#sometimes vomiting could ge a symptom so

[touchmycoat]

been thinking a version of hanahaki where it's not unrequited love but unwanted love that manifests as plant growth, and it's not just love but potentially all feelings. Symptoms building up to the full development of the plant are more obvious, and for most people, actually producing and expelling the plant means a total exorcism of that unwanted emotion—as in, it will never grow again. The plant is your immune system's response to the disease of unwanted feelings, and once the plant is mature, you now have immunity to that unwanted feeling.

anyways the qijiu version of this where SJ is a biological anomaly. Fully manifesting a plant doesn't make him immune—it just keeps growing over and over and over again, and hanahaki becomes short-term solutions to a larger, more persistent question. The unwanted feeling in question? His care of YQY, of course. Canon-compliant: he joins Cang Qiong and is fucking determined to forget Qi-ge as he'd been forgotten, but he still sees, much to his displeasure, the hardships YQY has to go through as the next Sect Leader. SJ investigate and seethes from the shadows because there are snakes everywhere and YQY isn't fucking accounting for it. SJ doesn't want to care but does. SJ doesn't want to help but does, steadfastly burying all evidence of his involvement in securing YQY's well-being.

The only "evidence" he can't hide is the growing forest of bamboo on Qing Jing. There's minor relief, some apathy to be had every time he vomits up a tender bamboo shoot, and ironically, those are the times he's most civil to YQY. Apathy hardly begets passion, after all, and spite runs on passion. But over and over again, the same care takes root, and for the times when the plant is still maturing inside him, SJ can't help but care. He resents YQY for it. He resents his own body's failure to properly immunize him against this single feeling. But there's nothing for it except to keep planting.

Sometimes, he contemplates burning the whole forest down. It's not like it would make a difference—once out, the plant doesn't hold any magical properties, nor does it need to be kept alive for the "immunity" to hold. He'd only planted them at all in the first place because—well, because—

They got out, didn't they? They may have been unwanted but they did their jobs; they cleared the disease from SJ's body for just a moment, at least, and whatever the world thought, SJ wasn't nastiness incarnate. Stupid to vindictively crush a bunch of bamboo shoots, wasn't it? And once they were out they would either dry up and die or take root and thrive; it was no skin off SJ's back to just chuck them into some dirt and let them do their thing.

But now the bamboo forest was famous. A true sign of its owner's beauty, elegance, and righteousness, was what they said. Only a true junzi could cultivate such a sight. The irony was painful with these motherfuckers. How dare they finally buy into SJ's grift of the great immortal Shen Qingqiu because of this? How dare they see the horrid, relentless proof of SJ's greatest weakness and decide that it was actually SJ's greatest accomplishment?

(He's both furious and devastated by the thought that this forest would be the most beautiful thing he's ever produced, as his relationships with his peers become more difficult. He hates the thought that this persistent care has and always will be the best part of him, that the other things he's doing to compete and survive are far more ugly.)

Anyways, this should be a fix-it. How? LQG puts it together? He's on patrol duty and so sees the rapid growth of the bamboo forest, even out of season. He delegates guards for merchant caravans and so sees the import manifests, where there's never any bamboo shoots being imported. He doesn't think too hard about it 'cause it could just be magic bamboo, but it means he's not very shocked when on a poorly timed mission, he spots SQQ with the symptoms of hanahaki. The pieces come together, and he's immediately judgy.

Hanahaki's debilitating. An expulsion can come during a fight. It's idiocy to let it run rampant.

You think I vomit up a lung once a week by choice? Immunity doesn't build for me so save your amateur doctor crap for someone who'll actually buy it.

I know you don't have immunity, that's not what I meant.

What exactly do you mean?

Whatever feeling you don't want? Want it.

That's the way LQG's been taught, at least. Look—pain is your body's way of telling you its needs, that something is wrong. Feelings are the same way. Not so much the fleeting feelings from moment to moment, but rather the persistent ones that have the strength and truth to manifest as hanahaki. If it's strong enough to give you symptoms, it's strong enough to teach you something about yourself. It's strong enough to be necessary for you to process.

