#he didn’t want me taking any nsaids either

[hiding-in-my-blanket-fort]

.

#ace talks to herself #day 12 of jaw pain #and I found out #that opioids have literally no effect on me #none #I don’t get a high from them #and they don’t do anything for my pain at all #love that #at least my dad #can stop haranguing me now #that I’ll get addicted to opioids at this rate #I’ve only taken two Vicodin in the past 12 days #and I could have had a sugar pill #for all the effect it had on me #there was no difference whatsoever #he didn’t want me taking any nsaids either #but I finally took some #because I haven’t slept properly for almost two weeks #and they finally took the edge off #I can swallow now #without an ice pick of nerve pain in my face #it’s a miracle

[writingsonawall]

Falling, fallen chapter 1

Pairings: Spencer Reid x OFC

Story summary: Spencer randomly meets Leah at the library and their first encounter was supposed to be just that; a random one-time occurance. When an unsub lands Spencer in the very same hospital she works at, she feels obligated to take care of him. But what happens when his team notices her everlooming presence and theorises that perhaps she could be the unsub they’re looking for?

Chapter summary: The guy Leah had met at the library just an hour ago suddenly gets wheeled into the ER where she works. 

Warnings: Mention of blood, but not a lot.

Wordcount: 6,6 k

Prologue, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7,

Leah hadn’t even been on call for half an hour when a stretcher was rolled in through the doors of the ER, someone shouting “Male, early thirties! Gunshotwound to the lower abdomen.” That was about all she was able to concentrate on. The ER was a mess of chaos, every available doctor and nurse running between patients. People were running into each other, medicalequipments crashing onto the floor every now and then, some patients screaming out in pain… Leah could feel the beginning of a migraine sneaking up on her. She almost never worked in the ER, usually sticking to Post Op. or the ICU, but there had been a masscollision on the highway that night so it was kind of like an all hands on deck situation. 

Leah was currently working on picking out broken glass from the arm of an elderly woman. It wasn’t a terrible wound, but judging by the way it was bleeding she’d probably need stitches. Still, Leah had no idea why she was there. Her injuries weren’t lifethreatning and the ER was overcrowded with other patients who actually needed their attention more than this woman. She’d be just fine if she had gone to an urgent care, but Leah wasn’t about to argue.

 “Leah, I’m gonna need you with me in traumaroom 2.” Dr. Ruiz called over the noise and it gathered her attention. She caught his glance across the room and saw that he was following the stretcher which had just been brought in by the ambulance. Leah quickly mumbled her apologies to the woman, pulled off her gloves and started to navigate through the sea of chaos. She eventually pushed the doors of traumaroom 2 open, rubbing her hands dry from the sanitizer she’d covered them with. 

“What’s his status?” Leah asked once she entered, quickly making her way over to the man laying across the stretcher. She knew why Dr. Ruiz had called her in here. The patient was a gunshotvictim, which usually meant a lot of blood. Typically, in cases like this, there were two doctors to check the injuries and make medicaldecisions. Gunshotwounds were always messy and it was hard to know what to expect, so two doctors in the room was always ideal, just in case the patient were to crash or there was a lifethreatning injury. But currently all doctors seemed to be otherwise occupied, so Leah understood why Dr. Ruiz had called her in. Blood and gore never bothered her, it actually made her calmer. The more pressure she had on her shoulders, the calmer and more collected she stayed. She was on the traumateam for a reason, although be it as a nurse, so she had seen a thing or two in her past. 

“Oh my God, Spencer!” She exclaimed, surprised to discover the identity of the man sprawled out in front of her. She stood there frozen in place for a moment, wondering what had happened. She had left him at the library not even an hour previously and now he was here, blood pooling slowly from the open wound in his abdomen. 

The surprise only shocked her for a split second before she shook herself out of her thoughts. Stroking a hand over his forehead, she matted his mop of curls out his face. Using a thumb to force one of his eyelids open, she grabbed a small flashlight from the pocket of her scrubs. 

“Spencer, can you hear me?” She asked him, shining the light into his eyes a few times, watching for any sort of unusual reaction of his pupils. She did the same with the other eye. “Spencer?” She asked once more. He was out cold, but his pupils responded as expected so that made her a little more at ease. 

“You know him?” Dr. Ruiz asked over his shoulder, roaming through the cabinets to find all the equipments he’d need to fully check the injuries. 

“Well, kinda,” Leah answered, not knowing what else to say in that moment. There was no use to lie about the fact that she’d met him an hour earlier, but she didn’t exactly know him. 

“Are you gonna be okay with this or do you need to step out?” Dr. Ruiz asked her, finally returning to stand at Spencer’s other side. 

“I’m good,” Leah told him, probably a little too fast to sound convincing. But it was true, she was nothing if not professional. 

“Okay,” Dr. Ruiz nodded. “Ready to move him?” He asked and it was Leah’s turn to nod. She pushed the stretcher closer to the bed in the room as Dr. Ruiz got out of the way. Locking the breaks of the stretcher so it wouldn’t budge, she grabbed a tight hold of the sheet underneath Spencer as the doctor did the same on the other side. They locked eyes and counted. One, two, three. In a split second they had Spencer lifted onto the bed with such ease it looked like they had done it a hundred times before. Which they actually probably had. Dr. Ruiz was one of the doctors Leah worked closest with, since he was typically stationed at Post Op. When they were both on call, Leah was nomally the person Dr. Ruiz would call for if he needed help. They were kind of a dream team; a force to be reckoned with whenever they worked together. 

As the doctor started to cut Spencer’s shirt open, Leah wheeled the stretcher out into the hall to give them space. Locking the door behind her again, she quickly took a look at his medicalfile which another nurse had just delivered in her hand. 

“This is gonna hurt. Let’s push for 10mg Oxycodone,” Dr. Ruiz told her once she returned to Spencer’s side. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Cave morphine,” Leah told him as she started slicing Spencer’s shirt open from his sleeve up to his shoulder. 

“Addiction or allergy?” The dortor asked. 

“Addiction. Dilaudid,” Leah informed him, having just read it in his file. She had already snapped gloves onto her hands and was working on getting the IV-kit ready. “Tramadol would be a safer option, right?” Tramadol was usually the kind of drugs they’d give to patients after minor surgeries or injuries to manage the pain. It was hardly as effective as Oxy-preparations, but it  was usually still enough to take the edge off. They hardly ever used it before they were able to assess the pain level of the patients, but it still seemed to be the least addictive morphinecontaining drug they had at hand. And given Spencer’s injuries some sort of morphine was needed despite what his medicalfile said. He needed something for the pain and NSAIDs weren’t going to cut it in that moment. They could handle whatever addiction-problem he had later; when he wasn’t in a potential life-threatening situation.

Dr. Ruiz nodded his head acutely, ordering her to administer 50mg. Leah worked quickly, finding a usable vein in Spencer’s hand and poking the cannula into it. Taping it down onto his hand, she hooked a bag of ring acetate to the pole by the bed and connected the tube to the IV. She noticed Spencer twitching a little at that and she moved to stand over his head. 

“Spencer, are you awake?” She asked, once again matting his hair back. She noted, even through the gloves she was wearing, that he was warm and sweaty. “I’m gonna give you something for the pain, okay? It’s Tramadol, so I hope that’s okay,” she informed him, even though she highly doubted that he was coherent enough to register her words. She did as she’d said she’d do, pushing a needle Dr. Ruiz had readied for her into the IV-tube and slowly administered the drug. While the painkillers worked its way through his system, she leaned over to help Dr. Ruiz. She put pressure on the wound on his abdomen while the doctor probed around with an ultrasound, trying to look for anything that could indicate whether Spencer had an internal bleeding. 

It didn’t even take a minute before Spencer calmed down, his twitching stopping completely and his breathing evening out. She was glad for that, not wanting him to be more uncomfortable than necessary. 

“You paged me?” A woman's voice startled Leah and she turned to the door which was now wide open. She was another doctor, but Leah couldn’t really recall her name. Not that she really cared either. 

