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#ive lost count of how my applications ive sent in but ive sent in three more this past week
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Like her - Bucky Barnes [IV]
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Hey guys! Part four and honestly, it’s gonna get a bit messy.. next chapter is going to be a key-point. Again, if you want to be tagged or drop by and give me an idea about this series, please do let me know!  Word Count~2k. MASTERLIST Part I | Part II | Part III
      Suddenly she realized that what she was regretting was not the lost past but the lost future, not what had not been but what would never be. But she had no excuse to continue down that path – she was looking at the break of dawn. Sleep had been avoiding her but it wasn’t sleep’s fault – she was too tired for that. She had been waiting for the day her heart would be free and light as a feather - she was fooling herself.             She was doing that thing again, where she started pushing people away. Where she was showing them a glimpse into who she was and why she was the way she was. She was scared they would turn their backs on her. She was scared that when she would need them the most they wouldn’t be there. She was falling so hard and so fast and she knew how it was going to end, she was going to hit the pavement because everyone who had ever promised to catch her, had left. So, she did the only thing she knew how to and that happened to be how to push people away. She became distant, didn’t answer as much as she used to, she hoped he would get the message and leave, so she wouldn’t have to worry about hurting him.                She felt so broken and was slowly trying to pick up the pieces. She was actually more worried about dragging them down with her than the other way around. She was no hero – they had their share in that department. She closed her eyes just for a few seconds and exhaled a long overdue breath. Another day, another try.                    She had been roaming the house like a ghost. She knew that they were awake – or taking turns, to keep an eye and an ear on her, but she couldn’t care less. The strong smell of the coffee filled her lungs and she welcomed the familiarity of the simplicity. Diving into the cup of freshly pressed and brewed coffee, she almost forgot the situation she had put herself into.              “You didn’t sleep all night” a hoarse voice remarked. She smiled inside the cup and without turning to check who it was, she answered.              “Neither did you”. He was impressed by her confident after the last time they had talked. He had pushed her and he acknowledged that – but she erupted like a volcano.                She moved slightly to the left, so he could make his cup of coffee, but didn’t left the spot – it had a wonderful view of the sea and the horizon. Her eyes never left the image outside, but his traveled along her face, studying her through brief glances. Once he realized what he was doing, he focused immensely on the coffee, trying to ignore her soft vanilla scent.              “Why is every tree covered with… mattresses?” she asked perplexed. For a second there, he was lost in the way words flowed, without actually listening to her. He cleared his throat, obnoxiously loud and took a sip of his coffee before replying.          “Sam was practicing with the shield” he informed her casually. Her eyebrows shot to the heavens and a smile made its way to her lips.            “It’s not a Frisbee. Poor trees” she commented with ease. She was sarcastic but in a way that made him want to come up with more lines, just to listen to her comebacks. No, no, no. No.                                  The silence, this time was not as awkward as it was before. Granted, it had only been a day, but she didn’t do what she usually did in a day. He didn’t trust her still, not fully. And she didn’t trust them, not fully. They had to go slow, to get to know one another, to be able to trust that when they found Zemo, no one was betraying the other.              “Could I possibly have my phone back?” she asked after a while. He simply replied with a nope. She inhaled sharply and tried again.                “I have to check my emails, James. And my computer is not connecting to any wi-fi here, so… could I possibly have my phone back?” she restated her question, leaving him little to no room for a negative answer. He put his mug down, and turned to her with his eyebrow arched.             “I’ll supervise” he stated. He wouldn’t badge about it and she knew. It was the best offer she was going to get. She locked her eyes with his. Such a clear gray-ish blue, she could see her reflection.              “Fine” she accepted and he got the phone out of his damn pocket, leaving her with an open mouth in disbelief. To think that she could have kicked him and get it herself. He handed to her and went right next to her, eyes on the screen at all times. She opened her data and her phone was catching up on all of the notifications she had missed. A single cough was enough for her to dismiss them all. At last, she opened up her email app to check if she had received any kind of update to her application, secretly wishing not to.                    