The quintessential example from LQG's training is a student who one day loses a competition they fully intended to win. They are ashamed and devastated. Symptoms begin manifesting but they hide them, and one day, they cough up a small desert rose. From that day on the student was no longer ashamed of that loss, but had also completely lost all drive to work hard. The shame that they did not want was entwined with the desire to be a better fighter, and by not processing and accepting both those feelings in time, the student lost them both permanently.

The stakes obviously weren't as high for someone of SQQ's constitution, but still. Hanahaki wasn't without pain, and like LQG said, it would be bad to let it get the better of him during a battle.

As if it were that easy, SQQ replied, incredulously.

I didn't say it was easy, LQG said, annoyed. You just have to do it.

How, SQQ asked, do you want to care for someone who betrayed you? Someone who forgot completely about you and left you for dead?

Did they have a reason?

No.

You know this for certain?

Yes.

LQG was quiet for a long time.

So why do you care for them? he finally asked.

SQQ was quiet for a long time too.

Beside what they did to me, he said, they are, I suppose, good and kind.

Why does that matter to you?

There was enough emphasis on the you that SQQ sneered, knowing full well LQG meant an insult to his character. Indeed—SQQ hardly cared for good people. He'd never once indicated a belief that kindness ought to be fairly rewarded.

I wish it didn't.

LQG learned something about SQQ that day: the aloofness was, at least in part, an act. He said he didn't give a shit, but it wasn't true. In fact it was so untrue that he'd bled up a mountain of bamboo to cope with that lie.

I care for them on the basis of the devotion they showed to everybody but me, SQQ laughed. So tell me, Immortal Liu. Should I want this feeling?

LQG sighed, frustrated and final.

No. We'll find another cure.

#qijiu #svsss #oops it turned into liujiu at the end #both both is good #anyways I was thinking about this hanahaki set-up and holding up each blorbo to it #hoping for best fit #SJ was as always the perfect poor lil meow meow #plot stockpile

[allybundance]

Me, thinking about getting COVID-19: I’ll just kill myself, obviously

#personal #joking #kinda #mostly #but also kinda #sometimes vomiting could ge a symptom so #we’ll see

[stephenmccull]

How ERs Fail Patients With Addiction: One Patient’s Tragic Death

Jameson Rybak tried to quit using opioids nearly a dozen times within five years. Each time, he’d wait out the vomiting, sweating and chills from withdrawal in his bedroom.

It was difficult to watch, said his mother, Suzanne Rybak, but she admired his persistence.

On March 11, 2020, though, Suzanne grew worried. Jameson, 30 at the time, was slipping in and out of consciousness and saying he couldn’t move his hands.

By 11 p.m., she decided to take him to the emergency room at McLeod Regional Medical Center in Florence, South Carolina. The staff there gave Jameson fluids through an IV to rehydrate, medication to decrease his nausea and potassium supplements to stop his muscle spasms, according to Suzanne and a letter the hospital’s administrator later sent her.

But when they recommended admitting him to monitor and manage the withdrawal symptoms, Jameson said no. He’d lost his job the previous month and, with it, his health insurance.

“He kept saying, ‘I can’t afford this,’” Suzanne recalled, and “not one person [at the hospital] indicated that my son would have had some financial options.”

Suzanne doesn’t remember any mention of the hospital’s financial assistance policy or payment plans, she said. Nor does she remember any discussions of providing Jameson medication to treat opioid use disorder or connecting him to addiction-specialty providers, she said.

“No referrals, no phone numbers, no follow-up information,” she later wrote in a complaint letter to the hospital.

Instead, ER staff provided a form saying Jameson was leaving against medical advice. He signed and Suzanne witnessed.

Three months later, Jameson Rybak died of an overdose in his childhood bedroom.

Missed Opportunities

That March night in the emergency room, Jameson Rybak had fallen victim to two huge gaps in the U.S. health care system: a paucity of addiction treatment and high medical costs. The two issues — distinct but often intertwined — can come to a head in the ER, where patients and families desperate for addiction treatment often arrive, only to find the facility may not be equipped to deal with substance use. Or, even if they are, the treatment is prohibitively expensive.