“Yes!” Dr. Ruiz said, tightening the bandage they had just wrapped around Spencer’s wound. It was still bleeding, but the wrappings should be able to hold for the transport to the OR. “GSW to the lower abdomen. Patient is non responding, but stable. No sign of internal bleeding, but I’m sure he needs surgery to remove that bullet,” Dr. Ruiz informed the other woman who nodded along. She moved further into the room and cast a quick look at Spencer, checking the vitals, pupil responses, making sure the oxygenprosentage of his mask was correct before she once again nodded. 

“I agree. He’s stable enough to be moved? Then we should wheel him down to Pre Op.,” she concluded. 

“I’ll go with him,” Leah found herself speaking before she could even register those thoughts. 

“No, no, no, Leah,” Dr. Ruiz said, laying a clean hand on her shoulder. “I need you here in the ER. I’ll go with him and I’ll keep you updated. Don’t worry, he’s going to be fine.” His words reassured her a little. It’s not like Spencer was a friend or anything, but she knew him enough to put a name to the face and that brought this whole case a little closer to home. But she let him go, knowing she was needed more in the ER. 

She kept her hands busy for the next two hours before Dr. Ruiz finally returned, hovering just behind her as she was working on trying to determine if she should send the teenager in front of her up to radiology or not. 

“He’s in surgery now,” Dr. Ruiz informed her, not giving a care to the boy Leah was inspecting. He cried out in pain when she moved his foot at an odd angle. 

“I think he needs to take a trip over to radiology. Do you mind signing the papers?” Leah asked the doctor, not wanting to talk about Spencer right now, especially not in front of another patient. She let Dr. Ruiz take over the patient, but she hovered around until they had sent the boy on his way. She cleaned up after herself and took a glance around the ER. It was getting quiet now. The rush of patients had died down now and she spotted several doctors and nurses just hanging around, chatting and taking a well deserved minibreak. 

“Come on,” Dr. Ruiz said, putting a gentle hand on Leah’s shoulder. “Let’s grab a quick coffee and then you can head up to the ICU.” Leah had never felt more relieved by the idea of a cup of the shitty coffee the hospital had to offer. She really needed coffee now. 

Leah had always liked Dr. Ruiz. She considered him a friend, at least a workfriend. It’s not just that they worked well together, but he was always very considerate; always being there if she needed a shoulder to cry on at the end of a hard day, pushing her to take a break because she always refused to, bringing her powerbars if there was a busy day and they didn’t have time for a real meal. He was nice and she liked how she could always lean on him. 

“I don’t actually know him,” Leah finally spoke up once they had both filled up their cups with the cheap stuff the vendingmachines wanted to pass as coffee. Dr. Ruiz didn’t say anything, just gave a gesture of his hand for her to continue. He leaned back against the wall of the corridor and Leah mirrored him. “We just met earlier today, actually. I forgot my librarycard at the library and he found it, handed it back. We just had a small conversation, nothing big. But then I got called in for the accident, so I had to leave. I mean, I’d seen him just an hour ago and then they wheeled him in,” she explained, not really knowing what to feel. 

“And what? You blame yourself or something?” He asked, clearly reading her mind. 

“No, not really,” she told him, which was an obvious lie. “I guess it just shocked me. I don’t know. I mean, maybe it could have been me. I don’t even know what happened to him, but I keep thinking that it could have been me. Or maybe if I had stayed a little longer then this wouldn’t have happened at all.” She hadn’t heard anything about what had actually happened. Maybe it had been a robbery gone wrong, or maybe there had been a shootout and he was in the middle of the crossfire. She didn’t suspect the last one since they hadn’t received any other gunshotwound-patients, but the possibilities were still endless. All she knew was that he was brought in with a bullet in his abdomen and that he would hopefully pull through. 

“You know, you should really stop thinking like that. It’s not healthy,” Dr. Ruiz told her and it was exactly what she needed to hear. No bullshit excuse about how it wasn’t her fault or that there wouldn’t have been anything she could’ve done. Just a plain and simple command to stop overthinking. It made a small smile play on her lips. 

“Yeah, well… How can I not?” She asked him, glancing up. He gave her a sad smile, knowing it was hard to let those thoughts go. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her into his body. Leah sighed, leaning her head back into his shoulder while taking a sip of her coffee. He didn’t say anything else and neither did she. They just stayed there in silence for another few moments before he started leading her down the corridor. They said their goodbyes in front of the ICU, Dr. Ruiz promised he’d keep her updated on Spencer’s surgery. 

Leah prepared for a long night. Nightshifts were usually crap because it was so quiet and she was the kind of person who needed things to do. If she didn’t, she usually got all fidgety and restless, which was also why she never liked reading. She couldn’t sit still for longer periods of time. The more things she had to do, the better she felt once she got home at the end of the day. She had also prepared for a doubleshift, knowing the morning would be busy with doctorvisits, family coming to see their loved ones, breakfast coming around and helping certain patients go to the bathroom and get cleaned up. Yeah, she looked forward to the morning, but for right now she dreaded the long night ahead. 

Dr. Ruiz came up a little after two in the morning to let her know that Spencer was out of surgery and was recovering nicely. He’d been lucky, the bullet not hitting any major organs, but it had nicked his bladder so they were afraid of how his bladdercontrol would be. They wanted to keep him catheterized for a few days just to make sure everything was working properly. Apparently, he was also risking the development of internal bleeding and infections. Leah knew that, there was always a risk of that when it came to injuries like Spencer’s, but it rarely ever happened, not unless the bullet had nicked something or the surgery went wrong. But there was still a chance, so they always informed each other of it. She still knew that chances were slim so she wasn’t overly concerned about it. She was mostly happy he was going to be fine. 

Spencer was rolled into his own room at the ICU around 3:30 A.M. and Leah made it her personal business to check up on him. She finished the rest of her round rather quickly after that. Once she finished up the most important tasks she grabbed a fresh cup of coffee and some food from the cafeteria. For the next hour she hid out in Spencer’s room, figuring she’d deserved a nice, long break since she was going to pull a doubleshift. It was a quiet night anyway so she didn’t even feel remotely bad about it. 

He woke up a little before six in the morning, groaning softly from the bed beside her. Leah glanced over at him, giving him a moment to orient himself. She knew that her position was highly unprofessional; sitting a chair beside him with her feet propped up on his bed next to his. But she didn’t care. Her feet were aching and she loved being able to relieve the pressure for a little while. So, she played it cool, deciding it would be worse to drop her legs down in embarrassment. 

“Well, hey there, Stranger!” Leah decided to greet him with the biggest smile she could master. Spencer seemed to be more alert now and he had glanced everywhere imaginable; the door, her feet, the heartmonotor, the IV-bag, the ceiling. Still, his eyes wavered between her feet and her face. 

“You’re wearing mismatched socks,” he finally said. Leah couldn’t help but chuckle at that. That was probably the strangest thing anyone had ever said to her after coming out of surgery. 

“You know, we ruled out braintrauma pretty early on, but maybe we should still call neuro?” She teased. She could see a blush creep up his cheeks, taininting them in under half a second. His eyes roamed around again, finally locking in on the clock hanging above the door. 

“No, that won’t be necessary,” he told her bluntly and Leah felt like he probably wasn’t in jokingmood. “Where are my things? I need to call my boss,” he said trying to move up into a sitting position. Leah decided to just watch him struggle for a moment, finding it highly amusing even though she was still a little worried about him. He was probably still woozy from the anesthesia so sitting up appeared to be a struggle. Finally, Leah dropped her feet from his bed when he groaned out in pain. She walked over to him, putting both her hands on his shoulder and pushing him firmly back. 

“Don’t pull your stitches,” she told him. She took a seat in the chair again, grabbing the remote to bed and began to raise his back. He groaned out again when he was almost sitting, so she lowered the back a few notches again. “Don’t be a baby now,” she teased, but her voice was probably a little harsh. She couldn’t help it. She’d had a long day and she had been really worried about him. 

“I’m not a baby,” he whispered and Leah could see a pout on his lips. It only made her smirk. 

“You sure about that?” She asked, leaning over to snatch his file from the holder at the end of the bed. “You know what they say, right? About doctors being the worst patients?” She raised an eyebrow at him to give him the indication that she knew he was a doctor. It was in his file after all. 

