#i have a disease that makes me draw ned

[gibberishquestion]

don’t be a strangereeno :)

#i have a disease that makes me draw ned #tapped out spells neighborino as neighboreeno so i’ve been phasing that spelling into my life. hashtag acceptance #the simpsons #ned flanders #some art that happened

[yerevasunclair]

Ned x Cat Drabble: Quitting Bad Habits (FULL STORY)

WARNING: R-18, HEAVY SMUT 

“Ned...” Cat calls his attention. His wife had just come home from a social charity event while he chose to stay behind to finish some house repair and interior modifications. 

“You’ve smoked 8 sticks today, or more perhaps.” she reprimands him, yet in a calm tone with arms crossed. It was a windy autumn night and the air frolicked her hair and tossed the bottom of her trenchcoat to reveal her slender figure contoured by the white wide leg jumpsuit. Her wife was aging gracefully and his heart never fails to throb at the sight of her.

“From 20 to 10, from 16 to 8... It’s a big difference. I can’t quit it, love. I’m trying but it’s too hard to give it up” he glances at the floor and taps the cigarette residue shyly. 

“I know, but we have to take care of ourselves too. I want us to live a little bit longer Ned. I’m sure you’d wish that.” Catelyn draws nearer as her disappointment urges her to gather her thoughts as to how to convince her husband why they must break the habit. 

“I’m just as frightened as you are. We have a number of friends who are dead or dying because of cancer lately, some are even younger or with a healthier lifestyle than us.. Life is so unpredictable, isn’t it?”

“All the more reason to persevere even harder. It does not change the statistics that we are at a high risk, Ned. Regardless of the fact that there are those who still got cancer even if they’ve never smoked in their life or that there are also some who miraculously lived up to the age of 90 despite smoking a pack everyday. It’s not only cancer that we are at risk of having but it includes cardiovascular diseases. Generally, it’s too many health conditions to mention, Ned!”

“Imagine how much it would cost us. It’s not just about the money, it’s the pain we have to go through. At our age, it’s not about that “you only live once” aphorism. The point is, sacrificing this pleasure will spare us from further harming ourselves AND our grandkids.”

“Yes, i get it. The harms of second and thirdhand smoking. That’s why i only smoke outdoors, never do when they are around and make sure the house is 100% clean and nicotine free.”

“Look we can’t quit abruptly of course, but we have to support each other and take this one step at a time. We’ve come a long way, Ned even though the side effects of stopping makes it tougher.”

Ned simply nods in agreement and exhales. He was bored and it wasn’t the time for sleep. 

“How many did you smoke, today?” he smirks as he shifts the course of the discussion to an amusing trickery, “And don’t lie, Cat”

Catelyn grunts with frustration at his inquiry. Catelyn victoriously prohibited herself of it COMPLETELY for almost 5 months only to get back at it since yesterday. She bites on her lower lip and closes her eyes for a moment.

“Fine, damn it....it’s a 5”

“Make this your sixth stick, angel.”

“You devil Ned!! Don’t tempt me, I’m warning you!” she stomps her foot and glares at him.

“Please...just for this cold night, my love. Keep your coat on, sit on my lap and let’s have a chat.” He sits on their luxurious pool lounge chair and presses the previous cigarette butt on the ashtray to his right side. He then claps on his thighs to summon his cat for him to pet.

“For the last time...” 

“Which will not be the very very last, I’m sure” he grins with satisfaction as she struggles to resist the inclination.  

She did have a lot in mind to talk about, particularly with what happened at the party, all the new people she’s met and constructive pieces of information she’s picked up from them. 

Catelyn finally relents as she slowly walks and charmingly falls to her irresistible man. Ned licks his lips as he scribbles for the brushed metal cigarette case. The two pick their sticks to place it on their mouth together. Catelyn proceeds to bring the tip of hers to his for him to light up.

They start to puff away and enjoyed a period of silence. Catelyn asks her Ned for a favor to massage her sore gastrocs and heels as she tells him all about her day. Ned also shares about showing her all the home repair and improvement he accomplished before they go to bed. 

“Maybe we should get help from a health program.” she later suggests, noticing that the cigarette had already diminished to a half. It was a silly idea to her of course, but self-reliance isn’t a guarantee. Catelyn again promises herself to dominate Ned the next time at the back of her mind.

“Seriously?” Ned scoffs, “Your staunch advocacy for smoking cessation goes this far?” 

“We can’t do this on our own. We’re failing now and we’ll fail many more times.” she persuades them both as she decides not to fully consume it any longer. 

“We’ll do fair all by ourselves. We’ve got each other, Cat. Let’s just relax..” he tightly wraps his arms around her. Her perfume and his poisonous scent were mixing. She could not deny it was indeed so pleasurable. 

“FOR NOW. But I still beg you, Ned. Commit yourself to this. It isn’t too late.” she combs his messy hair. 

“All right, I will. I will also quit enticing you with it. I understand you are encouraging this for our future and I’m grateful for that. I love you for that, sweetheart.” 

Ned caresses her jaw and lingeringly kisses her with utmost tenderness. Catelyn pinches the back of his neck and claws the base of his skull as she opens her mouth so their tongues would collide. The taste of him was a heightening stimulation that pumped more blood to her aching head. As the side of her hip numbed bearing her weight she changes her position to straddle him. They continue to kiss as she takes off her coat and hurls it aside. He runs his hands from her bare shoulder, arms to hands to keep them against his chest. He wanted her to feel how his heart beats and how his lungs breathe just for her. She begins to grind on him harder, the delicate fabric of her jumpsuit rubbing against his black crepe trousers making the pressure easier to perceive. They rock their hips against each other in a rhythm until she moaned as her clit had been increasingly invigorated. Ned kissed and bit her neck some more to mark bruises on it. Sadly, their dry humping session did come to an end. They would not have ended their make-out session so soon, but they had to as the rain showered with the strong, whistling wind. They laughed to such an erotic merriment and hurriedly got up to seek for shelter.

------

“Didn’t know it would rain tonight.” Cat said as she stood by the sliding glass door, watching the branches of the maple tree swaying harshly. 

“I heard in the news there would be a storm”. Ned wrapped his arms around her waist, as the thunder in the sky roared. 

“Where were we again?” She asked

“We were kissing. Want to continue?” Ned seductively whispered in her dainty ear. 

“Definitely. I’m desperate for your warmth, my love.” She turned to face him and unbuttoned the choker detail of her plunge suit. 

“Let’s hurry and do it in the recliner.” He grabbed her hand and led her there. As he sat, he automatically leaned back and the footrest of their recliner popped up. 

She was about to sit on his lap until it dawned on her that she was still fully dressed. She watched him, while he was staring at her from head to toe patiently. She reached at her back and smoothly unzipped what she was wearing. She hooked her fingers at the shoulder straps and revealed to him her beige, stretchable tulle lingerie. 

He licked his dried lips, thirsting over the hazelnut-colored nipples and the auburn pussy that he could see through her sexy undies. Their youthfulness was fading but she became more alluring as the years passed by. He thanked the heavens that he was blessed to have a wife like her. 

She went to him, propped her knees on the sides of him and settled down on his hard bulge. They continued the make out session that was interrupted a while ago, tasting and breathing each other in, in this dark corner of their living room. 

It has already been a few months of their empty nest life and they did not feel too bad about it. Ned was calm about the thought of his children leaving, though he admits that he missed the days when they were small and light enough to be carried in his arms. Catelyn, like all mothers are, would get teary-eyed every time she dropped one wolf pup to live in an apartment or dormitory near their dream college or university. But when Rickon left, she had accepted the fact that she could not keep them forever in her arms and they had to let their wings fly as soon as they were able.

 They are proud to have reared their children well. They are confident that they have taught them enough and with that, they give their children their complete trust to do great all by themselves. Now  their attention and focus has shifted back to their marriage, keeping the erotic passion in it burning. It was the biggest advantage that they could boldly mention, making love without any worries of being caught or having to go to a farther, fancy locale just to get down to it. 

She moved her hand from his jaw to his chest and felt a round object inside the front pocket of his shirt. She inserted her fingers, pinched on the wrapper of a candy and broke the kiss for a moment. 

“Oh, perfect timing. You have mint candy.” She said as she tore the wrapper and put the chocolate coated menthol inside in her mouth. 

“We should add some more flavor to our kissing, don’t you like that, honey?” She continued to tease him as she moistened the candy and spread its sweetness all throughout her gums and palate.

“Sure. I like anything that you like.” He knew exactly what she meant to do, passing the candy back and forth with their twirling and frolicking tongues. 

They did just that. It increased their arousal as they became aware of the thought that this will only stop until the candy has entirely melted. Catelyn began to feel the heat and wetness in between her legs and she prayed that Ned would do something about it. No words were needed because Ned felt the urge to use his fingers to play with her genitalia. His hands the whole time were squeezing one breast and the other that was on her buttock crawled its way inside her panties. 

Catelyn spread her legs wider and transferred her knee to bear weight on the arm rest, allowing his fingers to wholly dig in. His thumb circled at her quimberry while his fingers searched for her other deeper, sensitive spots. It took two minutes and he finally hit on the jack spot. He was certain that he found it because Cateyn moaned louder and her hips rolled frenziedly as a response. They went on and on until the candy became as small as a pearl and Catelyn swallowed the rest so she could take them on a carnival ride. 

Ned pulled his lips from her so he could advance to her graceful, Chanel-scented neck. He lapped on every inch as Catelyn hastily removed her bra and hurled it aside. Her breasts were now free and he trailed on her collarbones and bent his head to please them.  

“Oh, Ned.. oohh…” she moaned his name as she tilted back to 45 degrees, clawed on his hair and pressed him against her while he was noshing on her two mushy nips. Her hips continued rocking irregularly as he persisted stroking profoundly and strenuously on her tunnel.

The sound of the heavily pouring rain grew louder and the thunder bellowed once more. It did not take long and she followed. 

“Ah, AAAAahhh!” She came as he curled and hooked on her with more force. She pulled his hair as she felt her leg muscles spasmed to squirt the cream pie out of her. 

“Oooohhh.. oh..hnnh” she bit her lower lip as Ned brought her back upright. She looked in between and saw her juices tremendously flowing to his hand. Her loving husband gathered them up from her thighs and sucked them from his middle and index fingers. 

“Mmmm…You’re like fresh berry cream cake..so delightful..” he gazed at her as he leisurely slurped the remaining sticky fluid. 

“Oh, really? If so, then don’t you think I’m a good girl?” She uttered breathlessly. 

“You are a good girl..” he whispered, lapping softly on her earlobe and planting marks on the left side of her neck. 

“Then I deserve a treat too. You’re not having my cake whole and full yet, if you don’t let me suck on your cinnamon candy cane.” She said and gave him an intense kiss as she unbuttoned his polo shirt. 

When they both got rid of it, it was Catelyn’s turn to scatter hickies on his thick and broad trunk. She licked on his abdominal lines before proceeding to his taut pants. Her teeth did the work of unlatching the pants to unleash his ferocious manhood.

Ned slightly lifted himself off the chair to assist her in bringing his garments down to his ankles. He erected, slid his pelvis to the edge of the chair and as he was more than ready for her. She seized on his knees and offered more sweet and light licks to his thighs. 

“Cat.. please…”

He felt himself become weaker, as her tongue progressed higher to his inguinal then his scrotum. She wetted his testicles and satisfied his shaft with a generous, brisk hand job. 

“Oh gods, Cat…Catelyn..” he groaned, which turned her more savage as she completely took one gumball in her mouth as she vigorously milked along his length. 

He let out more groans as his seed spurt out and she carried on to sup the other one. He surrendered to her torture, his mind concentrating on multiple sensations.  

She strewed his white chocolate frosting along his lower abdomen and around his naughty bits. After that, she devoured him and her tongue whipped up his glace stick from root to tip and round about. Her head bobbed up and down as she blew him hard and swallowed on his end that was muffling at the entry of her throat. He came for the second time inside her mouth, and she quickly drank from it. 

Catelyn did not have any more patience. She rose up from her kneeling position to straddle him  and take him inside her, nice and slick. She gripped on the sides of the recliner and he slightly extended his hips further toward the edge of the chair such that it would make it easier and more stable for her to move up and down on him. 

She rocked on him to and fro, to let his sturdy shaft massage the front and back of her walls, splitting her apart. 

“Ohh Ned..you feel so good inside me.. how could I ever live without this? OH, OOH, OOOOH” she moaned as she increased the speed and started hopping. 

“Fuuck!.. Aaahhhh..Aahh.AAH..Ned, Help me!” She screamed and he clawed on the crests of her hips to assist her. 

“Fuck, oh fuck, That’s right, babe…” She kept going on and on and even when she could almost not tolerate it, she still pushed herself further, desperate to arrive at that peak she hoped to reach. Ned grew more concerned for her wellbeing and so she stopped her for a moment to prevent the possibility of her dying from a heart attack. 

“Why are you..” she wondered. But before she could respond angrily, he lifted her and strongly stood up from the chair. 

She understood that he wanted to transfer to another spot as he carried her and walked toward the long couch. He did his best to lay her down gently and as soon as her back touched its softness, she wrapped him with her legs. 

He did not make any thrust yet as he showered her face and neck with more kisses. He grabbed her jaw to bring her mouth to his and kept kissing her intensely to elicit the music of her erotic noises. 

She cupped his jaw and pushed his face away from her, to let him know of her frustration. 

“Please, Ned. Ram me now. Don’t delay this any longer.” She said with a growl. 

He obeyed readily, one hand grasping at her low back and the other hand holding her knee against the edge of the sofa’s backrest to spread her wider. He shoved inside her repeatedly and brought them back to the right rhythm. 