Academic and medical experts say patients like Jameson represent a series of missed opportunities — both medical and financial.

“The emergency department is like a door, a really important door patients are walking through for identification of those who might need help,” said Marla Oros, a registered nurse and president of the Mosaic Group, a Maryland-based consulting firm that has worked with more than 50 hospitals nationwide to increase addiction treatment services. “We’re losing so many patients that could be identified and helped,” she said, speaking generally.

A spokesperson for McLeod Regional Medical Center, where Jameson went for care, said they would not comment on an individual’s case and declined to answer a detailed list of questions about the hospital’s ER and financial assistance policies. But in a statement, the hospital’s parent company, McLeod Health, noted that the hospital adhered to federal laws requiring that hospital ERs provide “immediate stabilizing care” for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay.

“Our hospitals attempt to manage the acute symptoms, but we do not treat chronic, underlying addiction,” the statement added.

Suzanne said her son needed more than stabilization. He needed immediate help breaking the cycle of addiction.

Jameson had been in and out of treatment for five years, ever since a friend suggested he try opioids to manage his anxiety and insomnia. He had insurance through his jobs in the hotel industry and later as an electrical technician, Suzanne said. But the high-deductible plans often left him paying out-of-pocket: $3,000 for a seven-day rehab stay, $400 for a brief counseling session and a prescription of Suboxone, a medication to treat opioid use disorder.

After he lost his job in February 2020, Jameson tried again to detox at home, Suzanne said. That’s what led to the ER trip.

Treating Addiction in the ER

Hospital ERs across the nation have become ground zero for patients struggling with addiction.

A seminal study published in 2015 by researchers at Yale School of Medicine found that giving patients medication to treat opioid use disorder in the ER doubled their chances of being in treatment a month later, compared with those who were given only referrals to addiction treatment.

Yet providing that medication is still not standard practice. A 2017 survey found just 5% of emergency medicine physicians said their department provided medications for opioid use disorder. Instead, many ERs continue to discharge these patients, often with a list of phone numbers for addiction clinics.

Jameson didn’t even get that, Suzanne said. At McLeod Regional, he was not seen by a psychiatrist or addiction specialist and did not get a prescription for Suboxone or even a referral, she said.

After Jameson’s death, Suzanne wrote to the hospital: “Can you explain to me, especially with the drug crisis in this country, how the ER was not equipped with personnel and/or any follow-up for treatment?”

Hospital administrator Will McLeod responded to Suzanne, in a letter she shared with KHN, that per Jameson’s medical record he’d been evaluated appropriately and that his withdrawal symptoms had been treated. Jameson declined to be admitted to the hospital, the letter said, and could not be involuntarily committed, as he “was not an imminent danger to himself or others.”

“Had he been admitted to our hospital that day, he would have been assigned to social workers and case managers who could have assisted with referrals, support, and follow-up treatment,” McLeod wrote.

Nationwide, hospitals are working to ramp up the availability of addiction services in the ER. In South Carolina, a state-funded program through the Medical University of South Carolina and the consulting firm Mosaic Group aims to help hospitals create a standardized system to screen patients for addiction, employ individuals who are in recovery to work with those patients and offer medication for opioid use disorder in the ER.

The initiative had worked with seven ERs as of June. It was in discussions to work with McLeod Regional hospital too, program staffers said. However, the hospital backed out.

The hospital declined to comment on its decision.

ER staffs around the country often lack the personnel to launch initiatives or learn about initiating addiction treatment. Sometimes affordable referral options are limited in the area. Even when the initial prescribing does occur, cost can be a problem, since Suboxone and its generic equivalent range in price from $50 to over $500 per prescription, without insurance.

In South Carolina, which has not expanded Medicaid, nearly 11% of the population is uninsured. Among patients in the state’s program who have been started on medications for opioid use disorder in ERs, about 75% are uninsured, said Dr. Lindsey Jennings, an emergency medicine physician at MUSC who works on the statewide initiative.