“I’m not that kind of doctor,” he informed her and Leah just chuckled.

“Yeah, I figured that much out. I’ve been around enough real doctors, so trust me when I say you’re definitely not the type,” she laughed. “No offense, of course,” she decided to add as an afterthought. 

“None taken,” he replied, a little slurred. Leah looked over at him. “Can I call my boss now?” He asked and Leah sighed. 

“Spencer, look… they’re already here, your friends I mean-” He cut her off before she even had the chance to say anything else. 

“They’re not my friends. They’re my team.” His words surprised her. She hadn’t gotten the chance to talk to them yet, but she’d heard that they had all been really worried and constantly asked for updates on his condition. They seemed genuinely worried about his wellbeing. 

“And they can’t be your friends because they’re ‘your team’?” She asked, cocking an eyebrow at him. 

“Are you friends with your coworkers?” Spencer asked back, and it should’ve been a witty comeback, but he actually sounded interested in knowing. 

“Can’t say that I am,” she said after pondering the thought for a second or so. “Touché, by the way. But my point is, just take a minute to wake up a little bit. I’ll go get them later so you can see them, okay? Just please… take a breather, alright? And I want the doctor to take a look at you first as well. Do you even remember what happened? You just woke up from surgery after getting shot. Let that sink in before I call them in.” 

“I’m fine,” Spencer insisted, but Leah just shot him a stern look. She stared him down for what felt like too long before he finally caved, leaning a little further back in his seat with a sigh. 

“Good,” Leah smiled. She took a moment to really study him for the first time. He was actually really handsome, with these greenish eyes which got more honeybrown towards the middle and shaggy brown hair which she suspected was always unkept. His nose was straight and his lips slightly plump, skin clean. He actually looked like a specimen. The only negative thing she could point out were the dark circles under his eyes and she felt her heartstring tug a little, wondering what nightmares kept him up at night. The nasal cannula going into his nostrils made him look even sicker than he probably was, but it was still a sight for poor eyes. 

“So, you’re… a nurse?” He asked after a few more moments of silence. Leah couldn’t help the bashful smile that stretched across her lips. 

“Well, isn’t that kind of obvious?” She laughed, adoring how cute he was when he got all awkward. She took a sip of her coffee and decided it was time to call for the doctor, so she reached over Spencer's head to press the green button on the wall. Spencer was giving her a strange look and she had no idea what that meant. “What?” She asked him, cocking an eyebrow. His intense stare was kind of making her uneasy, but there was no way she was going to show him that. 

“I just didn’t take you for the nursing-type,” he mumbled. “No offense,” he quickly added, just as she had done previously. But he looked almost terrified about it, as if he was actually afraid he’d insulted her. Leah could only laugh. 

“Don’t worry about it,” she assured him. “I wouldn’t exactly picture myself as the type either, but here we are. I’m damn good at my job, though.” As if on cue the door to the room opened and Sophie, a young girl who happened to be Leah’s intern, stepped through the door. She decided to have a little fun with that. “Ah! Dr. Reid, meet my intern. Sophie, this is Dr. Reid. You’re in charge of him when I’m not here. Got it?” Spencer gave her an uncertain glance and Sophie had a look of pure horror on her face. She locked eyes with Leah, the ‘Oh dear God, he’s a doctor’ kind of look written over her face. Sophie was a sweet girl, but kind of slouch, and Leah had a tendency to play small little tricks to get her to work just a little harder. Knowing that the patient was a doctor (she didn’t need to know he wasn’t a medical doctor) would definitely nudge her to go the extra mile. 

“You, um, you called?” Sophie asked a little uncertainly and Leah found herself pleased when she noted the not so subtle way she leaned over to take a pump of the handsanatizer hanging on the wall by the door. It had been one of the many things Leah had added to her list of improving areas; always sanitize your hands before entering and leaving a patient’s room. 

“Yeah,” Leah tried to hide her grin. “Who’s on call right now?” She asked, knowing she could just as well walk out the door and find out herself, but she loved torturing her interns just a little bit. She never crossed the line, but she always pushed them around just enough that they’d remember who was in charge. She loved it, a little innocent fun. 

“Uhm, well… There’s you, obviously… and, uh, me and-” Sophie started and Leah resisted the urge to roll her eyes. 

“Sophie, calm down. It’s fine. I mean doctors, who’s on call?” Leah smiled up at Sophie, trying to reassure her that she’d only been joking. Well, at least half-joking. That was another one of Sophie’s flaws; she was too uncertain of herself and could hardly handle a joke. 

“Oh, um. I’m not sure,” Sophie mumbled, but didn’t make any move to find out. Leah just stared at her until she lifted her eyes to glance back. 

“So?” Leah asked and Sophie looked even more confused at that. “Are you gonna find out for me?” That seemed to startle her because she almost jumped. 

“Oh, right! Yes, I’ll be right back.” She was out the door so fast Leah couldn’t help but laugh. She shook her head to herself and stood up from the chair, leaning closer to the heartmonitor and noting down Spencer’s vitals on his chart. 

“That was mean,” Spencer mumbled. Leah looked at him for a second, pausing her hand which was still writing. 

“It’s a bit of innocent fun. I’m their boss and you see that pager behind you,” she pointed her pen at the wall behind his head. She didn’t even wait for him to try to turn around to look at it before she continued. “It makes me their God,” she finished with a smug smile and gave him a wink. Spencer narrowed his eyes at her. 

“She’s your intern. You’re supposed to teach her, not scare her half to death.” He sounded almost angry, despite the uncertainty in his voice. Wow, this guy really couldn’t take a joke. Leah sighed. 

“Look, it’s a bit of innocent fun. We have a good relationship and we always have a little debriefing at the end of the day. She’d tell me if I was being too harsh on her,” she said. She finished the chart and put it down in the holder by the end of the bed. She crossed her arms over her chest and sighed a little. “You probably think I’m too rough on her or whatever, and sure, I probably am. But here’s the thing, and I probably shouldn’t even tell you this, but she’s insecure. She needs to learn how to stand on her own two feet. She’s probably gonna lash out on me one of these days and I’m gonna be so proud of her the day she does. She’s a snowflake and she really needs to learn how to stand up for herself.” She decided it was best to just be honest with him. In all honesty she shouldn’t care what Spencer thought of her, but she did. She didn’t want him to think that she was some heartless bitch. She loved being a mentor and loved looking out for her interns. Sophie, despite all her flaws, was her favourite. Leah could see her potential, if she just worked past her insecurities she’d be a damn fine nurse one day. 

“So, you’re… bullying her to make her, what, stand up for herself?” Spencer asked, surprise lacing his voice, but he didn’t sound angry anymore. That was a good thing, she guessed. 

“I’m not bullying her. Just pushing her buttons a little. Call it reversed psychology or whatever. It always works.” Leah grabbed her zipup hoodie which she had draped over the chair and stuck her arms through. She shook the hood in place so it wasn’t one giant ball in the back of her neck. Spencer gave her a small smile and she wondered what he was thinking. She didn’t want to stay long enough to figure out though. “Okay, well… I’ll go see about that doctor. I’ll go get your friends in a while, so hang out and try to, I don’t know, relax I guess? Call if you need anything,” she told him, placing a gentle hand on his arm just because she could. Grabbing her coffeecup under her armpit she took a few pumps of handsanatizer on the way out. She made her way to the nursesation just as Sophie came practically running down the hall. 

“Jameson’s on call right now,” She said, almost sounding out of breath. Leah wondered if she had been running all over the Goddamned hospital to figure that out. 

“Okay, did you tell him to take a look at 104?” She asked and Sophie’s eyes went wide. Leah realized quickly what that meant. “No, no! Sophie, it’s okay. Seriously. I’ll go find him. Don’t worry about it,” Leah gave her a reassuring smile, reaching out to squeeze both her shoulders. “Did you finish your schedule yet?” She asked, knowing her interns had some kind of schedule, like a plan, they were supposed to follow.

