#Like when I had mrsa it got SO BAD before i got into the hospital

[haberdashing]

for some reason tonight i keep thinking about how deeply weird my medical history is

not primarily in a chronic illness sort of way, mind you. what chronic illnesses i have are fairly minor and unrelated to most of this. and not in an accident-prone way either: i've only broken a bone once in my life, and that wasn't until my late 20s!

but like

"thyroid issues?" "does that time i got diagnosed with an overactive thyroid in high school and went on medication for a few months count?"

"history of anemia?" "yeah, again, high school. ooh, i wonder if those could be related?"

"your heart rate's awfully high, did you know that?" "oh yeah, that's been an issue for a while now. at least since high school. yep, high school again, heh! but two different cardiologists a decade apart told me it's fine so i guess it's no big deal, right?

"okay... any recurring infections?" "well all throughout childhood i had what was like pinkeye but chronic. turns out it was herpes. in my eye. eye herpes. but it's been a few years now since that's popped up! oh, though i did have a yeast infection last time i checked, and i'm not sure if that ever went away..."

"when's the last time you went to the hospital?" "uh, does the top surgery place count? probably not, how about after i broke my leg? because before that i think it was when i was in the ER the night before my high school graduation, but like, that's a while ago"

"do you remember the last time you threw up?" "well i have this thing where sometimes i wake up in the middle of the night and my stomach hurts and i'm overheated and i just kind of lay in the bathroom for the better part of an hour until i puke... that only happens every few months though, not that big a deal"

"uh, have you had issues donating blood?" "oh yeah, you wanna know about the time i threw up, the time i passed out, the time my blood didn't flow right, or the time i almost got rejected for iron levels? probably not that last one, that's boring, and we covered the anemia already..."

"issues with nosebleeds?" "not lately, but when i was a kid i got them all the time!"

"touched your own blood lately?" "look, i like to pick at scabs sometimes, okay?"

"any medical devices in your body? metal implants?" "well after i broke my leg they stuck a metal plate and screws in there so now i'm a cyborg!"

"low... testosterone, it says?" "yeah, weird one, heh, seeing an endocrinologist about that next week actually"

"you were on vitamin D- a prescription amount?" "yep, i was low on that too! might still be, but at least now i'm not on the horse pills for it"

"any issues with headaches, stomachaches, random body aches?" "well the metal plate in my leg aches a bit after a lot of walking. but headaches happen a lot too. especially when it rains. i'm like a living barometer!"

"your heart rate's awfully high, did you know that?" "oh yeah, that's been an issue for a while now. at least since high school. yep, high school again, heh! but two different cardiologists a decade apart told me it's fine so i guess it's no big deal, right?"

"ever had an mri, cat scan-" "oh yeah, looked into my headaches when i was a kid, went through the whole drill"

"ekg, holter monitor-" "and those were for the high heart rate!"

"lumbar puncture?" "headache again! that one honestly wasn't as bad as i expected. though that's not saying much."

"it says here you had… MRSA?" "oh yeah, heh, funny story. antibiotics cleared it right up, but i almost didn't go to the doctor. i mean, who wants to talk to the doctor about a literal pain in the ass?"

*doctor throws clipboard into the air*

#personal #shitpost #no i don't know why so many of these are from high school #if you want more details you can ask but the fun bit's probably the bit i already wrote #i guess the headache stuff might be a chronic illness #but none of this is from my idiopathic hypersomnia at least #or any of the mental health stuff i've got going #don't even get me started on my family history

[doebt]

literally thank god I didnt get appendicitis as a kid bc my parents wouldve probably just let me die instead of going through the trouble of going to a doctor..for realll

#Like when I had mrsa it got SO BAD before i got into the hospital #even the doctors were like wow this is advanced you shoudve come in before it got this bad #i was like begging for weeks before #it makes me soooo upset to think about #Ive got to stop feeling so sorry for myself but i really obsess over things like that #it just feels so unfair and cruel #the mrsa i mean that was serious I couldve died for real...it means nothing to me to say that #since it was so long ago and i dont remember it as well as i remember other stuff but it still bothers me

[all0nsyidjits]

Guess I'm going to out myself here just a bit. I'm a Lokean. In fact I'm a Godspouse have been since July of 2011. I came to realize who the imaginary friend I had as a kid who never really went away was via pop culture. Before you roll your eyes and dismiss me as a Marvel Loki fangirl let me explain. I didn't fall in love with Tom Hiddleston or his version of Loki. In fact a whole other fandom brought me to Loki. See I'm a fan of the show Supernatural and a favorite character was Gabriel who starts off as the Trickster then it is revealed that he is really the archangel Gabriel who skipped out of heaven and hid his true identity by pretending to be a trickster god, Loki to be exact. I wanted to write a fanfiction about Gabriel's time posing as Loki but I knew shit all about Norse mythology aside from the names of some of the Gods and Godessess. So I started researching and reading the lore and by accident stumbled across a few Lokean blogs. Shortly after Loki showed up and I proceeded to start to question my sanity. I'd gotten into Wicca in my early teens so I had some concept of Pagan deities and all things woo. Still having a god show up and just want to hang out and talk freaked me right the heck out. When he started flirting I was sure I'd completely lost my shit. Slowly he calmed me down and earned my trust. I found others who had been His for a long time and they helped me navigate this new relationship.

Then the Thor movies came out and suddenly everytime I went online there was a new Lokean Godspouse. Loki is not one to waste free PR I guess. I stayed active in the community for awhile but then the cattiness of some in the community made me decide to go solitary. Years passed I rarely missed the community. Loki and I just did our own thing. Sometimes Loki would be gone for some pretty long stretches. Still he was here and things were good.

Then 2020 happened. Look in all honesty I can be a bit of an introvert. I tend to withdraw from people if I sense to much conflict or tension. It's not so much my true nature but more a trauma response to withdraw. My childhood was well complicated. But I'm getting off track here what I mean to say is 2020 was a really shitty year for me and my family. In June I cought Covid 19 I never got all that sick, but the body aches and fatigue never quite went away. Then at the end of July my husband who is diabetic and has neuropathy stepped on a tac and ended up with MRSA. He nearly lost his foot and could have died. He was hospitalized for a month and out of work for three. I worked myself to a frazzle. At one point I had three jobs and was on the clock for 23 hours and 45 minutes one day. I was headed for a breakdown. My husband physically seemed to be on the mend, but his personality was no longer the kind, easygoing affectionate, man I had known for nearly twenty years. Then came the suicide attempt. Like I said it's been a rough since about this time last year.

When my husband made the suicide attempt Loki showed back up worried about both of us. Loki and my mortal husband know about each other. They like each other so please nobody suggest that Loki is trying to get rid of my mortal husband. When we married the priestess who married us was well aware that Loki was part of the ceremony and that I was marrying the both of them. We've been happily married and Loki always felt like I would be okay during his absences because I had someone else that he trusted there with me.

At first Loki tried to be my distraction from all the stress, he's really good at that. Then Loki started to worry I worried about mortal hubby and Loki worried about me. Many pleas to slow down before I had a breakdown too and Loki finally put his foot down I had to learn to say no and I had to take care of me if I was going to take care of anybody else. Finally the tears and the exhaustion came after my husband told a lie that made me look like a very bad person. My mother-in-law went off on me I had been up for three days with only about four hours sleep and those weren't even consecutive hours and I was reduced to a sobbing mess. Like so many times before Loki was there to catch me He let me cry, He let me rage, when the worst had passed I looked at Him.

"So I guess being the God of change you're going to tell me to throw away twenty years of my life and file for divorce." I asked.

"Oh you think you know me so well Little One." Even at a such a solemn moment Loki can't resist using an old nickname from back in my childhood when he was the imaginary friend who took me on wild adventures far away from whatever was going on at home at the time. It had went from term of affection for a child he had chosen to protect to a teasing dig at my 5'3 height compared to well all of Them.

"Well aren't you?" I asked.

"Little one besides being the God of Change what else am I?" I start to rattle off titles and associations.

No let me rephrase that Little One who am I married to who are my Wives his voice somehow conveying the capital W that lets me know it is Sigyn and Angrboda he speaks of.

"Sigyn and Angrboda" I say.

And what Little one is my precious Sigyn the Goddess of?

Fidelity I answer and then it hits me She had stuck by Him through far worse.

So I'm here I'm staying but there are days when I just wish I had someone to talk to. Someone human.

This year has been hard the isolation brought on by Covid 19 precautions is wearing on everyone in one way or another I think. Add to that the fact that I live in a very rural, very Conservative Christian area where I have to hide my witchy ways. Knowing full well just how many people in my life would utterly abandon me if they knew about Loki and my true beliefs. I can't talk about Him to well anyone besides my oldest and there are things about being a godspouse you wouldn't want to discuss with your kid. I used to have my husband but now talking to him about the most mundane things is a cross between walking on eggshells and navigating a mine field. I got lonely, really lonely.

Against my better judgement I decided to dip my toe back into the Lokean Community after walking away from all the groups, blogs, message boards ect in about 2013. So about 7 years as a solitary Lokean witch and I was ready to test the waters again.

I found a Lokean on social media (I don't want to draw any negative attention to this person because they are doing a fantastic job with what they are doing) so much of what they were saying resonated with me and I wanted to talk. Hey maybe I could make a friend. I commented maybe a bit too much. I meant no harm I was just excited to talk to someone after so long keeping it all to myself. Well that went spectacularly wrong and I ended up with someone who I'm pretty sure thinks of me as a rival or an enemy now. Loki being Loki was quick to remind me that my ramblings don't offend everyone. I had commented on a completely unrelated post about Him a few days earlier and within hours of the well I fucked up incident I'm reading a post by someone thanking me for talking about how I experience Loki because it resonated with them an affirmed a few things.

Then Loki was like I want you to start talking about me. I want you to rejoin the community. I was like oh hell to the no. Well you can see who won that argument. So here I am hoping I don't come to regret this.

#rokkatru #myth loki #loki deity #godspouse #lonliness #community #im a loner #loki you little shit #lokean #i fucking love him #i fucked up #socially awkward #dealing with depression #dealing with anxiety

[md-admissions]

Top Ten Lessons from First Year ID Fellowship

1. It’s all about staph aureus. MRSA and MSSA all day, baby. 

2. It’s more exhausting than residency but in a different way. But for me, I think this was because my residency was a bit of a mess (as we all know, I have not hidden this fact) so the exhaustion was of moral indignation, physical exhaustion. Intellectually, I have never worked my brain overtime quite like this. I also did make the conscious decision to choose a rigorously academic program that front loaded clinical time so that’s on me. 

3. Being right does not mean guessing what the attending’s thinking. You want to be able to explain why you think the way you do and being open to changing your mind or changing someone else’s. I have long struggled with feedback and being told I’m wrong. It’s couched a lot in how being wrong=being bad when I was a child. It’s taken years to unlearn and I still struggle sometimes. But I learned that, especially in ID, there’s room for disagreeing with your attendings. Having a different plan from your attending is NOT failing or being wrong (which was what my residency espoused). And guys, learning lesson #3 has made me a better doctor and a better person. 

4. Where you were as a resident doesn’t define who you are as a fellow aka who you were doesn’t have to define who you are today or who you become. I have been quiet about this for the entire year because I struggled with how much disclosure would result in anonymity loss. But I have to say something because of the impact on my fellowship. 

During my first year of fellowship, my residency underwent significant scrutiny by ACGME and a lot of the toxic bullshit my co-residents and I were subject to came to light. The program’s accreditation is under review. That says a program’s legitimacy to say it trains its residents well and appropriately is under question and the program’s standing in the academic medical community is in question as well. Obviously, thinking back, that had nothing to do with me because, in spite of my program, I got into fellowship. My dream fellowship. But I spent a lot of the past year feeling like a Regency-era cousin or Jane Eyre who came from a disgraced household now living in a Proper Family’s Home out of their kindness and constantly looked down upon.  It made me overly reactionary, super defensive, and scared. I spent a lot of the year scared. It culminated ultimately in my trash In-training exam, which I wrote extensively about. 

5. I think about TB, HIV, and syphilis on the differential way more often than I think our consulting teams wished I did and I should probably think about them even more than I already do.

6. The opioid epidemic is our generation’s epidemic. The number of people in their 20s and 30s who I have seen die this year because of infectious complications of injection opioid has been high. The amount of discrimination they face by not just society but by hospital staff is infuriating. But we have to do better.

7. How to teach as you give recommendations. This was seriously a lesson learned over a year. ID is all about teaching. And to impart a clinical pearl in 5 minutes while providing recommendations to a primary surgical or medicine team is a hard art to master. 

8. We can all memorize the adverse events or the risks of something occurring with a procedure or an antibiotic. But the really excellent clinicians take it one step further: they think about the actual odds of those events occurring and whether that should influence their decision making now.

9. Speak slowly and economically. In my daily life, I’m all about quips and quick responses. But in ID and I think for any sub-specialty, there’s extreme value reviewing and editing your response before speaking to a team. It can help anticipate follow-up questions from the primary team and ensure you know your stuff before taking to the team. In cases with highly transmissible diseases, speaking thoughtfully also eases staff fears and helps to disassemble any prejudice or preconceived notions people may have.

10. There may be tough days in ID but I wouldn’t do anything else.

[innerpostmentality]

Sometimes Beginnings Start With Goodbye  Part V- Meridoc

This is a TRR AU fan fic inspired by the Choices book series The Royal Romance All rights and many thanks are given to Pixelberry Studios for the use of their characters. This fic is written for my friend @tornbetween2loves it started as a birthday fic and has expanded. Please read these stories in order or they won’t make sense. The series links can be found in my Masterlist. There will be more parts to this series. Featuring: King Liam, Drake Walker, Dr. Marissa Ardes, Dr. Meridoc Finn Rating: M - Mature themes, Serious illness, Hospital setting                           Word count: close to 3000 Warnings: depictions of depression, hospitalization, and life threatening illness Tagging: @tornbetween2loves @gardeningourmet @kennaxval @stopforamoment @bobasheebaby @cora-nova @indiacater @hopefulmoonobject  @drakewalkerwhipped @carabeth @darley1101 @furiousherringoperatortoad

Dr. Meridoc Finn looked over the letter again. Dear Meri,

 I’ve got a case I need your help with and I think you might be interested in.  Drake Walker is the patient. He’s the King of Cordonia’s best friend and I’m currently treating him for Sepsis and Wernicke-Korsakoff.  He’s 29, Meri, lives in the Royal Palace. I’ve got a waiting room full of people who care about him but for some reason he doesn’t seem to really want to live.  King Liam wants his rehab done at the palace rather than a rehab center. He’s actually fairly physically fit. Sepsis was from a dirty splinter, it’s Tetanus and not MRSA which is what I was fearing before we got the results. His mom has serious depression and I suspect that he may have a similar issue.  His brain activity looks like he may be aware but he’s not responding.  I know you were studying Rehabilitative Psychology as well as your Physical Therapy work. The King needs someone who can direct setting up the facilities needed for Mr. Walker’s rehab. I told him you’re the best in the world and he asked me to contact you.  I advised King Liam that you were currently tending your dad and that he would need to make accommodations for you to continue to be able to do that if he wanted to retain you. He seemed amenable.  Best guess is Mr. Walker is going to be in hospital for three to four weeks. I haven’t looked over the palace facilities but if they have to do any construction they don’t have long. Give me a call when you get this and I’ll put you in touch. Marissa

  Six months ago she had resigned her position as head of the Rehabilitative Physical Therapy department at The National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dublin to take care of her dadai after the wreck that took her mom.  He was certainly doing better with her there but she was getting more restless by the day. She had gone from working 18 to 20 hour 4 on/3 off weeks coordinating teams of doctors working treatments for dozens of patients both in and out of hospital to taking care of her apartment, her dog, and her dadai and the small garden she’d planted on the terrace of her apartment. To keep busy she’d repainted her apartment twice and was planning on repainting it again. She’d refinished her coffee table, her rocking chair, her bed. Started making clothes until she filled up both their wardrobes and started making them to give away. For income she’d made a deal with the National University of Ireland to teach online courses. As part of her agreement with them they also provided her with full access to any medical or medicinal related book available.

  A six month “working vacation” at the Cordonian Royal Palace might be just what she and her dadai needed.