Other parts of the country face similar concerns, said Dr. Alister Martin, an emergency medicine physician who heads a national campaign to encourage the use of these medications in the ER. In Texas, for example, hundreds of doctors have gotten certified to provide the medications, he said, but many patients are uninsured and can’t pay for their prescriptions.

“You can’t make it effective if people can’t afford it,” Martin said.

Too Late for Charity Care

Throughout the night at McLeod Regional hospital’s ER, Jameson worried about cost, Suzanne said.

She wanted to help, but Jameson’s father and younger brother had recently lost their jobs, and the household was running on her salary as a public school librarian.

Suzanne didn’t know that nonprofit hospitals, like McLeod, are required by the federal government to have financial assistance policies, which lower or eliminate bills for people without the resources to pay. Often called charity care, this assistance is a condition for nonprofit hospitals to maintain their tax-exempt status.

But “nonprofits are actually doing less charity care than for-profits,” said Ge Bai, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University who published a study this year on the level of charity care provided by different hospitals.

That’s in part because they have wide leeway to determine who qualifies and often don’t tell patients they may be eligible, despite federal requirements that nonprofit hospitals “widely publicize” their financial assistance policies, including on billing statements and in “conspicuous public displays” in the hospital. One study found that only 50% of hospitals regularly notified patients about eligibility for charity care before initiating debt collection.

McLeod Regional’s most recent publicly available tax return states that “uninsured patients are screened at the time of registration” and if they’re unable to pay and ineligible for governmental insurance, they’re given an application.

Suzanne said she doesn’t remember Jameson or herself receiving an application. The hospital declined to comment on the Rybaks’ case and whether it provides “conspicuous public displays” of financial assistance.

“Not once did anybody tell us, ‘Let’s get a financial person down here,’ or ‘There are grant programs,’” Suzanne said.

Mark Rukavina, with the nonprofit health advocacy group Community Catalyst, said most hospitals comply with the letter of the law in publicizing their assistance policy. But “how effective some of that messaging is may be a question,” he said. Some hospitals may bury the policy in a dense packet of other information or use signs with vague language.

A KHN investigation in 2019 found that, nationwide, 45% of nonprofit hospital organizations were routinely sending medical bills to patients whose incomes were low enough to qualify for charity care. McLeod Regional hospital reported $1.77 million of debt from sending bills to such patients, which ended up going unpaid, for the fiscal year ending in 2019.

Believing they couldn’t afford in-patient admission, the Rybaks left the hospital that night.

After the ER

Afterward, Jameson’s withdrawal symptoms passed, Suzanne said. He spent time golfing with his younger brother. Although his application for unemployment benefits was denied, he managed to defer payments on his car and school loans, she said.

But, inside, he must have been struggling, Suzanne now realizes.

Throughout the pandemic, many people with substance use disorder reported feeling isolated and relapsing. Overdose deaths rose nationwide.

On the morning of June 9, 2020, Suzanne opened the door to Jameson’s room and found him on the floor. The coroner determined he had died of an overdose. The family later scattered his ashes on Myrtle Beach — Jameson’s favorite place, Suzanne said.

In the months following Jameson’s death, hospital bills for his night in the ER arrived at the house. He owed $4,928, they said. Suzanne wrote to the hospital that her son was dead but received yet another bill addressed to him after that.

She shredded it and mailed the pieces to the hospital, along with a copy of Jameson’s death certificate.

Twelve days later, the health system wrote to her that the bill had been resolved under its charity care program.

Bill of the Month is a crowdsourced investigation by KHN and NPR that dissects and explains medical bills. Do you have an interesting medical bill you want to share with us? Tell us about it!

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

How ERs Fail Patients With Addiction: One Patient’s Tragic Death published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[gordonwilliamsweb]

How ERs Fail Patients With Addiction: One Patient’s Tragic Death

Jameson Rybak tried to quit using opioids nearly a dozen times within five years. Each time, he’d wait out the vomiting, sweating and chills from withdrawal in his bedroom.