“Uhm, well, I still have to take out the trash in 109 and I have some other small things I haven’t done yet, but-”

“Don’t worry about that,” Leah cut her off with a dismissive wave of her hand. She threw away her now empty papercup and hung her hoodie over the chair by the computer. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. Take a break or something, get some air, whatever.” Sophie seemed a little reluctant to the idea, but nodded her head acutely. 

“Would you, uhm, like me to bring you back some more coffee? Black right?” Sophie asked and Leah couldn’t help but grin at her. 

“Yes, please. Take your time, though.” With that Sophie took her leave and Leah went to find Dr. Jameson to let him know that Spencer was awake and needed a quick check. She then went back to the nursingstation to check what was next on her to-do list. She finished her round rather quickly, even with Sophie’s small list of things she’d neglected to do, or hadn’t gotten around to do or for whatever other reason just hadn’t done yet. It was just minor things, so she didn’t mind. Sophie seemed to have been doing alright with everything else. 

When she once again returned to the nursingstation there was a steaming papercup with her name on it, decorated with a simple smileyface. Leah smiled at that. She sat down by the computer and started documenting the most important details of the nightswatch so the morningshift would know what had gone down. Just as she was about to finish up, Sophie approached her, fidgeting a little. 

“Thanks for the coffee, Sophie,” Leah told her, hoping that would ease her nervousness a little. 

“Oh, no problem!” Sophie smiled. “Uhm, Jameson took a look at the good doctor in 104 and-” Leah had to cut her off with a chuckle. 

“That’s what we’re calling him now?” 

“Well… he hasn’t yelled at me yet for screwing up and he’s actually been kind of polite, so… I guess?” She sounded so uncertain again. 

“Well, what did you screw up?” Leah wasn’t mad. Everyone made mistakes, even her, and she just needed to know if it was a major blowup she had to document or if it was a small thing that could hardly be called a mistake. 

“Oh, nothing I think? I’m just really afraid of messing up,” Sophie told her, rather nonchalantly and Leah felt a little proud of her for not freaking out.  

“Okay, good. Look, Sophie… You don’t have to be afraid of messing up. Everyone messes up and I won’t get mad or anything, alright? You know I’m only teasing you, right? I don’t mean anything by it.” Leah always felt good about having these heart to heart talks with Sophie. 

“Yeah, I know. It’s just, uhm, I’m kinda awkward, I guess.” Leah laughed at that and Sophie gave a soft chuckle as well. Good thing for her that Spencer seemed twice as awkward as her. Maybe that would help boost her confidence. 

“Anyway, sorry I cut you off. What were you gonna say about the good doctor?” Leah really liked that nickname, it seemed to be suiting him. 

“Oh, yeah! Uhm, Jameson said that everything seemed to be alright, but wants to keep him here under observation at least until tomorrow just to make sure. And he’s still on antibiotics four times a day and we can amp up his painkillers, but he doesn’t want any morphine.” That last part didn’t surprise her whatsoever. “And he decided to switch off the oxygen for now, but to keep it on standby just in case his saturation decreases.” That wasn’t a surprise either. Most patients receive oxygen after surgery because the anesthesia could make them sluggish and their breathing labored. Once it wears off they’d be taken off oxygen as well. 

“Okay, that’s good,” Leah said, nodding along. “Anything else?” 

“Oh, yeah. He, uhm, wants to see his coworkers now and I told him he could only see two at a time, because that’s still the rule, right? He wanted to see Hotch and J.J. first. I guess you could get them?” Leah nodded her head and gave Sophie a pat on the back before returning to finish up her reports. It was around 6:45 A.M. when she headed out to the waiting area with her coffeecup in hand, recently refilled after she’d downed the one Sophie had brought her.

“Do I have a Hotch and J.J. for Spencer Reid?” Leah asked, scanning the waitingarea. She somehow knew the people she was looking for before they rose from their seats to come greet her. The whole group of, wow, six people practically came running for her. 

“Is he okay?” One of the women, dressed in a very colorful dress and an excessive amount of accessories asked, almost screaming out. She must have been very worried. Leah noted the flowers in her hand and grimaced at the thought of having to tell her later that flowers weren’t allowed in the ICU.

“He’s fine. He’s fully awake now,” Leah tried to reassure her. “He’s given me permission to share the specifics of his condition, so I can do that now, or you can wait for the doctorsvisit later today to get some more details. He’s just been checked out by a doctor now, though, and everything seems to be alright. He’ll probably stay in the ICU until tomorrow at least before we consider moving him.” She gave them the rest of what she knew and they seemed pleased that he was doing okay. So was Leah. Bulletwounds to the abdomen were typically gnarly cases, but Spencer had been really lucky. 

“Can we see him now?” The darkhaired woman asked, sounding just as worried as the other one had been just a minute ago. 

“Sure, but he’s in the ICU and we only allow two visitors at a time. We’ve asked and he wanted to see Hotch and J.J. first,” Leah told them, still having no idea who the respective ones were. 

“What, so I don’t get to see him?” The dark skinned man asked. He sounded angry, annoyed and frustrated, but Leah didn’t find him intimidating whatsoever, even despite the fact that he towered over her. 

“As I said, only two at a time. But he can have visitors all day for all I care, so you can take turns to see him, I don’t care how you do it. But only two at a time.” She tried to sound stern, but she also had sympathy for them. They’d been worried sick all night and they probably wanted to storm his room and hug him.

“Come on! That’s a bunch of bullshit!” The man yelled, obviously getting a little agitated. Leah wanted to step forward forward, put a hand on his shoulder to calm him down or something, but before she got the chance the tall man in the suit, yes a Goddamned suit, stepped forward. 

“Morgan,” He raised his hand in a stopmotion which immediately calmed the man down. “We’ll be quick. You’ll get to see him.” That seemed to do the trick because he sighed in defeat and stepped back. 

“Alright then, follow me!” Leah said and turned on her heel, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. She had other things to do, not really, but she could at least pretend she did. Standing in the waitingroom and arguing with friends and family of patients was not something she wanted to spend her whole day doing. 

“Wait, Sir. Can you bring him these for me?” Leah noticed that it was Flowerwoman who had spoken. 

“Actually, Ma’am… flowers are not allowed in the ICU either. I’m really sorry. If we move him to another unit tomorrow, you can bring him whatever you want, but as of right now I’m gonna have to say no,” she said, turning her body to give the woman an apologetic look. 

“Oh.” She sounded utterly wrecked as she uttered the simple word and it made Leah a little sad. These people cared so deeply for Spencer. How could he possibly claim they weren’t his friends?

She brought J.J,, a young woman a little taller than herself, and Hotch, the man who had calmed down the black man earlier, through the doors of the ICU. She quickly located Spencer’s room and knocked on the door a few times before entering. He seemed pleasantly surprised to see his colleagues following right behind her. 

“Oh, Spence!” J.J. exclaimed, rushing over to his bed. Leah rubbed some sanitizer on her hands as she watched her bend down to give him a gentle hug. She grabbed his chart from the end of his bed again and noted down his vitals as the three of them exchanged their greetings, also reading through what the doctor had written earlier. 

“Dr. Jameson was in here earlier. He explained that we’ve taken you off oxygen, right?” She hated to break up their happy reunion, but she had to give him some information before she bid her farewell. They all turned to look at her as she disposed of the chart again. “You understand that if you experience any shortness of breath, any dizzyness, anything at all you have to call, right?” She asked, looking directly at Spencer. 

“Well, I’m a doctor, so, of course I understand.” His response brought a smile onto her lips. 

“Well, you’re not that kind of doctor,” Leah laughed, throwing his previous words back at his face. “Do you need anything before I leave?” She asked and Spencer shook his head. “Well, if you do, don’t hesitate to call,” she told him seriously while pointing at the caller behind his head. She turned to leave when Spencer spoke up again. 

“Does, uhm, does that mean I’ll be your God?” Leah was stunned a little, not fully understanding what he meant, but then she remembered how she’d previously joked about being a God to her interns. Wow, her brain was working slowly. She needed more coffee. 

“Hey! Don’t push it now.” She tried to be stern, but her lips tugged upwards on their own accord. She then bid her goodbyes, shutting the door on the way out.