“Keep going, Ned. Come at me...Come deeper….FASTER... Ooohh…Ooohh, Oh Come on! Almost there!” 

He exerted greater force at her blaring commands until they came to a finish. He splashed his seed inside her and she felt the flow of it warming her splendidly. 

“Aaaahhhh….that…was so great..” she said softly and breathlessly as he collapsed on her chest. 

Their minds were filled with a bliss that exhibited itself as flashes of white stars behind their eyelids. Ned nearly fell off the couch, as he softened inside her and his entire body went weak. Catelyn tried to prevent his fall by embracing him with her limbs. He was heavier and it was a bit difficult to keep him in place as their bodies were now slippery with their sweat and she began to feel the ache. He slowly slipped out of her, releasing more love juices that dispersed all over. 

When they regained their relaxed breathing, they laid on their sides and fit themselves in the depth of their sofa. His legs intertwined with hers and his arms held her tighter. He then combed the strands of her damp hair away from her delicate cheekbones, watching her smile at him as she touched his hand.  

They were quiet for some time, their hands caressing each other’s skins. The downpour had ended, the night was still but neither of them could find sleep, despite how exhausted they were from their lovemaking. 

“It’s almost the end of the year…Our birthdays have passed and winter is coming..” she said as she drew circles on his beefy pecs. 

“It has also been a long time since we last travelled together, with just the two of us..” she added. 

“Where do you want to go?” Ned asked her. Her suggestion delighted him, knowing how they have always been so focused on their work & family and how that sometimes led them to disregard each other. Ned realized that even when they go to work together every day, even when they go home to raise their kids together, he always misses her. He was mostly the one who called her attention, to remind her that they need to allocate time for a romantic dinner date or a two-day vacation. 

“We’ve explored all of Britain, we went to Venice & Paris twice, once in Rome, Spain and Monaco.” She reminisced about these vacations they had with the children. She remembered how excited Sansa & Arya were to witness the Paris Fashion week, with Robb & Jon telling her of their plan to go on their separate path after the family bonding. They have arranged their trip to the French Alps and prepared their mountain bike gears for its famous tough trails. Bran & Rickon were the laidback ones who were only excited about the art, music & food of that particular place. 

“Don’t you miss Amsterdam? We’ve also been there once but I want to go back there. You loved the flowers there.” Ned said. Memories floated inside his head, of him freely picking flowers, the grateful smiles he earned from his daughters when he gave them each a bouquet of tulips with their favorite colors and Cat’s laughter when small butterflies fluttered around her and landed atop the disk florets of her sunflowers. 

“Well, I do. Perhaps we can include that in our travel plans for December. Someone told me the Amsterdam Light Festival is a sensational sight to behold.” she replied. 

“We should spend the New Year there, since the kids most likely have their own celebration plans.” Ned thought. 

“It would be the first New Year without all of them. We’ll just anticipate visits from them from now on.” she said with a slightly sad tone. The rooms of her Stark pups were half empty; a vacant bed completely covered with a clean sheet, no trace of their clothes in their cabinets, just a few old books, discarded items and ornaments.

”We’re entering a new phase in life. But there’s nothing for you to worry about, because I’m always here for you and we’ll do fun things together. Well try a new range of pursuits but we’ll also get back to those habits we have abandoned.. like jogging in the park.. and what else?” he gazed at her, musing.

“Reading me a bedtime story, running around, playing childish games.. those small things.. Oh! and journaling!…I think I want to do that again.. It’s been so many years since my last journal. You are the only person who inspired me to get into it. Writing down our thoughts, feelings and experiences, pasting photo collages on the pages, recording family moments and keeping an archive of videotapes and exchanging letters. We did most of that in the 80s & 90s then we slowly stopped doing them starting in the early 2000s.” she said. 

“Then we expanded our factories, grew our business...we’ve faced so many challenges over the decade....”

“And yet here we are, my love. We survived all that.” she finished his sentence for him as she stroked the side of his pretty face. 

“Yes, we did and we’ll conquer a lot more.”

“That’s how we do it, becoming stronger and better together in acts and in words. As for the words, I know we never forget to reciprocate kind and sweet messages but I think I’ve never told you this...Thank you for spending this lifetime with me, Ned.” she said with an indescribable gladness in her heart. She was grateful to God that Eddard Stark was her partner, whom she shared all her undertakings with. 

“And I’m grateful that you are my woman. The woman who celebrates my victories with me, continues to motivate me whenever I fail and hinders me when I’m about to make a mistake. I thank you too, for never giving up on me. I love you very much, Cat.” 

He moved on top of her when he told her he loved her and kissed her gently. She intensified the kiss and they stayed that way until dawn. 

They set their oral sex to a sedated pace. Her hand was kneading on the back of his head while the other was fondling his genitals, teasing him to enter inside her once again. But he knew better and instead of aggravating her ache, he moved down to play with her breasts and tickle her belly and groin with his tongue. 

“I almost left this cake untouched.” he said as he bent her knee and brought it to her chest to open her strawberry slice. 

“Then eat it all.” she stared at him with a teasing smirk. 

 His nose poked at her nub, as his tongue moistened and flipped the flaps of her labia. She arched her spine and pushed herself against his diligent mouth. Sunlight perfused the room, reminding her that it was Sunday morning and they have the whole day to themselves. 

“Some more, Ned.. Please...Oh Please.. Do it some more.. you know how I like it..” she whined as her fingers latched onto his hair. 

The tip of his tongue attacked the lower end of her opening, going up and down unevenly and rapidly then proceeding to an incessant circular motion around her sugared berry. 

“Eddard...Oh...Daddy..” in her orgasm, she uttered a nasty word she actually did not like referring to her husband. But he loved it and it made him wilder, his mouth demolishing her like a famined animal and his three long digits havocking her canal.  

 She wailed, uproarious, as her entire body was trembling and losing control. He was relishing her piece of fruity cake, its gratifying serving just as large as a full English Breakfast. He consumed every ounce of it and he did not stop until she hit another height of ecstasy. 

“EDDARD!!” she screamed and squirmed.

He pulled his face off her muff, looking at how wrecked she totally is. He crawled up to her and kissed her forehead. 

She opened her eyes saying, “Why don’t we do some yoga exercises on the balcony and have a movie marathon after lunch in the attic theater room?” 

“Sure, anything for you. But why yoga on the balcony? Why don’t we do some in the shower? We should be taking a bath by now.” he said as he nuzzled her nose against hers.

“I want some cold shower, not hot and I literally mean Hatha yoga, Ned. I’ll teach you some beginner poses and proper breathing.”

“Oh, sorry if my thoughts were wrong..” 

“Don’t be. Our brain cells share an entity called shamelessness. I have some sensual shower ideas to whisper and show you. But you have to reward and treat me with a heavy breakfast.”

“Of course, I’ll be the one to prepare it. Parmesan asparagus & poached eggs, vegan banana pancakes, avocado toast. Today is a new day to be healthy, right?”  

“Yes it is, darling.”

“So what are you waiting for? Let’s take a shower.”

 He snatched her hand and they were giggling as they ran naked upstairs to their bedroom. Their kids no longer lived with them permanently but still they were very happy, as they were constantly growing together through their midlife’s journey.

#nedcat #game of thrones #modern au #ned x cat #ned stark #eddard stark #catelyn stark #catelyn tully #otp: ned loves my hair #eddard x catelyn #nedlyn #sean bean #michelle fairley #ned x catelyn #house stark #stark parents #quitting bad habits #fanfic #smut

[neurodiversitysci]

Where “spoonie” culture fails me

As some of you probably know, I often experience brain fog.

When in a brain fogged state, I have difficulty thinking, I move slowly, and I have difficulty doing anything. I feel tired all the time, no matter how much sleep I get. 

I need stimulants and caffeine to ward off this brain fog so I can function.

Thus, the concept of “low spoons” instantly appealed to me. It described how I felt, and why it felt impossible to do things when brain fog hit. Of course everything was exhausting; I ran out of spoons before I ran out of tasks that needed brain power. (My decision making and other executive functioning spoons ran out the fastest). 

However, I do not have a physical illness like lupus, Lyme disease, fibromyalgia, POTS, etc. I can recover spoons, albeit too slowly.  “Fork theory,” developed by a writer with depression, actually better fits my experience.

Starting when I was in college, because everything felt like too much, I started cutting out everything possible so I could focus on my schoolwork. I stopped playing violin, drawing, fiction writing/worldbuilding, reading for fun, and all but the most minimal self care (e.g., showering and getting dressed). 

The same pattern has persisted to this day. Self care, activities of daily living, seeing friends, and engaging in soul-nourishing activities I mercilessly cut from my day. Of course, I’m suffering the consequences.

My life strategy has been: follow my strengths, which are in school and work areas of life, ignore my weaknesses as much as possible, and spend my energy on only the most important school and work related things, cutting as much as possible out of my life to do so, whatever the costs. This spoonie mentality made sense--I did have more energy-consuming things than energy a lot of the time

Right now, I’m on leave from graduate school, with no classes, no work, nothing to do but work on learning all those executive functioning and other skills I missed out on and fell so far behind in. I always wanted to stop time so I could catch up, and here I am, as close to that as I’ll ever get.

Yet still I struggle to do the most basic things like get dressed and out of the house on time. Because, unfortunately, there’s no structure telling me where I should be and what I should be doing when. I have the exhausting task of deciding that for myself.

Let me explain one crucial reason why I struggle, even with plenty of time. I developed the habit of ignoring messes as they built up around me, because I didn’t have time to clean up. Dishes in the sink? I’ll come back to them later. Wipe down the table? Sweep the floor? Later. Put away that clutter on my desk or surrounding the computer? Later. Take a shower? Later. Take a walk? Later. 

However, when surrounded by visual clutter, I’m overwhelmed and can’t think. Just being at home drains my spoons. It’s exhausting to cook because I have to find or wash dishes first. I feel depressed by being in such ugly surroundings. My mind feels sluggish because I’ve sat in a computer chair all day, haven’t walked or felt sunshine on my skin.

Right now, I do have the time. As soon as I notice a piece of clutter or a sinkful of dishes, I can literally clean up immediately, with no bad consequences. Yet my brain still tells me “you don’t have time right now, you should be doing more important work, come back to this later.” I still have the habit of looking, feeling discouraged, and walking away. The habit no longer serves me. It may even have hurt me as well as helped me before.

As a result, I never learned to self care. I never learned to do things that would get back energy, like moving around, listening to music, talking to friends and family, or creating something. I’m still figuring out what activities even restore my spoons. And often, as with leaving my home and walking, these are the last things I want to do. They are true fork activities.

TL;DR: trying to conserve my spoons has actually reduced my spoons.

I expand my supply of spoons only by using them all up, without going over budget. My brain builds up cognitive spoons like an athlete builds muscle (only, much more slowly). 

That “sweet spot” of spoon use is ridiculously hard to find, and I think I’ve erred on the side of too little.

So when I read this passage from Ned Hallowell’s website, it hit me like a lightning bolt:

People who are struggling sometimes assume they need to cut down the challenge in their life. What we have learned is that people with ADHD and associated issues need challenge to thrive in their life, perhaps even more than other people. The trick is helping our clients find the right challenge or as Dr. Hallowell says, the right difficult. Not enough challenge and people with ADHD become bored, the wrong type of challenge and they become overwhelmed.

This is my problem. I’ve been trying to cut down the level of challenge when I need to consider both the amount and the type of challenge. My strategy was “spend as few spoons as possible” rather than “spend your spoons as much on your life priorities as possible.”   

With all the emphasis on self-care and conserving spoons on Tumblr, I bet I’m not the only person with ADHD to make this mistake.

From this new perspective, saying no is still just as important. People are still always trying to waste your spoons. 

(Caveat/YMMV disclaimer: That said, I understand many of us may not have enough control over our lives and especially workplaces to prevent this, which will affect where you put your spoons. It will be even harder to find that “sweet spot” and you may have to rely on “conserving spoons,” at least sometimes).

TL;DR: be careful with “spoon theory” and make sure you build on your supply of spoons, not shrink it.

Disclaimer: None of this applies to people with physical illnesses who really can’t regenerate spoons no matter how much they move, how much sunlight they get, how comfortable they are in their living space, how little visual clutter surrounds them, and so on. 

8/13/19

#original post #my life #actually adhd #adhd adult #brain fog #spoon theory #spoons #spoonie #fork theory #depression #Visual Clutter #clutter #self care #adls #executive function #executive functioning #executive dysfunction #brain training #coping #coping strategies #coping mechanisms #bad coping mechanisms #adhd problems

[beeshavethrees]

Classes are really beating me up right now and I’m not really getting much actual writing done; instead I’ve mostly been playing around with plot lines and planning out chapters. The consequence of this is a lot of detailed write-ups for what I want to happen in one-shots and chapters and such, including a siren AU I’m working on.

(Let it be known the AU is very self-indulgent. It’s just people doing things and having fun in a world with sirens, essentially.) AU info below the cut! Keep in mind that this is just me playing around with magic, so while things in-universe are consistent, some stuff doesn’t make 100% sense and is just for fun.

Skip down four paragraphs to read about the actual characters; this first bit is just setting up what sirens *are.*

In this AU, sirens exist in the world, but are not known of by humanity. Sirens are creatures born with something called the Voice, which allows them to draw upon an inner magic to create beautifully haunting songs. Their Voice provides a few particular powers, namely: the ability to shapeshift between a merfolk form and a human form, to invoke particular emotions/thoughts/feelings in other beings, to communicate underwater, and to help keep themselves healthy (particularly boosting their immune systems and warding off parasites, though they can still succumb to particularly nasty diseases, physical injury, starvation, etc.). Their Voice also allows them to slowly acclimate to new environments -- while most sirens who often shift between their human/merfolk form remain in the shallows off the coast or in rivers/lakes, many for their own safety live in remote communities deep in the ocean or nearer to the poles and use their Voices to shift their bodies to accommodate such conditions. (Those born and living in such places also experience quite different cultures than those who often swap to their human forms!)