It was difficult to watch, said his mother, Suzanne Rybak, but she admired his persistence.

On March 11, 2020, though, Suzanne grew worried. Jameson, 30 at the time, was slipping in and out of consciousness and saying he couldn’t move his hands.

By 11 p.m., she decided to take him to the emergency room at McLeod Regional Medical Center in Florence, South Carolina. The staff there gave Jameson fluids through an IV to rehydrate, medication to decrease his nausea and potassium supplements to stop his muscle spasms, according to Suzanne and a letter the hospital’s administrator later sent her.

But when they recommended admitting him to monitor and manage the withdrawal symptoms, Jameson said no. He’d lost his job the previous month and, with it, his health insurance.

“He kept saying, ‘I can’t afford this,’” Suzanne recalled, and “not one person [at the hospital] indicated that my son would have had some financial options.”

Suzanne doesn’t remember any mention of the hospital’s financial assistance policy or payment plans, she said. Nor does she remember any discussions of providing Jameson medication to treat opioid use disorder or connecting him to addiction-specialty providers, she said.

“No referrals, no phone numbers, no follow-up information,” she later wrote in a complaint letter to the hospital.

Instead, ER staff provided a form saying Jameson was leaving against medical advice. He signed and Suzanne witnessed.

Three months later, Jameson Rybak died of an overdose in his childhood bedroom.

Missed Opportunities

That March night in the emergency room, Jameson Rybak had fallen victim to two huge gaps in the U.S. health care system: a paucity of addiction treatment and high medical costs. The two issues — distinct but often intertwined — can come to a head in the ER, where patients and families desperate for addiction treatment often arrive, only to find the facility may not be equipped to deal with substance use. Or, even if they are, the treatment is prohibitively expensive.

Academic and medical experts say patients like Jameson represent a series of missed opportunities — both medical and financial.

“The emergency department is like a door, a really important door patients are walking through for identification of those who might need help,” said Marla Oros, a registered nurse and president of the Mosaic Group, a Maryland-based consulting firm that has worked with more than 50 hospitals nationwide to increase addiction treatment services. “We’re losing so many patients that could be identified and helped,” she said, speaking generally.

A spokesperson for McLeod Regional Medical Center, where Jameson went for care, said they would not comment on an individual’s case and declined to answer a detailed list of questions about the hospital’s ER and financial assistance policies. But in a statement, the hospital’s parent company, McLeod Health, noted that the hospital adhered to federal laws requiring that hospital ERs provide “immediate stabilizing care” for all patients, regardless of their ability to pay.

“Our hospitals attempt to manage the acute symptoms, but we do not treat chronic, underlying addiction,” the statement added.

Suzanne said her son needed more than stabilization. He needed immediate help breaking the cycle of addiction.

Jameson had been in and out of treatment for five years, ever since a friend suggested he try opioids to manage his anxiety and insomnia. He had insurance through his jobs in the hotel industry and later as an electrical technician, Suzanne said. But the high-deductible plans often left him paying out-of-pocket: $3,000 for a seven-day rehab stay, $400 for a brief counseling session and a prescription of Suboxone, a medication to treat opioid use disorder.

After he lost his job in February 2020, Jameson tried again to detox at home, Suzanne said. That’s what led to the ER trip.

Treating Addiction in the ER

Hospital ERs across the nation have become ground zero for patients struggling with addiction.

A seminal study published in 2015 by researchers at Yale School of Medicine found that giving patients medication to treat opioid use disorder in the ER doubled their chances of being in treatment a month later, compared with those who were given only referrals to addiction treatment.

Yet providing that medication is still not standard practice. A 2017 survey found just 5% of emergency medicine physicians said their department provided medications for opioid use disorder. Instead, many ERs continue to discharge these patients, often with a list of phone numbers for addiction clinics.

Jameson didn’t even get that, Suzanne said. At McLeod Regional, he was not seen by a psychiatrist or addiction specialist and did not get a prescription for Suboxone or even a referral, she said.