#spencer reid #criminal minds #spencer reid fic #spencer reid imagine #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid smut #criminal minds fic #spencer reid x ofc #spencer reid x reader #mgg smut #mgg #spencer reid fluff #bau

[youwerenevermeanttofeelalone]

Somebody Sweet to Talk To ❁︎ 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄

Pairing: Harry Osborn x Plus Size Reader

Word Count: 3.2k

Gif credit: @lovingpostit

Summary & Warnings || Series Masterlist

A/N: shortest chapter yet and also the shortest in the whole series!

𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐫𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐞

𝐈 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞

❁︎ ・・・・・❁︎ ・・・・・ ❁︎ ・・・・・❁︎

Tuesday and Wednesday weren’t too different from Monday. You arrived at school with Peter, parted ways with him by the spot he always waited for Gwen, entered the classes you had that day, took lunch with a couple of classmates you considered almost friends, did homework in the library, were joined by Harry two hours before the time to go home, got home with the three, accompanied them to do homework, spent time alone with Harry while teaching him how to play chess and getting to know him, and then hung out with the three until Harry and Gwen had to go, attended family dinner, went to sleep.

Thursday brought slight changes, Gwen didn’t leave school with you because of a family member’s visit. As you entered the compound, a pair of strong arms engulfed you in a hug, startling you.

The metal against your back should have been a sign but now that Tony had a metal arm too, what let you know it was Bucky was his scent so you relaxed and hugged back. “Hi, Buckaroo.”

He laughed in that gruff way he always did, parting from you to gaze down at you. “How did you know it was me?”

“I happen to know your scent very well.” You made a face. “That sounds creepy, what I truly meant was—“

“We get it,” the Sargent laughed again and stretched his arm to close the door. “How was school?” at that he looked at Harry and Peter too.

“Great!” Peter exclaimed, telling Bucky all about his school day.

Harry just hummed, extending a hand in your direction. You frowned down at it, your palm inching closer before you remembered you were carrying his cellphone and slid your hand into your pocket to retrieve it.

“You gave me yours,” he snorted, looking at the (Favorite Artist)’s photo you had as locked screen.

“Sorry,” you mumbled, repeating the motion of withdrawing the cellphone but now from your left pocket. You exchanged devices under Peter’s and Bucky’s eyes.

James started speaking, but Tony interrupted. “Can any of you help me? Bruce says aspirin hurts the stomach but I don’t believe him because it stops my stomachache.”

“Don’t all NSAIDs hurt the stomach?” Harry asked, not in general but to you, his body even rotating to face you properly.

You nodded, “but acetylsalicylic acid is one of the worst— stomachaches are treated in different ways than other pains because of that.”

“As mere symptoms?”

“Yep, or not as the main focus of the treatment because they’re usually caused by something else.”

Tony pouted childishly, probably because he loved being right, and grumbled something about having to throw up the pill.

“Don’t!” You yelled, walking after him to put a hand on his shoulder. Your mentor turned around, watching you. He looked so tired and sick that you frowned. “Go try to get some sleep, Tony,” you said softly, moving your hand to his forehead to check for a fever. “Once you get up I’ll give you a check-up, okay?”

Tony hummed, “Pep said it’s the flu, though.”

“Stomach flu, probably.”

Humming again, he announced he’d be in bed and asked you all to keep an eye on Morgan. Bucky sighed, watching his now close friend disappear through the hallway before sprinting toward the stairs to go get Morgan.

You sighed too, Tony was whiny when sick and you could only imagine how much Bruce had been struggling with him.

Peter plopped down on the couch, tiredly opening his backpack to do homework. Harry sat in front of him, watching him. The shorter man looked annoyed by something and a lot of things could be the cause but he had a theory. Testing said theory could be dangerous at that moment, but he was too curious not to try.

His eyes found yours. Making a gesture for you to sit down with him, he turned his attention back to Peter. Your best friend watched your movements, even following them. You sat close to Harry, turning to look at him as if to say something.

Harry threw his arm around your neck. “Can you go out tomorrow even if Tony’s sick?”

“It wouldn’t be appropriate,” Peter chimed in.

You lifted an eyebrow at your crush. Tony had a case of the stomach flu, it was painfully obvious and normal by how careless he was sometimes while eating street food. “I can, don’t worry,” you smiled at Harry without showing your teeth, “there’s always someone around here to check on him, and the flu is viral so there isn’t much to do other than keeping him hydrated and rested.” He hummed, relaxing his body so you two would appear to be physically closer.

Bucky offered to help the two young men with their homework and you placed Morgan on your lap, humming when the little girl asked if you would braid her hair. Tony’s daughter ran toward the stairs like Bucky had done earlier to retrieve some hairbands and a brush.

Moving a little farther from Harry, just enough to be comfortable while moving your hands, you started slowly brushing Morgan’s hair with care. The girl asked for as many braids you could do which was a slight pain in the ass but you complied without a negative word, separating the strands meticulously.

Harry’s attention would shift from his homework to the movement of your hands, a few times catching how relaxed the little girl looked on your lap. When Bucky coughed, he went back to paying attention to the Sargent.

You were done rather quickly, now used to braid hair frequently due to how much Morgan asked for the hairdo. Pepper paid a lot of attention to her daughter, but she couldn’t do it all even if she tried so you helped her like you wished someone would have helped your mother.

That early night, after Harry left and before he would go out to do his friendly neighboring thing, Peter told you he needed to talk to you about something important. You hadn’t thought he would tell you something so soon, but he still made himself clear by saying he didn’t think it was a good idea for you to date Harry.

“We’ll see, Pete. It’s too soon to know.” That was your only comment on the topic before leaving the living room in direction to the stairs.

Pepper stayed home to keep an eye on Tony, knowing her husband wouldn’t take care of himself if he didn’t even do it while healthy. Bucky liked spending time with Morgan so he was elated by the fact, and planned an afternoon full of fun activities.

But the Sargent didn’t do any of it without pulling you to the side before you could leave with Harry. You knew what was coming, and you weren’t up for it but sucked it up.

“I just want to make sure you’re comfortable with him, sweetheart.”

You nodded. It wouldn’t be a lie to say you were comfortable, and it wouldn’t be a lie to say Harry treated you just fine, but it definitely wouldn’t count as the truth either. Middle grounds didn’t exist in that situation, and you didn’t want them to. What you truly wanted at that moment was for Bucky to stop looking at you like you’d break at any second, you wouldn’t do it— you couldn’t do it because it would mean showing what happened with Quentin left a mark deeper than anyone knew, it would mean showing a weakness no one around you had ever shown.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yeah,” you nodded again. If the Sargent didn’t believe you, he didn’t show it. He kissed your forehead and wished you good luck like Tony did almost a week ago.

With the weight of having somewhat lied to James, you left Tony’s home-office and strut toward the door. Gwen squealed a ”good luck” too, Peter didn’t even take a glance at you. That weight was on you too, how displeased your best friend and crush was.

❁︎ ・・・・・❁︎ ・・・・・ ❁︎ ・・・・・❁︎

Harry observed you were more silent than usual, and it unnerved him a little bit. You had made progress regarding conversation, on Wednesday you even talked naturally without having to ask questions about the other. It worried him that you had gone back to avoid his eyes and stay quiet when you wouldn’t have time to redo it all.

Walking up to the movie theater’s door, he opened it for you to walk in as you gratefully bowed your head. The movie had been chosen the day before, an independent film you heard was interesting enough to leave The Compound. Harry was fine with it upon hearing the synopsis and the hardest thing to do was finding a place screening it.

The long drive was worth it. He couldn’t remember a time where he felt so comfortable at the movies, or with someone— you weren’t a loud eater and kept your comments to yourself for when the movie had finished. It wasn’t common for you to see that type of movie with someone, your... friends... weren’t into that kind of entertainment and with the lives they had you couldn’t particularly blame them; still, it was nice to have an acquaintance who wasn’t against watching a movie only fifteen minutes longer than the drive to the cinema complex.

A few tears were shed on your behalf at the end of the film. You heard Harry sniff beside her too and he thrust a couple of napkins in your hand. The last time you had gone to the movies with someone, Peter had found a little funny you cried with Bumblebee so Harry’s reaction was shocking to say the least— from what you knew, Harry wasn’t very emotional and that had made you think he didn’t like people who showed to be.