 Both women stood only to drop into curtseys as King Liam entered the small, tidy office of Dr. Marissa Ardes Head of Critical Care. Liam gave them the slightest of smiles and took the unoccupied seat that he thought must be Dr. Ardes’ desk chair that she had graciously given up for this meeting. He knew the other woman must be Dr. Meridoc Finn. But he really wasn’t prepared for the four foot ten ‘lil orphan Annie’ all grown up who also happened to be one of the top Rehabilitative Physical Therapist with additional certifications in Psychology in Europe if not the world.  

“Your Majesty, it is my pleasure to present my friend and colleague Dr. Meridoc Finn.  Dr. Finn, it is my honor to introduce you to His Majesty King Liam of Cordonia.”

Liam nodded. “Thank you for coming Dr. Finn. Please let us dispense with the formalities. I’m not here as the king. I’m here as Drake Walker’s brother. He is the brother of my heart, and I…” He closed his eyes and swallowed a moment as his voice broke. “I need to know, to be certain, that we are doing everything possible to, to get him through this.”

Dr. Finn was studying him with the darkest blue eyes he’d ever encountered.  “Aye, we’re all in accord on that Sir. The thing is to determine how that’s best accomplished. I understand your desire to have him in the palace for his rehabilitation. And we can certainly make a list of all the equipment that is needed, some of which you likely already have in place if you have a gym and a pool.” She looked at him and frowned.

“But there is something more going on here, Sir. I’ve read his files. I do agree with Dr. Ardes; I believe that he is aware. The question is what is the cause of his non-responsive behavior? I mean no offense Sir, but am I correct in my understanding that Mr. Walker has been residing in the palace for many years; but in the last year his drinking escalated?”

Liam frowned looking pained. “That is what I’ve been told.”

She looked at him silently until he dropped his eyes and continued quietly. “The last year has been very hectic for the Crown. Our royal duties have demanded more attention than we would wish. I have not spent nearly as much time as I would like with Drake, or any of my friends to be honest.”

Meridoc studied the young king. She could see the concern and stress and knew that he did care for his friend. Her voice was gentle, “Sir would you mind telling me about yourself and Mr. Walker’s relationship? How you became friends? What your friendship is like? Have you any insight to share regarding what may have caused his break?”

 “We were young, six or seven I guess. We are only a few months apart in age. Drake is older. His dad took the job as head of the king’s guard. He wasn’t happy about moving here. He didn’t really trust me until I took the blame when he got caught with one of the guards tasers. I knew he would get in much worse trouble than I would so I said that I took it wanting to show off to him. From then on we were close.” Liam frowned and ran his hands through his sandy curls.

 He looked at Meridoc a long moment and sighed. “Honestly Doctor Finn, I… I feel like I failed Drake. We both fell in love with Giselle. We talked about it. Agreed that she would have to choose between us but that no matter what; we would still be best friends. We would still be there for each other.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and wiped a tear off his cheek. “It was my honest intention. But I got swept up in the insanity going on in the world. Trying to do what was best for the country. Trying to be, somehow even in my absence a good husband for Giselle. And I knew Giselle loved Drake like a brother. And she knew she had hurt him when she picked me. Instead of being supportive I think, I can only imagine, it felt like I was dismissive.

 Giselle worried that if she tried to be close to Drake it would only make things worse especially if the press learned that they were socializing when I was out of the country. For Drake it must have seemed that we had both abandoned him. And I know…” Liam looked anguished.

 “… Drake’s mom abandoned him and his sister. After his dad was killed in the line of duty she had a breakdown. It was bad. Bastien took over raising Him and Savannah. Bastien did a stellar job but I know his mom leaving them was devastating for Drake.” Liam shook his head and wept.

He didn’t really see the looks exchanged by the doctors.

Finally, Meridoc spoke gently, “Sir, I don’t know your friend. What you’ve told us certainly is pertinent to his mental state. That said, Mr. Walker is an adult. You did not make these choices for him. It is Not your fault what has happened.

  I have not seen him yet. What I would like to do is to spend a week assessing him. At the end of the week I will give you my decision about whether I think I can do him any good. I will give you a list of equipment we will need to be able to work his rehab at the palace. Will this work for you?”

 Liam looked at both doctors the devastation clear in his eyes. “I will do anything I can, whatever I can to get my friend’s life back. Please help me?”

 “Sir,” Meridoc looked at him steadily. “let us begin then. If you would be willing to introduce me to him I would appreciate it.”

Liam nodded and stood. Both doctors stood as he did. Dr. Ardes asked, “If I may. Would you follow me Sir? I would like to observe if that would be okay Dr. Finn?”

Meridoc nodded; and followed Dr. Ardes and the King to the ICU. Dr. Finn and Liam got smocked up but Dr. Ardes told them she would observe through the window. Meridoc and Dr. Ardes went to the central station and looked at Drake’s file and the monitors in the station quietly discussing lab results and looking at print outs from the EEG. Finally Meridoc went over to Liam looking through the window at the cocooned body of his friend.

 “Your Majesty… Sir, his charts are showing improvement. They have him wrapped up because the dialysis tends to chill you. But his kidneys are showing response. That’s actually excellent news from where he was a day ago even. He’s responding to the targeted antibiotics and his blood counts look a lot better. “

 Liam looked down into her earnest sapphire eyes. “Why do you think he won’t respond, Dr. Finn?”

She studied the scruffy face, the unruly chestnut hair, and thought about the file on the man who seemed to be waging a lifelong war between his desire for independence and his sense of duty.  She turned back to Liam and met his gaze levelly.

“My highly unprofessional gut feeling is that he’s tired of giving up or giving in.”

Liam felt gut punched. He shook his head. “Pardon? I don’t understand.”

“I could be wrong.” She looked back at Drake. “I read his file. I listened to you talk about him. It seems to me that every relationship he’s in seems to follow a pattern of codependency. He’s used to the role of caregiver. And all his life he has sacrificed himself for the welfare and benefit of those he loves.

When these things happen and a caregiver winds up helpless they often don’t react well. They are frequently guilt ridden and mortified as those who they’ve cared for in the past come visit. It’s almost like a priest in a confessional listening to everyone they love apologize for a lifetime of taking them for granted. Unable physically to care for others they fall into a depressive spiral feeling useless.” She looked back at Liam. “Being unresponsive can be a response you know. It just doesn’t suit our needs. I think at this moment it may suit his.” She frowned.

  “Sir, I could be really wrong about this. And we need to figure out if he’s being willfully unresponsive or if he is mentally impaired and has forgotten how to respond. Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome can lead to severe speech, coordination, and cognitive impairment.

 I would like to try something if you are willing. I would like for you to introduce me just as though he were responsive. Introduce me and then go join Dr. Ardes for a few minutes. I would like to talk with him.”

 Liam gave her a curious look but nodded. Then he opened the door for her. Her eyes widened her mask covered her startled smile as the king opened the door for her.

Liam looked at her as they approached the bed and she nodded at him.

“Hello Drake, I would like to introduce Dr. Meridoc Finn. She’s from Ireland and a friend of Dr. Ardes. Dr Finn, this is my best friend, Drake Walker.”

Meridoc carefully took one of Drake’s hands and gave him a firm handshake. “It’s nice to meet you Mr. Walker. I hope you don’t mind that I have asked his Majesty to let me speak with you privately for a few minutes.” As Meridoc went to set his hand down he squeezed her hand. Her eyes widened but Liam was looking at Drake and didn’t notice. She turned to look at the window where Dr. Ardes was standing and nodded. Dr. Ardes smiled.

“Your Majesty if you could give us a few minutes I would appreciate it.”

“Of course Dr.” Liam gently stroked the covers over Drake’s shoulder. “I’ll be back in a bit Drake. Don’t tell the doctor too many of our secrets.”

After Liam left Meridoc smiled at Drake and went to the foot of the bed. “I’m sorry to be meetin’ you under these circumstances Mr. Walker. Would you mind if I lower you a wee bit? I didn’t do such a fine job of growin’ and wound up on the short side of things.” She went to the bed controls at the foot of the bed and pushed a button that lowered the whole bed carefully watching to be certain none of his connecting cords or IV lines got tangled. Then she went back up to stand next to him taking his hand again. “I hope this is okay.”

 He squeezed her hand again.

“I’m a doctor of Physical Therapy and my friend Dr. Ardes thought I might be able to be of service. Your friend the King there, well he’s busy growing some gray hairs worrying about you. Fact is you have a lot of friends wearing out the chairs in the waiting room. Anyway, the King wants you to have the option of doing your rehab in the palace rather than here if you are amenable to that.  Ach, but I’m getting ahead of myself. I have this suspicion that no one has really told you what happened and why you are here….”

He drifted in an endless sea of darkness, and noise, and pain.

He thought he might be dead but surly if he was it wouldn’t be so loud, and there wouldn’t be so much pain.

He was cold, achingly cold and bound, and tired so, so terribly, terribly tired.

They were talking to him. He heard their voices through the pounding rush of his blood running through his body every nerve burning, every joint so painful he wanted to scream but he couldn’t, somehow his body had become a thing of torture hurting and not responding to his will.

There wasn’t any time in this prison. Just periodically some new agony, some new torment washed over him, inescapable.

He was thirsty. His mouth so dry he thought this must be what being a mummy felt like.

He realized that something had changed. Everything seemed muted a little, the pain, the noise, even the darkness somehow seemed a little lighter. He was still bone cold. Still tired.

Then he heard Liam’s voice. Introducing him to a doctor like they were at some social function. He focused on the words trying to anchor himself out of the dark vortex that was always trying to suck his awareness away. “…friend, Drake Walker.” A soft hand was taking his in a firm and gentle handshake. Somehow, somehow he held it. It hurt. But he focused on it and held on like it was a hand extended to him in the bottom of a pit he couldn’t find his way out of.

There was a voice he didn’t know, soft and clear, with a lilt that gave it the quality of a sweet song softly sung. It pulled him further from the darkness. She was saying something and he was trying to remember what the words meant. Then he was moving somehow.

 Her hand was there again. She was telling him more things. He knew the words but couldn’t put the meanings to all of them.

He needed to see her. Needed to see her.

Meridoc studied him as he continued to squeeze her hand holding it almost like he was afraid to let it go. She squeezed it back gently. “I’m not going anywhere. You are going to be fine. Are you tryin’ to wake up a bit, Mr. Walker?” She saw his eyes move under his lids. “I’m going to touch your eyes a little and see if that helps you. Just squeeze my hand a bit more if you want me to stop.”

 With her right hand she carefully, carefully stroked across his eyelids.  A little more movement and he groaned.

 “I know. It’s really hard. But you are doing so much better.” she cooed softly to him.

Somehow she could feel the struggle in him. Knew he was fighting to respond the best he could. He was so young to be in such shape she thought. She reached across him with her free hand and squeezed the call button.

 Dr. Ardez opened the door popping her head in. “Do you need assistance Dr. Finn?”

 Meridoc smiled, “I think I need a chair. He’s trying to respond. I may be here awhile. He doesn’t seem inclined to let go of my hand.”

#trr fanfic #trr drake #trr liam #trr au fanfic #sometimes beginnings start with goodbye

[max-transition]

01/06/2019

— MY SURGERY EXPERIENCE —

It’s been ages since I’ve updated since I’ve been really busy with uni exams, but I just had top surgery on the 30th May with Miles Berry at the London Welbeck Hospital!!! Overall, I’ve had a great experience so far, and it’s now been about 48 hours since the op so I thought I’d describe the experience for anyone considering going with Berry or just having top surgery in general.

One thing I didn’t realise I’d have to do beforehand was take some MRSA swabs (armpit and nose) and send them back to the clinic; this wasn’t difficult or a problem or anything but it wasn’t something I’d heard mentioned before. I had a helpful phone call with the nurse about when I’d be checking in, what to expect, when I’d be discharged etc., though my time for checking in did get pushed back earlier by about an hour a few days before.

I checked in to the clinic at 13:10 on the 30th, having not eaten since about 06:30 that morning and not had any water to drink since 11:00. I had to fill in some forms about my next of kin, basic medical stuff, consent to sharing information, and a menu for my evening meal and breakfast. I wasn’t anxious or anything when I got there, mainly just very hungry! I was taken to my private room which was nice, comfy looking, had an ensuite and a TV, though annoyingly nowhere to plug my phone in to charge (luckily I brought a portable charger with me, I’d recommend doing this just in case). I met the first nurse then - I had at least two working different shifts, possibly three but I was quite out of it after surgery so not sure lol - who weighed me, took my blood pressure and asked some basic questions. I then had to shower before surgery with a special soap they gave me, and leave a urine sample in a plastic pot in the bathroom. I was given my surgical gown, icky hospital underwear, compression stockings, a dressing gown and some slippers at this point.

After a short wait, Miles Berry arrived and drew some marks on my chest. He was very professional and made me feel totally at ease. Then I met the anaesthetist and she went through similar questions as the nurse before, turns out she had a kid at the same university I go to so that was a weird coincidence! She also made me feel very safe and like I was in good hands. My parents went off at this point and I was then taken down to the operating theatre in the basement. I was still very calm and the process of going ‘under’ was surprisingly quick for me - I think this was due to not having eaten/drank for awhile and then having the oxygen mask which made me quite dizzy, so it didn’t take much to knock me out. My surgery took just under 3 hours, I then came round fairly suddenly and was pretty alert from the get go! I wasn’t anywhere near as ‘high’ or disoriented from the anaesthetic as I’ve seen other people be in videos and such; I guess it just depends on the person but I didn’t say anything weird at all apparently. The only thing is my memory from this point is a little bit fuzzy. I was taken back up in the lift on a wheeled stretcher thing (not sure what it’s called) and sort of shuffled into bed. The nurse took my blood pressure and oxygen level and then I waited for my parents to get back to say hello.

I had my dinner at about 20:30-21:00, which took me ages to eat because my mouth was so dry, but was nice and I did have an appetite still. I was on a saline drip still and obviously still had drains in. I was then given an antibiotic drip by the nurse, an oral shot of morphine, and then shortly after some co-codemol through my cannula. Unfortunately this did make me feel nauseous, but I didn’t throw up and just called the nurse for some anti-sickness which helped extremely quickly and I then felt fine, if very tired. I managed to get a decent amount of sleep in a slightly reclined sitting up position.

The next morning, I woke up nice and early, and was given the choice by the nurse to get my drains out before or after my breakfast. I chose to have them taken out before because I’d heard it was a horrible experience and wanted to get it over and done with! For me, it actually was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be, it felt weird as I took deep breaths and I could feel the sort of suction and pop as they came out, but not an awful lot of pain. There was some blood spattered on my bedsheets though so if you’re the type to freak out over blood I would try to look away! Getting the plasters taken off that were securing my cannula honestly hurt more as I have pretty hairy arms 😅. Breakfast was fine afterwards, my throat and mouth were still super dry though so I didn’t finish my toast. I was fully able to move around and go to the toilet by myself at this point, and feeling much better. I was discharged at about 09:30-09:45 and went home.

So yeah, it all went well and I’ll keep providing updates, may include some pictures in a subsequent post as well :)

#top surgery #ftm transition #ftm top surgery #miles berry #long post #feel free to ask questions!!

[desertwillowmod]

Letting go

Sometimes I think back on the most important people in my life when I was younger who I lost. 

My beloved uncle. He was there during my birth, he was the first of the family to hold me aside from my mother, he has the worst dad/uncle jokes. I remembered he use to call me Uncle when I use to be happy to see him and called out to him. I watched him play games and hung out with him when he was over constantly. He was there through many of my milestones. I still remember the day he was discovered in his home. He had died on May 5, 1999 from a diabetic coma caused by a malfunctioning insulin pump. He wasn’t found until a week later. When I heard the news, it was the first time my heart broke into a million pieces. I was 9 then. I knew what death was and I knew at that moment I would never see him again. I was forced to go to school and not attend to his cremation. It took 10 years to stop crying over his death. I know where he is, but the fact remains that I can’t hug him, kiss his cheek and hear his voice. He was a kind man that had been through a lot in his life so in some way I am glad he is at peace, but in other ways I want to be selfish and wish him back to life. I still miss him.

Though if I were to be honest there is someone I miss even more...my best friend Miles (name changed). 