After Jameson’s death, Suzanne wrote to the hospital: “Can you explain to me, especially with the drug crisis in this country, how the ER was not equipped with personnel and/or any follow-up for treatment?”

Hospital administrator Will McLeod responded to Suzanne, in a letter she shared with KHN, that per Jameson’s medical record he’d been evaluated appropriately and that his withdrawal symptoms had been treated. Jameson declined to be admitted to the hospital, the letter said, and could not be involuntarily committed, as he “was not an imminent danger to himself or others.”

“Had he been admitted to our hospital that day, he would have been assigned to social workers and case managers who could have assisted with referrals, support, and follow-up treatment,” McLeod wrote.

Nationwide, hospitals are working to ramp up the availability of addiction services in the ER. In South Carolina, a state-funded program through the Medical University of South Carolina and the consulting firm Mosaic Group aims to help hospitals create a standardized system to screen patients for addiction, employ individuals who are in recovery to work with those patients and offer medication for opioid use disorder in the ER.

The initiative had worked with seven ERs as of June. It was in discussions to work with McLeod Regional hospital too, program staffers said. However, the hospital backed out.

The hospital declined to comment on its decision.

ER staffs around the country often lack the personnel to launch initiatives or learn about initiating addiction treatment. Sometimes affordable referral options are limited in the area. Even when the initial prescribing does occur, cost can be a problem, since Suboxone and its generic equivalent range in price from $50 to over $500 per prescription, without insurance.

In South Carolina, which has not expanded Medicaid, nearly 11% of the population is uninsured. Among patients in the state’s program who have been started on medications for opioid use disorder in ERs, about 75% are uninsured, said Dr. Lindsey Jennings, an emergency medicine physician at MUSC who works on the statewide initiative.

Other parts of the country face similar concerns, said Dr. Alister Martin, an emergency medicine physician who heads a national campaign to encourage the use of these medications in the ER. In Texas, for example, hundreds of doctors have gotten certified to provide the medications, he said, but many patients are uninsured and can’t pay for their prescriptions.

“You can’t make it effective if people can’t afford it,” Martin said.

Too Late for Charity Care

Throughout the night at McLeod Regional hospital’s ER, Jameson worried about cost, Suzanne said.

She wanted to help, but Jameson’s father and younger brother had recently lost their jobs, and the household was running on her salary as a public school librarian.

Suzanne didn’t know that nonprofit hospitals, like McLeod, are required by the federal government to have financial assistance policies, which lower or eliminate bills for people without the resources to pay. Often called charity care, this assistance is a condition for nonprofit hospitals to maintain their tax-exempt status.

But “nonprofits are actually doing less charity care than for-profits,” said Ge Bai, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins University who published a study this year on the level of charity care provided by different hospitals.

That’s in part because they have wide leeway to determine who qualifies and often don’t tell patients they may be eligible, despite federal requirements that nonprofit hospitals “widely publicize” their financial assistance policies, including on billing statements and in “conspicuous public displays” in the hospital. One study found that only 50% of hospitals regularly notified patients about eligibility for charity care before initiating debt collection.

McLeod Regional’s most recent publicly available tax return states that “uninsured patients are screened at the time of registration” and if they’re unable to pay and ineligible for governmental insurance, they’re given an application.

Suzanne said she doesn’t remember Jameson or herself receiving an application. The hospital declined to comment on the Rybaks’ case and whether it provides “conspicuous public displays” of financial assistance.

“Not once did anybody tell us, ‘Let’s get a financial person down here,’ or ‘There are grant programs,’” Suzanne said.

Mark Rukavina, with the nonprofit health advocacy group Community Catalyst, said most hospitals comply with the letter of the law in publicizing their assistance policy. But “how effective some of that messaging is may be a question,” he said. Some hospitals may bury the policy in a dense packet of other information or use signs with vague language.

A KHN investigation in 2019 found that, nationwide, 45% of nonprofit hospital organizations were routinely sending medical bills to patients whose incomes were low enough to qualify for charity care. McLeod Regional hospital reported $1.77 million of debt from sending bills to such patients, which ended up going unpaid, for the fiscal year ending in 2019.