“Do you watch movies like those often?” his question was uttered as you walked back to his car.

“Yeah, usually online because I don’t drive and no one else has the time nor likes them.”

He hummed, pulling on the passenger’s door handle for you to get in. He saw you enter the vehicle from his peripheral view as he crossed the hood, there was a change in your facial expression that made him think you had finally relaxed a little bit.

“I watch any kind of movie as long as it sounds appealing,” you added once he was in the car. “I only avoid the horror genre because I get anxious easily, but if a film is worth the pain I do watch it.”

“Everyone at school thinks you’re stuck up, but you’re the most open and knowledgeable person I’ve met.”

You weren’t sure if it was a compliment or an observation, but you took it as both. “Judgmental biases are more common than we like to admit.”

“Yeah,” he turned the engine on with a sigh. “I used to be like that, to be honest.”

“What changed?”

“It was emotionally damaging.” He didn’t explain anything further on, at least not for a few minutes.

Pulling back to the main avenue that would take you back, he wondered if speaking more openly was a good idea. Harry liked the way his walls were still up, that was one of his reasons to not get too close to people— he would be lying if he said he didn’t want to have someone to talk to freely; Peter couldn’t be that person as much as he loved him, and Harry truly did.

“I was angry all the time,” he continued the explanation. “Because I assumed the worst of people.”

“For what it’s worth, I’m glad you learned from your mistakes. It takes courage to do it.”

“Experience?”

“Plenty,” you lamented with the right side of your head resting on the window as you looked at him drive. He cast you a sideways glance. Getting the hint, you explained yourself too. “My family isn’t averagely normal, and I went through things as a child that turned me into a very cold person. It’s been hard to break out of it, I cave into it from time to time; it’s too damn comfortable not to.”

“Only child, right?”

You hummed, “did the bitter tone give it away?”

“Painfully so.”

Easing the break at a stoplight, he took his cellphone out to make sure his father hadn’t called. The only notification appearing on the locked screen was a text from Gwen, asking if you two were close to getting back. A quick reply of ‘in thirty minutes or so’ was what he typed before dropping the device into the cup holder at his right.

“How are we going to function next week?”

You hummed in thought. You had no clue, the options were limited in every aspect. “We’ll have to improvise.”

The rest of the drive was spent talking about the movie you saw. His phone had dinged in the middle of it but he ignored it, knowing it was either Gwen or Peter because his father didn’t like texting.

Both of you saw two silhouettes near the entrance of The Compound as the car crossed the gates. An idea came to his mind, but he wasn’t sure you’d be up for it. He wasn’t even sure if he himself was, but he leaned more toward the positive answer than he thought you would.

Turning the car off, he immediately gripped your hand so you wouldn’t leave the vehicle. You turned to look at him, a question building up in your throat as you unbuckled your seatbelt. “Kiss me,” he ordered gently.

“W-What?”

He sighed, undoing his seatbelt to lean closer to you. “They’re watching, we both know.”

Pushing yourself slightly upward, you let out a shaky breath before closing the gap between you both, eyes fluttering shut as contact was made. His lips moved softly on top of yours, the taste of the popcorn mixed with chocolate he ate earlier distracted you for a moment as his hand moved up to your cheek. You grasped the front of his shirt, tilting your head a few millimeters to meet his lips fully. Harry’s thumb dug into your neck while he deepened the kiss just enough for it to look realistic.

Kissing Harry Osborn as the light from the gigantic A in front of the compound illuminated the moment wasn’t how you imagined your Friday night would go. You didn’t imagine a knock on the passenger window would interrupt the kiss either.

You pulled back, him unlocking the car so both could leave it and see what was that Peter wanted. Your best friend didn’t look happy, and the fact that Gwen whistled teasingly made him frown.

“Gwen needs a ride to her grandma’s house. Can you take her, Harry?”

“Sure.” Harry craned his neck to his side, where you were standing. “I’ll text you later, okay?”

You nodded, looking up at him. “Drive safe.” He hummed, leaving a light kiss on the side of your head before turning on his heel.

Gwen followed him, waving at you and Peter. Harry didn’t open the door for her, nor waited for her to put the seatbelt on. Harry was actually in a hurry to get out of there, face slightly flushed in front of the lights from the dashboard.

The teasing was coming, he knew the blonde wouldn’t be able to keep it inside for long. He also knew he needed to sound convincing because she would tell Peter everything. But what terrified him to know was that he had enjoyed kissing Peter’s sister figure— he would have continued it even. Maybe Peter knew that too, maybe that was why he interrupted, and maybe by the end of the month, he would be all by himself most of the time again.

“Are things going well between you and (Y/N)?” He hummed as an answer to his best friend’s question, eyes on the road. Gwen watched him. “Pete’s worried.”

“He told me in the morning.”

“I’m worried too,” she mumbled. “You haven’t dated in a while and she’s Peter’s best friend. Also...”

“Also what?” He caught a shrug with his peripheral vision. “Tell me.”

“I’m happy for you two, Harry. And I’m sorry for having a but— but she isn’t right for you and you’re not right for her.”

“Because she’s smarter than me?” he couldn’t keep himself from sounding hurt. Everyone always treated him as if he was less, his dad had done it since he was a kid, Gwen since she met Peter, Peter since he found out his coping mechanisms.

“I don’t know if she is smarter than you,” the blonde quickly said, too quickly to be telling the truth. “But she has deep issues from what everyone’s told me. You’re not the type of person that can deal with that.”

“What can I deal with, then?”

“Someone more open, that’s all.” Gwen felt bad by telling him that, she was aware of how hard it was for Harry to get close to people, and of for how long Peter had told him not to pursue you. Her boyfriend was right by being worried when none of you were ready for a relationship and your pasts showed it.

He didn’t say anything through the rest of the drive. Harry dropped Gwen off and didn’t even wish her a good night. Had his friends been talking about him behind his back? What was Peter telling you about him at that moment?

Swerving into the first parking spot he saw, he took his cellphone out. His fingers hovered over the send button for a few seconds before he decided to simply send it and hope for the best.

Has Peter told you something about me? Like ever.

When your cellphone buzzed in your jean pocket at dinner you withdrew it and carefully looked down at it to not alert anyone. Harry’s question took you aback, and the answer even more.

Nothing other than the usual: you’re his best friend and son of Norman Osborn.

Nothing else? Maybe something in nonchalance like how fucking annoying I am?

You’re not annoying, and no.

Okay.

Gnawing on the inside of his bottom lip, he stared down at the screen. He tested his luck then.

I’ve been thinking about telling my dad I’m dating you, probably tomorrow at breakfast. Can I?

Is that what I should say? What does “dating” even mean? Now that I think about it, it sounds like people are going on dates and seeing what’s up— but from what I know there isn’t a difference...

Colloquially, dating is being in a relationship as partners. But I get what you mean.

So you would tell your father I’m your girlfriend?

Basically.

That was... too much. But you would look like a coward by suddenly taking it all back, you had kissed him earlier for crying out loud!

It’s fine. Thanks for asking beforehand, though.

No problem. I’ll text you tomorrow, have a good night.

Good night.

Locking the device, you went back to your meal. As you lifted your head, you saw Bucky staring at you and quickly took a mouthful of food to distract yourself. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes didn’t move from you until you left the table at the end of the meal.

#ssttt #harry osborn x reader #harry osborn x plus size reader #plus size reader #plus size fanfiction #plus size series #harry osborn series #fake dating au #harry osborn #marvel x reader #marvel x plus size reader #marvel series

[vegetacide]

(TaG - Snippet)

Fandom: Thunderbirds are Go and may have bits of ToS in it.

Pairing: Virgil/Kayo 

Status: Snippet of a bigger work in progress (working title: Cloak and Dagger)

Author’s note:  Ok, so doing something completely outside my confort zone but with some gentle encouragement from @gumnut-logic​  I figured I would do the crazy, leap off a cliff thing.. so here we go.. (please excuse any errors, spelling or grammatical..) 