Miles was the sweetest humanized teddy bear you would ever know. He had everything a child could dream and yet was humble. He had a condition where he had to have a stint put in his head to drain excess fluid from his skull, but that never stopped him from living life. I remember we met in our special needs class when one of our former bullies tried to get him to curse and Miles refused. I defended him and decided to stay with him to keep....I will call Carl away. From then on we were friends. I have far more memories when it comes to Miles. I remember our first Christmas. We were at the mall and exchanged teddy bears before dancing around the Christmas tree. I remember being at the dentist with him multiple times, being at his house every chance I got to watch Duck Tales, Darkwing Duck and Bear and the Big Blue house. When he moved to his new place I would visit every summer to make use to the basketball courts, tennis courts and his pool or indoor jacuzzi. I even remember playing in the music room with him with his dad’s permission of course. All these memories and more I will cherish for the rest of my days until I suffer dementia at 80. 

That is why when he died of MRSA in the hospital at 16, I was more broken than I was when my uncle died. Just when my wounds of loss where healing they were ripped open even wider, My best friend, my brother, once again my family was taken from me. I when to his Celebration of Life/Funeral weeks later and I was a mess. I only cried the entire time. Some asshole tried to hit on me during that time and I had to fake having a boy friend just to bugger off. I looked though all of our memories, all of his pictures and art works he did. I felt like the worst friend in the world for not being there for him all the time. I regret not seeing him on his final day of life. I asked God why he didn’t take me too. The worst part was when he died, his nephew that he looked forward to meeting...was born that day he passed. I was so angry and upset that honest to God, I wanted to stop making friends. I wanted to isolate myself from everyone. I wanted to drop out of school and just stay in my house until I died naturally. Yet once again school was the priority. This week was his birthday and reliving all of these memories is bitter sweet. I know where he is and I know he is having a blast. When I die, I hope his there to greet me at the rainbow bridge. 

I made it through school and I still made friends, but from that point forward it was constant anxiety having them. To this day, I am afraid of losing friends yet I fear having them. I am afraid that my last interaction would be my very last time I will ever see them. Whether it was good or bad, I can’t handle another loss like that. I know I am a cruddy friend and I don't interact much, but I do love all of my friends. Even ones I barely talk to. It is just hard for me to communicate and not fear all I do around everyone. It makes me exhausted mentally all the time and I hate myself for being this way sometimes. 

Sometimes when I have a fight with a friend, when I annoy them in some way where they either snap or yell at me, I have to isolate myself to prevent damage and to not have a panic attack. I shut down until I have no emotions left. Some call it disassociation. I call it falling back into my head. By shutting down, I can’t speak my anger, I can’t express my frustrations and I am too preoccupied trying to stabilize myself. Sounds hurt, smells make me nauseous, colors are blinding and every touch feels like worms and beetles are crawling under my skin. There is also a persistent ringing that happens when I am having a panic attack/meltdown. The idea of my friends hating me along with the possibility they could die that day or sometime after that terrifies me to the core. 

The reason I am making this post is to finally voice what I wanted to for quite sometime. 

Uncle, I know our time was short, but thank you for being there for me. Thank you for being there for my birth, for treating me with kindness, for making me laugh and most of of all for being in my life as my uncle. 

Mile’s parents, I never blamed you for never talking to me after his death or letting me speak at the funeral. I know it was even more painful for you than I can ever imagine. I hope you two continue your cause to change all the health regulations in hospitals all over the U.S. May God guide you on your journey. 

Miles....I miss you so much and I love you like the brother. Thank you for the memories, being my best friend, my family and I am sorry that I wasn’t there for you when you needed me most. I hope your place in heaven has M&M rivers, Chicken tender inter tubes and you are surrounded by all stuffed animals you could ever want. I hope your Castle is Disney inspired, because you deserve the happiest place on Earth in Heaven. Thanks to your parents, they saved many lives with their work and you are their inspiration. You are saving lives, my friend. I want you to know that. I will meet you over the rainbow bridge and we will walk to Heaven’s gates together and we will spend the rest of eternity in his grace. 

Until we meet again...

[ammacdiaries-blog]

When In Williston....Just Don’t

First entry.  First attempt at writing a short story.  The following is a true story.  Obviously, names aren’t included.  I do welcome all feedback.  Please also share.

Here goes….

Fresh out of training, yet still in my probationary period dubbed first 120.  I began my embarquement from Seattle, Washington to Chicago, Illinois on my normal run called The Empire Builder.  The total journey would be 6-days; 3 there and 3 back.  Assigned to the Sleeper Car, I was in charge of first class services.  This entails providing services to 16 to 24 rooms with 1 to 5 passengers per room; making beds, to-go meals, luggage assist, etc.  I especially like working in the sleepers because of the direct customer contact.

This summer was proving to be an especially difficult one.  Continual track work bestowed us with countless delays.  This resulted in irritated passengers.  Still nothing I couldn’t handle.  Even as we entered Wolf Point, MT and I learned a tornado caused a freight liner to derail just ahead of us, I could still direct the mood of irritated passengers into a more positive one and keep people entertained.  

I guess I was too focused on the people and paid no attention to my arachnid homies, causing one to get especially bitter.  I asleep in my room, while Charlotte spun her web somewhere in the vicinity.  After a long day of whipping out some web, she must of developed a bad taste in her mouth.   

Through her several eyes, I can only guess she saw me as one of two things: An asshole who was keeping her trapped there, or a nice humid incubator where she could sink her teeth into a nice tender thigh.  Since Wilbur never gave her any bacon, after writing all those messages in the web, I assume she saw this as her one opportunity to get some good squealing in.  

I awoke with a burning sensation in between my legs.  Not that of a result of a great time with a complete stranger in a cheap hotel room.  But still one that would require countless antibiotics.  Where’s the fun in that?  I’m not sure whatever happened to Charlotte.  But I’m guessing after her journey to the nether regions of my southern hemisphere, she turned eight feet up and six feet under.  

Now me being me, I of course fell right back to sleep.  If the intruder alarm in my house won’t wake me up for long, chances are some heat near my hot pocket won’t wake me up either.  When I awoke though, I discovered Charlotte’s little parting gift for me.

Throughout the next several hours, I worked as normal.  Trying to ignore the pain of what started out as a pea-sized nob, and then had grown into a half-dollar sized coin.  By the night, I had started mastering the penguin waddle.  You skinny people might not get this reference.  But the penguin waddle is what us larger people do when chafing occurs in between the thighs.  As to not piss our ham hocks off any further, we keep our thighs close together and swish our hips, while keeping our legs straight in order to keep pain at a minimal.   I haven’t had to use this maneuver since my teenage years.  Luckily, it was like hopping on a bike after not being on one for a decade.  Oh the things I take pride in.

Going late into my 3-day, and still no where near Chicago, the abscess between my thighs had now grown to about 6-inches.  Still too scared to seek medical attention, I did find it in my better interest to let a crew member know just in case, you know, something worse could happen.  Despite his years of experience and vast knowledge of how Amtrak handles things, I still chose not to make management aware.  During the first 120, it was ingrained in our heads you will be fired for any mishap.  I must emphasize, this is not the case as I later learned.  

Our layover in Chicago, when on time is approximately 18-hours.  The delay from the derailment lowered that layover to approximately 4-hours.  I had planned on going to urgent care, getting an I&D, then leaving out on my return trip.  Unfortunately, I had just literally pulled a 24-hour shift, and was allotted 4-hours to do laundry, take a hot bath, nap for 1-hour and then return to work the train going back.  I was riding myself hard and putting me away wet.  

The wound had now spread from my groin to knee and was the most beautiful color of dark purple, had it not been my flesh.  Full car coming back, there would be no rest for this wicked man.  

In the distance, I heard the sound of a call light go off.  As it was lunch time, this could only mean they wanted to order their food to-go as opposed to being normal people and eating in the dining car.  Normally I wouldn’t be so irritated by such an easy request.  But my time back on this bicycle was making my ass more tender than veil.  

After collecting their order and returning with their food, I knocked on their door.  The vibrations of the knocking must of set off the richter scale because a splitting of the plates happened.  I ruptured.  The man answered the door with the biggest smile.  Those fresh burgers for him and his girlfriend had finally arrived.  And how he couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into them.

Yes he was greeted with that, but no.  There would be no smell of fresh angus beef and bacon in the air.  There would be that of the foul stench of the walking dead.  I dare not say what just happened.  We both looked at each other as if to say “What hell did you eat?”.  He knew it wasn’t him.  I knew it was me.  But he didn’t know that.  I gave him the look like it was him.  Which I hope made him believe it was his girlfriend.  Both our faces wrinkled to the point of needing an immediate injection of botox.  We still managed to exchange product for gratuity.  If they are still together, I won’t ever know.  

I was at a loss.  There was no more penguin waddle left in me.  I could only now slither like a slug to the nearest shower room and play doctor with my first aid kit.  I texted my partner in crime to let him know that an act of God had just occurred.  And thank goodness because we were approaching our next stop and I had to let passengers on and off.  There was no way I was going to help people with sappy, soupy pants on with the fragrance of that one wouldn’t even smell in a soup kitchen.  

Now seriousness was going to have to take place.  There was no further thing I could do but seek medical attention.

“Good afternoon passengers” came across over the PA system.  “Our next station stop will be Williston, North Dakota.”  

This was to be my stop.  The conductor had called for an ambulance to take me to the hospital.  I had only had about 15-minutes to pack my room, dress my wounds, dress myself and be available at the door.  Oh, and please don’t forget that I’m still only one 1-hour of sleep.  

As I stood there waiting for that next station stop, my passengers had began to cluster around the vestibule area, eager to step off the train, have that much desired cigarette, and of course witness my grand exit.  

I open the door upon arrival and before me are approximately 14 paramedics.  Not quite the paparazzi, but still very intimidating.  Then the press conference begins.

“Why is it you think you need an ambulance?” the one reporter boasted.

“I beg your pardon?”  What the hell kind of question is that?

“Why do you think you need to go to the hospital?”

Am I interviewing for a patient position, I thought.  I turned and look behind me to see my passengers just a chomping at the popcorn, anticipating what I was going to say next.  Well I’m sorry to disappoint.  But your not going to hear me say “Oh I have a compromised immune system and a wound the size of my fucking thigh just blew up in my thigh and I thought this would just be the next fun thing to do in my day.”

“I’ll be more than happy to answer that questions on our way to the hospital without an audience.”  I assertively replied.  

While dancing in the back of the ambulance to every pothole on the road, someone must have heard me say “I have ebola”, because when I got to the hospital, every person was wearing thick gowns, spit guards, and filtered masks.  I’m now so emotionally distraught, and tired, I have no idea what to do.  

I then was blessed to meet probably the only person with a brain, the PA who walked in asking why she felt she was on a movie set instead of a hospital.  As the lambs started “baaaaaaaaaahing” out their reasons, she quickly schooled them and said contact precautions as normal.  None of this additional crap is necessary.  She then looks at my wound and says “Cellulitis and possible MRSA.”  Oh Christ, I thought.  My next emotion was to cry.  Apparently this was something they didn’t know how to handle.  Well not handle so much as acknowledge.  

Because at this moment, I had learned Nurse Ratched had continued her education, becoming a doctor, my doctor and was standing before me.  “If we don’t keep you here, what is it you think you’re going to do?”

I didn't understand the question.  Yes, it was to the point.  I just didn’t see how it related to me.  “What do you mean, what am I going to do?”

“Well do you think Amtrak is going to just give you another ticket?  What are you doing to do?”

Despite Nurse Ratched’s continued education, I noticed she still somehow must have missed any courses involving bedside manner.  It feared me though that once I explained I was an employee and fully insured, how quickly her tune changed.  But that wasn’t a hill I was ready to climb.

While being admitted as an inpatient, I had understandingly fallen asleep to only be awoken by the Hospitalist, a harpy I dubbed Olga the Oger.  “Michael, we need to talk.”

I fumbled to awaken myself.  SInce my bladder felt as if to explode, this initial task was a bit easier.  “I need to use the restroom first.”

I’m not sure what kind of fetishes this harpy had, but she grabs a urinal,sits it in front of me, then sits down herself, giving me the strongest execution of poker face I had ever seen.

“Without an audience.” I commanded.  

While waiting for her to come back in the room, flapping her wings to perch in her nest, I fell back asleep.  Then again with that same shrill I heard “Michael, I said we needed to talk.”

Hold up.  What’s that?  No ma’am.  You obviously don’t know who I am.  It was at that moment my hummingbird ass was put to rest by my alligator mouth.  I couldn’t believe I had it in me.  The harpy looked down, looked at me in the eyes, then said “I am getting security.  I don’t feel safe with you in the room.”

Security must have been busy fighting the meth monsters from the emergency room.  Because she came back with no soldiers.  Which I was fine with.  I grabbed my big boy britches, apologized and proceeded our discussions.

Three more times she ran out of my room in fear.  No my friends, not from my hot temper.  But to change every order she had already written for me because she failed to find out my allergies beforehand.  I was starting to feel that Charlotte and I were going to be seeing each other again in the after life by the way things were going.

Well I survived the that 5-day stay in the hospital.  But no.  Mount Fiji had yet to be conquered.  My final night in Williston was to be at a hotel.  Work had generously called me cab to take me to the Ritz, no Discount something or other inn.

As I stand there waiting for my chariot to arrive, a strong sense of anxiety consumed me as I saw this black SUV come racing towards me.  Oh God.  This can’t be my cab.  I found placing my luggage in the back to be especially easy as the the whole back window had been busted out.  Upon entering the cab, I took notice to the several inches of dirt and dead insects upon my bench.  I especially loved that my “driver” rhythmically licked and chewed his lips as if they were two cheeseburgers from the best burger joint in town.

“Now they told me you would need a receipt.  I told them we give receipts on cards.”

Fair enough I thought.  Wait….What’s this.  Lip Licker hands me the card of a female real estate broker who specializes in short sales at Remax.  On the back of my card it says Cab Fare $17.00 and a signature.  Oh yeah.  Accounting will look at this like seeing a turd floating in a punch bowl.  

Thank Christ, I’m at the hotel!  I walk in to see the accommodations were doable.  Not the Ritz as I dreamed.  But after my week, a cardboard box set up in the middle lane of a highway in a rainstorm wouldn’t seem so disappointing.  “Sir.  We have your complimentary dinner available for you in the hallway over there.”

Dinner in the hallway?  Oh hell yeah!   Jackpot.  I couldn’t wait.  As I stand in line behind every roughneck in the state acting like vultures before 3 metal canisters, I couldn’t hardly wait to see what lottery winnings I could be consuming.  Door number one had something that I think might have been tuna.  Whatever it was, it was shredded, white, and crusty on top.  Behind door number two, chicken so oily, had I dropped it, Foghorn Leghorn would have slid straight to the Canadian Border.  Then behind door number three, corn dogs so hard, I could speer someone’s eyes out from across the room.  I figured between the preservatives, and the 600 different antibiotics running through my system, the speers would be the best way to go.

Oh let the C-Diff begin!!!!

It’s safe to assume, if I’m ever bit again, by anything, I’ll probably not wait so long to address it.  Maybe I’ll start asking for directions too.  