Believing they couldn’t afford in-patient admission, the Rybaks left the hospital that night.

After the ER

Afterward, Jameson’s withdrawal symptoms passed, Suzanne said. He spent time golfing with his younger brother. Although his application for unemployment benefits was denied, he managed to defer payments on his car and school loans, she said.

But, inside, he must have been struggling, Suzanne now realizes.

Throughout the pandemic, many people with substance use disorder reported feeling isolated and relapsing. Overdose deaths rose nationwide.

On the morning of June 9, 2020, Suzanne opened the door to Jameson’s room and found him on the floor. The coroner determined he had died of an overdose. The family later scattered his ashes on Myrtle Beach — Jameson’s favorite place, Suzanne said.

In the months following Jameson’s death, hospital bills for his night in the ER arrived at the house. He owed $4,928, they said. Suzanne wrote to the hospital that her son was dead but received yet another bill addressed to him after that.

She shredded it and mailed the pieces to the hospital, along with a copy of Jameson’s death certificate.

Twelve days later, the health system wrote to her that the bill had been resolved under its charity care program.

Bill of the Month is a crowdsourced investigation by KHN and NPR that dissects and explains medical bills. Do you have an interesting medical bill you want to share with us? Tell us about it!

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). KFF is an endowed nonprofit organization providing information on health issues to the nation.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

How ERs Fail Patients With Addiction: One Patient’s Tragic Death published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

[ofhxrror]

OFHXRROR’S RP GUIDE: HOW TO PLAY A CHARACTER WITH EPILEPSY. 

While I have nothing against the other rp guide’s who tell you what epilepsy and some of them explain it great, they feel like that’s all they are doing explaining it. So here is an rp guide coming from someone who has GE for those who want to play a character with it. ( below will have what GE is, what it can feel like, how it can effect the people around you, how to roleplay a grand mal / tonic - colonic seizure, and the long term + short term effects of a seizure. ) 

UPDATED:  06/16/2020

What is GE ( Generalized Epilepsy )

GE is a type of epilepsy that comes with no primary cause and comes from the whole brain rather than it stemming from one part of the brain, it also mostly happens durning childhood ( but can happen in adulthood just when that happens their’s less of a chance that you will grow out of it ). There is two possible outcomes with this type of epilepsy, Option One the patient stays on medication for two years and at the end is able to be taken off those meds without any trouble thus for some reason is now cured of GE; Option Two however is more common and likely they stay two years on medication but still have trouble thus aren’t cured of GE. 

Symptoms of GE ( what it can feel like ) 

This is my personally experience with GE but before I was on medication this is what it normally felt like to me which scary enough often felt close enough to an aura ( aka a warning sign to a seizure ); - Numbness / Out Of Body Moments  - Tasting Copper / Blood  - Random Dizziness / Lightheadedness  - Getting Nauseous - Sleepiness  - Headaches - Anxiety / Worsen Anxiety  - Depression / Worsen Depression  - Myoclonic Jerking: which fun fact is another minor form of seizing, I developed this over a very short period of time and it comes even though I am medicated. 

How GE might effect your Muse 

GE is one of those things that can effect people in so many different ways that it’s hard to guess which ways you muse might be effected so here are so suggestions; - your muse might just hole up in a comfy place out of fear of having a seizure at an unknown point ( me for like a month after my first one )  / place or they might keep living their life giving GE a big fuck you and just shrugging it off ?  - if your muse already has anxiety and / or depression think would they get worse for having this in their life?  - your muse might draw away from people due to just panic and stress or would your muse lean on the ones that they have more? - if they have anger problems they might get worse because they might feel like the world if screwing with them? - if they are super prepared they might wear a medical alert bracelet or carry a card with them at all times that says they have GE now. I didn’t leave my room for a month unless it was to shower, I did all my school work at home, and my depression shot through the roof after my first seizure. But then after awhile I missed people so I got out again and it was scary at first so I clung to those I could trust like a baby monkey. Now I’m not scared at all of having an attack because I trust the people around me which leads me too... 