Terminology 

* NSAIDS - smart way of saying Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs

*-*-*-*-*

Rubbing a hand in a careful circle over the thick pads of his pecs, her encouragement to wakefulness continued  “Come on, love.” 

As the flannel of his shirt caught up slightly her focus shifted. Her deft fingers made short work of of the fastened buttons and she carefully pulled one side back, shaking her head in disapproval.

“Shit, what did you do to yourself this time?” Her words slipped out on a sigh of frustration.  Virgil’s broad chest was swathed in gauze, the bruising already apparent despite the loose binding that circled his chest.  One side was heavily padded with packing and the obvious slash of red was a stark contrast to the clinical white. 

“I’m ok.”

Breath catching,  Kayo looked up at the gruff voice and was greeted by a  hooded, tourmaline gaze. Brow arching is disbelief Kayo sat back on her haunches, the ‘Ya, right. Try that again’  blatant in her expression. 

Stretching, he was careful to catch his wince of discomforted behind a rough swipe of his hand over his face.  Hiding behind the act of rubbing the fog of sleep away, he came to the conclusion that it was easier to capitulate to her silent demand than to continue his charade of denial. That, and he hated worrying her. 

“Bruising,  couple cracked ribs, minor laceration. A round of antibiotics chased with some NSAIDS and icing.”  Shifting he sat up and settled his feet on the floor on either side of her, catching her hands in his as she moved to take a closer look at his injury. 

“I’ll be back up in the air in a couple weeks.”  He brought her fingers up and brushed her knuckles with his lips.  Her eyes narrowing at the distraction, she’d seen his wince of pain and even now as she watched his arm slipped around his torso to brace against his ribs.  

Shaking her head she resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. He knew as well as she, more so even with his extensive medical knowledge that cracked ribs were not something that just healed overnight. 

Stealing her hand back from him, she cupped his cheek and frowned at his tired expression. Her scowl softening as he turned into the contact and placed a kiss on her palm. “What happened?” 

Virgil sighed,  sweeping loose strands of her hair off her face. “Water drop too close the fire break.” He didn’t supply that the 4000 gallons of water he’d been caught up in had sent him on a jolly trip down a ravine. A sharp dip in the landscape where he was promptly introduced to a previously toppled, denuded Douglas fir.   The evidence of that meeting spoke for itself in his beaten body so there was no need to waste the energy vocalizing it..

“Ouch”

“Yup,  that about sums it up.”

“I bet Scott had some choice words for that.”  Kayo supplied as she leaned up and into him, her arms settling around his neck.

“There are some Forestry personnel seriously considering career changes at the moment.” Here he drew her in and kissed her forehead. “That’s once they find a why to extract the size elevens out of their posteriors.”

Kayo winced at that pleasant picture.  Scott angry could be an impressive thing to behold. Scared for his brother and royal pissed off,  that was ‘End of Days’ petrifying. As in, you better hope the world explodes and your well and truly dusted before big brother sets his chilly sights on you.

“Speaking of …where is he?” Her peridot green scanning around.  Even at this hour, the commander of iR and acting president a TI would usually be found at his father’s desk plugging away at some random report or cost analysis what-not. 

Virgil dragged in a breath, held it a moment and let it out on a slow exhale.  Dual purpose to expand his sore rib cage fully and to gather his scattered thoughts accomplished. 

“Bed”

“No way,  at this hour?”

The mmhmm that followed that was loaded. “I convinced him, through no small amount of grief and threat of physical pain, that should he not get some rack time I would tranq his ass.” Kayo was impressed,  getting the great Scott Tracy to concede to something as logical as sleep was no simple task.  It was Virgil though that had made the request but still.. would have been easier to convince John out of orbit…

A sleep tousled head nodded.  “He had a raging tension headache and was sniping at everything with a pulse.”

Kayo had an ‘ah ha’ moment, “That explains why Grandma has fled the island.”  Tracy 1 had curiously been missing from the hanger and there had been no mention of the family Matriarch having mainland plans. 

“I would have tagged along but someone had to be here to keep the island afloat.”  Leaning back against the couch with a groan he dragged her with him.  She acquiesced and settling down beside him, tucked her legs up under herself.  “That and I wanted to warn you that Scottzilla was in residence.”

She chuckled at this and leaning in caught his lips with her own by way of thanks. “Well, my report will hold until he unhulks…dehulks..?”  She blinked as she thought on this.  

Virgil chuckled softly her ear,  his scruff scratching against the sensitive skin reminding her that her lover was a little worse for wear and in dire need of a proper bed and a solid 8 hours horizontal. FAA regulation dictated that duration of sleep as a minimum between long haul flights and though they couldn’t always abide by the rules in this regard - people needing rescuing didn’t prescribe to a schedule - they did their best to at least try to.  

Unsanctioned as they were they still had to keep the GDF happy. Since their Godmother knew where the island was located, Virgil was fairly certain she would ground their asses if there was any outward signs of blatant disrespect for the rules that governed the rest of the planet’s aviation stock.  So to keep their tickets they made sure to toe the line between what was regulation and what was not. 

Taking a moment to enjoy the relative silence the night brought with it, Kayo allowed her head to list to the side and settle on Virgil’s strong, solid shoulder.   Hearing the deep intake of air through his chest as he sighed, Kayo glanced up at his profile.  

“It’s been a shit 48 hours.” 

Brow dropping, Kayo turned his face towards hers.  Looking into his tired face, her thumbing brushing back and forth across his cheek.  “Tell me.” She prompted gently.

TBC?

#thunderbirds fanfiction #thunderbirds 2015 #Virgil Tracy #kayo kyrano #scott tracy #ouch #ibrokehim #oops

[thegoldenlily3]

Part 1of 2

Trigger warning! Graphic photos in this post.

4-6-17 In the very first photo, I have a horrible tooth ache and had no idea the pain and agony it was going to bring. It ultimately changed my life and for a very long time it was changed for the worse. In the photos following, you’ll see me change and look like death and then recover. You’ll see me living life to the fullest but behind closed doors or under my shirt rather, you’ll see how much I’ve had to overcome. This is my story.

On October 30th 2013, I had a colonoscopy and was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis(UC) which is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease(IBD) and an autoimmune disease. I was prescribed Canasa suppositories and my symptoms when away for about a year or so and then came back. I had to get a new Gastroenterologist doctor because my previous one had retired. He wasn’t much help anyway. My new GI doctor was amazing and caring and she saved my life. She prescribed me Lialda(NSAID) and Uceris(steroid).

At the end of March 2017, I had horrible tooth pain and called my dentist and they prescribed me Tramadol and Augmentin. The Tramadol made me sick so I called and had them switch the med and they gave me Clindamycin and that made me sick too. They gave me Hydrocodone and that also made me sick so they just had me taking Ibuprofen and Augmentin. I started to have a bad reaction to the Augmentin and got sores all in my throat and mouth and was throwing up and had severe diarrhea. I finished the antibiotic but went to the er because of the pain in my mouth and the vomiting. Mary’s magic mouthwash was prescribed to me to help with the sores and also nausea meds. The only time I was able to get any sleep was when this mouthwash numbed my mouth and throat. For weeks, I was unable to eat or drink anything nor was I able to take my UC meds and my heart rate was high. I went to the er multiple times during this whole ordeal because I couldn’t stop throwing up and all they would do is give me fluids and nausea meds then send me home. I went to an er and waited for 3 hours all the while throwing up with no end in sight and ended up leaving to go to a different hospital. On April 15th, I was pacing the house back and forth because I was miserable and didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to go to the er yet again for them to just send me right back home. I remember I was pacing by the front door and my husband Issaac went to check the mail. I watched him and then started to say his name over and over because I felt like something was really wrong. Next thing I remember is Issaac kneeling over me and having shoes stabbing me in the back. I had passed out and my eyes were open the whole time but I was unresponsive. Issaac had ran in and thought I was dead. He called 911 and they wouldn’t answer. He used my finger to unlock my phone and dialed 911 and had both phones ringing and finally got an answer. (Fun fact for iPhones: if you press the big button on the side it will call 911 and they can track your location. Dialing 911 will not allow them to track your location.) The ambulance took me to the er and they did 2 EKG’s, CT scan(only after Issaac asked them to because I hit my head when I fell.), chest X-ray, and blood work. I was also tested for CDiff many times but it was always negative. Again, I was given fluids and sent home. They said it was normal for a lot of people to live with an elevated heart rate so they weren’t concerned. A couple days later I went to my primary care doctors office. My doctor was on maternity leave so I saw a different doctor. He did blood work and then wanted me to take depression meds. That was a hard NO! He said I wasn’t getting better because I was depressed about being sick. Yes, I was absolutely miserable and sad about it. BUT, there was something more going on. I wasn’t getting better and I knew it wasn’t my fault. I had to keep advocating for myself because I wasn’t getting help from any of these doctors I’ve seen. I think I went to the er again at some point and was sent home. Then they called me and said my potassium levels were too low and they didn’t think I’d be able to get down the prescribed potassium drink. So we went back to the er. Again. The er wouldn’t take the word of the doctor from another hospital so they did blood work again. We went to a different hospital because the wait at the previous one was way too long. So I received potassium through an iv and that is not comfortable. It burned as it went through my arm. I was also given Magnesium. I was sent home the next day.