When she saw the single email, she had been craving her entire life, which was basically an acceptance letter from her favorite University to perform her research, she felt as if the universe was playing her on purpose. Bucky re ad the email and was more than shocked that she was such a highly valued academic researcher. And then he looked at her, crushed. He thought she would be thrilled about that – but all he saw was sadness and disappointment. She closed the data, dismissed the applications and handed it back to him, without even looking at him.                    Grabbing her cup, she refilled it, in silence and went to sit on the couch. He was about to say something when it hit him. It was everything she wanted and she had actually achieved it – only for it to be taken away by the situation. She was having her dreams crushed once again and he couldn’t do anything. Maybe, he could say something nice. Maybe he didn’t have to be brooding all the time.                    He walked up to her, waiting for her to acknowledge him, not wanting to invade her privacy. But she didn’t and he was curious. He sat down next to her; her whole body was facing the other way. She was making it even more difficult than it already was.              “Soon, you won’t even remember this and you will be conduction your research” he tried to smooth things over but when she turned to face him, his entire face fell. He wasn’t used to that much honesty. Tears were on the verge of spilling and she looked dead.              “No. I never was lucky, that’s why I was strategic. But this time… I am the target of a cruel joke. It’s fine. Everything is fine” she concluded, closing her eyes for several seconds, to recollect herself. She would just not think about it. He had nothing to say to that; he felt bad for her, for the first time since he had been introduced to her, he truly felt bad.            Maybe it was seconds, maybe it was minutes or hours, until Sam joined them. Silence was her go-to place; however, her mind hadn’t shut up about anything. A million scenarios had already been processed by her intuition and her logic. Why did Zemo want her? Why was he sending her Bucky’s personal stuff from before? Why hadn’t he delivered? Who was she?                Before Sam could open his mouth, she had already planned their next few moves. She had to be organized and plan everything out; even when things didn’t go as planned, she had already explored that possibility and that was why she never ran out of plans.              “I’ll call him. Make him believe that I will deliver you to him. Set up a meeting. We’ll stage everything. Even if he doesn’t believe me, we’ll sent proof. He’ll bite. After all, he is still looking for revenge. And what better way to start your evil plot, than taking down two of the people who put you in a cell?” she mapped out their strategic positions. She had a very scary mind, they thought. It felt that it came to her as easy as breathing. But then again, who were they to judge?                   “Good morning to you too” Sam mocked her but in reality, he was pretty convinced by her plan. She didn’t even listen to him and neither did Bucky. They had been having this little dance of letting go and pulling back. Their limits were testing each other. Could he trust her not to actually deliver them to him? He would never admit it but he was afraid of what it might happen if those god-damn words were spoken again. In theory, he was no longer affected by them – but what if? As if she had read his thoughts, she slowly nodded, leaving Sam even more confused.                          “We’ll use that too. Lead him on, just to get him where we want” she assured him but he still was reluctant. How was it possible that she had already planned that too?                  “What if they work?” he voiced his fear out loud for the first time in a very long time and Sam quickly caught on, but didn’t interfere. He wanted to see the dynamics between them.            “I won’t let him” she said with a fierce tone he hadn’t heard before. It was a combination of Steve’s certainty during a pep talk and the aggressiveness of Tony when he thought he was right. Maybe, he could trust her. Sam saw through his inhibitions and understood that he wanted to trust her more than he had let on. With a smirk on his face, he tapped on Bucky’s shoulder to make his presence known again, because it felt as if they had no idea, he was standing there all this time.                    “Okay, we’re going with that plan” he admitted and reassured both of them. He was not entirely sure about her intentions as well, but the look she was giving to Bucky told him a lot more than what he needed to know. She looked at him like she didn’t expect him to trust her that much and she felt grateful because for once in her life she was being taken into account before being sent out like a monster.                      “I will get us an untraceable number and we can begin. It might take some time though” he continued. Well, that was better than nothing, she thought. As he was walking away, he did mention something that could potentially turn out worse than she would have expected.            “Three things. I am out for my run. We are going shopping later on. Until we get to Zemo, you train” he counted before she could protest about a single thing, he was already out of the house. She left Bucky on the couch as she walked upstairs, not bothering to look twice. He had no words to describe how shitty his day was and it hadn’t even ended yet.    