#williston #hotpocket #ammacdiaries #michaelmacneil

[junkyardlynx]

i feel like oversharing right now

it was always just me and my dad since i was very young. my mom was never in the picture, she passed when i was very young due to narcotic abuse, so he took care of me himself. his family shunned him for the most part and by extension, me.

we moved from the west coast to the midwest and settled down. at this time my father was already struggling with a few medical issues (a drop foot from an incident back in ‘89, a left hand near-permanently stuck in a claw shape due to an infection after a drywalling accident, a thumb that was torn off and re-attached on his right hand, chronic pain from rheumatoid arthritis) but he was capable of work. he worked at a die shop. on saturdays i’d end up at his work, napping on a forklift or playing a game on my gameboy. 

after that die shop closed, he got a job at a steamer / griddle manufacturer and moved up slowly. he eventually headed the shipping department and got a job that mostly consisted of being at desk and managing other people. since he needed the money, they gave him some extra to come in saturday and take care of a bunch of cleaning and odd jobs around the cubicle farm. i’d end up there, and played a metric fuckton of Diablo II on his computer. sometimes i’d help out, but he never made me. if i did, he’d throw me a few bucks for some cards and we’d go get lunch. 

i was happy. he did everything in his power for me. he raised me right, he taught me love and respect, he’s honestly the reason i get people i deliver to saying shit to me like “I just wanna look out for you because you remind me of my son.” he taught me compassion and kindness. also taught me some snark and gave me a love for sci fi. i still fondly remember him telling me i’d probably have the day off from school, so i could hang out in his room with ice cream and watch x-files all night.

of course, happiness doesn’t last in stories like mine. when i was 12, going on 13, my father was involved in an accident at work. he’d been taking care of things at a warehouse and a steamer fell and crushed his hip. it caused part of his hipbone to break off. being the stubborn man he was, he refused to go to the hospital until he couldn’t walk. turns out he was suffering from spinal cord compression and ended up accruing permanent nerve damage. 

my 13th birthday was spent with my dad in an understaffed, underfunded nursing home. i brought my ps2 up there so we could watch movies on DVD. a coworker of his picked me up late at night and asked if i wanted to get food. i declined. she took me home and said she’d be staying the night. i told her it was fine and she didn’t have to. i just wanted to be alone. she relented on the terms that if anything happened, i called the police immediately and then her. 

my dad was my man. he was my hero. still is, honestly. it just shook me. i’m not trying to brag or anything, but i was a pretty smart kid - blind as a bat by the time i was in third grade so i got sucked into reading and other shit that involved being close up so my idiot eyes could see. i knew things would never be the same. in the last three months i’d seen my father cry out of fear and pray to god. god never answered. 

eventually, he came home. he used a walker from that point on. before, due to his drop foot, he always wore a sort of leg-boot-brace that supported his foot and ankle, but he could still play catch and everything with me. ah, he fucking hated that walker. my dad was only 60 when he died, so from the time he was about 48 until he was 60, he used a walker or a wheelchair. the image of my father swearing and burning with embarrassment on the few times he tried to go to the store with me is burned into my mind. it makes me so sad i feel like i want to puke. my dad was a handsome man and had a budding romance with the woman who’d taken me home. it didn’t go anywhere after his accident. 

as i turned 14, i ended up driving around town for all of the errands and groceries, only letting dad drive for his doctor’s appointments so they wouldn’t ask questions. i matured relatively quickly, i had facial and chest hair in my freshman year. thankfully i was never pulled over or anything. 

my dad and i felt guilt towards each other and it showed. we were overly cautious of each other’s space as i turned 16. for me, i basically blamed my dad’s poor health on my entire existence, reasoning that if i had never been born, he would still be out on the sunny west coast, living life to the fullest, probably happy and in love. for him, he confessed years later that he felt like he’d failed me because i never ended up going out much in high school, always being at home to make sure he was okay. i just wanted him to be okay. comfortable. happy, if possible.

we continued like this until i got out of high school. i had very poor credit when i was 18 due to bills being put in my name and then subsequently being unpaid due to my father losing his disability benefits several times over, and even then, i felt like i couldn’t really devote myself to my studies because his health was always getting worse. he was constantly plagued with MRSA and cellulitis in his legs among other things, leading to weeping sores on his frightfully small-but-swollen legs that never went away. i never ended up going to college. 

i got a job, and i’m still at that job. i’ve managed to grandfather myself into a somewhat ridiculous hourly rate while still working delivery, so other prospects are incredibly noncompetitive. i started paying the rent for him and trying to do what i could to help, but we could never get ahead. copays and equipment costs piled up, culminating in him requiring a nurse to come by every week and check on him. 

i remember coming home to our apartment one day to find a box of my dad’s medical supplies unceremoniously ripped open and scattered along the stairway outside of the apartment proper. all that was in the box was gauze, medical tape and a bunch of xeroform patches (commonly used to treat burned flesh, but used for my dad’s sores). the upstairs neighbors apparently thought he’d had some drugs delivered right to his door or something. i think that was the most murderous rage i’d ever felt in my life. i did nothing about it, other than stuffing the contents into the box and telling my dad that i’d accidentally ripped it open, laughing it off. 

things continued like this until i was 23, with my father sliding further and further down the scale of healthiness. i tried to live my own life. i fell in love. it was good. i had a bout of almost dying of sepsis at this time and even in the hospital, my main concern was my dad. i made sure that nurse showed up once a day to check on him instead of once a week. it took my entire tax return but it gave me peace of mind.

a few months after i got out of the hospital, my father went back in. he’d been passing out for periods of time and his lungs were heavily degraded along with the rest of his body. they shuffled him around to a few nursing homes, but eventually, there was no chance of recovery and they sent him to hospice.

i still remember the call. i was playing destiny and eating dinner alone in my new apartment that i’d been forced to relocate to (it’s where I live now) after they refused to sign the apartment lease over to my name where i was. i was doing good. i didn’t know they were about to give up on my dad. 

he called me. went a little like this.

“hey buddy”

“hey pops, how ya doin’?”

“i’m alright, are you playin that one game? still having trouble with that deathmatch stuff?” 

“nah, i finished that. what’s up? did you need me to run something down? you want some more peanut butter m&ms? i picked some up at walgreens on the cheap.”

“nah buddy. you don’t have to worry about that anymore. they’re gonna put me in hospice.”

his voice broke; i lost mine. it was a solid minute before i could speak. my fingers kept moving out of sheer rote muscle memory.

“hospice? but i thought you said you were doing okay.”

“i am buddy. i don’t wanna live in pain anymore, and i had a good life. i’m really proud of you, and i love you. i gotta get off the phone now, but you’ll be okay. they’ll call you in the morning to tell you where i’m being moved. i love you so much, spencer.”

that was the last time i ever really got to talk to my dad while he was lucid. we had a few rambling conversations while he was drowning in pain medicine, and i ended up leaving just a few short hours before he passed one morning. i still regret it.

i miss him so fucking much. my girlfriend broke up with me the week my dad died, telling me i was “too sad about it” and that “she couldn’t help me deal with that.” turns out she was cheating. 

i lost everything i ever loved two years ago. i nearly died the year before that. i’m not okay, really. i’m still not. i’ve been pulling the broken pieces back together but all i am is a collection of scars and bruises. i can’t find the places that don’t ache anymore. 

it was just my dad and i, and i still feel like i ruined his glorious, brilliant, shining life by being born. i know it’s not what he believed at all. it just hurts. it hurts so bad and it’s hurt so, so long. 

i wish you guys could have met him.

he was so fucking funny. he said the craziest things and always had a witty reply. he liked to mess with me and others. 

he was tender. the face he made when he met Kitty Pryde (my cat that i drove an hour to pick up) was the first real spark of joy i’d seen on his face in years. they were joined at the hip. she basically just settled for me after we left - if she had a choice, it’d always be snoozing on dad’s lap. when i’d leave for work and they’d be asleep on the couch, curled up together, i felt like things were gonna be okay. 

he was kind. even to those who treated him poorly, like the doctors that ignored his pain and refused to treat him like a human being. 

he taught me how to cook. he’s the reason i’ve been able to function like an actual person since i was young - he believed in self sufficiency but not pointless pride. 

he never once berated my interests. my dad grew up in the 60′s and 70′s and his spheres of interests were pretty far from mine until later in his life - man, i got to burn my dad a CD of my favorite music. and he loved it. and made me put all my favorite tracks on his phone. he watched anime stuff on netflix. he wishes he could have played games with me more, but his hands were so bad.

my dad was the best person i’ve ever met. if i turn out half as kind and giving as him then maybe i won’t waste the life he’s given me. 

i just. miss him. i had a good dad. he was the only family i really had, but he was all i needed.

and now he’s gone. 

and i’m alone, struggling to make ends meet, struggling with my creative outlets, struggling to make sense of everything in the calm waters of absence and loss.

#personal #family #dad #father #long post #life story #disability #death

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #166

“you are my slave, my little fucking disaster.”