In their merfolk form, most sirens have a few similarities in their appearances -- slitted pupils, darkvision, sharp teeth, small claws, webbed fingers, pointed or frilled ears, and gills. If intending to remain in the water, their full transformation into their merfolk form includes replacing their lower body with a form similar to an aquatic creature’s, though their lower body can vary greatly between individuals and typically has color patterns unique to the individual. They’ll often have small patches of scales scattered on their upper body, as well. Their lower body form is often somewhat similar between family members as well, besides the color variations, which can sometimes also change of their own accord over time.

Sirens in their human forms are indistinguishable from a regular human, and a siren who has a child with a human and has their child while still in their human form will give birth to a child who looks human. If the child was born without a Voice, though, or if they’re never taught by another siren how to invoke their Voice, they’ll never be able to transform and will remain indistinguishable from a human. Theoretically a child born in their merfolk form could also never learn how to use their Voice, but since the Voice is used underwater to speak, it doesn’t really make sense for them to never be exposed to it (and thus never be able to use it on their own.)

Sirens often live in communities called schools which are essentially extended found-family groups composed of other sirens. Underwater, they often share communal dens (or live scattered around a small area), and stick together in established, larger ranges where they protect and look out for each other. This behavior even translates over if a school lives on land. That said, due to the comforts/additional options provided by living human lives, many shallow sirens may live on land for parts of their childhood, or even live as humans long-term.

Character info below! Mostly focusing on Alexander, since he’s the focus of the story as I’ve written it.

Alexander and his older brother James are both sirens, though they were raised on land as humans for the most part. Their mother (also a siren) never discouraged using their Voices, but intentionally homeschooled them and kept them from getting too involved with other folks while young so they couldn’t spread any secrets by accident. She showed them in secret how to transform and the basics of eating fish and kelp scavenged around their home, but emphasized that they had to hide while not humans.

After their mother died, Alexander and James are pushed to live with a relative. Said relative dies, and unable to get into contact with their father, James fears that they’ll be split up for foster care or taken away from where they’ve always lived. So, James grabs Alexander and says they’re going to transform and hide for a while.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to transition to living as a merfolk so suddenly, and James is still only a teenager and Alexander a kid -- they struggle, a lot, as a school of two. Eventually, Alexander starts skulking around the shore and docks to scavenge for more supplies and food, and ends up running into another boy his age, Edward. Ned realizes he’s a siren, but they quickly strike up a friendship, and it isn’t soon before Ned tells his parents that his new friend (not mentioning the siren part) and his friend’s brother are homeless and need help. So, Ned’s family offer to take the boys in, with Alexander and James shifting back into their human forms, only Ned being any the wiser.

The present storyline takes place years later, with Alexander being an adult still living as a human, almost never acknowledging his siren abilities; outside of living sashimi more than most people, he’s pretty normal. We’ve got the other siren cast -- namely Herc/Laf/John who live in a school together. Washington is a human here, but met the sirens while surveying coastal land, and was just curious and persistent enough to get into a good rap with them.

James/Thomas/Burr are all human and work for Washington’s company alongside Alexander, who was introduced to Washington after he ended up running into Herc/Laf/John and was given a job to get back on his feet. He’s in a pretty good position now, too.

The plot is essentially just “Thomas accidentally finds out that Alexander is a siren and is more impressed than anything, while Alexander has a complete panic attack over the idea that Thomas of all people knows,” the two of them gradually warming up to each other over their shared little secret.

Anywho, it’s a silly late hour so I’ll be off, but whether or not I actually write this story, it’s fun to imagine. :)

#jamilton #hamilton: an american musical

[whumphoarder]

Wrong Pipe

Summary: Peter low-key drowns, and Tony high-key frets.

Word count: 829

Genre: whump, humor

A/N: (This story is based on true events from my own history of dumbassery, ER trip included.)

Thanks to @xxx-cat-xxx, @awesomesockes, and @sallyidss for beta-reading & help <3

Link to read on Ao3

“Are you allergic to any medications?”

Doing his best to suppress another cough, Peter just shakes his head.

Tony jots the information down on the clipboard he’s holding. “What about other stuff? Latex? Shellfish? Kryptonite?”

“Do we really have to do this?” Peter moans. “I’m fine. I’m not even—” He cuts himself off with another round of unproductive hacking into his elbow, causing his breath to rattle in his chest. A woman sitting a few seats away eyes him warily and shifts in her chair.

Tony just raises an eyebrow. “Not even—what? Breathing? That’s exactly why we’re here.” He makes an encompassing gesture around the ER waiting room, then taps the end of his pen to the clipboard impatiently. “C’mon, allergies, kid. Chop, chop.”

“Nothing. But...” Drawing in a few shallow, shuddery breaths and desperately trying to ignore the weird sensation in his lungs, Peter tries again. “But this is so…”—he suppresses a cough—“stupid.”

“No, you know what’s really stupid? Showing up to school and trying to take a math test in a room with thirty-six people while hacking up a lung,” Tony bites back. “That was pretty stupid.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “S’ not like I’m actually sick.”

Tony scoffs. “Well, you sure as hell aren’t well.”

With a groan at his mentor, Peter arches back slightly to push himself up straighter in his seat. He’s desperate for any position that will get his chest to expand and the horrible tickle from the water in his lungs to go away. “So stupid…” he mutters.

It all started seven hours earlier.

Peter was running late for school. He’d just inhaled the last of his banana and was in the process of gulping down a glass of water on his way out the door when his phone buzzed.

Ned had sent a Baby Yoda meme.

Objectively, it wasn’t even that funny. The joke didn’t even elicit a proper laugh from Peter—more of an odd cross between a humorous snort and a sudden bark than anything else. Unfortunately, this fateful snort-bark occurred at the exact same moment that Peter tried to swallow a mouthful of water, aspirating said water into his lungs.

And thus began his seven-hour coughing fit from hell.

The irony was, he had made it through almost all of his classes. Sure, the incessant coughing meant other students gave Peter a wide berth in the halls and teachers shot him side-looks while simultaneously slathering themselves with hand sanitizer like it was going out of style. But honestly, he’d rather they all think he had acquired some horrific virus than find out the truth.

(Which was that he’d been low-key drowning on three fluid ounces of water ever since breakfast.)

But, then again, Mr. Blokk (his positively ancient Honors Pre-Calc teacher) isn’t really known for being accommodating. He kicked Peter out not even three minutes into the test, telling him to go hack on the nurse instead. Apparently ‘crackling’ is not an acceptable sound to hear from a student’s lungs because the mildly concerned nurse had then called May, and May (being out of town for a work conference) had in turn called Tony.

(Who had completely overreacted.)

“Can’t we just go home?” Peter begs, then struggles to keep another coughing fit from escaping. “This is ridiculous—we’re gonna wait here, like, five hours for them to…”—he breathes—“say I’m fine.”

Tony doesn’t look up, continuing to scribble information down onto the clipboard. “Two words for you, kid,” he declares knowingly. “Secondary. Drowning.”

Peter wants to let out the mother-of-all exasperated sighs, but he doesn’t have quite enough air in his lungs for that so he settles for another eye-roll. “I’m not drowning. People don’t drown”—he coughs—“from half a glass of water.”

“Uh huh, sure,” Tony says as he copies May’s phone number from his contacts list onto the form. “So, out of idle curiosity, what was your place of birth?”

The exaggerated groan that Peter attempts instantly morphs into another coughing fit. This time it’s so strong that Peter doubles over himself until Tony—eyes wide—pushes his shoulders back upright, taking some of the pressure off his lungs again.

“You alright?” Tony checks, thumping Peter on the back a few times. “Should I see if they can move you up the line?”

Despite the tears pricking at Peter’s eyes from the ache in his chest and abdominal muscles, he shakes his head side-to-side. “‘M fine,” he rasps.

Tony glances at his watch. “You know, if you just let me take you to Medical, we wouldn’t have to sit here for hours…”

Peter shoots him a death glare. “As I said before”—he wheezes—“I would literally rather die than explain to one of the SHIELD doctors that I’m drowning on two sips of water.”

“Alright, have it your way,” Tony says with a shrug. He shifts his gaze back to the form. “On to family history of heart disease…”

X

Link to all my fics

If you liked this story, you might also like:

*Swoon*

Star Spangled Knockout

Bedridden Spider

X

#irondad fic #irondad & spiderson #drowning #peter parker whump #dry drowning #secondary drowning #coughing #whump #hospitals #protective tony stark #my fic

[the--sad--hatter]

Name Changing (3)

FANDOM - MARVEL MCU, X-MEN, DEADPOOL

PAIRING - BUCKY X READER (female reader, no physical descriptions)

WARNINGS - ALL OF THEM, SMUT, VIOLENCE ANGST

DESCRIPTION -  Sequel to Name Calling

After merging with your bloodthirsty alternate personality things start getting a little dicey. You’ve got two decades worth of anger to sort through, a feral mutation to figure out how to live with, a biological father who you hate trying to teach you control and if your wedding planner suggests teal for the bridesmaids again you might just eat her liver.

Luckily you have Bucky Barnes by your side, helping you figure things out. What Bucky doesn’t know is that you have found an outlet for the uncontrollable rage, one that absolutely nobody can know about. If your friends and family knew that you were out slaughtering people in the dead of night while they slept, they might be a little annoyed. Wade Wilson is happy to keep your secret though, so long as you keep bribing him with Mexican food.

For as long as you could remember, all you had wanted was to be good. Now you’re seeing the temptation in the darkness.

Chapter Three - The Firing Line

“Do you want to bite down on this for me?”

You obliged him, biting down on the leather strap.

“Are you sure about this?” Bruce asked, yet again.

He did this every time, checked you weren’t going to change your mind. You wanted the chaotic disease gone, you’d endure whatever you had to. Even this. You nodded confidently to Banner.

“We’re taking tissue samples from the liver today, Dr. McCoy has a theory about the proteins...”

“gerf onwis hit.” You mumbled.

“Alright, making the first incision now.” He said and carefully sliced your abdomen open with the scalpel.

Ever since you merged with Vernichtung you had finally gained full access to your mutant abilities, including your accelerated healing. That allowed Bruce and Hank to have unlimited access to fresh samples. Bruce would word it a bit nicer but essentially he was loping bits off of you to study and experiment on.

You bit down on the leather strap and tried not to scream or be sick. Accelerated healing from the mutation and the super soldier serum meant knocking you out for the procedures was out of the question but at least he hadn’t decided to cut your heart out today. That had been a ridiculously unpleasant experience. Growing a new one had been worse.

The pain was easy to deal with, pain wasn’t a new experience for you, it was the strange tugging sensation that was making you nauseated. You closed your eyes and went to your happy place in your mind to get through it.

“Do you, James Buchanan Barnes take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

“And do you,...

“I’m finished.” Bruce interrupted your daydream and unstrapped your arms and legs from the table.

Your curiosity got the better of you like it did every time and you peered at the samples he’d taken.

“Wade would lose his mind if he saw this.” You groaned.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Steve stood in the middle of the room, the most horrified expression on his face. You looked up at him innocently.

“We didn't have any plates big enough.” You told him.

“So you used my shield?”

“He can’t eat off of the floor Steve!”

“So you used my shield?”

“I’ll clean it afterward, besides it’s basically a big metal bowl.” You said, shrugging.

Steve couldn’t stop watching in horror as Erlo tore at the raw beef you’d served him in the upturned shield.

“Cap I once saw you use that to bash a mans skull in, quit bitching.” Sam told him.

After the initial fear, Sam had decided that a pet lion was pretty cool and while he still wouldn’t get too close he was being supportive of Erlo’s presence.

“Is that good? Do you want some more?” You asked Erlo.

A wave of satisfaction washed over you from him and you patted him on the head before heading over to get your own breakfast off of Sam.

Sam shoved a piled plate of bacon and pancakes (there were at least 15 pancakes) at you and started the inquisition.

“So he understands English, he responds when you talk to him. But he doesn’t talk back?”

“No, he just sort of lets me feel how he feels.” You explained.

“How did that even happen? What did they do to him?” Sam said with a frown as Steve eventually dragged himself away from the horror show and sat next to you, helping you eat the mountain of food mama Sam had given you.

“Friday’s decrypting the files as we speak, hopefully we’ll find out something useful.” You said.

“Alright. Well on to better subjects... As your best man, I have made a decision.” Sam informed you.

You paused with a forkful of bacon halfway to your mouth and looked at him. He was grinning proudly and Steve squeezed your elbow comfortingly.

“I conferred with your maid of honor and she agreed that she would take the day before the wedding to throw you some sort of girly spa day and I get the hen do!” Sam announced happily.

“Don’t say it.” You warned.

“He’s going to say it.” Steve sighed.

“VEGAS BABY!”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“Miss Stark? The quarterly reports for you.”

“Thanks, put them in that little box over there.” You said dismissively.

“Miss? That’s the paper shredder.”

“Yup.”

The assistant looked utterly perplexed and torn. You took pity on him.

“Alternatively leave them on the desk and go get yourself a coffee, if anyone asks tell them it’s for me.” You told him.

He looked instantly relieved.

“Thanks Miss Stark!” He gushed, dropping the papers on your desk and rushing out before you could change your mind.

You sighed and text Peter.

You: Quarterly reports are a finance thing right?