TAGS: @imlivingliferightnow​​  @tonystankschild​​  @badasseddy​
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scriptmedic · 7 years
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Disaster Medicine--Brittany’s Personal Experience
Hey there everybuddy! Aunt Scripty here. Everyone’s favorite Brittany (of previous masterpost fame) is back on the block with a story from working in an ER during a flood!
Keep in mind reading this story that Brittany was a medical student when these events took place, and names have been changed to protect the guilty (I almost just typed “donkey” there; I’m tired. But protect the donkey!!)
Also, this post confirmed a suspicion I’ve had about Brittany for a while.... she doesn’t actually have a tumblr. THat’s why I keep not knowing what her tumblr handle is and scouring Medblrs looking, unsuccessfully, for her.
Clever, Brittany. Very clever.
And now, on to the post!
Hey y’all!  Brittany, back again.  I really do need to bite the bullet and get myself a Tumblr one of these days.  I wanted to do a quick post on something that’s more a personal experience than a medical overview this time, so we’ll see how it goes.  It’s not so much general writing advice as what I saw, but I figure at least parts of it should be universally applicable to a character in a disaster.  Feel free to steal whatever suits your fancy!
Earlier this year, I worked in the ER during a substantial flood that put about ¾ of the city underwater—the kind of thing that made national news, with people getting rescued off of rooftops, the National Guard swooping in, all of that.  I don’t have enough experience to speak to the entire disaster response, but the healthcare side of it was fascinating, so I wanted to write a little bit of that.
Our particular flood was so bad because it was a steady, heavy downpour that lasted for more than a week, rather than one really bad flash flood scenario.  That meant that it started off subtly enough.  That first morning, I kept getting flood warnings on my phone that pushed back later and later, and on my way in to work I saw a puddle on the way to my car, thought it was small enough I’d just splash through it… and before I knew it, I was knee deep, and not even halfway through.  After a quick trip back inside to change scrubs and switch shoes, I headed in in time to start the afternoon shift.
The ER that day was interesting; fewer people came because of the weather, but then, fewer nurses were able to make it in because they were dealing with closed roads and flooded houses. Weirdly, though, you still kind of feel distanced from everything there—no one was coming in for flood-related injuries, so it felt like the flooding got put on hold. Finished up around 10 PM, stepped outside, saw that it was STILL raining, and when I got home, my parking lot was flooded.
The next day was when it really started to hit that we were in trouble.  My hospital already had a minor nursing shortage, and as the weather got worse, there was a risk of them leaving for home, and being unable to come back.  So, right at their shift change, when maximum staff would be present, the hospital called a “Code Grey,” which was where certain personnel (ie nurses) had to stay at the hospital until further notice due to weather.  It was a problem for a lot of them because they had kids at home or in daycare, not to mention it’s not as if their own homes were immune from flooding.  Things settled into a strict structure for them; nurses who were absolutely sure they could make it home and back were allowed to leave briefly to grab an overnight bag and arrange things for their kids, and everyone was put on a regimented schedule of shifts and breaks with mandatory sleep times in the hospital’s auditorium.  “Non-vital” staff, on the other hand, was sent home and told not to come back until things improved.  (Petitions to count the hospital’s coffee shop as ‘vital’ were shot down.)
And from there, we basically had to roll up our sleeves and deal with what came to us.  We started to get more flood-related injuries that second night, with a lot of people who had slipped and fallen in the water, breaking bones/hitting their heads, hypothermia from staying in cold water, car accidents from the driving conditions, that kind of thing. I guess in movies or whatever, it’s always direct drowning, but it’s the indirect injuries that are actually worse/more likely from what I can tell. Even more notably, there was the delay in getting run-of-the-mill patients to us. One guy had your standard chest pain, but the ambulance got stranded in the floodwater—not drowning, just couldn’t move—and it was two hours before they could get a chopper to him and pull him out to the hospital.