Are your eyes the same color as your mom’s or your dad’s? Neither's. Are you afraid of elevators? YEP. When was the last time you pulled an all-nighter? What was the reason behind it? How did you feel the next day? No less than a month ago when I was binging someone on YouTube...  Maybe Shane? Which of the following areas is going best for you right now: finances, work, love life, social life or education? Why do you say this? Lol only my love life is going well. All the other categories are on fire rn. :^) Have you ever heard of somebody doing something disrespectful to somebody’s grave? Or seen vandalism on a grave/gravestone? No, thank goodness. What is something you do differently, depending on your mood, environment, etc. (could be anything from what kind of outfit you choose to how you react when somebody irritates you)? Well, dress, for one. I'm at home, I'm permanently in pjs. I try not to swear around kids. Lots of other stuff... This question is pretty broad. What was the last song to bring out strong emotions in you? I'm not sure. Metaphorically speaking, what was the last thing to crush you? Finding out my cousin can die at the snap of a finger. You are about to die; what do you do with your worldly possessions? Give 'em to family and charities. Do you take vitamins daily? No. Do you know anyone that’s handicapped? Probably. Do you know any illegal immigrants? I did, but he got deported after he fucked up with getting involved in crime. Do you own any formal gowns/tuxes? I have one black dress I'd wear to certain occasions if I could actually fit in it, which I definitely could not currently. Can you sit for long periods of time? NO. Pretty sure my surgery caused a sensitive nerve, because afterwards, I couldn't and still can't sit very long without getting up being horrendous and slow. Do you have any cavities? Just one I'm scheduled to get fixed next month. What’s the most attractive thing on the opposite sex?
 Why do I like shoulder blades so much like why Do you regularly experience pain in any part of your body? My knees constantly hurt. Wish I knew why. Last place you flew to on a plane? Chicago, and I'm going again real soon. :') Does Europe or Asia sound more appealing to you for a vacation? Ugh both. But it's more likely I'll see Europe. Who was the last person to give you a hickey? If ever. He Who Shall Not Be Named. What is your lover's middle name? Jane. Who was the last person to flirt with you, other than your lover? I don't think anyone. What’s your favorite type of sushi? Never tried it, not interested. What’s your favorite patriotic song? All that's coming to mind is "Courtesy of the Red, White, And Blue" by Toby Kieth. It's pretty catchy. Have you ever read a book about a character in a psych ward? No, but that'd actually be really interesting and maybe relatable to me... though that could also prove dangerous and triggering, too. Have you ever been in a mental hospital as a patient? Five or six times, I stopped paying attention at four. Whose place did you last chill at and with who? Colleen's. Have you ever been lead on? I don't think so. Have you ever slept with a member of the opposite sex without having sex? Well yeah, we were in a long-term relationship, we were just about an old married couple just like "nah son we going to bed." Sleeping with each other was enough. What would you say if someone asked you to get high right now? Peasant, I won the D.A.R.E. writing contest in the 5th grade, I say hugs not drugs. Has someone close to you died of a murder? No. How often do you brush your hair? Every time after a shower and before I go out. Short hair makes caring for it so much easier. Did you ever listen to Avril Lavigne when you were younger? Fuck yeah I did. What are three things you refuse to ever do? Prostitute, abuse someone, do drugs. Do you have any medication that you keep with you at all times? Yes, anxiety attack med. What’s something that’s much more difficult than a lot of people realize? Putting on and maintaining a happy face with depression. Have you ever began a relationship with someone you knew for less than a week? No. Do you typically do your make up the same each time? Or do you like to change it up often? It's pretty much the same. What is your favorite breakfast food? Cinnamon rolls. Do you plan on having both your parents at your wedding? Yeah. When you help someone do you ever think, “What’s in it for me?” Check your heart if you actually ask yourself this. Have you ever carried a concealed weapon? No. Have you ever blocked someone on Facebook before? Yeah. Tattoos on your lower back - cute or trashy? Neither, reliant on just placement. I couldn't care less where you get tatted, the location doesn't *automatically* make something (un)attractive. Also, try to convince me how the placement of a tat is "trashy." What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever cried about? There's no telling. Ever faked an orgasm? No. Done something illegal to your car? N/A What scars on your body do you have? Oh, boy... I scar so easily. My worst ones are on my shins from scratching the fuck out of them after shaving, I have two scars from stitches, various cat scratches, a scar from bumping into the side of Venus' cage, one from accidentally scratching my hand pretty bad while washing my feet in the shower (don't even ask how I accomplished that), faint self-harm ones.  I have way too many. Ever date anybody in middle school? One guy. Puppylove. Ever written your number in a public bathroom or a school text book? If so, did anyone actually call you? No. Ever had an infection of any kind? Yeah. Ears, a piercing, a cyst... probably more. Oh, and I have inactive MRSA, if that counts. Would you prefer cherry Cola or vanilla Cola? Omggggggg, gimme cherry. Vanilla Coke is gross. Have you ever tried to draw an anime version of yourself? No. How do you feel when you are ignored? I handle this worse than the average person. No one likes it, but it makes me feel especially unimportant, annoying, and unworthy of any attention, because something must be "wrong" with me. I guess it's maybe an AvPD thing, like I interpret it as rejection. Name a site that you visit everyday. KM. I'm like an overprotective mom of it that has to ensure everything is fine. Have you ever led the prayer at dinnertime? If not, do you want to? I have on Thanksgiving. Would you rather play an instrument or be the singer? If I was actually confident in my voice, sing. Turkey or ham for Thanksgiving? Turkey is too dry, so I was all about spiral ham. Do you celebrate Black Friday? I just shop online if there's a good deal I come across. What song are you listening to right now? "Army Of The Night" by Powerwolf. Have you ever been bitten by an animal? Nipped, sure. Then occasionally a cat would play too rough. Colons or equal signs for your smiley face’s eyes? Colons. At what point were your parents most disappointed in you? I don't know. Have you ever had a tarot reading or palm reading? No, I don't believe they're in any way factual. If you’re no longer in school, what is something you miss about it? If you’re still in school, what’s something you think you’re going to miss about it? I miss at least somewhat of a social life. What is the greatest amount of money you’ve spent on a concert ticket? How much would you be willing to spend to see your favorite band/artist? Idk how much the Alice Cooper tickets were. To see my absolute favorite... maybe $300? Do you use your turn signals when you’re driving? I'll judge you the moment I find out you don't. When you play Monopoly, what game piece do you choose to use for going around the board? The dog. What books (if any) have you read more than once? Meerkat Manor: Flower of the Kalahari and Because of Winn-Dixie off the top of my head. What is something you like to think about while you fall asleep? Happy thoughts. Focus on something good that happened and stuff like that. How long do you think you could tolerate going without showering? There's absolutely no way I could go beyond three. Even after two days, I feel pretty yucky. If you had the power to instantly transform someone’s life (for the better), who would you choose to use this on? My mom. She's never happy and probably doesn't remember what it's like to not be a stressed mess. Does it bother you when surveys ask about political or cultural topics that could possibly be controversial? No. Does someone’s view on homosexuality affect how you feel about them in any way? Yup. How about someone’s view on religion? It depends on which and how hardcore you are about it. Do you wear Crocs? Set them aflame. What’s your favorite thing to have on your bed? Sara. Don't even mean that sexually, it just means I get to cuddle with her lmao. What’s the nicest text in your inbox say? Certainly something saved from Sara. Who was your last missed call? Vocational rehab. The person you have feelings for says he/she wants to have sex, you say? Well first if she was absolutely certain about wanting to. Then I'd be all for it. Do you know how many people your best friend has had sex with? None. KFC or Popeye’s? I don't like fried chicken, like at all. If you could have a neon light sign that said anything you wanted, or looked like anything you wanted, what would it be? I deadass want a retro-style, blue one that reads "but be very Jim" to confuse the unenlightened. What was the last thing to malfunction/break in your house? Was it fixed? Something was wrong with the washer. I think it's been fixed? Or Mom's doing laundry elsewhere. What was the last uncomfortable situation you were in? I was getting my knees x-rayed and of course they needed a billion angles, and I couldn't totally understand what the woman was telling me (very echoey), so I just totally ragdolled and let her do whatever with my legs, but she needed me to readjust a lot and just ugh it was awkward and I felt very annoying. Do you think it is awkward for people over sixteen to have sleepovers? No????? Are you good about sharing your belongings? Are there certain items [aside from obvious things like your underwear] that you wouldn’t be willing to share with anyone? It depends on what it is and who you are. Something I'd share with no one... idk. Will you cry at your wedding? I will get raccoon eyes the moment I see her. What was the last thing you sang? "Where The Wild Wolves Have Gone" by Powerwolf. Gummy bears or Gummy worms? Worms. What’s your middle name(s)? Marie Catherine. If your last ex said they hate you, you say? I wouldn't know what to say; I'd be pretty damn hurt. We've been friends since high school and he's the last "real" friend I have irl. Only one I ever occasionally see, only one who checks up on me. What do you struggle with the most? Anxiety. It affects so many areas of my life. Are you good at giving advice? I don't think I'm bad. Especially if you give me a moment to think on the topic. What do you want to change about your looks? W E I G H T Do any of your pajama pants have holes in them? There's quite a lot in my Batman pair. Old. What do you get cravings for the most? Soda, probably. Do you enjoy watching vlogs? Depends on the person and what I feel up to watching. What is your favorite Halloween candy? Nothing really exclusive to the holiday. Where was your senior prom held? The local community college. What was the theme of your senior prom? Don't remember, actually. Do you know what you want the theme of your wedding to be? If so, what would it be? Sara babe can we do gothic please I'll marry you harder. Did you have low self-esteem growing up? No, it became an actual problem in high school. If you’ve ever had your hair highlighted, what color highlights did you get? Purple and red are the only highlights I've gotten, I think. What color Christmas lights do you like best on your tree? ALL THE COLORS. What do you put on top of your Christmas tree? We tend to alternate between a star and angel. How many proms did you go to? Two. How many boyfriends have you had in your life? Meh, answered this in enough surveys, so I'll just say only one was serious. How many girlfriends have you had in your life? One. Have you ever had a “friend crush” on someone? OH YEAH, I've learned that I have more than once. Think I like someone like that, then nope. Were you ever homeschooled? I was homebound at the end of 8th grade. At what age did you start puberty? Idk. I just know I was normal. Have you ever made a wreath? No. Who was your first roommate? My then-boyfriend, his friend, and his then-girlfriend. What color hair did your first crush have? Brown. Do you know how to change a tire? No. Have you ever passed out? Once, came very close on I think two or three other occasions. Do you prefer notepad or wordpad? Wordpad. Do you eat raw cookie dough? I will risk salmonella for that shit. How old is the last person you kissed? 20. Where does your best friend live? Illinois. How many people have you truly fallen IN love with? Two. Has anybody ever called you a tease? Oh boy. I fucking live off teasing. What about kinky? I was too much of a shy sub for him to ever see that side ha. Where was your mom born? Queens, NY. Have you ever seen your siblings naked? My two immediate sisters, anyway. What do people call you? Brittany, Britt, or Ozz, mostly. What are you doing this weekend? BITCH I'M GETTING MY MARK TATTOO. I made $365 + $20 sitting fee for the wedding shoot so guess what I'm treating myself to. Do you owe anyone money? Who? What for? My old college. Do you like people? Eh. Hard question for me to answer. I think I'm neutral towards the morality of humanity in general, but what's for sure is I don't trust the majority. Do you think you look better with a tan or without? Without. It's all I really know lmao. Would you ever share your most embarrassing moment in a YouTube video? That'd be flagged fast lmao. Regardless, n o p e. What’s your favorite hair color for girls? PASTEL COLORS!!!!! I like dyed hair on anyone okay. What color is your recliner? Don't have one. Do you wear makeup every day, or only on special occasions? Whenever I feel like it, regardless of occasion. What helps you take your mind off your problems? Talk to Sara, RP, watch YouTube... Does your first crush know you liked him/her? Definitely not. Did you ever think your house was haunted? I think my most recent might have been? But idk. Do you have any supernatural gifts or abilities? No. What does your trick-or-treat bag or bucket look like? N/A sadly. :c Do you celebrate Christmas? Yeah. What season would you want to have engagement photos taken in? As much as I hate the season, spring, with l o t s of flowers and sunshine!! You’re in line at Taco Bell, what’s your order? I only ever get a cheese quesadilla and fiesta potatoes. Has anyone ever taken your clothes off of you before? Yeah. Have you ever stayed up at night waiting for someone to call/text you back? Maybe? Have you ever touched a dead body? Dead pets, yes. I might've touched my old babysitter's face or something at her open-casket wake, idr. Have you ever had a real tea party? Or been to one? No. Just the make-believe ones Nicole would want to do as a kid with her Disney set. How do you feel when a mostly unheard of band (or tv show, movie, etc.) that you love suddenly starts to gain popularity? Happy for 'em! Just don't change your style for the sake of appeasing the masses. *coughmaroon5cough* When was the last time you listened to new music? Recently. Gotten into Spotify a bit. Do you think it is strange when a couple says “we are pregnant” rather than “I am pregnant” or “my girlfriend is pregnant”? No, I actually think it's sweet. You're in it together. What word spelled out looks weird to you? "Acquaintance." I can't spell it either; fucked it up first time. Do you require “closure” after things like break-ups or do you move on easily? I need closure. Is there a genre of movie that you just can’t watch? I'm not that into action. Have you ever been on a hot air balloon? No. What was the last seriously painful thing that happened to you? Getting my tragus re-pierced was actually pretty rough since apparently I have thick cartilage and it went through scar tissue. What’s the last rude thing someone said to you? Idk. What does your class ring look like? I didn't buy one. List ten careers you think you’d find interesting. Oh, jeez. Ten? Particularly interesting? I'll try: Paleontologist, biologist, cryptozoologist, zoologist, musician, YouTuber, dancer, taxidermist, snake morph breeder, and uhhhh. Idk. Do you know what you want to do with your life? Yeah. Do you believe in Judgment Day? No. What is the name of your YouTube channel? My current one is 0zzkat. What was the first social media site you joined? MySpace. Where would you most like to do a 24-hour challenge in? List five places. Bitch tbh I don't think I could do any alone lmao. But I'd probably find an old asylum scariest/most interesting. What’s your favorite part of Chinatown? Never been. What are some jobs people in your family have had? List five. Disney World employee, professional cake decorator, mammographer, special ed assistant teacher, and dance instructor. Which Power Ranger was your favorite? Wasn't into that. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of? Whale sharks oof. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Buy me that Reese's Blast thing from Sonic and I'll be your slave for a day. Do you believe in aliens? I actually do by now. If you were ever sent to prison what crime would you have committed? I've legitimately worried about me killing someone in self-defense but it being ruled as murder or something. @_@ Do you have a picture of you kissing someone? Yeah. Do you have a favorite pillow you always sleep with? No. When was the last time you slept in someone else’s bed? When I was at Sara's. Out of all of your friends who have you gotten in the worst fight with? That I still associate with, Sara. We were lil shits. :'D Who was the last person to have to deal with you having an attitude? Mom. If you had $100 dollars, how would you spend it? Save it to get my laptop fixed. You were given the opportunity to get a new cellular device, what do you choose? Some older iPhone. I don't need something needlessly expensive, just one that isn't actual garbage. Which of your classes in school is most capable of killing a good mood for you? Math was. How nice of a person are you, honestly? Tbfh I think I'm typically too nice. I'm getting better at taking less b.s. now tho. Ever physically fought with member of the opposite sex? No. Ever kissed a friend’s crush? No. Do you swallow gum when you’re finished? Only if I really want it gone but I don't have access to a trashcan. Very rarely does that happen because I feel funny trying to swallow it. Ever had a best friend of the opposite sex? Well when I was dating Jason I considered him my best friend of course, but if you don't count s/os, no. Have you ever kissed in the snow? Probably. Is there someone that you believe you will always be attracted to? Yeah. Do you have something in your room that you never want to get ruined? I would legitimately break down if something happened to my shiny pebble from Holly Hill. I got it on my "graduation;" it symbolized how something beautiful came from harsh conditions or something like that. It was passed around by my teachers and "classmates" for each person to wish me well and just in general say all they wanted to about me while holding it. With how that place truly became my messiah, I couldn't lose that thing, ever. Have you ever made a difference in someone’s life? I'd think so. My parents especially, obviously. Next time you will kiss someone on the lips? OCTOBER 3RD APPROACHES. Do you think dances (prom, homecoming, etc.) are fun or lame? They're overrated. You pay a lot to look nice just to stand around with shit music blaring and being totally unable to hear each other. I truly don't know why I went to two. What was the last thing you tried for the first time? Ummm blue cheese? What was the last thing you learned? Oh jeez, this should be easy with the videos I've been binging lately. Nothing impressive. How often do you visit your relatives? Like, never ever. When was the last time someone admitted to having somewhat of an attraction to you? Sara. What was the last wedding you went to like? Any pictures you’d like to post? It was beautiful and intimate, and it was an absolute honor to be the photographer. I don't feel like fetching pictures, but they're on my photography site and FB page. Has anyone slapped you across the face before? If so, why? No. Do you prefer to have more or less in common with your significant other? More. Would you take a shot of heroin for a million dollars? No, not worth it. Why don’t you talk to your ex anymore? Aaron: Drifted apart. Juan: He's a reckless fool I didn't want to associate with, partly out of fear of his rep, too. Jason: He wanted nothing to do with me.  He claimed it was for my own sake as he didn't want me to develop false hope, but who knows if that was the sole reason. Tyler: He was way too obsessive and wouldn't leave me alone. I still talk to Girt.

#survey #quiz #questions #random

[hannuhhzworld-blog]

Personal Blog Entry #1

Two years ago I lost my father. My best friend and mentor. One evening I found myself whispering in my then unresponsive father’s ear that he didn't have to fight anymore, That he had fought long enough and he could finally let go and be free of pain. I walked out the hospital room door and down the stairs. I didn't have my car turned on before I received that horrid phone call. “Have you left yet? He’s gone, Hannah.” As the sound of my moms tears flooded my ear, my phone fell to the ground and I dropped to my knees. I walked back to my fathers room and hugged him goodbye for the last time as I cried out every tear in my body. Although for years we were told to expect this, told to prepare ourselves for the inevitable, I never really prepared myself, I didn't want to. I never really accepted it. He was diagnosed with smokeless lung cancer 8 years prior. For 8 amazing years he fought harder than any person I know. He took the pills, did the chemo, got the surgeries and lived every day like it was his last. Aside from the loss of hair, and sometimes feeling unwell from all the chemicals pumped into his body, you would never know that he was sick. That he was dying. He rode his bike several miles almost every day, worked hard as an administrator at the children's hospital, and did everything he could think of for the cause. He told his story and supported others through their fight, He was the most perfect man. An angel bound to earth to teach people to never give up on their hopes and dreams no matter what obstacle was placed in the way.

Two years ago I lost my way. Following the loss of my father I started down a very dark and dismal path. I stopped caring about my life and myself. I found myself addicted to a drug that has stripped me of everything including my dignity. I lost my way. I spent every day thinking of how to obtain that drug and numb myself rather than anything else. I was afraid to feel because I knew once that high wore down that I would not only be physically ill but the numbness would cease and I would be forced to feel...well, feelings. I loved the way it made me feel. As soon as that liquid hit my veins a warmness would come over me, a calmness. I would be numb to most my feelings mainly because I was in a state of “nod.” I always found a way to get money to support my habit wether it meant selling my personal items or stealing, because of course eventually I lost both of my jobs. I ended up in the hospital several times for MRSA. The second time I was on the brink of death when I came in. The infection had spread to my blood and made its way to my heart where there was now growth on one of my valves. My father must have been watching over me those few weeks at the hospital because miraculously I not only made it through and got better, but the antibiotics cleared my heart and my scheduled heart surgery never happened. I ended up in jail not once, not twice, but three times. The first two times were not drug offenses but they were the result of a drug infused rage as well as shoplifting while high. Eventually, though, I was caught with a small amount of heroin in my possession which landed me in jail and currently on probation. Even after all this I didn't care. I got right out of jail and went straight to my dealer. I got right out of the hospital and used. I even had people bring me drugs to the hospital, which the doctors caught on to and eventually restricted my visiting, resulting in me signing myself out early. Luckily, though, the antibiotics already did their job before I did so. I disappointed not only myself, but my family and friends as well. Most importantly I disappointed my mother who had enough on her plate with the loss of the love of her life.

Recently, I found hope again. After years of drug abuse, disappointing my friends & family, extreme health problems and jail, I finally got tired of it. I’m not sure if it was one thing in particular.  I’m not sure if it was the tiredness of being sick, the sadness of deforming my body or the fear of constantly being in trouble that made me stop, but something finally did. I know for a fact it was mainly being tired of hurting the one woman who has loved me and stuck by me through all my troubles and bad decisions- my beautiful and strong mother. Not to mention, I know my father has been looking down on me in disappointment and the thought of that is beyond horrifying. I got tired of disappointing my mother and living a life alone. I got tired of never seeing the rest of my family and hiding away in my bedroom with a needle with no hope for my future. I got tired of stealing, selling my possessions and constantly being afraid of being sick as hell. I am taking it one day at a time. I am starting to feel again and trying to learn to accept the loss of my father and all those other things i’ve been afraid of dealing with sober. I am finding myself again and finding my passions again. Its insane how one bad decision, one drug, can take away so much in a persons life and drain them of everything. 

I had to lose myself to really find myself. I had no thoughts, feelings, passions or cares. I got to the point where overdosing looked like the better idea. That is going to change. That IS changing. I am finding myself again and for that I am forever grateful. I am beyond grateful for my mother who never gave up on me even when I gave up on myself and I am grateful for finally finding the strength to make the changes necessary to be HUMAN again. Every day is a fight, and I am scared as hell, but I know in my heart that I can and WILL do this.

#death #loss #drugs #heroin #blog #diary entry #me #truth #addict #addiction #fear #hope #love #personal #blog entry #blog entry 1 #personal blog

[one-of-us-blog]

Licence to Kill (1989)

Today Drew is forced to watch and recap 1989’s Licence to Kill, the sixteenth James Bond adventure. Bond’s goin’ rogue, baby! When a drug lord almost kills his good friend Felix Leiter, Bond takes it personally and sets out to get revenge. Will Bond need to dig two graves before setting off on this quest for vengeance?

Keep reading to find out…

Eli, it was so great to hear how much you enjoyed both parts of “Seems Like Old Times”! I agree that it was wonderful to see Dorothy again, and I’m really glad this was a positive experience for you. I’m also glad that we had some real talk about James Bond Jr., because you really saved me from falling into a rabbit hole. I had some big ambitions about tackling the whole series, but after watching those first ten episode I had the wind taken out of my sails in a major way. I love some cheesy cartoons as much as the next guy, but the idea of covering all 60 or so episodes of that show made me dread making a new post every time I thought about it. I feel like a bit of a failure for not being able to power through the whole series, but you giving me permission to abandon that little side project took a lot of weight off my shoulders. Now I’m ready to finish off the rest of the Bond movies, so let’s get to it!

Buttocks tight!

Screenplay by Michael G. Wilson & Richard Maibaum, film directed by John Glen

Bond and his good friend Felix Leiter (David Hedison) (I can’t believe we’re getting two movies in a row with Leiter in it, and this Leiter even looks a bit familiar!) are on their way to Leiter’s wedding (I wonder how Gordo will feel about his new stepmom?) when they’re snatched up by some dorks from the DEA. Turns out Leiter has moved on from the CIA and taken up a post at the DEA, and now his new friends want his help in rounding up a drug lord and all around loony Frank Sanchez (Robert Davi). Leiter only lets Bond come along as an observer, but this is Bond so naturally he’s got to get involved and also make the moves on Sanchez’s shaken and abused girlfriend Lupe (Talisa Soto). We get a brief aerial chase and we see Bond grapple down to hook Sanchez’s plane to the DEA helicopter, and with the drug lord successfully snagged Leiter and Bond are both able to parachute down to the wedding. We get a genuinely funny sight gag of some kids lifting up Leiter and Bond’s parachutes like they’re trains on wedding dresses and then we jump right into this movie’s title sequence.

Miss Gladys Knight herself belts out “Licence to Kill”, which is a solid bop, as we get some shots letting us know that a casino is going to be involved in this plot somehow. Were you worried that we wouldn’t get some silhouettes of naked ladies dancing around? Well rest easy, because the ladies are back and the same as ever.