You: Actually I don’t care, look over them for me?

You: Or alternatively lets blow this popsicle stand and go get a milkshake?

NOT Spiderman: I’m at school???

You: Ok.

You: I’ll pick you up.

NOT Spiderman: NO! I’ll come get a milkshake with you after school. Scan the reports and have Friday check them.

You: I’d be lost without you. You get an extra large milkshake.

NOT Spiderman: Ned’s making me ask if you’ll go to prom with him.

You: Sorry, bad signal. Can’t hear you.

You took Peters advice and scanned the reports.

“Friday, look these over for me?”

“Sure thing, and what exactly am I looking for?” She responded.

You narrowed your eyes at the ceiling.

“I don’t know.” You growled unhappily.

“I’ll check over and discrepancies with past reports and compare them to track the company’s growth and draw up a projection for future reports.” She told you with what you were 100% sure was a sigh.

“Have I told you lately I love you?” You asked.

“Not nearly as often as I deserve.” She deadpanned.

“Set up a daily reminder for me to tell you. Is Erlo doing ok?”

“He is currently in your bedroom eating Sargent Barnes’s shoes.”

“Aww, that’s my passive aggressive boy.” You cooed.

“Your father is asking if you would like to go get pizza for lunch with him.” She passed along.

You looked around at the pile of paperwork you had to get through.

“Absolutely.”  

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“So how’s work?” Tony asked as you bit into your third pizza.

“I’m learning a lot, like for example did you know that flying a quinjet to Chicago to get pizza is increasing our carbon footprint?” You said.

Tony snapped his fingers at you like you’d just come up with a genius idea.

“You are absolutely right, we should invent a cleaner way to power the quinjets.”

“Not what I meant but ok.” You said, laughing at him.

“That’s exactly what you meant. If someone thinks you said something smart, never correct them.” He told you seriously.

“Can I ask you something?” You prodded.

“You just did.”

“Alright, enough with the dad jokes.” You said, chucking a scrunched up napkin at him which he batted away.

“Alright, ask away.” He said.

“Are you trying to groom me to take over the company?”

You’d overheard some people gossiping about it in the office earlier that day and it was weighing on your mind.

“Would it be a bad thing is I was?” He asked.

“I don’t know that I’m a businesswoman, dad. Even if I wanted it, I don’t think I’d be any good at it.” You admitted.

“I’m not trying to get you to take over, no. If I thought you wanted that, that it would make you happy then I would but I can tell it’s not your calling. But you need something. All you do is save people. You don’t even have any hobbies really.”

“That’s not true.” You insisted.

��Your fiancée is a fellow Avenger, your friends are all hero’s or vigilante’s or connected to that life in some way. You need a life Kit Kat, you need something else. You can’t let being an Avenger consume you.” He told you.

You tried to think of something in your life that didn’t come back to the Avengers but you couldn’t. Even your secret hobby of killing people with Wade was about killing bad guys, with a vigilante.

“I don’t know if I can ever do something normal.” You said sadly.

“You can’t. Nothing you do could ever be anything less than extraordinary. But it has to be yours, and just yours. Go traveling, take up painting, go to college, open a book shop. Whatever you want sweetheart, but try and find something. Please?”

“Wait... Is this your way of firing me?”

“I love you but you are literally the worst intern we have ever had. Yes, you’re fired.”

You made a strangled noise of offense.

“Well since I am jobless, I guess lunch is on you.” You said, sulking.

“Leech.”  Tony rolled his eyes at you.

“Hurry up, I have to pick Peter up from school.” You told, getting up and rubbing your full stomach.

“Bossy leech.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“How did your history paper go?” You asked Peter as he slid into the passenger seat.

“I got an A! Thanks for getting Mr Bucky to help me out.” He said, showing you the paper with the big red A on it proudly.

“He just talked your ear off for a few hours, you actually made it into a coherent paper. You earned that A.” You told him seriously.

He looked embarrassed but proud as you pulled out of the school parking lot.

“So I got fired.” You told him casually.

“What? They can’t do that, you’re a Stark. Did you tell your dad? Do you want me to tell him?” Peter asked in a rash, incensed that someone would dare fire you.

“He knows, he was the one who did it. Took me out for a nice lunch, like a last meal.” You sniggered.

Peter looked outraged on your behalf.

“It’s alright Spiderboy, I didn’t fit in there and he knew it. He wants me to go and figure out what I want to do with my life.” You said, sighing.

“Oh. Well, what do you want to do with your life?” Peter asked.

“I’m not sure. I sort of accidentally stumbled into having one at all and I’m not sure what I want to do except save people.”  

“There are other ways to save people that don’t involve punching Nazi’s. There are nurses, firefighters, police officers, caretakers, therapists. Even people like musicians or authors can help people. If you wanna help others you can find ways to do it.” Peter told you.

“Huh.” You hadn’t thought of it like that.

“Just figure out what you’re good at, what you can do well and enjoy.” He said wisely.

You smiled gratefully at him for his advice. He had given you a lot to think about and you mulled it over as you pulled up and parked outside the diner and got out of the car.

“Come on oh wise one, I’ll even get you some fries with your milkshake.” You said, ruffling his hair as he joined you on the sidewalk.

He playfully shoved you and you stumbled and glared at him. He choked back a snort of laughter at your expression.

“Oh you better run.” You snarled.

He took your advice and bolted, laughing loudly as he sprinted down the sidewalk. You grinned and gave him a head start before stalking after your prey.

How hard could it be to catch a spider?

You were too low down on the street to catch sight of the man stood on the roof upwind, watching you with narrowed eyes. He was always careful to make sure you never noticed him, you would never see him coming until he decided it was time and by then it would be far too late. He would stick to the shadows until it was time to rip your life apart.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Peter Parker is one of the characters who gets more of a spotlight in the sequel. What do you think about Tony and Peter's advice?

Weirdish question, remember when Baby Stark was interviewed for a magazine last chapter? What questions would you like to ask her? She might just answer and you could get a mention in the chapter. 

@nerdandproud-86 @harrison-shot-first@thejourneyneverendsx @thelostallycat @inquisitor-selvala@the-corruptor @iovher @kendrawr-kitkat @phoenix-whiskey-tears @the--real--wombat @buckitybarnes@fairislesheets@angieptt @meganjonezzzz @dugan365@fluffeh-kitty@memanda17 @krystallynx @theonelittleone@piscesbarnes@free-as-fishes @tarastudiesalot@captainamericasbeard@dropthepizza346 @jaynnanadrews@likes-to-smell-books@drdorkus @life-wanderer@metalarmlover @animegirlgeeky@jsmith509 @chipilerendi@nerdy-bookworm-1998@ericasabe @gravedollie666@madlykpopfan @l0kisbitch@mywinterwolf@sassysweetstories @life-wanderer @jessieray98@littledeadrottinghood

#hattersmarvelverse #bucky x reader #bucky x you #Bucky Barnes #parent tony stark #Dad Tony Stark #avengers x reader

[author-swagger]

Cancer … Living With It, And Moving On After Treatment

Cancer … Living With It, And Moving On After Treatment

Excerpt

It’s a matter of the heart and the outlook you have. You can beat it and will, I have! No signs of the disease, blood work has never been better, and no tumorous lymph nodes. 4 years ago on May 4th, 2015 at 10:58a, I turned stage 4, or was told then shall I say! I told the oncology doctor, Dr. Thomas and my medical team, I don’t need treatment any longer then. I now stand in Faith, Hope and Belief I was going to be delivered from the wretchedness, and I believe it too.

Our Lord Christ Jesus healed me and I had less than 6 months to a year to live at that point.

 No one said that stopping treatment was going to be so hard…

I met with my doctor recently and was done with therapy for lymphoma for close to a year and five months now. I hadn’t been feeling well, and I had no symptoms of cancer, nothing that made me suspicious of a recurrence. After the doctor examined me and reviewed my most recent CT scan and labs, the doctor agreed. No recurrence. He wrote in his notes, “NED,” the acronym for no evidence of disease.

As we were wrapping up the visit, he asked me if there was anything else on my mind, anything else I was concerned about.

There was.

“I still get nervous and anxious before coming to see you and before each scan,” I said. “I was prepared for how radiotherapy would make me feel. I expected to feel tired, to get sick. What I wasn’t prepared for was how to move on with my life, without letting cancer take over. No one told me that getting on with life after cancer would be like this. No one told me that this would be so hard.”

And, to a large degree, he thinks I’m right.

Doctors are very good at getting people through radiotherapy treatments and chemotherapy. Oncologists and oncology nurses are great at counseling on side effects, helping to manage nausea and other ill-effects of treatment. Families rally around the cancer patient during this time, providing much-needed emotional support and physical support. Friends – hopefully – step up to the plate and offer shoulders to cry on, hugs, personal experiences, and distraction.

But when treatment is over? Well, life gets back to normal. Right?

Hmm … not so fast. It’s just not that easy. That’s what they forget to tell patients. Getting back to normal, getting on with life, is harder than everyone expects.

Picking up the pieces of your life before cancer – before radiotherapy and chemotherapy wreaked havoc on the body and soul – takes much longer than one might expect. With the end of treatment comes an upwelling of fear of recurrence, fear that because active treatment has stopped, cancer will be able to grow again. There is fear surrounding each scan and each blood draw. Anxiety swells before each oncology visit.

They may have forgotten to tell us that this is all normal. It’s an expected part of the recovery process. The fatigue from radiotherapy and chemotherapy will get better over time. The fear of recurrence will subside with the passing of the months.

Another thing that they may have forgotten to tell us? Will we be able to get on with your life again after cancer treatment? We probably will be a changed person after your experience, but we’ll get back to normal. If not the old normal then for sure a new one. Your life will resume, despite cancer, beyond cancer. Just be sure to rally the support during this time. We still need it. Thank you for everything; the love, support, the hugs and the smiles of encouragement for us to move ahead and gain life again.

Faith… Hope… and Believe, you’ll be delivered.

For the strength My Lord gives me, I Live!!!

Best Wishes,

William ~ Survivor

| © Copyright | William Darnell Sr | All Rights Reserved |

| The moral rights of the author have been asserted |

| His strength is my deliverance | Year Posted 2015-20 |

Source - IGotADreamInHeart

#health #Health #Cancer Sucks

[monigheandonn1743]

The Diary

Chapter 1 Chapter 2

Chapter 3

“I’ll admit that it’s strange. But I’m no’ really sure what you can do.” Ned explained in a voice so muffled that Jamie could hardly hear him over racket he was making in the background. He was banging cupboards, rummaging through draws, running water. If he didn’t stop, jamie was about to completely lose his shit. “Whoever she is, apart from trespassing, she hasn’t broken any laws, and even if she had, what could we even do without a name. Are ye sure there’s nothing in the diary?”

“I can hardly bloody hear ye! So will ye stop what ye doin’ for five fucking minutes and focus on what I’m sayin!” He growled as he climbed off the air bed, kicking his sleeping bag to the floor when it tangled around his feet. “She’s been in my house, Ned. She’s researchin’ my family!”

“Aye, I hear ye. But without a name ye ken there’s nothin’ I can do.” He reiterated, his voice clearer now that he’d stopped making so much Goddamn noice. “All I can suggest is that you send me the book. I’ll go though it for ye an’ compile a list of names to see if I can find a connection. Or ye could ask around the village, find out if there’s been anyone new in the area.”

Jamie balked at the idea of sending the diary to Ned. He didn’t know why, but just the thought of his lawyer going through it turned his stomach. He didn’t owe this woman a goddamn thing, she was invading his privacy, but for some unknown reason he couldn’t bring himself to let Ned invade hers.  

It almost felt too personal to share with anyone.

“I’ll go though it myself, It’ll be quicker, an’ I’ll send ye the list tomorrow.” He huffed as his eyes scanned the floor, looking for the book. “But I’ve no got time to be goin’ door to door. I pay ye enough to do the leg work, so send someone else up to fucking do it!”

“I’ll have Graham up there tomorrow.”

“Good. Tell him to keep it to himself.”

“Aye.”

Hanging up, he flexed his fist around his phone, and let his his head fall back. He was attempting to steady his breathing, taking deep breaths in though his nose and letting them out through his mouth, slowly, steadily. Putting into practice the relaxation techniques the doctor had given him. But he wasn’t sure how well they were actually working.

This project was supposed to be giving him an outlet for the stress. Yet he was more tense now than he had been when he left Edinburgh this morning. Between the state of the house, the diary and the girl, he wasn’t likely to make it through the trip alive.

He needed to let it all go, to put it to rest, to forget that he’d ever seen her and just get on with the job he was there to do. It was one random moment of insanity, and it was over and done with. The diary would be harder to forget, but he had to try. He’d spend tonight reading it from cover to cover, find what he needed, and hand the whole thing over to Ned.

He had a team of lawyers for a reason, and they could damn well earn their keep.

Taking one last deep breath, he straightened himself, and turned to look for the book. He’d expected it to be right there, sitting on the rug at the bottom of the bed where he’d thrown it. But it wasn’t. With his brows furrowed, he turned in a circle, scanning every inch of the room, from the window to the door.  

It was here, he knew it was. He’d seen it hit the wall, and fall to the floor.  

But there was no sign of it.  

Dropping to his hands and knees, he moved from the bed, to the wardrobe and then over to the chest of draws. Using the torch on his phone, he searched beneath each one carefully, yet he found nothing but dust-moats, dirt, cobwebs and a creepy dolls head. Growling in frustration, he sat back on his hunches, and looking around the room again.  

Jesus fucking Christ!

“Where the hell is it?” He growled, as he pushed back up onto his feet and turned off his torch. After shoving his phone in his pocket, he grabbed the edges of the wardrobe and heaved it away from the wall so he could check behind it.