I wasn’t sure if I could make it home and back that night, and even though I’m a student and could be excused, I didn’t want to.  It sounds selfish to say but, well, it was great learning for me.  Plus I wanted to help.  I stayed in one of the resident call rooms (think a teeny tiny hotel room for residents who are at the hospital for 24 hours; if their patients are stable at night, they go there to nap), and from there the days start to blur.  The major events I recall include:
—A major hospital near us closed its ER.  It was surrounded by water on three sides, with their ER about to go under.  They started evacuating all their critical patients to us in anticipation of things going south.  I don’t think they actually flooded, but to be safe, they had most of their patients moved to us, plus we were hit by more ER patients because there were fewer places for them to go.
—The National Guard moved in to help.  A friend of mine actually got some really cool pictures of the Blackhawks landing at our hospital, but the main result for us was they were ferrying in patients with a lot less thorough handoffs.  Normally, we get paramedics that will tell us about the patient, what field medicine’s been done, a list of conditions/medications the patient has, and so on.  It’s not until those are all missing and you’re staring at a delirious, blank slate patient that you realize how nice you had it.  And, hey, they were doing what they had to to make sure everyone got to safety, I’m not blaming them, but it did make our job more difficult.
—As time passed, we started to get more sequelae of the flood as well.  Someone who had cut their leg as they walked through dirty flood water on the first day, and came in four days later with a suspected infection.  A lot of dialysis patients who couldn’t get to dialysis and had their electrolytes all out of whack.  Patients whose seizure or heart failure meds had all gotten wet and/or been lost in the water and were now suffering from the lack of them, that kind of thing.
As things eased up a little and I hit a couple of scheduled days off, I decided to volunteer at the shelters as well, where there were medical facilities set up, and that’s a whole other ballgame.  First of all, I should say that the people who figured the whole thing out were awesome.  I think a couple residents who were supposed to be on vacation started the whole thing, basically roping off a couple of side rooms for a makeshift clinic in each of the major Red Cross shelters.  In those first few days, while national medical disaster teams all geared up, it was the local doctors who kept things running, and the response was surprisingly efficient/informal.  They basically all connected through social media, set up shifts, and asked for volunteers.  I know some doctors who didn’t go home for days because they were swinging between the hospital and shelters, but a lot were also outpatient doctors who, with their clinics closed, were able to devote a lot of time to the shelters.
And, as much as the doctors did, the other personnel there did just as much.  We had two teams of paramedics standing by to transport any critical patients to the hospital, pharmacists who were getting in touch with all the local pharmacies to get any meds we might need, nurses on triage, and so on.
About the same time as the rain stopped, the state/national disaster teams arrived—the thing about a flood is it’s hard to get into the area if you’re outside of it.  They definitely provided a lot more manpower, which everyone was very grateful for, but kept a very close working relationship with the local people.  The locals all knew the hospitals, knew which pharmacies were still open, and what the patient population looked like.  The two of them working together was absolutely critical; no heroic swooping in from the outside and taking over, it was a huge joint effort.
And… that’s pretty much it.  As always, I’m up for answering any questions!
(Also, re-reading this, I worry that it’s going to sound like I’m some hero or martyr or something.  No.  I was in a bad place at a bad time.  I’d like to think I responded well, but I was in no way critical to the response.  The actual doctors, nurses, techs, and paramedics—not to mention the search-and-rescue workers—were vital and amazing, but I was more an observer than anything else.)
And here’s your favoritest Aunty again! I hope this post was helpful and useful for all of you about what an ER might look like during a disaster.
I left the last paragraph in to show you all something interesting (I hope Brittany doesn’t mind). Med humans are less likely to give credit for good things happening than we are to take credit, at least in some situations. We often both blame the patient “I can’t get this IV, he’s got terrible veins”) and credit them (”I literally do not know how this guy pulled through”).
Take some credit, Brittany. “All hands on deck” means everyone from environmental to nurse’s aides to pharmacy to, yes, even students, pitching in, doing what they can, and Making Shit Run during the disaster.
xoxo, Aunt Scripty
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