To just about everyone’s shock, the bit we saw before the title sequence wasn’t inconsequential to the actual plot of the movie and we rejoin Sanchez as he’s being interrogated by DEA officers. Sanchez tries to bribe his way to freedom, but it seems Officer Killifer (Everett McGill), who shares a name with my sexy teen serial killer OC, can’t be bought. We jump back to that whole wedding thing, and Bond and Della (Priscilla Barnes), Leiter’s new bride, share several kisses because that’s the kind of friend to Leiter that Bond is. Bond goes to Leiter’s office and finds him talking shop with Pam Bouvier (Carey Lowell). Bond chides Leiter for working while there’s a part going outside, but Leiter’s a real dweeb and would rather talk about Sanchez than get wasted at his own reception. Killifer shows up because I guess this is more important than cracking Sanchez, and that reminds me that I really need to get to work on finishing the ending for Killifer Krisch and the Case of Maul Madness (in which Killifer visits her local mall and gets into a competition with her rival Tuffany to see who can kill the most people before closing time). Killifer leaves immediately because everything he came to tell Leiter could have been said via a telephone call and Leiter goes out to finally cut the cake.

Killifer teleports back to the DEA so he can help transport Sanchez to jail or wherever, only it seems our beloved Killifer was not as innocent as he seemed (a similarly shocking revelation took place in Killifer Krisch and the Christmas Eve-il, in which Killifer reveals to her friends Tanja and Briff that it was, in fact, she who mutilated that Salvation Army Santa) as he immediately crashes Sanchez’s transport into the ocean and has a team of scuba diving friends of his scoop the drug lord up and doggy paddle him to safety. Bond is finally leaving Leiter and Della so they can get on with their honeymoon, and Della inadvertently stirs up some bad memories by tossing Bond her garter and pointing out the gross belief that a man who catches a bride’s garter will be the next one to be married. After Bond leaves Leiter lets Della in on the whole Tracy situation which I’d honestly kind of forgotten about at this point.

Leiter and Della prepare to leave, but they’re ambushed by Sanchez’s men. Sanchez’s henchman Milton Krest (Anthony Zerbe) wants to kill Killifer and make a break for it (a similar almost-double cross took place in Killifer Krisch and the Game of Truth or Die, in which Killifer’s friend Clairna attempts to sell Killifer out in order to survive the deadly sleepover they find themselves trapped at), but Sanchez is a man of his word and won’t leave without paying Killifer the money he’s owed. Sanchez’s personal henchman Dario (Benicio del Toro in the roll no one saw coming) lets him know Leiter has arrived and Sanchez goes to greet his friend from the DEA. Della is nowhere to be seen, and Dario implies that she’s been raped and killed. Sanchez arranges for Leiter to be eaten by a shark, and we see his leg ripped off. These movies sure are fun!

Bond’s at the airport and about to leave when he finds out about Sanchez’s escape. He arrives at Leiter’s bungalow and finds Della’s dead body waiting for him. He finds Leiter horribly mangled and barely alive. Leiter’s friend Sharkey calls and Bond tells him to get help for Leiter. Leiter’s in the hospital and Sharkey’s spirit bond with his namesake lets him know that it was a shark that got Leiter. A DEA agent arrives and says their case on Sanchez is somehow caput since Sanchez had all of Leiter’s notes destroyed, but Bond says he and Sharkey will take care of this themselves. Sharkey takes Bond to Krest’s aquarium and Bond knows Killifer is lurking around. That night Bond and Sharkey (by which I mean just Bond) break into the aquarium after almost getting attacked by an inflatable shark pool toy.

Bond finds drugs hidden in some maggots that were being fed to fish, then locks a guard in the maggot pit so he can be eaten alive (a similarly gruesome death took place in Killifer Krisch and the MRSA-cre of St. Joseph Hospital, which won both a Bram Stoker Award and a Hugo). Another guard starts shooting at Bond, which results in some tanks getting smashed and some fish who ain’t never done nothin’ to nobody dying. Bond kills the guard by yanking him into a tank with an electric eel and electrocuting him, because why not get goofy from time to time? Killifer arrives and holds Bond at gunpoint and prepares to feed him to the shark that bit off most of Leiter. Sharkey manages to pop up like a whack-a-mole and knock Killifer off balance, and Bond seals the deal by tossing Bond into the tank where he’s chowed down on by the shark. I haven’t been this shocked by a character’s early death since Tuffany got killed off in Killifer Krisch and the Battle for the Gore-eria! The DEA is unhappy about Bond taking matters into his own hands, and Bond is taken to see M and his army of cats.

M tells Bond to drop the Leiter vendetta, so Bond quits. As we all know, Bond absolutely loves revenge and doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with it at all. M revokes Bond’s license to kill and demands him to turn over his weapon, but instead he beats up M’s goons and flees. Aw, shit, y’all, Bond’s gone rogue! We get a disgusting scene with Krest gearing up to rape Lupe on a boat when he’s interrupted by some goon telling him their sonar is picking up something moving toward them. Krest says it’s just a manta ray, but it’s actually Bond in a manta ray fursuit. Bond manages to infiltrate Krest’s ship and finds more drogas stashed onboard. He holds a knife to Lupe’s throat and makes her lie to Krest when he comes to ask her if she saw anyone sneak aboard. Bond sees that Sharkey’s been killed by Krest’s men, and now he’s feeling like going roguer than rogue. He kills the guy that killed Sharkey with a harpoon and steals the man’s scuba gear as Krest tries to get a drug deal over with. Bond foils the deal by tearing open the bags of drugs underwater before they can get back to Krest (and presumably gets a bunch of fish high af in the process) and then after some waterskiing antics manages to get onto the plane that delivered the drugs, kill the two men onboard and fly away with about five mil.

Bond heads back to Leiter’s house and finds a disk that Sanchez’s men missed. It holds a list of informants, and the only one on the list who isn’t dead is Pam Bouvier. Bouvier had a meeting scheduled with Leiter, and Bond goes in his place. Bond barely has time to sit down before Dario arrives and joins them at their table. Bouvier plans ahead and has had a shotgun in her lap this whole time, which makes Bond’s pistol look a little inadequate. How’d she get into the bar carrying a shotgun, one might ask? Who cares! A barfight breaks out and Bouvier shoots a hole in the wall so Bond can shimmy out into a speedboat. Dario shoots Bouvier in the back as she joins Bond, but she’s wearing a bullet proof vest under her tank top. Bond condescends to Bouvier about almost getting herself killed, and she correctly points out that she saved his life back there. If there’s one thing Bong hates it’s a capable woman who doesn’t need him to save her, so he’s pretty miffed. The boat runs out of gas and Bond tells Bouvier that he’s going after Sanchez. Bouvier was an Army pilot, so he hires her to fly him into Sanchez’s compound. The two haggle over money and then have sex for no damn reason (a similarly unnecessary sex scene took place in Killifer Krisch’s Fifty Shades of Gray Matter, but in my defense the whole Fifty Shades thing was in full swing at the time and my publisher was really breathing down my dick to get something hot on the market).

Back in MI6, M chides Moneypenny for making typos or something and Moneypenny puts in a call to Q Branch. Bond and Bouvier arrive in Isthmus. Bond wants Bouvier to split now that she’s flown him in, but she insists on staying and getting revenge on Sanchez. Bond deposits the stolen drug money in a bank owned by Sanchez, and later he and Bouvier visit a casino also owned by Sanchez. I knew a casino was going to turn up sooner or later, but then again casinos have been on my mind ever since I finished Killifer Krisch and the Game of Texas Stab’em, in which Killifer, Briff and Tanja visit Las Vegas only to find themselves playing for their lives as the stakes get higher and higher. Anyway, Sanchez is busy being creepy with Lupe and smooching his pet iguana when he’s informed that Bond is betting a ton of money in the casino.

Sanchez sends Lupe in to take over as Bond’s dealer. Lupe recognizes Bond, and she tells him it would be best for him if he left. Bond demands that Lupe take him to Sanchez, and he ignores her protests and drags her into an elevator while Bouvier gets drunk at the bar. Bond is allowed to meet with Sanchez and tries to get himself hired as an assassin. Bond is sent away and he and Bouvier return to the hotel, where Bond is informed that his uncle is waiting for him. Turns out his uncle is none other than Q, who tells him he’s here at Moneypenny’s request. Q has all sorts of gadgets, including a Polaroid which fires a laser and takes X-ray images of both people and pictures of people.

Q poses as Bond’s chauffer and Bond leaves Bouvier at the bar once again as he poses as a waiter to get close to Sanchez. Sanchez is meeting with an international conglomerate of drug dealers, and one of them, Kwang (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), insists on being shown to Sanchez’s drug production facility. Bond plans to use some Q Branch explosive toothpaste to break Sanchez’s bulletproof office windows. Bond tells Q to get lost prepares to snipe Sanchez after blowing the windows. He spots Bouvier seemingly making a deal with one of Sanchez’s men and panics. He blows the windows, but before he can take the shot he’s ambushed by two masked martial artists who knock him out and drag him to a cabin in the woods. Turns out they work for Kwang, who’s a member of the Hong Kong Police here to infiltrate Sanchez’s business. They’re joined by Fallon, an MI6 agent sent to arrest Bond.

Fallon and Kwang prepare to knock out Bond so he can be taken back to London, but Sanchez’s men have followed them and fire on the shack with a gotdamn tank. Kwang, his sidekicks and Fallon are all killed while just trying to do their jobs, but Bond survives. Bond wakes up in the heart of Sanchez’s base, and Bond says Kwang and Fallon were trying to arrest him for being an assassin or whatever. Sanchez assumes they were responsible for his windows being exploded last night, and he sends Bond and Lupe off for a tour. Lupe tells Bond he should stay put, but then she helps him escape by distracting some guards long enough for him to sneak onto a speedboat. Q and Bouvier are just chilling at the hotel when Bond bursts in, tosses Bouvier onto the bed, climbs on top of her and shoves a gun in her face while asking if she’s working for Sanchez. Bouvier explains she was trying to set up a sting in Sanchez’s office, and Bond blew all that to hell by being the big dummy he is.

Bond makes a plan involving Bouvier, Lupe and Q. He withdraws all of his money from bank and then his crack team infiltrates Krest’s ship and frames Krest for the theft of the drug money by planting the money on the ship. The money is found and Sanchez kills Krest by locking him in a decompression chamber and ramping up the pressure. Bond tells Bouvier and Q to get lost for the hundredth time and goes off on his own to get back to Sanchez’s compound before Sanchez notices he’s missing. Now that Krest is gone there’s an opening in Sanchez’s inner circle, so he invites Bond in. After Sanchez leaves Lupe lets herself in and she and Bond have sex. The next day Lupe goes to Bouvier and Q and tells them Bond needs to get the heck out of there, which is surprising to Bouvier as she assumed Bond had left the country. Lupe lets slip that she and Bond banged one out last night, and I haven’t seen a character feel so betrayed since Killifer discovered the truth behind Briff’s parentage in Killifer Krisch and the Die-NA Test of Doom.

Bouvier is pissed that Bond slept with another woman, because she’s a normal human being and that’s how you feel about that sort of thing. Q tells her that’s just how it is on this bitch of an Earth, and they plan to help Bond. Bond is taken to Sanchez drug lab, and Bond barely escapes being recognized by Dario. Bouvier plane is being worked on, so she has to hitchhike to the religious compound façade located over Sanchez’s lab. Bouvier tricks the fake cult leader working as Sanchez’s middleman into letting her tour the facility, while in the lab the process of smuggling cocaine out by dissolving it in gasoline is explained. I have seen science this faulty since Killifer went on vacation to Transylvania and wound up in a game of cat-and-mouse with a mad scientist in Killifer Krisch and the Clones of Dr. Funkenstein!

Bouvier pulls a gun on the fake cult leader and locks him up. Dario recognizes Bond, so Bond causes a distraction by lighting the lab on fire and making a break for it. He gets caught by Dario and Dario tells Sanchez Bond is an informant and Bond gets strapped to a conveyer belt headed for an in industrial shredder. Bouvier manages to sneak into the facility as it’s headed toward meltdown and shoots Dario before he can knock Bond down into the shredder. Bond tugs Dario down into the shredder instead, and we get a shot of Dario’s legs being torn apart that would make the biggest Killifer Krisch fan blush. Bouvier saves Bond for the hundredth time and the two barely escape the facility before it bows. Bouvier steals a golf cart so she and Bond can pursue Sanchez at break-neck speed. They make it to a plane Bouvier stole earlier and Bond hijacks Sanchez’s tanker full of cocaína-flavored gasoline.

Bond uses his tanker to crash a different tanker, which then gets accidentally blown up by one of Sanchez’s men with a rocket launcher. I haven’t come across vehicular mayhem like this since Killifer snuck into a monster truck derby in Killifer Krisch: Fury Road! Bond’s tanker gets its tires blown out, but luckily Bouvier arrives to spray Sanchez’s men with a cloud of Roundup. Bond’s tanker falls off a cliff, crashing into a bunch of other tankers and causing them all to blow up. Sanchez drives off in the last remaining tanker with Bond in hot pursuit. Bond puts his truck on cruise control and manages to climb onto Sanchez’s tanker. Bond turns on the tanker’s spout, causing all of the cocaine gas to spill out. Sanchez blows a hole in Bouvier’s plane’s tail with a rocket launcher, and she has to make an emergency landing. I haven’t experienced aerial drama like this since Killifer had to fight for her life against a talking bear while visiting the seaside town of Cape Suzette in Killifer Krisch: TaleSpin!

Bond and Sanchez fight while the tanker drives off a cliff. Both men are badly injured, but Sanchez gets to his feet and prepares to kill Bond with a machete. Bond stalls long enough to get a lighter that Leiter and Della gave him after their wedding (that’s right, the married couple gave this dude a gift at their wedding!) and uses it set the gasoline-soaked Sanchez ablaze. We watch a man roast alive for a minute or so while Bond scurries away and the burning Sanchez causes the last tanker to explode. Bouvier arrives in yet another truck and she drives Bond to safety.

Bond calls the one-legged Leiter, who’s conscious now I guess, and Leiter seems to be completely done grieving for his one-day bride. Bond and Leiter both presumably bond over both having wives who didn’t survive long enough for them to reach their honeymoons, then Leiter lets Bond know M has a job for him. Bond’s not interested and hangs up on his mutilated friend. There’s a big party at Sanchez’s house and Lupe puts the moves on Bond. Bond tells her to go jump off a cliff and jumps into a pool near Bouvier. He pulls Bouvier into the pool, ruining her gown, while Lupe, Lupe’s new man who’s the president or something and Q look on. Bond and Bouvier screw in the pool while an apparently sentient fish statue watches them.

