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Accessibility takes too goddamn fucking long.

My brother was paralyzed in October 2023. We got him home from the hospital (in Texas, when we live in Iowa) in a clunky old hospital chair. He hated it. He was scared and angry and in pain and his life had just changed forever and he couldn’t do anything for himself in that wheelchair. His first goal (aside from learning how to transfer) was to get a wheelchair. My family was lucky enough to afford one so we thought it would be easy enough. Nope.

We couldn’t buy him a wheelchair. He needed a prescription. For a wheelchair. A doctor had to examine him and declare him in need of a wheelchair. It wasn’t good enough that he had scans and tests showing tumors cutting off his spinal cord. He needed his primary care doctor to examine him during a physical and write a prescription. He was making 2-4 transfers a day, tops. He had no energy to get to a doctor. Home health was in and out every day. He had no time to get to a doctor. He didn’t get a prescription for almost a month. Then it had to go through insurance.

We asked if we could skip insurance and just buy a wheelchair for him. Nope. They wouldn’t sell us one, not even at full sticker price. It needed to be approved by Medicare. We ordered a wheelchair, a nice one, a good shade of green, sporty, small. It would let him move around the house. He would be able to cook, to reach drawers and get stuff from the fridge and brush his teeth and put his contacts in at a sink. We were told it would take awhile, maybe two months. Silently we all hoped he would be around to see two more months.

He went on hospice care on a Saturday in March. On Monday, I was calling his friends to come see him before he died. I got a call on his phone. It was the wheelchair company. They were about to order his wheelchair, she said, but there was an issue with insurance— had he stopped being covered by Medicare? Well, yes. When he started hospice care, he got kicked off Medicare. The very nice woman I talked to told me to call her if he resumed Medicare coverage so she could order his wheelchair. He died less than 12 hours later.

We ordered that chair for him in early December. Medicare didn’t approve the order until March. He was dead before they got around to it. He wanted that fucking wheelchair so badly. The only reason he had any semblance of independence and any quality of life for the last five months of his life was because the wheelchair company lent him an old beater chair, a very used model of the chair he ordered. If I could go back and change one thing about his end-of-life, I would get him his dream wheelchair. He told me again and again he couldn’t wait to get it, so that he could feel like a person again. He made the best of what he had with that old beater chair, but it still makes me mad to this day. He was paralyzed. He needed a chair that afforded him dignity. We had the money for it. And yet, we were left waiting for five months, for a chair that wouldn’t even get ordered until the day he died.

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I know I sound like your mom but you kids need to stop fucking vaping

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Hey y'all! I've just added a huge update to my shop! This includes earrings, necklaces, and keychains. I've been working on this release for over a month, and I'm super proud how everything turned out!

Check it all out on my Etsy

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By cutting out the TQ+, you also cut out:

-Intersex people

-Two-spirit gays and other culturally connected gays

-Gender nonconforming people

-Those who are questioning their sexuality

-Gays, lesbians, and bi's who are supportive of trans people

-Millions of kind, loving, supportive humans who have gone through indescribable, traumatic abuse and wish to build a safe, welcoming community

Why are you so eager to exclude and belittle people? Why do you tell them they 'don't know what real struggle looks like' when their healthcare, their future, and their lives are under attack? Do you truly value 'love', or do you just want to swat away as many people as possible? Why do you continue to hide under a rock and dig yourself deeper into festering hatred, when you can simply come out and support people who can help you?

Wouldn't it be easier to unite with our trans and nonbinary friends to help defeat the growing threat of genuine fascism in our country? Those conservative Christian nationalists and white supremacists who tell you you're "one of the good ones" would gladly turn around and shoot you in a heartbeat, because when they say they're fighting the 'woke gender ideology', they'll mutter in the same breath that you gays are 'degenerates', 'sodomites', and 'animals'. Why would you side with the villains, who see you the same way they see us?

We cannot let oppression continue in any form. We will all be on the winning side of history as we step closer to ending the cycle of hatred and bullying. Open your hearts and minds and you'll find that the everyone around you is just as human as you, and are more similar to you than you'd think. Trans people are people, just like you, and we need your help and support just as much as you need ours.

Isn't it neat how people who are supportive of all LGBTQ+ identities are also kinder, more loving, more empathetic, and more caring towards their friends and loved ones? Just something to think about.

Love wins. Trans rights are human rights.

[zrterria]

@ScienceVet2 explains intersex variations on twitter.

ScienceVet is a Ph.D in Biochemistry and has published in the fields of endocrinology and sexual differentiation.  His Ph.D. is in Biomedical Sciences - Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmocology.

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Y’ever read something and have understanding that has eluded you interminably suddenly stop, curl up, and snuggle neatly into a fold in your brain because a new way way opened to it?

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I laughed so fucking hard at this

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What people think why i became a bookbinder: Oh she wants to explore her artistic horizon with those pretty leather bound books of hers. She even gives them out as gifts to her friends. It most likely helps her with anxiety or maybe she just wanted a more special costume made notebook.

Why I actually became a bookbinder: I just illegally downloaded and printed out several of my favourite fanfics and books and started binding them into books cuz I love reading them but looking at screens for too long gives me headaches.

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instagram: smacmccreanor

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Smoke break buddies!

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Before the beginning.

Good Omens season 2

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unsung benefit i think a lot of ppl are sleeping on with using the public library is that i think its a great replacement for the dopamine hit some ppl get from online shopping. it kind of fills that niche of reserving something that you then get to anticipate the arrival of and enjoy when it arrives, but without like, the waste and the money.

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When absolutely 0 of Biden’s accomplishments have made any kind of news, and we’ve been fed a steady diet of fear and panic for 3 years, no one gets to be shocked when he loses the next election to Donald 2.0.

Posting anything positive about the president here will get you called a capitalist bootlicker.

What do we expect to happen?

Anger sells better. Anger feels better, it feels righteous.

It’s easier to protest against a president you don’t like then to actually remain in charge and keep pushing ahead, even if small, consistent accomplishments are all you receive.