though! Also this inspired me to write a Jared request tomorrow. Yay!

Request: sadly no, but I’m starting writing requests tomorrow Words: 1339 Warnings: none, since I don’t think that one kiss counts

The idea that you had all the time in the world was never one that suited you. Instead, you raced through life, trying to do the most in the least amount of time. You threw yourself into all the AP classes you could find, joined over five clubs and created another two, all while taking extra classes to bulk up your G.P.A and make yourself desirable for colleges. You never did anything with less than 100% and you pushed yourself beyond the breaking point. Some might say that all of the pushing and pushing led to the inevitable fall, also known as when you stayed up for 72 hours straight and wandered into a 7/11 wearing nothing but a dinosaur costume made for 10-year-olds. On the other hand, nobody knew where you found the costume, so you actually came out of the experience with a super cool outfit. Your parents didn’t find the whole fiasco as funny as you did. Instead, they saw it as a cry for help, which it might have been, but you couldn’t get over the fact that you had dyed one-foot blue and had no memory of it. So for the next month you spent your days in therapy, recollected yourself, and learned that your worth wasn’t determined by your grade point average or how the life you would live wouldn’t be determined by high school. In the end you had to admit that you couldn’t keep up what you had been doing. You ended up dropping the clubs, the overwhelming AP classes, and unneeded stresses.

When you went back to school you told anyone that asked that you had to go out of town for family. Nobody asked further questions, their minds too consumed with other things. The only person who seemed the least bit concerned was a boy who was in your P.E. class named Evan. You had often talked to him during P.E. since both of you dreaded the mile run that everyone had to do each month. When you walked into the school gym you were greeted with Evan’s relieved yet still stressed smile. “Are you okay y/n?” he immediately asked. Maybe sensing the surprise on your face he took two steps back. “I-I mean you don’t have to tell me. I don’t care. I mean I do care! I j-just want to make sure you’re okay.” “It’s fine Evan,” you said before Evan could start his nervous ramble again. You had actually grown to enjoy his rambling, you found it adorable. It was hard to admit, but you had missed him and his kind eyes and even kinder words. “Some family stuff came up and I had to go for a while.” “Oh, well I hope everything is okay and that everyone’s alright.” “They’re getting there.” And with that the gym teacher blew her whistle and forced everyone to start running. What you didn’t know was that over the past month Evan had been extremely worried. No matter what coping skills his therapist gave him, or how many pep talks his mom gave him, and even Jared saying that if he was so freaked out he could have a “bro sleepover, not a sleepover since we’re cooler than that, but a bro sleeper,” but he was still worried about you every day. When he saw you walk in relief flooded his whole body. Finally, he knew you were okay, and that all the horrible possibilities that he kept overthinking weren’t real. With the knowledge that you were safe he knew that it was finally time to pluck the courage to talk to you more.

To Evan’s surprise you were the one who found him at lunch. You walked into the cafeteria knowing that if you ate with the people you normally did they would be judgmental about your new school schedule. Out of the corner of your eye you caught a glance of Evan and his friend Jared that once spilled orange juice all over your shoes and then asked why you spilled his juice. Realizing that spending lunch with Evan was the best choice you walked over and sat down across from the two boys. “Well, well, well. What brings you over here y/n? Got bored of overachieving to the extreme?” Jared asked while shoving fries into his already full mouth. Evan sent Jared a glance while you laughed. “Actually, I wanted to eat with Evan, but you’re a wonderful bonus.” “You wanted to eat with me? Why would you?” “Damn Evan, be nice to the hot girl who wants to eat with us.” With Jared’s response Evan’s eyes went wide, while you tried to hide your laughs. “I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to be mean! I was just curious to why, but I guess it came off as mean when I would never want to be mean to you-,” you reached across the table and patted Evan’s arm while his face went bright red. “It’s seriously fine Evan. I understood where you were coming from. And Jared, are you always so blunt?” “You best believe I am. You don’t get to be as smooth as me by beating around the bush.” “Oh totally. You are the epitome of smooth Jared.” With that the three of you spent the rest of lunch laughing and for the first time you enjoyed lunch and had a nice time. For the next few weeks you spent your lunch with your newfound friends and always laughed the time away. Although Jared was extremely fun to be around you couldn’t help, but want to spend more time with Evan. “Evan?” “Uh yes y/n?” Evan said looking up from the paper he was scribbling on. You were currently in P.E., but the teacher had finally realized that neither of you would ever beat your mile run time. “I was wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime, out of school. And without Jared. I mean I like the guy, but not how I like you.” “You want to hang out with just me?” “Well unless you don’t want to.” “No! I want to!” Evan said loudly causing his face to turn bright crimson red, and for the teacher to send an annoyed look to the both of you. “Just so you know, I’m asking you on a date. I wasn’t very clear, so here is another chance to back out.” “I still want to,” he replied with his smile beaming back to your bright smile. “I have to tell you something else.” Evan nodded in response with curiosity written across his face. “When I was away for a month it wasn’t because family stuff was happening,” you looked in his eyes for the next part. “I went through a hard time and I needed to get some help so I could sort everything out. That’s why I stopped most of my AP classes and left all those clubs. It was all too much. I would get it if you don’t want to go out with me now that you know.” Evan just looked at you for a few seconds with an unreadable expression. “That’s amazing.” “What?” “You are everything I’ve ever dreamed of. You are smart, beautiful, funny, and now I know that you might get what I go through.” “You’ve gone through things like me?” “Every day.” “Do you still want to go on a date with me?” Evan asked looking down at his shoes. Instead of responding you brought his lips to your own. You could feel Evan’s surprise, but in an instant he kissed you back. The sounds around you seemed to drown out and all you could do was feel Evan’s soft lips against yours and hold onto the sweet taste of him loving you with everything he had. “No lip smacking in my gym!!!” the teacher shouted from the other side of the room, but all you and Evan could do was ignore her and then intertwine hands as you were given detention together. It was definitely worth it.