The End

~~~~~

Phew, that was exhausting! Jumping from people getting limbs ripped off by sharks, torn to pieces by a shredder or roasting alive to goofy truck stunts practically gave me whiplash! I really liked Bouvier, but I wish Bond hadn’t been such a dick to her. It was fun to see so much of Q in this movie, but I wish he’d actually had a reason for being there. I know Bond going rogue is a pretty common thing nowadays, but I think this was the first time that happened so that was fun. I think this movie took itself way too seriously most of the time, and it made up for its own lack of dramatic tension with an excess of explosions and goofy stunts. Giving Bond a personal motive for going after a villain is an interesting idea, but making Sanchez a glorified drug dealer makes him seem kind of lame compared to villains who wanted to start a nuclear war or flood the planet. The treatment of Della was completely disgusting and unnecessary, and it set a pretty gross tone that never quite went away.

Overall, I give Licence to Kill QQ½ on the Five Q Scale.

Up next Eli will be covering the next two episodes of The Golden Palace, “Just a Gigolo” and “Marriage on the Rocks, with a Twist”, and after that I’ll check back in with my recap of the next James Bond romp, GoldenEye.

Until then, as always, thank you for reading, thank you for exploding and thank you for being One of Us!

#james bond #One of us #007

[agentwallflower]

Dull One Chapter 39

Good job breaking it, hero.

Anyway, hope you had a good two weeks. I went to urgent care 3 times for two different procedures. I’m ok now and on antibiotics, so I don’t think I’m going to die from MRSA anytime soon. Other things, yes. 

Trying to get this chapter out at a reasonable time because *drum roll* I have work tomorrow. Back at work for the first time in two years, actually. It’s just a one day thing, but it’s a good first step. Let’s see if I feel that way once I get home and I’ve had probably no less than 3 anxiety moments and 2 panic driven freak outs.

I’m an adult, I swear. 

Story wise, next chapter goes up August 2. I’ll see you then. Have a good two weeks and thanks for reading!

Time check, kid?

A heavy weariness settled into Mointz's bones as she closed the door behind her with a slight click. It was colder now, not quite the chill that came with night but the day's warmth had been sapped away regardless. She dragged her feet as she walked to a nearby window, almost afraid to peer out. When she did, the blood red of a setting sun met her vision.

In about twenty more minutes, there would have been no sun at all.

“How many hours did I lose this time?” Counting them seemed pointless anymore, but she still made a guess. If she was right, the afternoon had come and gone in the blink of an eye. Now all that was waiting for her was the night and with it restless sleep that came in fits and starts as her body tried to match the rhythm no one else seemed to notice.

Nobody answered because they weren't there to hear her nonsense. By now, apprentices and teachers alike would have been down at dinner. True, there was a hollowness to her stomach that came from missing a meal or two, but it just couldn't outweigh the heaviness that weighed her entire body down like she had been filled with river rocks. The rate she was going, Mointz figured she might have just fallen asleep at the table.

Barring that, she might have arrived only to find it was breakfast. And she just wasn't a fan of what the empire considered breakfast food.

Sounds like you're heading to bed again, huh?

“Remind me to grab something to eat next time I wake up. Maybe I should start storing things for times like this.”

Can do.

Sighing, Mointz backed away from the window and started her way up the stairs towards where her bed would be waiting for her no matter what time it was supposed to be. Each step felt heavier than the last until she could go no more. It wasn't because of her legs, though. It just felt too hard to keep going so she stood there, halfway up a flight of stairs with no real desire to go either way.

Kid... you ok?

“I... don't think so, Voice.”

Mointz rested her head against the cold stone wall, at least hoping nobody would phase right through her if time reset while she stayed there. It hadn't happened yet, but she definitely didn't want to find out what would occur should it take place. Bad shit, she assumed, and that was probably halfway there.

She closed her eyes, the weight bearing down. “Nothing's making sense anymore.”

Not time, not anything. Maybe she had hoped that things would settle down after the last trial, but the opposite had occurred. Now it made even less sense, and every day was nothing more than a new headache. How much longer was it supposed to go on like this? Would her entire life, short as it may be, be nothing but breaths between rapidly increasing shifts?

It wasn't appetizing, to say the least.

“How the hell did I even break time?”

She slid down the wall, coming to rest in a sitting position on the step she had claimed as her own. Mointz sighed as she rested her forehead on her knees, wishing for anything just to be frozen for a few minutes. Some caring soul might have worried about her, and this was far too hard to explain with words.

I mean... did you really?

Voice was answered with a shrug. “Feels like I did.”

Yeah but you're not even a mage. That's like, magic stuff written all over it.

Another shrug, this one smaller as if there wasn't enough effort left in her entire body to make it the entire way up. “When has that ever stopped me? I swear, I sneeze and I break some fundamental tenant of the world.”

Her remark was met not with a snappy remark but what she could have only described as an uncomfortable silence. It was as if she could see Voice trying to figure out something to say. But they had nothing, and it was a point she had won with some difficulty.

Finally, an exasperated reply made her feel even more tired, as if the presence was adding their exhaustion to her own.

Yeah... ok weird stuff happens around you a lot. You got me there, kid.

“Glad you see things my way.” With some effort, Mointz finally stood. “Now, I think I'm going to find my bed and not move from it until I feel good and ready.”

Do you want me to wake you up if time starts to unwind?

“Only if it's a big one.”

Maybe, years ago, that might have gotten her attention. Now... eh, she was too tired to really care about the little things. Falon had said something about that once, not sweating the small stuff. That had been before his wooden foot incident of course, so he may have revised his opinion in the years that followed. She would have to ask him about that next time they met. And for her own mental well being, she left out the doubt if they would see each other again. Otherwise, sleep just wasn't going to happen.

Lucky for Mointz, her room was quiet and somewhat dark when she arrived. Her time on the stairs had caused the sun to set, though it had been natural rather than by any manipulation of time and space. She had just taken her sweet time getting there, and that was alright by her as she crossed the room to fall straight into her bed face first.

It was only after she closed her eyes that things started to get a little weird, though.

When she regained some sort of awareness of her surroundings, Mointz realized she was home. Well, maybe not her home. The salt air was the same, as was the wind that blew from the woods, but everything else seemed to be in shadow. She couldn't make out familiar buildings, nor the faces of the people who lived in them. None of them noticed she was there – they were hushed and drawn among themselves, whispering in tones too low for her to pick up.

She walked among them, through them even, until she found wherever she was being led. It was under the ancient tree in the center of her village where she came to a stop. The tree was as imposing as it ever was, but something about it made her frown. There was something... wrong... about it, though she couldn't say what. It was a gut reaction, perhaps, because it looked exactly the same minus a few leaves. Maybe it was in the early fall?

“What's going on?”

Her voice had no sound to it as she glanced around, trying to find something that didn't feel so foreign. Among the crowd she noted the shadowy beings held spears or bows close. Bandages tied tight around arms or foreheads, spotted with dark blood that was almost ink black. They were waiting for something, someone, but she didn't know what.

“They're going to be here soon. Our defenses aren't going to hold long.”

Corabe's voice joined the crowd, louder. She was in focus, looking just as tired as Mointz felt. Her face was dirty and a long cut dragged across her jawline. One hand held a staff, while the other she realized was gripped tightly around her own. Though she couldn't feel the pressure, she could see it. It was one of the few solid things connecting her to this strange shadow world.

Violet eyes met hers – there was so much fear and pain there. “How did it go so wrong? We did everything we could.”

“I don't know.”

It was her, but it wasn't her, who spoke those words. She heard herself as she supposed others did – a little deeper, a little more sure. Her free hand tightened into a fist, and only when it did was when she noticed it was coated in blood.

Falon's blood. Though there was no body or way for her to know that, something deep within her gut told her that it could have only come from him. That alone made her clench her fist tighter, so much so that her own blood began to mingle with it.

“We'll stop them. I don't know how but we will. I swear it.”

And then there was nothing. The shadowy village, the blood, it all disappeared as Mointz found herself staring at the dark image of her pillow. She was back in her room where things were still night as far as she could tell.

Her body ached and sleep tugged at her in a way that suggested she hadn't slept long, maybe an hour at best. However, the moon was far too high in the sky to have been such a short time. The only explanation was another time shift, and one that sought to steal her sleeping hours from her.

Now that was just rude.

“Voice, why didn't you wake me up?”

The question was met with silence rather than any snarky remark. There was just nothing there other than the quiet of her small room. Mointz frowned as she looked around, almost trying to find them. Again, there was nothing there.

“Oh, that's not good.”

The bed squeaked as she got up. Mointz crossed the room in order to check the seals by the door. They were cold to the touch and didn't let out so much as a sound when she touched them. As far as she could tell, it was solid. Nothing had messed with it.

So she had nothing.

“Well, that's just great.”

Mointz frowned as she sat back down on her bed in the hopes Voice might pop back up. But there was nothing but her thoughts. They echoed against the strange emptiness of her skull, uncomfortable.

It reminded her of the hospital.

Without realizing, her hand went up to her neck and rubbed against the thick scarring that had yet to really start going down. It felt exactly the same as it always had, except maybe a little cooler. Maybe in a few months it would start to go down a little.

Every touch reminded her of the pain, though. If she closed her eyes, Mointz could remember how she got it. Just the thought of it caused her to shudder and her hand moved away from her neck as if she had been burned. But she was fine.

In a weird way, it was strangely grounding. No matter how much time was messed up or what changed, that scar would be there and it wouldn't be going away anytime soon. She was stuck with it. As painful as it was, it was proof she was there. It was a weird technique, but it was working for her.

Still, it wasn't fun sitting there in the dark, thinking back to then. She shook her head hard, frowning. “I'd love to snap out of this now, please.”

Mointz didn't even realize she was shouting until it tugged at her throat and made it ache.

Hey, are you listening or what? Someone's at the door.

“Huh?”

It took a few moments for Mointz to snap back, but she realized as she stared out the window that the sun had just started setting. Whatever had gone on, maybe it had been some dream? Problem was, she was sitting up. Hell, one shoe was still in her hand, as if she had been taking it off mid dream.

Are you back to normal or what?

“I... guess I am?” She put her shoe back on with a shake of her head. “Must have spaced out there.”

Go answer the door before they think you're not there.

Right, because normal people did that. One last head shake got her as back to normal as possible. Mointz frowned as she crossed the short distance to open up the door. As soon as she did, the musty smell of wet clothes assaulted her senses as much as a hit to the head.

It was coming from Corabe. The mage was standing there, looking like she had just gone swimming with all her clothes on. Just from her cloak alone she was creating a small lake, and it splashed as she shifted from foot to foot as she  waited to be let in. Thing was, it wasn't raining – Mointz checked out the window just to be sure. It was dark, but there was definitely no rain – and she couldn't think of any decent sized body of water for the other girl to jump in between her study room and the door.

So... how had she gotten wet? Was it a spell gone bad?

“Can I come in?”

There was such a desperation in Corabe's eyes that it made her heart break. Without word, Mointz moved to the side to let her in. The lake got a little bigger, but it was still pretty manageable all things considered. That wasn't the point, though – something had shaken the mage up badly.

“Are you ok?”

Corabe didn't answer for a long time. She seemed lost in her own world as she stared at the floor, into lake Mage-made. It was Mointz's voice that snapped her out of it, and her violet eyes came back to life slowly. Then she shivered as if she remembered she was cold.

“I'm fine.”

She moved to the door in order to hang up her cloak from the hook on the back. Underneath, her clothes were just as soaked. Still, she didn't seem to mind as she sat down in the only available chair in the room. Now the lake was around her.

Maybe you should find her a towel or something?

Towel; Voice definitely had some good ideas. Without moving, Mointz glanced around the room to try and find something to help Corabe dry out. That was what someone in her position would have done, right? Or should she have paid a little more attention to just how hard the mage was breathing as she sat there, looking like she had run miles in the rain.

She didn't find a towel, but words did come. “What happened? You're a wreck.”

Maybe it wasn't the most helpful, but it was something. Again, there was some disconnect before Corabe answered – maybe she was processing it at a different rate. The mage finally shook her head and looked down at her hands.

“It's a long story.”

Suddenly she was standing and taking Mointz by the hand. “We have to go.”

Mointz didn't move. She cocked an eyebrow instead. “Go where?”

Corabe's eyebrows knit together as she looked towards the window, or perhaps somewhere further. She was already reaching for her cloak with her free hand and putting it back on with a wet slap that sent a cold spray against the other girl's skin. She didn't seem to notice this at all as she kept going.

“To the first trial site. You have to do it tonight.”

She tugged again. “Come on, we don't have a lot of time.”

They were halfway out the door now thanks to the mage's surprising amount of force and lack of making any sense at all. It caught Mointz off guard and she only regained any idea when she stepped straight into the puddle. The cold water woke her senses back up and she yanked her hand back.

“What's going on? Why do we have to go tonight?”

For as long as she lived, Mointz would never forget the haunted look that entered the mage's eyes from her question. Nor, would she forget how time completely stopped around the both of them.

“Because we're running out of time.”

#The Magpie's Stash #Dull One

[cdmeggers]

L5-S1 fusion

I just had my L5-S1 fusion done on Tuesday morning. I’ve been dealing with back pain for years. I was still working for the local newspaper when I has back pain going on, and even had xrays taken of my back while in high school. My primary doc sent me to PT, which I did for a few months with no relief.funny enough, it seemed like working for Walmart actually heIped, don’t know if it was because I was constantly on the move or what. But I know Walmart didn’t do my back any favors, in terms of lifting. I didn’t always use proper lift techniques (when it gets closer to the end of your shift and you’re tired, you just don’t care). I’ve seen my doc and his PA regarding my back, and they just said it was sciatica, that it will clear up if I just walk or exercise. No diagnostics or imaging or anything. finally, this past summer, I had some real bad back pain days, I said fuck it and made an appointment with an orthopedics office, as they didn’t need a referral.

They took xrays first. Then the NP went over the images with me and showed me the L5-S1 disc was much thinner than the other discs. She prescribed oral steroids and muscle relaxants. I gave both a try, though I knew it wasn’t going to help. Saw the NP again, and she got around to setting me up with the local hospital to have a myelogram procedure done for further imaginings. I have bilateral cochlear implants, so I was unable to do an mri. Went in for the myelogram, and ended up having to spend the night at the hospital because I kept nearly passing out whenever I got up. That was a blast, not. Got home the next day, followed up with NP. She suggested lumbar steroid injection, which I agreed to, and it was done that same day.

Was sore for a few days from the injections. Then finally it seemed like I was getting some relief, my pain dropped from 6-7 to about 3ish, and I had more mobility. Unfortunate,y that only lasted a few days and my pain started coming back again. Followed up with NP again, and she suggested I see the back specialist on site, which I was ok with. Set up an appointment and got to see the back specialist.

He went over the xrays and myelogram images, and we discussed doing a fusion surgery. He wanted a disco gram done first, to be sure that fusions was the right step to take. Two weeks later, had the discogram done at a smaller hospital. Felt pain in the L5-S1 area when the doc injected the liquid. Had to wait about a month before I could follow up with the specialist, and we agreed to do surgery, was expecting to do surgery sometime during November.

I was at the orthopedics clinic for a follow upon my hand and I spoke with the specialist’s nurse, and she said “we can do this surgery next Tuesday since we had a cancellation, or we can do it on Dec 4.” Holy crap my nerves went crazy. Called my mom, and thought about it, I wanted to get this over with sooner rather than later. Called the nurse and told her I would take the Tuesday date. No way in hell I could wait another month and having to deal with daily pains. So I’m booked. Had blood labs done and MRSA test the next day, saw the specialist’s PA to go over what the surgery entails, and a COVID test the Monday before surgery date. Oh shit, this is real, it’s happening!

Checked in at 6am Tuesday morning, with surgery scheduled to start at 7:30. Expected to last about 1.5-2 hours. Surgery actually lasted about 3 hours. Turns out my disc was really smashed up, and he had difficulties getting all the disc out. But surgery went well, disc has been removed, screws and rods put in place to keep things stabilize while the fusing takes place. Spent a night at the hospital, recovering and staying on top of the pain, getting used to moving in a different way. While I was in recovery, doc spoke with my mom and told her about the condition of my disc, and he was surprised I was even still walking.

Holy damn, I can lay on my back and not be in such pain! That was the first thing I noticed.

It is now Thursday and so far so good. Still have some pain in the lower back as expected, from the incisions and what the specialist did. My legs have been cranky, achy all over and just uncomfortable. Have hydrocodone and flexeril to taken, though I’m already weaning off the hydro. Next step would be to go home, and see how I can handle being by myself. Right now I’m at my mom’s, taking it slow and easy.

#surgery #spinal fusion #TLIF

[lightspren]

Year End 2017 Wrap Up

I’m gonna be straight up honest with y’all, I almost didn’t do one of these for this year because this year has sucked horrifically and I just didn’t see a fucking point. But I’ve done one every year for like, at least four years now, and it’s tradition, and I for some reason feel it’s important, so by damn I’m gonna look back on my text posts from the year and my memories of what I was doing and see what happened this past year.