It had to be in here somewhere.  

He was alone in the room, and he hadn’t left it for a second. So if, God forbid, that damn woman was sill here, hiding somewhere in his house, there was no way she could have been in and moved it.

The bedroom door was shut for fuck sake!

With no luck behind the wardrobe, he moved the chest of draws, the bedside tables, the curtains, the rug, his bag and the damn air mattress. But it was nowhere to be seen.  

Just like the girl in the garden the fucking thing had disappeared.  

“Fuck!” He screamed, as he threw his sleeping bag back onto the bed and yanked the bedroom door open. “I swear to God, if you’re still in this fucking house, you better damn well leave!” He yelled into the hall, before slamming the door and grabbing the chair.  

He wedged it tightly beneath the door handle, checked that it wouldn’t move, then stepped back clutching at his chest. The tight, clenching spasms echoed down his arm, numbing his fingers, and coating his brow in small beads of sweat.  

He shook his hand, attempting to ease the odd feeling, as he moved shakily over to the bed and grabbed his rucksack. The pain was getting worse, it always did before it got better, so he quickly popped two pills out of the packet and swallowed them dry.  

“Fucking hell.” He groaned, as he lay back carefully on the bed and closed his eyes. The pain was debilitating, and he rubbed firmly at the place where his aching heart lay, hoping to God it would pass soon. If it didn’t, he’d be calling his own air ambulance, and praying that he lived long enough for his sister to kill him.  

She hadn’t wanted him to come here alone, she was scared to death of this very thing happening, and had begged to come with him. But she had responsibilities, a husband and a child, and he’d needed the space.  

But maybe that hadn’t been the best idea he’d ever had.  

The heart attack that had sent him to the hospital had thankfully been small, and this time he hadn’t needed surgery. But if he didn’t get his stress and blood pressure under control, next time he might not be so lucky.  

He didn’t have coronary artery disease. There were no blocked arteries or plaque build up, he’d never smoked or taken drugs. He exercised daily, ate healthy - when he had time to eat at all - and he didn’t have high cholesterol. What he did have was coronary artery spasms caused by stress and there was no cure. At only thirty six he’d already damaged his heart beyond repair, and to prevent fucking it up completely he needed to change his lifestyle.  

And this wasn’t helping!

Gradually, the pain eased, and his oxygen staved heart fell into its natural rhythm. He took a deep breath, and then another, before he peeled open his eyes and glanced over at the chair. He laughed hollowly and shook his head. He was being a dick. He knew full well that no one had been in the room, no one had touched the diary. But on the slight chance that she was still in the house somewhere, he’d leave it there.  

He didn’t really fancy get shanked or molested in his sleep.

Moving his eyes from the door, he looked over at where the diary should be and sighed. Had he well and truly lost his mind? Had he imagined it just as surely as he’d imagined the girl? He’d swear on his own life that he’d touched it, smelt it, read it. But he was genuinely doubting his own sanity.  

Objects, and people, don’t just vanish into thin air.  

Unless they’re not real!

In frustration, he ran his fingers through his hair and closed his eyes again. He couldn’t think about this now. He couldn’t think about it at all. He wasn’t ready to face the real possibility that he was going insane.

He woke with a start, his heart pounding and his whole body soaked in sweat. He’d been dreaming, he knew he had, but as his bleary eyes scanned the pitch black room, the memory of it faded and he couldn’t quiet grasp the edges.

Actually, he couldn’t even remember falling asleep at all. He did a quick inventory, and found that he was still fully dressed, sprawled sideways across the bed, with his feet planted firmly on the floor. It was dark, so dark that he couldn’t even see his hand as he raised it to swipe at his face.  

Dropping it to the bed, he searched blindly across the mattress for his phone. Fruitlessly patting at his sleeping bag, and knocking his rucksack to the floor, in his vain attempt to find it. As he moved to sit up, he felt the solid mass digging into his thigh, and flopped back down onto the bed so he could dig it out of his pocket. It came to life as he lifted it towards his face, and he squinted painfully against the sudden brightness.  

Five past three.  

What the hell had woken him up at five passed three in the morning? He usually slept like the dead and had to force himself awake when his alarm went off at six.  

With a deep, tired groan, he sat up, and after stretching the kinks out of his back, he flicked on the torch and shone it around the room. The chair was still pushed firmly against the door handle, the curtains were still open and the window was locked. Huffing out a deep breath, he turned it toward the bedside table looking for his water.  

His mouth was so dry his tongue was practically glued to the roof of his mouth. But as he grabbed for it, both the bottle and his phone slipped from his fingers and clattered down onto the wooden floorboards.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”

With a shaking hand he fumbled across the floor for his phone, cursing as he knocked it under the bed, and had to fall to his knees to find it. But once he did, he brought it back up and aimed the light directly at the diary.

It was sat there, as plain as day, on the bedside table as if it had been there all along. But it hadn’t, he fucking knew it hadn’t! He’d checked over it, under it, around it, and there had been no damn diary!  

He turned the light back to the door and after climbing to his feet, he stumbled over to it to check that it was secure. It was, and so was the window. So unless there was a secret passageway he hadn’t seen in his search, nobody had been in here.  

Panicked and confused, he made his way slowly back over to the bed and stood staring down at the book, hesitant to touch it. If he was stark raving mad, there was no point going through it anyway. Anything he found would just be a product of his insanity.  

But if he wasn’t?

He pursed his lips, trying to decided what the hell he should do. If he reached for it, was he giving in to his psychosis? Would he wake up in six months time, with his arms strapped to his chest, and the walls around him padded and soundproof?

Probably.

But if he didn’t, if he left it there and tried to ignore it’s existence, his curiosity would eventually send him over the edge regardless.  

What he needed was a way to prove that it was real. To have someone else read it, touch it, and confirm that he didn’t already have one foot in to loony bin.

“Get a fucking grip, Fraser.” He groaned as he quickly reached for the diary and just as quickly placed it on the bed.  

Turning off his torch, he opened his camera app and snapped a photograph of the front cover. When the picture came up, clearly showing the leather bound book, he flipped it open and took one of the first page. Over and over, page by page, he took one photo after another, even a few of the blank ones, before he closed it and took a shot of the back cover.  

He’d keep them to himself for now, but if it vanished again, he’d send a couple on to Ned, or maybe Gail, with some pretence or another. But for now, he needed to believe that he’d just missed it in his search.

Not seeing the wood for the trees and all that.  

With a sigh, he toed off his shoes, stripped down to his boxers, and after grabbing the diary, he climbed onto his sleeping bag. He wouldn’t sleep now, he was too agitated, and he wanted get started on the list for Ned. So he propped himself up against the pillows, lay the diary on his stomach, and opened the photographs.

He flipped passed the one of the cover, and had intended to skip the first page. He’d already read it, and knew all the names she’d mentioned. But he stopped and brought the phone closer to his face. It wasn’t the page he’d thought it would be. It was just a short passage, and it was written in a different hand, in a different pen, and it had a name clearly inscribed at the top.

Claire.

He’d been relying on the light from his screen and the flash when he’d taken the pictures. So he wasn’t sure if he’d missed a few pages and this was further in. Or whether he’d not noticed it when he’d read her first entry. But he had to know.  

So, he closed down the photos, tuned on the torch, and placed his phone on his chest. The light shone up towards the diary as he lifted and opened it to the first page. There was no natural bend in it, the spine hadn’t been broken in like it had on the subsequent pages. So it almost clung to the leather cover.  

That’s why he’d missed it, and as he read it, he wondered if she had too.

My dearest Claire,  

I know well how you will bemoan my having purchased this journal for your use. In fact, I can all but see the chastisement in your dark expressive eyes.  

But I beg of you, please accept it as a small token of our friendship, and of the gratitude and affection I have long since felt towards you.  

You are an exceptional young woman, Miss Beauchamp, with a beautiful heart and an extraordinary mind. Both are deserving of a place to run free, and I pray you will find that within these empty pages.

Yours eternally,

William Fraser.

31st December 1746

He flipped the page and reread her first entry before snapping the book shut and closing his eyes.  

He wasn’t an expert, but even his could see that the writing was vastly different. There were no similarities at all between the lettering. So clearly the first page had been written by someone else.  

So where did that leave him with the theory that it was a story, or the delusions of a living breathing woman? Had she dragged someone into it with her? Or could there be a simpler explanation?  

Occam’s razor.

Had he been completely wrong? Could the book be from 1747? In all his years of experience in old estates, he’d never seen anything so well preserved. But the diary hadn’t been completed, the last entry had been about the mother dying in childbirth sometime in June 1747.  

If something had happened to the author, the one that William Fraser was clearly so in love with, he could have preserved it. But that didn’t explain how it had found its way beneath the mattress.

He brought it up to his nose, and once again sniffed at the cover. It smelled and looked so new compared to the ones he’d seen in the library.  

Shit.

The library.

There were other books just like this down there. So, surely if it was older than it looked, they would be from a similar time? He’d go though the diary now, and then check the others in the morning to see if he could find any links. If there wasn’t any, he’d send the details onto Ned. If there was, he could finally put the damn thing to rest.  

But first he needed a drink.

And to find a place to piss without going outside.

Chapter 4

#outlander #jamieandclaire #outlanderfanfiction #thediary

[aion-rsa]

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 19 Review: Panic on the Streets of Springfield

https://ift.tt/3mXleic

This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.

The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 19

The Simpsons Season 32, episode 19, ” Panic on the Streets of Springfield,” is one of the most pointed parodies the series has crafted in a while. It takes on pre-teen angst with the dry iced wit of an 80s anti-Brit-pop band. But it also follows a slow, sad slide into anguished irony.

I was looking for a laugh, then I found a laugh, and heaven knows I’m miserable now. My head hangs heavy with the pain of laughter. Not only does the episode strip Lisa of what appears to be perfectly suitable accompaniment for a life of lonely elitism, it also makes us all rethink Slapify. It may offer Millennial rock at Baby Boomer prices, but it teaches Lisa good taste is a curse.

The spiky haired, middle child is very picky about her music. After hating everything she hears, Slapify suggests music for people who hate everything, and the top artist is Quilloughby and his band The Snuffs. This is a stand-in for Morrissey, lead vocalist and lyricist for the Smiths, very thinly veiled behind a shroud of the Cure and Joy Division. The Snuffs’ shows have been called “A three-hour dance party in a freshly dug grave.” They made depression hummable for alienated teenagers in the 1980s. With hits like “How Late Is Then,” “What Difference Do I Make?” “Simon has a birthmark,” and “Everyone is horrid except me and possibly you,” they made parents wonder if their kids would ever get out of therapy.

The band’s sardonic brand of radical vegetarianism turned “The flesh that comes with cheese is proof of your moral disease” into an anthem. Lisa falls in love with “Hamburger Homicide,” and her descent is expertly choreographed. The lyrics are inspired sub-genre satire. “Every day I draw my bath and pray I will drown,” Quilloughby sings, and the audience gleefully wishes him the utmost success. The songs were co-written by the episode’s writer Tim Long, and Bret McKenzie of Flight of the Conchords.

Benedict Cumberbatch is sublime as Quilloughby. He brings out the true ennui behind the lyrical content. He sees Springfield as very much like his own town, “dismal, and nothing good will ever come from it.” Cumberbatch and Yeardley Smith deliver devious comic chemistry. Ralph establishes the innate self-involved, exclusivity in the brightest kid in his class. “Lisa doesn’t like it when other people talk,” he notes. So, when Quilloughby dropkicks Ned Flanders’ pileous affectations into the pews with “facial hair is not a substitute for personality,” they bond like two Sideshow Bobs.

Lisa’s lines take on the bite of an eight-year-old, “Every day you wave your wand, but nothing magical happens,” she tells the Springfield Elementary School band conductor. This pleases the nihilistic phantasm, “I enjoyed that and I enjoy nothing,” but doesn’t play well with the administration. Skinner calls in Homer and Marge over concerns Lisa has become “poetically world-weary.” This is a very Simpsons kind of observation. It cuts to the quick with a finely skewered edge of self-awareness.

The principal’s seen this before, which means he’s had an opportunity to misjudge it in the past. Skinner recognizes Lisa’s black booties as an emo cry, which he blames the current popularity of music of the past. Music is an easy scapegoat on The Simpsons. “Making teenagers depressed is like shooting fish in a barrel,” Bart observed in the “Homerpalooza” episode from 1996.

Bart is having his own problems with Lisa’s new friend, though he is clueless, a perennial problem he usually skateboards around. Bart believes he’s “the drumstick in the chicken bucket” he calls his friends and therein lies his destruction. Nelson plays right into it: of course he stays up night thinking of how fresh Bart keeps those old tired pranks.

Read more

TV

The Simpsons Acknowledges Continuity Watchdogs with an Online Easter Egg

By Tony Sokol

The school bully gets in quite a few good lines, which push the narrative. He dismisses the lunch special tacos’ meatless replacement because “mushrooms are chairs for frogs.” When he hears there are little pieces of bacon between the Shiitake, he almost tearfully exclaims “this taco had a mom.” This perfectly encapsulates Lisa’s dilemma. The entire school laughs as Lisa, even Miss Hoover, who has probably been waiting for this moment.

Dr. Hibbert is now voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson, who has been playing smaller roles since 2009. Tonight, the affable physician ladles out bad news to Homer. His sugar is up, and his testosterone is down. Homer now has to face harsh realities. Something he has historically run away from, usually shrieking. He will never get to be an NFL quarterback who is really an international superspy. Hibbert prescribes a drug, but Homer gets hooked on the commercial he has to sit through before listening to instructions. There are only two things the real men of Springfield believe can boost manliness: weapons and trucks, and guns don’t come with ultimate torque. The triple XL 550 won’t be found in any medical journals, but reading journals is one of the leading causes of lowered testosterone.