#deh #deh imagine #deh x reader #dear evan hansen x reader #dear evan hansen #dear evan hansen imagine #evan hansen #evan hansen imagine #evan hansen x reader #connor murphy imagine #connor murphy x reader #connor murphy #jared kleinman #jared kleinman x reader #mike faist imagine #mike faist #mike faist x reader #zoe murphy #zoe murphy imagine #zoe murphy x reader #imagine #kinda fluffy

[cantfakethecake]

I fucked up.

Fieldwork this semester’s kind of been a disaster. I got a placement in a private therapy practice, and they didn’t have enough willing clients for me to spend all 16 of my weekly hours observing sessions. Instead they made tasks for me to do out of the office on my own time. In the past two weeks, I’ve...

Been tasked with designing a hypnotherapy app. I was told that they had a tech guy who could do it, but “It would look amazing on a resume if you did it yourself, and it would be a concrete thing to show to future employers.” I said I’d spend a week or two trying to figure out Java, and let them know if it was a reasonable thing to do in the span of one semester. Spent two weeks trying my best to learn it, before realizing that it was 100% unrealistic to expect myself to make anything resembling an app by April. I told them that last Friday, and their response was, “Well I guess the lesson to take away from this is that you shouldn’t say you can do things before you know if you really can or not.” I never promised them I’d be able to do it. I said I’d give it a try, and let them know if it was reasonable.

Was told by my field supervisor that, “Your biggest weakness is your anxiety. Just remember to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.” I have both a doctor and a therapist on that already, and it’s something I’ve been working on since I was a teenager - but thanks, those breathing tips are just gosh-darned revolutionary, and not at ALL invasive on your part!

Ended up 20 minutes late to a therapy appointment I was supposed to be observing, because I rear-ended another car. This was just a day or two after telling my supervisor that I’m working on improving my time management skills.

Cancelled on a one-hour seminar on using social media to promote your business, because it was set to start at 8 AM and I’d been up half the night with panic attacks. (Admittedly, I lied and said it was a migraine, because I know perfectly well that people are much more inclined to give a shit about physical than mental unwellness.) Received an email that morning with “I hope you feel better soon. Here’s a paragraph on why it sucks that you missed the seminar. Also, please bring in a piece of concrete prof that you’ve actually been doing the work we’ve assigned you (which has, up until now, been a “do it out of class and bring in verbal updates every week” arrangement). I’m 100% fine with doing that, but the timing comes off as, “We think you’re lazy, and want proof that you’re not dicking us over.”

And today I received an email from one of my supervisors, letting me know that I’d missed a session I was supposed to sit in on. I wrote it down on the wrong day in my planner. I sent her an apology, and I’m going to set up a Google Calendar to write my appointments in in the future, so they can double check it if they’d like visible proof that I’m trying not to fuck up. It’s challenging, because they don’t coordinate between the two of them before asking me to come during certain hours. One person sends me emails throughout the week asking about one or two sessions at a time (which is beyond hard to keep track of, as I’m not great with my school’s email client), and the other just throws a verbal list of times at me to scribble down during our weekly supervision hour. 

I’m terrified that they’re going to terminate me, and I’ll be kicked from the program or at least have to do an extra semester. My organizational skills are admittedly shit (yes, hello, THANK you, ADHD), and I’ve fallen into one of the most DIY field placements my school offers. Every classmate I’ve spoken to has a scheduled set of hours that they complete every week on-site, with consistent supervision.

And on top of already feeling like this is all a little bit out of my control, the people I’m shadowing are just so...cold? They hustle me out of the room as soon as a session’s done, and I don’t get a chance to say a word to them until my supervision hour on Friday. Last week I shadowed during a group therapy session, and on their way out of the group room they asked, “Betsy, did you bring lunch?” They were several steps ahead of me (already completely out of the room, while I was still in the room with a bunch of clients who hadn’t left yet), I couldn’t 100% hear whether they’d said my name or had just been asking each other, and didn’t want to shout “WHAT?” after them. I hurried after them, figuring I’d say, “Sorry, were you talking to me?” as soon as I could see them...but when I got to the top of the stairs, they had already walked into the kitchen and shut the “employees only” door. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to follow or not (there was a half-hour gap between that session and another I was supposed to shadow), and ended up hovering outside the door for a good five minutes before cracking it open and going, “Oh, THERE you are!” and letting myself in. They then ignored me for the next half hour while chatting to each other.

Which is to say - they’re not the friendliest of people, and even if they aren’t furious enough to terminate me? I dread the rest of this semester. I really, really don’t know what to do. I bumped my meeting with my therapist to this morning, and I was feeling so much better until I got the email tonight telling me that I’d missed a session I’d signed on for. I’m meeting with my academic advisor to get some advice on Friday (because this is not a typical field work experience, and I need to be sure that it’s even okay for me to be doing the tasks that I’m doing), but I have to meet with my fieldwork supervisor before that. I’m dreading it, and just...needed to vent? Or maybe a hug? I don’t know. I have a 3.9 GPA (would’ve been a 4.0 if I wasn’t late to class so often), and I should be better than this.