Jan 2017 - Was beginning my last ever semester of undergrad this month. At this point I still thought I’d be going to grad school hahahah so much can fucking change in a few months. Started my AC sideblog so that’s cool. and even this far back (: we still see me struggling with debilitating pain (: which has been a trend ever since I’ve been doing these year summaries I think, is seeing how bad my pain was throughout the year. jfc. looks like I was struggling with some depression symptoms here too, go fucking figure. I had an interview for grad school too and we know how badly that went…

Feb - Here’s where I decided I thought i might be on the autism spectrum. I now think I was wrong on that self dx, but you know, journeys of self discovery are important and all that. but here’s lots more pain and tired and “brain not working” which was lots of depression symptoms I believe, sigh I let that get bad for a while there. Oh and then I learned I didn’t get into that grad school I got the interview for.  so yeah that was Feb in a nutshell l o l

Mar - Breath of the Wild came out this month and dominated my life for a month or two, I still love this game very much and it’ll always hold a special place in my heart, ti’s just so good and sweet and lovely. I still haven’t even really beat it LOL and I need to but. still. that’s never been the most important part of Zelda games to me. OOO THO I had beginnings of existential crises this month!! cause I was getting so bogged down in my thesis research and didn’t know if research was what I wanted to do forever and ever anymore!! isn’t that fun!! (it was not fun). but the rest of this month seems like. a whole lot of bitching about pain. paaaain pain pain. like holy jesus bitching about pain. maybe if I printed off all these posts and gave them to my doctors they’d believe I have a problem LOL.

Apr - So I had shitty dr appointments that further hurt my chronic illness identity, and then other Ongoing Identity Crisis because of not getting into grad school and wanting a job in which I could help people. this is the month I in earnest started applying for jobs; research tech jobs mostly, but some adjacent jobs too (don’t remember what exactly). I didn’t branch out very far at this point though cause I was still McFuckin Terrified. and then I realized that I didn’t want to leave hundreds of miles away for work, cause as much as a lot of the culture of southern Appalachia can suck sometimes, it’s still home, /my/ home, and I don’t want to abandon it. I know I freaked out a lot about getting my thesis done and presented this month too bc I was soooOooOOoO unmotivated to do that shit LOL like. whew. did not want to, did not care any longer, but still had to do it.

May - GOT MY FIRST EVER TICKET LOL THAT FUCKING SUCKED SO BAD. sigh. otherwise I was mostly vague as SHIT with stuff this month. I know I graduated, didn’t walk though cause I could not give less of a fuck at that point. I applied for every job I could find that I remotely qualified for that was close enough I was willing to move to. I even had a Skype interview for one, either this month or in April. it fell through, of course.

Jun - One of my very first June posts is “who the fuck am I/how do I become who I want to be” LOL so that identity crisis was still rip roaring obvs. then that time when I tried to explain disability stigma to one of my previous (cishet white male) bosses. Had another phone interview this month for another job I didn’t get lmfao. Pretty sure this is the month where I started applying for mental health case management jobs, like a bunch of them, at different locations all in the company I’m currently in.

July - So I think it must have been around the beginning of this month that I had my first in person interview? I bombed that one hardcore. didn’t stop another location from interviewing me though, and I got a second interview with them, which I then proceeded to fail because I had no prior experience. It was brutal LOL. and the new person started at my old job, and I had to start training her, and that whole situation was just awkward and weird and Undesirable. to the maaax. it was this whole ordeal too where they’d scheduled my last day to be the 28th of July, so that’s what I was planning on and like, focused on… but then it turned out my coworker got national guard orders and had to be gone two months, so instead of having newbie there by herself, they were like (to me) “hey… just wanna… chill for two months longer or until you find a job…” which was admittedly hella cool of them.

Aug - Lots of blogging about pain, lots of general vagueblogging. I did announce publicly on tumblr that I’m intending to convert to Judaism so that’s still cool, and still a thing, even if life has been repeatedly crotch-punching me so I haven’t been able to make much actual progress on it. but then, I had the interview for my current job. that i somehow passed with flying colors. And my asthma started getting worse, and I started getting soooooo so done with my old IT job, but I /got my new job/. ALSO THIS MONTH WE GOT RADS MY SWEET NEW BABY so now our family is made of me, my husband, and two kitties.

Sept - September. Oh, September. started out so innocently, with starting orientation for my new job. I was all starry eyed and hopeful for the new job because I thought that it was a perfect home for me. then I got there. started doing things. realized that I was terrified of trying to meet my new coworkers and learn their dynamics. realized I was terrified of trying to meet my new supervisors/superiors and learn their expectations. realized that in general I just didn’t know the culture of the place at all and that fucking /terrified/ me. and then the job itself, the job itself was something I’d never done before, had no experience in /whatsoever/, had no FUCKING clue what I was doing. I was a fish out of water with no bloody idea where I was going, and hoooboy. I almost quit by the end of September, I truly did.

Oct - tw: miscarriage at end of month I started therapy for my anxiety!!! yay!!!! I had a lot of adapting to work in this time too that I didn’t really talk much about on tumblr too I think. I mean I was learning a lot, I was meeting more of my clients, some even time. I was still terrified, especially of my other coworkers because I didn’t know them or understand them, but even at that, I was learning. [Stop reading if you need to avoid tw miscarriage and skip to Nov.] The other horrifically sucky thing to happen in Oct happened not to me, but to my sister. She’d found out a few months perviously that she was pregnant, at 37 years old. they’d just recently gotten all the genetic testings back and found out they were going to have a girl. unfortunately though, the baby stopped developing at 15w. my sister discovered this at what would’ve been 17w. she had to have surgery to remove the baby. she’s still recovering from this trauma, she’s heartbroken and just. very upset. I’m still upset for her too.

Nov - Last month I was doing ok I think. I was doing pretty well at work, kinda just coasting along but mostly getting the hang of things. Therapy had been helping I think; it’d been teaching me somethings, mostly only small differences but I think having someone to talk to had been helping frankly. Work was going well, and we’d decided to start looking for a house to /buy/ (realtor.com) but hadn’t hired a realtor yet. probably for the best. as it turns out now…

Dec - Fuck you, December. the good news is, my new job’s health insurance kicked in Dec. 1st. which is great, considering I got admitted to the hospital  Dec. 7th, a Thursday. the Monday prior I’d tried to pop a zit, no big deal. WRONG. it got infected. not just any old infection, though, oh no. FUCKING MRSA. so I got cellulitis in my face, my whole right side of my face swelled up three times the normal, I got MRSA/pneumonia in my lungs, I had MRSA in my bloodstream. when I came in the ER I had very low blood pressure and heartrate of 130, so I was septic. like. shit was going down. I stayed in the hospital 6 days, and they released me with a PICC line and having to do vancomycin (really strong IV antibiotic) twice a day via the line. I went back to work too early for two days, but saw my PCP on the third day and he put me off that again. /Then the chest pain started/. I assumed it was a side effect of the vancomycin, since back and chest spasms/pain are a listed side effect, but NO, apparently NOT, at least not to this DEGREE. The home health pharmacy, who I called to ask about it, called the on-call at my PCP, who advised to go to the ER to get checked for a “pulmonary embolism.” Doesn’t sound scary at aaaaaaaaaall. Get in ER, go through the whole terrifying ordeal, CT scan, x-ray, shit and shebang - what do you fucking know. I have a septic embolism. very rare. much wow. fuck me. so here I am, once again, in a fucking hospital room, tied up to IV antibiotics, at the end of Christmas day. At least they’re keeping the pain meds going now. Oh at one point my kidney function tried to drop, then it turned out I had a pleural effusion so they drained 550cc (half a liter) of fluid off my lungs (painful as fuck let me tell you). Ended up spedning 5 days total in the hospital, home now, but still in like. the same amount of pain as when I went in. Having to fight with so many things to get medicines sorted and shit. while feeling like shit too. everything is awesome.

So that’s it. 2017. That doesn’t even get into the way 2017 has sucked on a global, non-personal scale, that’s just how it’s sucked on a mostly-immediately-personal scale, and I’ve even left out some of the immediately personal ones I think. and that’s just the shit I remember LOL jesus christ. I really need to do an effigy burning of this year.

#kit being stupid #happy new year #year end 2017

[ahumanexperiencemoment]

“I talk to the kids about bees and tell them about cides. Anything that’s a cide means kill. Anything that means kill is not good. Pesticide, herbicide… we don’t need it. We need to stop it and that’s the most important thing because if we don’t, we not gonna be here....”

 What got you involved in beekeeping?

I will never forget stepping on a bee when I was three years old. I stepped on em... I don’t know, I am t three years old, what I know? I stepped on a bee and got stung. Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated with bugs. And then after hurricane Katrina, well, before Hurricane Katrina, I was helping my friend Adrian with bees. He lived over by the Mississippi river bridge, right up from Marti Gras Boulevard. So, I was helping him with the bees before the storm. After the storm, he got robbed three times in less than a month and his wife says, “Babe, we got to go, I can’t stay, I feel so violated in my own home.” So, they found property across the lake and they moved across the lake and before they moved across the lake, he gave me three splits. Which is, you rob a queen cell from a hive, and you put it in with a couple of frames of… maybe a frame of brood and a frame of honey and you hope for the best. He gave me three, two died over the winter, they didn’t make it, but one did and that was it. I got started from there.

When was this?

After Katrina, right about 2006, I started with the bees and then three years later, I am out here at the market and I have been out here ever since. So that’s 2009 or 2010, I been here. Nine or ten years I have been here.

So, you said that you started off with one that survived, what do you have now?

Fifty. So, I’m busy, I make all of this. I make the soup, I make the salve, I make the lotion, I make the sealer, I make everything. I gather the pollen, the honey and then I got sourwood, and I got orange blossom and those come from monofloro…, so I bring the bees to an organic citrus farm in Georgia. Then I got a friend and we do the sourwood in the foothills of the Smokies and when the bees are finished in Georgia, I bring them up to him and he works the bees on the sourwood. And then he says hey, it’s ready so I give him some money and then I got get the bees and bring them back south and I let them winter down in the organic citrus farm area. They take off the wildflower if there is any in the springtime and put empty frames on them. I get there, sometimes they’ve harvested, sometimes they haven’t but usually normally wait till they have done it because sometimes, I don’t usually have a whole lot of time because that’s my busy time of year, the springtime cause I do conventions. That’s the other job that pays the taxes and the insurance and all of that stuff.

 The wonderful thing about the bees that it has brought to my life is being able to help people and be able to help somebody with something that they can’t get help for anyplace else. I saved my cousin’s life with propolis tincture and propolis pills. He had pseudomonas and he was in a hospital in North Oak’s Hospital. Six and half months, they couldn’t get his wound closed because the hardware that they put in his back was infected with pseudomonas and told them to take out the hardware and they said they can’t take out the hardware until the wound closes but the infection is not going to go away until you take out the hardware. So, I called him, cause his parents, you know just don’t get along, cause I stand up for and I’ll tell a doctor that he is an idiot as quick as look at him. I have no problem with that. Cause they aren’t as smart as I am sometimes. I’m not saying I am the smartest person in the world but, you know, if you only know what they taught you in those books and what they pumpin through the pharmaceuticals, then you don’t know a whole lot. So, anyway, I went to the hospital, found out that he had pseudomonas. I asked him what he has. So, I took this with me (holding a bottle of tincture) and some pills and we did a little aromatherapy on him to life up his spirits, then I dumped the alcohol based tincture in his back and he is biting the pillow and screaming like I just shot him. Make a long story a wound that a hospital couldn’t get closed in six and a half months was closed in a week.

Wow, that’s incredible.

Right? And I am not lying, I am not trying to sit here and tell you this. I am not going to park the Lamborghini in a six-car garage selling propolis for twenty dollars for half a ounce. It’s just not going to happen. But I am not interested in making money, I am interested in educating people about what needs to be done. And what needs to be done is that we need turbines in the Mississippi river instead of all these fossil fuels that we are using and the nuclear power because what are you doing to do with the waste from that? How about putting it in the backyards of everybody who is benefiting from it, like all of the shareholders? Those people? Give it to them. The share that they have, that’s the amount that they get when the rods are spent. Why not? It makes the most sense. But it’s all at our expense.

So, if you could go back to your eighteen-year-old self or another eighteen-year-old, what would….

I do, I talk to the kids about bees and tell them about cides. Anything that’s a cide means kill. Anything that means kill is not good. Pesticide, herbicide… we don’t need it. We need to stop it and that’s the most important thing because if we don’t, we not gonna be here. Do you know… I am not sure if it’s half a kilo but that’s a pound point one, right? Five hundred grams of glyphosate which is the main ingredient in Round Up has been used on every acre of cultivated land in the world. It is the most widely used chemical on the planet and being used by the megaton every year. Bayer owns Monsanto, Monsanto and Bayer are the largest producer of glyphosate on the planet, yet they say they care for bees. They care for bees as about as much as I care for cockroaches. They say they care for bees, but they just don’t tell you how they care for bees and they could care less. Because if you are producing glyphosate and the neonicotinoids and the nicotinoids, a synthetic form of nicotine that’s toxic to insects, it’s neurological toxin to them. So, when the bee uptakes anything from the plants that have been treated with, the plant concentrates these pesticides or herbicides in the nectar, in the pollen and that’s what the bee wants. So, when the bee takes it in, it can’t find its way back home. So that’s how you have seized colony collapse. And they are saying that’s not true. Well… yeah… okay… but we never had this problem before we have glyphosate and before we had neonics. We might have had some mites, but they could handle the mites because they had a strong immune system but the chemicals that they are giving the bees are weakening their immune systems. So, now they can’t handle the poor immune system and the chemicals and the mites, so they blame it on the varroa (mites) but it’s not the varroa, it’s the chemicals… and that’s my story and I am sticking to it. Because it’s true. How about let’s put some toxic stuff in your water and you gotta drink this stuff, because that’s the only water that’s available to you and it makes your immune system bad. Let’s send you to the hospital. What’s gonna happen? You are gonna get deathly ill because you can’t fight the germs that’s in a hospital. You’re gonna get MRSA or pseudomonas or whatever else is traveling around in the air system cause they really don’t clean that. You could be in the same room and the guy next to you has got pneumonia talking and hacking and you are in there… you are gonna get it cause your immune system is compromised. Well, that’s what they are doing to the bees. It’s not like we don’t have other alternatives. They are just turning a blind eye to it. Nobody wants to hear about biodynamics and health organics. Biodynamics… ya’ll go look that up. Biodynamics, the fruit is larger, it lasts longer, and you get more from the acreage than you do by commercial, chemically fit fed plants and GMOs (genetically modified organism) and all stuff like that.  I’m not saying GMOs are all bad. It’s bad that they treat them with the glyphosate. They systemically seed coat it and that’s when the glyphosate concentrates in the nectar and in the pollen. If they didn’t systemically seed coat it, it would be alright but then they couldn’t spray it with round up and the plants would live. They are genetically designed to resist the glyphosate and that’s why they can seed coat it with it. And it can concentrate in the nectar and it doesn’t bother it (the plant). But if you don’t think that’s not going to hurt us in the long run, you got another thing coming. Every commercial on television is, oh, try this medicine. Ask your doctor about this. Then the next commercial that comes on is “Do you have Mesothelioma? Have you been exposed to asbestos?” Okay, well that’s a chemical that something we were using in housing and in brakes and everything twenty-five, thirty, fifty years ago. Or what about the other, the mesh that they put into your stomach? Or the medicine that you took that caused lymphoma? Or whatever, because one commercial is about the lawyer that’s suing the drug companies and the other is about get this from the drug company. It’s crazy. I mean, I am talking to doctors and stuff and they don’t even know about this (pointing to her tinctures and salves). The doctors don’t know about ichthammol, do you know what ichthammol is? Drawing salve, black salve?

I’ve heard of it.

Yeah, you use to could get it at every drug store in the world. You can’t hardly find it anymore. You can find it at the feed stores. It’s drawing salve. Like if you get a bruise? My grandma use to put it on us to draw that bruise out, like that. We used to put I on our hands when we would catch shrimp. You go to pick the shrimp and you put them in the scale to weigh them out and you get the little tips in your fingers and you can’t grab them to pull it out cause it has barbs on it. And the little cuticle, like cuticle material, you can’t pull it out, it breaks. But if you put the black salve on it, slather it on it, it would back out. You can use it on horses when the horses run in briars and stuff. They would put it on to draw the things out. You can still buy it at the feed store. If you ask a doctor what it is, he doesn’t know. Most of them have no idea.

I got run over by a car in 1990, I had a bruise on my leg that went from here (pointing to her hip) to here (pointing to her knee). The doctor said, that ain’t going away. I said, pfftt.. makes you an idiot. So I says, I will be back. I gotta come back and see you anyway. I said the bruise is going to be looking good by then. I went back six weeks later, and I slathered my leg with ichthammol and I’d sleep with it like wrapped around my leg like a diaper.  He couldn’t believe it (bruise was gone). I was like, ya’ll don’t know everything. You are not even trying. Because one way is not the only way. When western medicine meets eastern medicine and you put the two together, we’re gonna have something. But when the left hand don’t know what the right hand is doing, we still stuck.

Gina Lanier

Gretna, Louisiana. 2019.

#ahumanexperiencemoment #Gretna #gretnalouisiana #gretnafarmersmarket #beekeeper #bees #save the bees #louisiana #LifeStories #life