Marge is a different person this episode. She’s not out of character, and reacts wholly within the defined role, but she is uncharacteristically hard-lined. This is the first time she is not an enabler. She has zero tolerance for the triple XL 550. One of best visual sequences is when we see Marge banging her head against the wall in its infrared. Not only does she force Homer to accept she’s more a truck guy than he’ll ever be, spouting the definition of torque, but tells him she’s “dealing with an actual problem.” Marge also makes Lisa swallow her bitter pill in a very familiar way. One of the earliest episodes dealt with sadness and music, and the saddest kid in grade two fought for her right to sorrow then too.  

Though Quilloughby is credited as the product of Lisa’s fractured psyche, he’s really more like Jojo Rabbit’s imaginary friend slumming on Evergreen Terrace. In his lifelong quest to disconnect with society, Morrissey went from the Socialist Red Wedge to the Great Replacement Theory. Watching Lisa lose her idealized relationship slowly dissemble actually softens the blow we should get from the reveal. She’d already begged Quilloughby “don’t ruin it,” so I won’t spoil the ending, but it would have been more devastating to have Winston Churchill surrender without warning.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

I know there is nothing more tiresome than gratitude, but “Panic on the Streets of Springfield” appreciably defies expectations. The Simpsons is on a roll this season, mixing light comedy with deeper character developments. Arcs have sunk into darker areas, and the conclusions consistently temper the sweetness with subversive ambiguity. Tonight, Lisa learns she should listen to people, one out of five times, and her mother will always be waiting on the other end of her slammed door. Marge lets Homer keep truckin’. The episode is surprisingly warm, and almost depressingly funny.

The post The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 19 Review: Panic on the Streets of Springfield appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3sCBTsI

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

[sinrau]

(CNN) Ever since the coronavirus began its deadly march through the US, Donald Trump has been accused of lacking the empathy presidents typically draw on to lead and soothe a nation in crisis.

This week the question of presidential compassion was a consistent storyline.

You could pick your lyrics: Was the President like the Tin Man from the “Wizard of Oz,” plaintively singing, “If I only had a heart.” Or was he suffering from, as the 80s hit song put it, “a total eclipse of the heart”?

We saw a President who slammed the Supreme Court for blocking his effort to subject 650,000 Dreamers to deportation. He also bemoaned the court’s historic ruling Monday that LGBTQ people can’t be fired because of their sexuality. His former national security adviser John Bolton claimed in a book excerpt that Trump had encouraged China’s leader to set up concentration camps for the Uyghur minority. He plowed ahead with a non-socially distanced rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, even as coronavirus cases mounted.

Yes, some rallygoers could get sick, Trump told the Wall Street Journal, but “it’s a very small percentage.”

In a private meeting with the families of Black victims, though, Trump was “very compassionate,” according to the mother of Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot to death while jogging in Georgia. But in his public remarks, the President made law-and-order his primary message.

“Trump went on the attack against his political rivals and doubled down on his hard-line, ‘law and order’ stance, a political calculation solidified by his use of the words ‘safety and security’ and his statement that Americans ‘demand law and order,'” wrote Issac Bailey. “His effort to address growing national suffering and protest over police brutality was, at best, a thinly veiled excuse to defend law enforcement and signal to white voters where he stands.”

A chilling view of the private Trump emerged from the Bolton book. It painted a credible “portrait of the most amoral, autocratic and unprepared man to ever serve as president of the United States,” wrote John Avlon. “This is not a partisan attack by activists from the opposition party. This is the first-person view of the President’s former national security adviser, bolstered by contemporaneous notes, a standard which is admissible in court. It is a damning portrait of a president untethered to anything resembling morals, who cannot separate his self-interest from the national interest and doesn’t even care to try.”

Jen Psaki viewed the book through the lens of the upcoming election: “All of the observations, accusations and specific anecdotes are about one person — Donald Trump — and whether he is fit to lead the country and the lasting damage he would inflict if given four more years.”

In fact, the revelations show Bolton as complicit, in Elie Honig‘s view: “John Bolton has offered the nation a staggering profile in cowardice…Bolton directly witnessed not one but multiple acts that could have been cited in the impeachment of President Donald Trump. But Bolton did nothing about it while he held a powerful post in the Trump administration. And he stayed quiet and took cover when Congress and the nation pleaded with him to speak out during the impeachment process.”

Writing about China policy, Bolton gave this devastating description: “The Trump presidency is not grounded in philosophy, grand strategy or policy. It is grounded in Trump.” As if to prove that such a verdict applies more broadly, on Friday night Attorney General William Barr ousted Geoffrey Berman, US Attorney for the Southern District of NY which has been investigating and prosecuting Trump’s associates. “The news of Berman’s ouster is one more piece of evidence that Trump is the anti-law-and-order President, despite his claims to the contrary. Trump touts law and order when it suits him, but attacks the courts and erodes our judicial system when it comes to his agenda and actions,” wrote Julian Zelizer.

One critic described Bolton’s book as a slog. “It toggles between two discordant registers: exceedingly tedious and slightly unhinged,” wrote Jennifer Szalai in the New York Times. “Still, it’s maybe a fitting combination for a lavishly bewhiskered figure whose wonkishness and warmongering can make him seem like an unlikely hybrid of Ned Flanders and Yosemite Sam.”

Another book Trump may be dreading is due out in July from the President’s niece, Mary L. Trump, who is a psychologist. Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio wrote that the book promises to shed light on the President’s fraught relationships with his father and elder brother, Fred Trump Jr., who was Mary Trump’s father. “Three and a half years into the Trump era, endless words have been spent illustrating the chaotic and cruel personality that can, to cite just one example, schedule a huge ego-gratifying rally in the middle of a deadly pandemic caused by a viciously contagious virus,” noted D’Antonio.

A rally fizzles

Given that cases of Covid-19 have been rising sharply in Tulsa County, wrote infectious disease expert and Oklahoma native Dr. Kent Sepkowitz in advance of Trump’s Saturday rally there, “from a strict public health perspective, the selection of Tulsa is a terrible decision.”

Trump’s first rally since the pandemic began was “supposed to trumpet his return to greatness — and the country’s return to normalcy,” wrote Frida Ghitis. But it “instead brought embarrassing scenes of empty bleachers, a dismantled stage and a familiar speech unsuccessfully trying to reignite public fears…The speech was typically self-centered, with a bizarre more than ten-minute long riff on his ultra-slow descent from the West Point ramp, and absolutely no words of compassion for the nearly 120,000 people in this country who have died during the pandemic.”

Days of freedom

Friday was Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the US. Another historic day of freedom came on October 1, 1962, when James Meredith became the first African American student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. He had to sue for his right to an education there, and it took the courts, hundreds of federal marshals and thousands of troops to overcome rioting and protect Meredith.

“The gates of higher education in the United States were opened for all Americans,” Meredith wrote. “This victory for me and for the US Constitution shattered the system of state-sponsored white supremacy in Mississippi…”

“When I see people across America — and around the world — peacefully marching for racial justice and honoring the memory of George Floyd and other martyrs like Medgar Evers…I am filled with both joy and hope. White supremacy may be the most evil beast that’s ever stalked the halls of history, and today it may finally be mortally wounded.”

Some companies and some states marked Juneteenth as a holiday, but it should be observed nationally, wrote Peniel Joseph. It “would spur not only conversation about the origins of our current racial and political conflicts, but would also prompt vitally necessary education about white supremacy and its manifestations in policies and political actions that are anti-Black, anti-democratic and anti-human,” wrote Joseph.

Rayshard Brooks’ own words

Months before he was shot to death by Atlanta police, Rayshard Brooks took part in an interview for a research project. A video of that February interview aired on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 show Wednesday, and in it, Brooks described the lasting burden of being on probation: “I just feel like some of the system could, you know, look at us as individuals. We do have lives, you know, just a mistake we made, and you know, not just do us as if we are animals.”

Van Jones noted that for people on probation “any contact with a police officer — for any reason — means an almost certain return to the horrors of a jail cell. It is safe to assume that Brooks did not want to go back to jail over sleeping in his car or failing a sobriety test, lose everything he had and be forced to start his life over again.”

“In other words, we do not know why the Atlanta police officer chose to shoot a man who was running away from him. But we can guess why that man chose to run, in the first place. Brooks didn’t want to lose his liberty. Instead, he wound up losing his life.”

Melvin Carter, the first African American mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota, is the son of a police officer who served his city for 28 years. But even with that background, he doesn’t think the answer to public safety is solely a matter of spending billions on police and prisons. “Our country’s enforcement-heavy approach to safety isn’t designed to address the root causes of crime, but the symptoms,” he wrote. “Instead of equipping us all with tools to guard our own future security, it further alienates those on the outer edges of society and impedes funding for critical social infrastructure like schools and housing.”

A former mayor, Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans, wrote that the US Justice Department was investigating his city’s police department when he took office. A consent decree which is still ongoing has resulted in a dramatic improvement in how residents view the police, but there’s more work to be done, Landrieu wrote. “We must go further. We can no longer ask police to handle the failures of our social and educational systems.”

Anne Milgram, the former New Jersey Attorney General, worked on the reinvention of policing in what was once America’s most dangerous city, Camden. “We had a police department that had no idea of what it was doing or whether it could do better. It lurched wildly from 911 call to 911 call, sometimes taking hours to respond to calls of serious violence. It failed to solve serious crimes…that plagued the city, and yet hundreds of arrests were being made for low-level crimes, driven most often by drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, poverty and homelessness.” New leadership, new systems and ultimately a new police department made a difference — the city is “the safest that it has been in more than 50 years” and the police department is a model for others, Milgram wrote.

Supreme surprises

When Donald Trump ran for President, he promised to appoint conservative justices to the federal courts — and he’s been true to his word, naming Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and scores of others for lower courts.

But it was Gorsuch who wrote the majority opinion this week upholding civil rights for LGBTQ Americans, rejecting the Trump administration’s position in declaring that the anti-discrimination provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protect gay and transgender people. “It’s surprising that it’s taken this long,” wrote John D. Sutter. “Until this week in the United States of America, many LGBTQ workers lacked these simple legal protections.

“In over half the states in America, you could be fired for being gay. Until now.”

Then on Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by George W. Bush, sided with the court’s four liberals in blocking the Trump administration’s effort to kill the Obama-era DACA program, which shields young people who had been brought to the United States as children from deportation. DACA “was life-changing for hundreds of thousands of people — Americans in all but the paperwork — who were now free to work, go to school, seek promotions and continue their academic careers without fear of being detained and sent back to countries they barely knew,” wrote Raul A. Reyes. The decision was “a win for Dreamers, for the American ideal of welcoming immigrants — and for the independence of the high court.”

Happy Father’s Day

Mother’s Day this year came as most Americans were still locked down, and a lot of the holiday get-togethers were virtual. Today is Father’s Day and the advice from Kent Sepkowitz is consistent with what he recommended for the earlier holiday: get together with your father on Zoom, Facetime or whatever platform you prefer. America’s “approach to reopening — which has been unscientific and uncoordinated — has failed miserably. Rather than cautiously peeling back the various Covid-19 containment safeguards, most states have supported an ‘everybody-back-in-the-pool’ return, as if we were all teens partying during Spring Break.”

“Besides, let’s be honest — Father’s Day is no Mother’s Day, “wrote Sepkowitz, noting that total US spending on Mother’s Day gifts is more than 50% higher. “As a dad myself, this junior varsity status is fine by me. This year in particular, I want nothing to do with celebrating a holiday in the middle of a poorly managed pandemic.”

For more on Father’s Day:

Marcus Mabry: A Father’s Day message to all dads

Arick Wierson: George Floyd was my wake-up call

After Aunt Jemima

The debate over systemic racism touched off by the killing of George Floyd rippled into many parts of America. Consumer-facing companies reacted, with Quaker Oats announcing that it would end the 131-year-old Aunt Jemima brand, noted Elliot Williams.

As a Black child, it was upsetting for him to discover that the light-pink Crayola crayon was labeled “flesh” colored. “I put it back in the bin, pulled out ‘burnt sienna’ or ‘raw umber’ and continued whatever (probably “Star Wars” themed) self-portrait I was working on… By implying that the only color called ‘flesh’ looked like white skin, Crayola decided who was ‘normal.’ Everyone else had to work around that.” (The “flesh” color was phased out in 1962, replaced by “peach.”)

“In the midst of a national debate on life-and-death matters around racism and public safety, fussing about the logo on instant rice may seem trivial,” Williams wrote. “It’s not. The images our society chooses to elevate are reflective of who we are, and more importantly, whose voices — and yes, even lives — matter.”

Now that Aunt Jemima has been retired, wrote Crystal Echo Hawk, what should be next? She argued that the many uses of Native American images and symbolism in sports must end. “Professional sports have the power to influence and inspire people of all ages. In this unprecedented moment of solidarity, t hey have the opportunity to take a strong stand and show — not just say — that racism will not be tolerated.”

Covid-19 is still here

America’s top two elected officials did their best this week to argue that Covid-19 is going away, despite clear signs to the contrary. “Other countries whose governments addressed the crisis forthrightly have managed to wrestle down the curve, and now they are carefully, safely reopening,” wrote Frida Ghitis. “In the US, the curve is trending up, not down, even if Vice President Mike Pence deceptively declared in an op-ed this week, ‘We are winning the fight against the invisible enemy,’ unctuously declaring that the good news is ‘a testament to the leadership of President Trump.'”