How GE might effect the people around your Muse.

Okay this will hit people hard or soft from what I’ve seen there is no two ways about it folks, if they have seen your muse have a seizure it’s going to hard and if they haven’t seen your muse have a seizure it’s going to be soft. Right after my first seizure my mom didn’t leave my side and then when I had a seizure around a guy I was seeing he didn’t let go of my hand. But when I tell people I have GE it’s “okay so you wanna get pizza later.” but sometimes it’s “okay so if you have a seizure what do you want me to do.” So it just makes a difference on what type of personality your muse’s people have, plot it out, ask your the other muse’s owner “does this work?” and if not keep plotting till you find something that works. 

How to roleplay a Grand Mal Seizure.

You’re muse is overworked, or is lacking sleep, or is just unlucky whatever the case you want to roleplay a seizure. Well here the info you will need labeled from start to finish from a good amount of research and memory:  START; your muse might get something called an aura which could be a number of things, for me it was always the taste of blood like loads and loads it followed my right hand jerking out of my control ( a myoclonic seizure ). For your muse it could be anything ranging from numbness, to a headache, to nausea. These can last anywhere to ten mintues to an hour and half but they don’t last much longer than that because next is... MIDDLE; if your muse is really unlucky they might just skip right to this part which is when the seizure happens, which durning a bunch of things can happen. Now these have two phases which are known as the tonic phase and the colonic phase which is the reason for  the name. During the tonic phase your muse will lose consciousness ( though sometimes people don’t and are awake which isn’t rare but is really uncommon ) and they start to tense up, often making loud moaning sounds as air is being force out of their lungs. If your muse is standing or sitting they will fall down due to the fact that their skeletal muscles are tensing up, this phase is the shortest. In the colonic phase your muse will start to convulse, which can be as light or as violent as the seizure goes on. The eyes will roll up into head and often if your muse is not not biting down on something the tongue / lips will get bitten ( sometimes to the point where it might get bitten off, meaning do not have or let anyone put their muses hands in your’s mouth because they will lose them ), the lips may turn blue. finally it’s over but now comes the .... END; when your muse wakes up they might not know where they are or who they are but they will get it all back shortly, it helps to have someone remind them. vomiting and crying are also side effects due to the large emotional stress it does apply to the brain / body (  I experianced vomiting, crying, panic and huge amounts of tiredness due to the seizure, it took the nursing staff telling me what happened for me to be okay. ) 

Long Term + Short Term effects of seizures. 

Even one seizure can effect your brain so your muse will have both Short Term and Long Term effects to struggle with, I know this fact very well. The shorter effects of the seizures can be:

- Amnesia / Confusion  - Suttering  - Crying / Violent Sobbing  - Vomiting - Low Emotional Thresh Hold  - Short Term Memory Loss  - Shaking  - Cuts / Broken Bones / Bruises - Sore Muscles - Intense Sleepiness

Long Term effects can be: 

- Suttering  - Trouble With Memory  - Worsened ADD / ADHD  - Twitching / Jerking / Shaking Hand Motions also know as myoclonic seizures.  - Confusion  - Sleepiness  - Lack Of Appetite - Weight Loss  - Coma’s / Death / Brain Bleeds 

Why do you want to roleplay this?

Finally I have to ask this question as someone who lives their life with this curse, it’s truly a hellscape some days and honestly it’s no fun waking up some mornings with your head spinning and arm smacking you in the face. My body does not feel like mine, it’s possessed by some creature that I cannot get rid of because modern medicine doesn’t have a fix yet. Please think about that when you add this to your character, I just want you to know all the points of epilepsy that while yes most people with the disease can live normal healthy lives, it’s not fun and it sucks. I’m not trying to be an asshole I just wanted to underline how serious it really is and make sure you aren’t just sticking your chara with this illness for brownie points. 

thank you for coming to my ted talk! 

#rp help #rp guide #rpc #seizures tw #epilepsy tw #medication tw #( mine. ) #( rp resource. )