As Ghitis noted, “On Monday, during a roundtable discussion on senior citizens, Trump said ‘If you don’t test, you don’t have any cases,’ a belief reminiscent of a baby thinking you disappear if he covers his eyes. To state the obvious, if we stopped testing, people would continue to become infected and die.”

Don’t miss:

Kamala Harris: The fight continues to protect Americans’ health care from Trump.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr.: Trump’s tweet exploits and defames toddlers

Vicky Ward: Telling the truth makes a huge difference

David Gergen and Caroline Cohen: The next Greatest Generation

Merrill Brown: Federal government abdicates duty to inform public on coronavirus

Claire McMullen, Yael Schacher and Ariana Sawyer: Trump’s cold-blooded move to shut out desperate asylum seekers

Jeff Yang: It turns out your favorite movie is racist. What now?

Nayyera Haq: Why Stacey Abrams deserves applause

AND…

At last, summer

A summer like no other begins this weekend. In the first of a new series of weekly columns for CNN Opinion, biologist Erin Bromage wrote, “Our choices over the coming months will determine the trajectory of this pandemic. If we continue to pursue activities that pose a high risk for infection, such as large indoor gatherings, then we will hear the roar of that second wave sooner than later.”

“If we take a more measured approach, by improving hand hygiene, limiting daily interactions with other people, maintaining physical distance and increasing face mask use when we can’t maintain the distance, then businesses can operate safely, people can return to work and the activities our children are missing can resume.”

But even in the midst of the pandemic, Bromage wrote that he’s looking forward to some traditional summer activities: “my first meal at a restaurant (dining outdoors), visiting with more than one or two households at a time, and spending time at the beach. These interactions will be a little different than last summer.

“We will have to keep personal risks and risk mitigation measures in mind, but these adjustments are well worth the payoff of getting to enjoy some of my family’s usual summertime activities.”

Donald Trump’s heartless week #web #website #copied #to read# #highlight #link #news #read #blog #wordpress post# #posts #breaking news# #Sinrau #Nothiah #Sinrau29

#IFTTT #WordPress

[grandpaswagger]

Cancer … Living With It, And Moving On After Treatment

No one said that stopping treatment was going to be so hard...

I met with my doctor recently and was done with therapy for lymphoma for close to a year and five months now. I hadn't been feeling well, and I had no symptoms of cancer, nothing that made me suspicious of a recurrence. After the doctor examined me and reviewed my most recent CT scan and labs, the doctor agreed. No recurrence. He wrote in his notes, “NED,” the acronym for no evidence of disease.

As we were wrapping up the visit, he asked me if there was anything else on my mind, anything else I was concerned about.

There was.

“I still get really nervous and anxious before coming to see you and before each scan,” I said. “I was prepared for how radiotherapy would make me feel. I expected to feel tired, to get sick. What I wasn’t prepared for was how to move on with my life, without letting cancer take over. No one told me that getting on with life after cancer would be like this. No one told me that this would be so hard.”

And, to a large degree, he thinks I'm right.

Doctor's are very good at getting people through radiotherapy treatments and chemotherapy. Oncologists and oncology nurses are great at counseling on side effects, helping to manage nausea and other ill-effects of treatment. Families rally around the cancer patient during this time, providing much-needed emotional support and physical support. Friends – hopefully – step up to the plate and offer shoulders to cry on, hugs, personal experiences, and distraction.

But when treatment is over? Well, life gets back to normal. Right?

Hmm … not so fast. It’s just not that easy. That’s what they forget to tell patients. Getting back to normal, getting on with life, is harder than everyone expects.

Picking up the pieces of your life before cancer – before radiotherapy and chemotherapy wreaked havoc on the body and soul – takes much longer than one might expect. With the end of treatment comes an upwelling of fear of recurrence, fear that because active treatment has stopped, cancer will be able to grow again. There is fear surrounding each scan and each blood draw. Anxiety swells before each oncology visit.

They may have forgotten to tell us that this is all normal. It’s an expected part of the recovery process. The fatigue from radiotherapy and chemotherapy will get better over time. The fear of recurrence will subside with the passing of the months.

Another thing that they may have forgotten to tell us? Will we be able to get on with your life again after cancer treatment? We probably will be a changed person after your experience, but we’ll get back to normal. If not the old normal then for sure a new one. Your life will resume, despite cancer, beyond cancer. Just be sure to rally the support during this time. We still need it. Thank you for everything; the love, support, the hugs and the smiles of encouragement for us to move ahead and gain life again.

Faith… Hope… and Believe, you’ll be delivered.

For the strength My Lord gives me, I Live!!!

Warmest Regards,

William ~ Survivor

©2019 | William Darnell Sr |

All Rights Reserved |

Writers Writing Words: |

PoetrySoup.com |The moral right of the author has been asserted | Year Posted 2015

His strength is my deliverance...

#Cancer #Cancer-Sucks #Find-Strength

[renlyisright]

Season 7 Episode 4: Dragonfire and Ruin

In this episode: Things continue being bad and people don’t think far enough into the future, but some people think far enough into the past to learn interesting things:

Highgarden has been sacked of all its riches, and Randyll Tarly has his men gathering the harvest from the peasants. The gold is going to the Iron Bank, and Cersei plans to use their new goodwill to get help to destroy Daenerys. And after that, there’s finally going to be peace under her rule.

Bronn doesn’t believe that. Compared to someone like Varys, who plays by the rules of the horrible world but believes that it can change for the better, the big softie, Bronn sees the world as a static dog-eat-dog place, where the only difference is who happens to be at the top at any given time. Soldiers will soldier, and Bronn, even though he is good at soldiering, knows that the clock ticks and sooner or later he will die in battle or from a disease. So he wants out to cosier jobs.

The big question looming behind every other question: is there enough food for the winter? The war in the Riverlands was super bad for the farms, the North missed its last harvest, and now the Reach is being sacked. Let’s say that there will be peace soon (no idea how long the last 10 episodes will take, as people have to move around a lot), and the White Walkers are defeated before the winter has lasted more than a year. At that point Daenerys rules Westeros and has defeated all her enemies. The winter will last for many years, as the maesters say that long summers correspond with long winters, and this summer was very long. Where does she get food?

Okay, we are near enough the end that I can say my prediction for the final end of the show ( :o it’s so close): That “let’s say” situation above, with Jon and Daenerys saying “If we can get the people to work together, we will survive to spring.” Fade to black, and credits.

In “A Series of Unfortunate Events”, there are many adult characters who, during the series, don’t listen to the children, and because of that mess things up for them. In the penultimate part of the story, some of them are in a burning building, and the kids warn them about the fire. It’s clear that if they just listen to the kids, they will get out easily and not die horribly. It’s left ambiguous if they do, so the reader can decide themselves if the characters have learnt anything and so get to live. Something like that would work for this show too. Have the people learnt anything about working together?

Of course, there are two roadblocks before we could get there. One of them is the Night King, the other is Queen Cersei. The latter is currently being congratulated by the banker from Braavos for her quick repaying of debts. She only had to antagonize half of the South and then sack it. Why didn’t Tywin think of that?

Jaime confirms that there is no High Septon, so what does the Faith of the Seven even look like currently? That would be interesting to know, but the point of blowing the Sept up was to remove the Faith from the plot completely, so that’s it. They are gone, as are the Baratheons, the Martells and the Tyrells. Cersei has likely seized all their assets to pay for the war and the coming winter. The common people’s opinion? Doesn’t matter at this point either, events move too quickly to get word from the street. Cersei won’t be removed by an angry mob. The High Sparrow tried that, and failed spectacularly. Daenerys needs to look like a big saviour compared to Cersei before the people will rally for her.

Currently that doesn’t look too good. The invasion force from the East is stuck in the emptied Casterly Rock, and attacking the Lannister army with another invasion force in the form of the Dothraki on an open field, Ned, and a big fire-breathing monster doesn’t give her “the returning rightful queen of the Westerosi” vibes.

She knows that, but if she stays in Dragonstone Cersei just gets more time to get more forces, from the Iron Bank or the recaptured Reach and Dorne.

In Winterfell, Littlefinger gives Bran the dagger. The Dagger. He tries to show his loyalties with this gesture, but… Bran sees things. Oh my goodness. I thought this would never come up, but now it obviously will. Who gave that dagger to the assassin! “The question that started the War of Five Kings”. I thought that nobody would care at this point, because in the books Tyrion figured it out long ago, and the show didn’t show it.

But did Tyrion figure it out right? He never confirmed it with anybody. Or the show can have just changed the culprit anyway, it doesn’t matter what book-Tyrion thought. Ooh, exciting. But for the answer to give any satisfaction, it would have to be someone still alive, or someone dead we thought of as a person who would never do something like that.

Another reason why I didn’t think that the show would ever answer the dagger riddle was that so many of the people involved are dead already. Who can you ask about the events during the king’s visit? But now Bran can just see everything. He likely knows already. For a series where so much of the mystery was “whose side are these people on anyway, who is going to betray whom”, now there’s a main character who simply knows.

But he’s not telling, no. Our Bran says that he is not our Bran anymore, he is the Raven. Now he gets to be the mysterious person with all the knowledge and hidden motives for everything he does. Meera doesn’t like it at all, and leaves him saying “you died in that cave”. Which would make her the only survivor of the whole journey.

Arya is home! Everybody gets a reunion! But first she has to “outwit” the guards. Who are a comedy duo. In this superserious part of the story, in this superserious castle filled with superserious people? I want to know where Jon found these two.

Arya wants to fight with Brienne. They do, and she waterdances. It’s been seven real-time years for me since she started her training with the First Sword of Braavos. Since then I have learnt a trade too and found a full-time job doing it. I have grown up with these people just as much as I grew up with the students of Hogwarts before them.

Sansa, Arya and Bran. It’s now these three in charge of the North. All of them have seen and experienced traumatic events, and they are, what, teens now? Daenerys isn’t much older than that, never mind Robin Arryn, so of the current rulers Cersei, Randyll and Euron are the last of the old guard, trying to keep these teenagers down. The world usually belongs to the young sooner or later, now it’s going to be very soon.

But that’s in the future. In the past, this all happened before. Jon shows Daenerys carvings in a cave. Made by the Children of the Forest long long ago. This is so cool. I always get a weird feeling when I see cave drawings. If the person doing those was transported to our time as a baby, what would they then do with their life? Would they be an artist? Would they scribble on a lecture notebook? Instead of looking at fire, would they look at Game of Thrones?

The Children created the White Walkers to fight against the humans, but it backfired horribly, and after that at least some Children and some humans had an alliance to not get killed. Was it wide-spread, or a simple necessity for a small group? How long after the first Walkers did this happen? The Night King pictured has a beard, is it a different Night King, or did he rock a beard millenia ago?

Daenerys and Jon are still stuck. Jon doesn’t bend the knee, and Daenerys doesn’t offer armies and dragons without it. And then she gets the bad news. Oh, how the turntables. Now it seems likelier that she can’t win the war without Jon’s support. But there’s no time for the North to march South at this point.

More reunions! Theon and Jon meet again. It’s not a pleasant reunion, with Jon saying that the only reason he doesn’t kill Theon on the spot is that he saved Sansa. Once again I’m glad that the good deeds also have consequences.

With both Daenerys and Tyrion gone, Jon and Theon now have to work together (with Missandei, let’s not forget her) to help her. Can they work together?

The Lannister army gets the gold inside King’s Landing, and are ready to get the rest of the army there as well. Randyll worries about ambushes, so they have some reports of enemy movements. Not that they do them any good, since they are still ambushed.

By the way, interesting rock formations so close to King’s Landing, have we seen this area before?

Dickon seems like he’s got a good head on his shoulders. If there’s no other valid contestant in the end, he can have Highgarden.

Suddenly, they hear sounds. Daenerys has landed on Westeros, the main continent she wants to rule but which she has never visited even as a baby (IIRC?). And she does that offscreen, unless she flew all the time. Tyrion has also returned home, but he just pops up at the end of the episode, to see those he likely commanded during the battle of Blackwater get massacred by the Dothraki and dragonfire.

Here they come! The Dothraki on an open field, Ned! I knew this would happen this season, but it happened what, 10 minutes after Daenerys says she’ll leave Dragonstone to war? The battles this season don’t have any buildup, they just happen. It makes me a bit anxious. Nobody is safe from a sudden battle.

The Lannister forces are spread thin, and so the Dothraki can swamp them easily. Daenerys enters the battle and starts burning all the wagons on the road. I winced.

So the food burns. But the gold is safe. Yay.

Using dragonfire is horrible, but dang they are majestic creatures.

Some episodes ago I told about how every larger battle or massacre has had some named character die in or immediately after it. No offence to unnamed infantrymen, but their deaths don’t matter as much, so it’s good to show that every time a lot of them die, also someone more important to the story does as well, so it has immediate consequences. Last week the conquest of Casterly Rock didn’t have any, but that one was meant to be a distraction on the Lannister side (great job distracting, unnamed infantrymen!).

But that made me very nervous now. There were Jaime, Bronn, Randyll and Dickon, all of them in a position to die, to make this “the battle in which we lost X”. When Dickon saved Jaime in the beginning of the battle, I expected a Dothraki to cut his head off immediately afterwards. When Bronn ran to the scorpion, I expected him to die in dragonfire after shooting the thing. When he shot the thing and it hit the dragon, I braced myself for its death. And when Jaime did his foolish Saint George attack, I shed a tear. A tear for this brave foolish sometimes very horrible man. I laughed when he lost his arm! He gave Olenna the poison that killed her! And now I cry for him, I’m a big softie.

But Dickon saves him a second time (unless he drowns, but I don’t think so), and cut to credits. So none of them seems to have died at the end of the episode. Randyll and Bronn may escape to King’s Landing, Jaime and Dickon get taken prisoners. The dragon may not be able to fly yet, but it’ll survive too.

So, King’s Landing next? Or a surprise battle in let’s say… Oldtown?

#game of thrones #renly is right #field of fire

[braindamageforbeginners]

24 Months

Assuming I don’t drop dead in the next week or so, on February 1, I will be at 24 months No Evidence of Disease (NED)(also assuming that the MRI I got in early January is still applicable). This is HUGE. I should point out that NED is only on scans, and kind of highlights the unfortunate divide between what’s on paper, and the reality on the ground (possibly literally, in my case; because, yeah, the scans are clean and stable (hooray!), but I’m still exhausted, and will crumble and fold like a cheap lawn chair if you ask me to sprint.

It still beats the alternatives, though.

I did meet the only other Phase 1 Marizomib patient on the planet, though (I’m exaggerating, but only slightly). Jimbo (obviously not his real name, nor does that reflect what I think of him, but I’m running out of pseudonyms I can easily remember) is in the Phase 1 trial for using MRZ on recurrent GBM. Obviously, I’m interested in keeping tabs on him for personal reasons, because the tumor coming back is every survivor’s biggest nightmare, and I’d like to either have some sort reassurance that this thing is either completely in the rear-view mirror, or I have a back-pocket treatment option (when I was being treated with MRZ, it was for first-time diagnosed glioblastoma, not recurrent; it’s since gone on not only for rGBM testing, but is being tested on certain types of drug-resistant leukemia). Obviously, I gave Jimbo all the advice I felt would be helpful (LOTS of CBD, don’t be afraid of antidepressants or antianxiety drugs, lots of exercise, liquids, and fiber, etc.), but he did highlight an issue I’ve had discussing cancer and health with a lot of other survivors and healthy people.

We have a very unhealthy, binary, static view of health that mirrors our view of success. In America, we tend to view success purely in terms of money and/or family. You either have a dozen yachts, four beautiful children, and a fulfilled spouse, or you’re homeless and single. God forbid you try to mix and match from those two extremes and/or fall between them.

Life with cancer forces you into that big grey area between “professional triathlete” and “hospice care.” Most newly-diagnosed patients (understandably) flounder in that area, and Jimbo most certainly qualifies. Our society, health, and education system are designed around understanding infectious diseases. Which is understandable, we’ve had all of human history to understand them, and they’re pretty easily understandable and remedied, even with Medieval medicine (this where we get the concept of quarantines and isolation from). Whereas we’ve only had 2500 years to learn about cancer (Hippocrates was the one who named it). I suspect that this nasty “Healthy or dying” binary dynamic is a holdover from that thinking - you can “cure” infectious diseases in a variety of ways, but the point is, you can get to a point where all the foreign pathogens are out of the system. Bingo, you’re cured.

At the risk of man-splaining (cancer-splaining? Can-splaining?), just a quick review/summary of how cancer works: Every cell in your body is programmed, on a genetic level to divide, grow, make proteins, divide a few more times, and then age and die. You actually want some cells to age and die, that’s why you don’t have webbed fingers or a brain that’s larger than your skull (there are some gruesome experiments wherein researchers permanently activated proto-oncogenes in mice)(think of your body as a symphony, and every cell as a single musician with an instrument - you don’t want everyone playing as loudly and as fast as they can all the time). The genes that promote cell growth and division are called proto-oncogenes. The genes that stop that and promote cell death (apoptosis) are called tumor suppressor genes. To paraphrase an immunology professor from graduate school, when you have a proto-oncogene permanently activated and the corresponding tumor-suppressing gene is turned off, you have cancer. That single cell then induces similar mutations in neighboring cells and even distant cells (the process is poorly understood). Unless medicine has gotten a helluva lot more effective since I last checked in (possible, but unlikely), it’s extraordinarily unlikely that medicine has some technique to nail every single cancer cell in one go (even with tools like immunotherapy, cancer mutates and divides like traditional pathogens, and, eventually, becomes resistant or evades almost every form of treatment). If you want some secret conspiracy hidden by Big Pharma and “they,” it’s that medicine is far more incompetent and clueless than it presents itself as, and the PR for “curable” cancers is just just as hollow as our tumors.

I may have mentioned it previously on this blog (which reminds me, shameless self-promotion; I now write more frequently at https://medium.com/@patrickkmc10), but you don’t see diabetics or heart disease patients moaning about their incurable conditions, even though they are incurable. But there’s an awful lot of survivors whinging about incurable diseases on Planet Cancer. Let me be the first to point out, there is no such thing as a curable cancer. Unless you have some convenient back-up body you can jump to or CRISPR technology grows by leaps and bounds in your projected life expectancy, it’s here to stay; it is in the most heavily-protected part of your cells, and it’s likely to be in more than one cell in your body.

I was lucky enough to have oncologists who, while not exactly the warmest and fuzziest of folks, always viewed - and encouraged me to view - this as an incurable-but-manageable condition, like heart disease or diabetes. Which was a surprisingly helpful way to look at this disease; complacency kills survivors fast (denial comes in many more flavors than, “There is no problem,” but the best way to look at it is that denial is any attitude that discourages you from just tackling the problem at hand as if your life depended upon it). I get contacted a lot by caregivers and survivors asking me how I “beat” it; I always feel like I have to correct them and point that I beat it this time around; it’s likely to return, and I have no idea how I’ll deal with the disease at that point. I’m hoping a few more senators and rich and famous people will die from it, and science will miraculously make a break through before then.

In the meantime, my treatment strategy was both surprisingly simple, and surprisingly hard:

1. Get the most aggressive, effective treatment possible, and keep on that regimen for as long as possible - Jimbo is starting his treatment course with the same information (and similar educational background) that I came at it from; namely, the world of statistics and medical studies. Which is fine, but, as I learned, these statistics are like the stats surrounding the Vietnam War - they don’t portray an accurate picture. When you start going to support groups and asking questions, or start hearing from people affected by this disease, there a lot of “Oh.” moments. My first big one started on Day 1, when Head Warlock in Charge casually mentioned that they don’t always recommend the full six weeks of chemoradiation for everyone, and I started hearing how relatively few of us make it through treatment without dangerous side effects (including Jimbo, I’ve heard of/had direct or indirect contact with - let me count - maybe half a dozen other GBM survivors; I am the sole one who made it through chemoradiation without any seriously dangerous side effects)(aside from the TIA and residual neuropathy, I mean). Compound the fact that treatment, in and of itself is dangerous with the stat that something like only 25% of us qualify for further treatment, and you can start to see why this is such a dangerous disease, which brings me to...

2. Stay healthy enough to survive treatment - and qualify for more (and/or more aggressive) treatment - This is surprisingly hard to do. Treatment is harsh and dangerous, and not all of us are going to respond to it. A turning point for me was when Research Coordinator told me there was a direct correlation with how well survivors tolerated initial treatment and long-term outcomes. I took that as a veiled warning about the dangers of unhealthy habits. I can tell you a few things about yourself, without even thinking: First, you’re probably not getting enough fiber, protein, sleep, and exercise. You could also probably stand to take in more fluids and read some more books. You should probably also dance and draw more, while you still can. I can’t, thanks to a very unreliable left side; I don’t regret the dancing part, but I should’ve taken up painting while I still had two good hands (as opposed to one good hand and one treacherous one). If you find yourself thinking, “Apart from the cancer, I’m pretty healthy,” rest assured, yes, that is a really stupid thing to think, but you’re not alone in that sentiment, and that’s the goal during treatment.

#Cancer #Cancer Treatment #cancer survival #stupid cancer #brain cancer

[tripile]

MANDALI RETREAT ITALY

When I’m exploring a city, the inside of my head is full with a continuous stream of information, to-do’s and already thinking of the next step. I search for that nice restaurant on Google Maps while scanning every shop: who knows I miss something! There are influences on every corner, and they scream: ‘look here: street art,’ look here: a beautiful bag’ and ‘look here: an exciting new exhibition.’ My phone is in overdrive, and my film roll soon counts hundreds of new photos. To relax to the highest level, I want to empty my head. To let those influences come from the inside, instead of the outside, while I look out over a centuries-old mountain formation. It’s time to check in at the Mandali Retreat in the North of Italy.

  Delight Yoga

The most beautiful yoga studio in the Netherlands is Delight Yoga. They combine yoga with meditation and spirituality, and their studios are true aesthetic gems. Apart from workshops and their annual Inner Peace Conference, they also organize retreats. One of them is the Silence and Solitude Retreat, or the Seventh Chakra Retreat. Before I went, everyone reacted very enthusiastically when I told them it was a retreat from Erica Jago. ‘She is the best.’ ‘You’re going to learn so much.’ ‘I’m jealous.’ It made me even more excited!

  Arriving at Mandali

Off to Milan. At the airport, there was a minivan waiting because it takes another hour and a half to get to the mountain top where Mandali is located, in the North of Italy overlooking Lake d’Orta. Imagine the last part of the drive hairpin road after hairpin road because we had to go up to 800 meters. The first thing you see when you arrive is a passage full of amethyst gemstones. Magnificent. And when I’m standing on the balcony of my room, I notice the space, the phenomenal view of the mountains and the lake and the tranquility of the place. I don’t hear anything except church bells and birds singing in the distance. What a true blessing.

  In contact with nature

The design of the retreat exudes calm, and they used rich materials to create a luxurious atmosphere. The bed sleeps wonderfully, you have a rain shower at your disposal, and the rooms have a lounge bed with a view over the lake (some of the rooms face the other side though). There are many public places where you can read a book or look out over the mountains. There’s a silent room above the restaurant for example. The restaurant itself has an outdoor terrace. And there is a swimming pool and jacuzzi with a view. Because we are lucky this week – it is 25 degrees every day or warmer – a lot of people use this space. Nevertheless, Mandali will be beautiful in weather because you’re almost floating between the clouds and whether it’s raining, snowing or if the sun shines, you are always in direct contact with nature.

  The program

The program of the retreat has a daily rhythm. The first meditation is at seven o’clock in the morning followed by a yoga class. After breakfast, Artist Time is there to generate our creativity. And there’s a yoga and meditation class at five o’clock. In between, you can look out over the mountains and think about what you have learned or read a book. And after the excellent vegetarian Italian buffet, we usually go to bed at around 9.30pm. I tried to read something in bed, but I couldn’t open my eyes any longer. When you’re here, you know you get enough rest.

  Chakras

Every retreat is different, but the unique thing about the Silence and Solitude Retreat was that we treated every chakra. I didn’t know much about chakras, but I’ve learned that they are energy points in your body that affect the balance in your life. It is essential that these energy points flow well because if there is a blockage, it can stand in the way of your overall balance. For example, as a disease or uncertainty about a specific part of life.

  Being in nature

You can balance the chakras via meditation and yoga, but there are many other ways. For example, we had to write a lot in our diary, and I’ve noticed that the answers to my questions almost came naturally. Another assignment was to go into nature (there was a pilgrims path to a church 150 meters below) and gather all kinds of beautiful things that we eventually had to turn into a work of art. I stepped out of the door of my room and thought: ‘Oh no, I forgot my phone.’ But then I realized that I didn’t want to watch the world through the lens of my camera today, so I left it at home. It felt like I could be more present and experience the view more intensely. Note to self: leave your phone at home more often. Also in cities.

  Digital detox

I turned off my phone during the entire retreat. I used it to see what time it was, created a folder called ‘FORBIDDEN’ and put all my addictive apps in it (like Instagram, mail, and Facebook), and I did not respond to messages. After the retreat, I have a completely different relationship with my phone. I checked the news fairly often, and my guilty pleasures were celebrity news and funny movies. Until someone from the group said: ‘Think carefully about what you pay attention to.’ Because soon you will be 80 and it would be terrible to find out I’ve spent many days of my life watching stupid movies and knowing everything about the divorce of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, while I can do so many other things at that time. Going into nature for example!

  Infinity circle

I’ve learned a thousand things. One of those things was the infinity circle we had to draw. I use it a lot at home now, so maybe it helps someone who reads this too. Often I think in a circle, and I can’t seem to get out of it. For example, someone makes a comment, and I keep on thinking all the time: ‘I’m so stupid,’ ‘I should have done this or that’ and ‘Why can’t I do it?’. If you turn a circle into an infinity circle, you see you can get to the other side. I visualized the doors of the vault in London’s The Ned (the one that has a role in James Bond’s Goldfinger) standing in between the circle of small thoughts and the circle of more space. If I can open the doors I can take a short break, see the thoughts/problems from a distance and automatically more spacious and self-loving solutions will come to me.

  Gratefulness

I can’t express my gratefulness enough. The combination Mandali, Delight and Erica Jago is worth gold for me. My batteries are charged, I have had a complete spiritual cleansing, I feel super good, and I also took some constructive steps in ‘real life’ already. I’ve met so many lovely people there – and also at home, I feel blessed with all the close family members and friends I have around me. But the most important thing is self-love. And although I love to inspire people with travel tips, I have now learned that there is a boundary between giving to others and don’t forget to take time to pamper and inspire myself.

  Thank you, Erica, Delight, and Mandali for this wonderful week!

  Check out:

www.mandali.org  www.delightyoga.com www.innerpeaceconference.com www.ericajago.com

  (Ps: Erica is working on a book about chakras which she self-publishes. As I also publish the guides myself, I love to share the link of her book as a supporter of independent publishers. Just click this link and learn all about the chakras in a modern way)

                  The post MANDALI RETREAT ITALY appeared first on PETITE PASSPORT.

MANDALI RETREAT ITALY published first on https://oceandreamblog.tumblr.com/