Even though the sores were finally gone from my mouth, I was still struggling to swallow. I had my GI doctor schedule an upper Endoscopy which I had done on April 20th. My esophagus had no damage and there wasn’t anything stuck in there. While I was under anesthesia, my GI doctor did a Flexible Sigmoidoscopy. This a colonoscopy but only through a small portion of the colon. It was then that I finally, FINALLY after a month of being so sick that I was admitted to the hospital. My doctor said I looked like I was going to die. She said my colon was so severely inflamed that she couldn’t let me go home even though a patient being admitted after a procedure being done by her makes her look bad. She saved my life and I’m eternally grateful. I had 10 er visits and a scheduled dr visit and none of these doctors thought to have my colon checked knowing that I had UC and continued to show anemia in the blood tests they all ran. It all finally made sense. I wasn’t able to take my UC meds and I was taking 800mg of Ibuprofen for the tooth ache I had. This is what caused my UC to flare up. Why couldn’t 11 doctors put that together?

While I was in the hospital, I received 3 Iron infusions to raise my hemoglobin. I also had a speech therapist come in and she helped me with my throat issue. I was still struggling to swallow and she said that I was protecting my self subconsciously. She worked with me and I was finally able to swallow normally. I was so happy to finally eat a meal without a struggle. I was released 5 days later on April 25th even though I felt I should have stayed. The very next day I woke Issaac up because I was shivering and my teeth were rattling like crazy. My heart rate was 145. Issaac called 911 and we went to the er for the 11th time within a months time. I was put in the observation unit at Methodist which was in the basement because they didn’t have any rooms in the er available. I remember telling a nurse that I needed to go to the bathroom and I wasn’t allowed to get up on my own. She said ok and that she’d be back but when she got back, it was too late...She was gone for a long time. I at least was wearing a hospital gown. I was later put into constant care in the er. My heart rate had gone up to 180 and I was shivering and rattling teeth again. It was uncontrollable and the nurses looked at me like I was faking it. They hooked a heart monitor onto me and suddenly changed their tune because my heart rate was at 200. I believe they gave me aspirin and eventually I was transferred to another room where I waited for a permanent room because I was being admitted again. On April 28, I was admitted and I had another night of the shivering episode with my heart rate at 190. I’m trying to remember what this felt like but I can’t. I was so out of it and not even aware of my surroundings. It was on this day that our grass had been cut and it turned out to be our next door neighbor. We were very thankful for that.

A few days later, my heart rate was around 100 and my hemoglobin was much better. The diarrhea had slowed down so I wasn’t losing as much blood(because of UC) but I wasn’t eating either. I had iv fluids and they wanted me to drink Gatorade but my body was retaining fluids and I was swollen. That was a very weird experience. They did an Echo Cardiogram which turned out to be normal. My ejection fraction was 65% and 55% or above is considered normal. I know this is what they said but I don’t really know what that means. On April 30th, I received a blood transfusion because the retest of my hemoglobin showed 6.6 grams per deciliter and it should be for women between 12-15.5. A blood transfusion is scary. For the first 15 minutes, the nurse has to stay and watch me as I receive the blood to make sure I don’t have any adverse reactions and reject the blood. It turned out to be fine and I received at least a pint of blood. I feel I received another pint but I can’t remember. So I’ve been in the hospital for 10 days so far and I’ve been taking a steroid called Prednisone this whole time to treat my UC. I was also on morphine for the pain. I received physical therapy to help me walk but they were 3 days late. It turned out that there wasn’t an order for pt even though the doctors mentioned it every time they visited. On May 2nd, I was in severe pain and I went about 4 hours or longer without pain meds. The doctor was supposed to call them in and ended up leaving for the day without doing it. The next day, my bloodwork still showed inflammation so my colon wasn’t responding to the Prednisone. All the Prednisone did was make my head hurt sooo bad. I was taking Tylenol for it and it did nothing. My head hurt non stop for many days. I had warned them that Prednisone wouldn’t treat me right. I had taken it before and it made me so dizzy I had to have Issaac drive me home from work. This time it was just the severe head pain.

On May 5th 2017, I’m still in the hospital but I’m about to be released. For some reason my doctor was switched to a different doctor. This doctor decided to schedule for a colonoscopy. They gave me the bowel prep to drink with some clear Gatorade. This stuff was horrible. I’m supposed to drink it all within an hour and every minute of it sucked. I somehow managed to get it all down at the end of the hour. But then...I adjusted my body very slightly, and I threw it all up! I didn’t know it was coming and I had zero time to prepare for it. I just threw it all up all over my gown and in my gown and all over the blankets. I said to them, “I don’t understand why I have to do this. I have had severe diarrhea and I can’t even eat. There’s nothing in my stomach.” But they made me do the prep again... This time I drank it over the course of like 4 hours and managed to get it down without throwing up. I had the colonoscopy which they said went fine...I was still severely inflamed and they wanted to start me on a biological medicine called Humira and continue the steroids. During a colonoscopy, they insert a colonoscope into your bottom that transmits an image of the lining of the colon. The scope blows air to expand the colon so the doctor can see better. Well, after the procedure I was actually feeling alright but I had so much pressure in my belly and I felt like I needed to poop. I tried over and over to go on the toilet and it just wasn’t happening. But finally, it happened. And I was in bed...The nurses hadn’t been in for a long time and didn’t plan to be in for awhile. I was so embarrassed that I had Issaac clean me before they came in. Imagine a father changing a dirty diaper and gagging the whole time. This was Issaac and he kept running to the toilet afraid he was going to puke. To this day, we still laugh about it. It doesn’t matter how horrible the whole experience was, I can still laugh about it. Later that day, I was feeling a lot of pain and they had moved me to a different room with closer care. I remember this floor had some of the best nurses I’d ever had. Hospital policy was that a patient was to be bathed when changing floors. Issaac stood out in the hall as they transferred me from one bed to the other. This was an out of body experience and I can remember it so vividly. As they raised me off the bed, I started screaming in pain and continued to moan in pain after they transferred me to the new bed. I didn’t have any pain meds but I shouldn’t have been in pain. They were ordered not to give me pain meds because the doctor wanted me to be clear headed when they talked to me. I could tell the nurses felt so badly for me because of how much pain I was in. Issaac could hear me screaming down the hall. i was finally given multiple doses of morphine but it didn’t really touch the pain. I then had a CT scan done to see why I was in so much pain. The CT showed air outside of my colon which meant that the doctor had perforated my bowel during the colonoscopy. They started me on antibiotics and said a surgeon would be in to speak with me about possibly removing my entire colon. The surgeon came in and discussed my options. I either stuck with the antibiotics and steroids to see if I heal or I have the surgery. They said it was very unlikely that my colon would recover because there wasn’t any good colon left. I would have had to take a biological medicine for my UC which meant that my immune system would be even weaker and I wouldn’t be able to work in the Microbiology lab where I was currently employed. Even then, there was a slim chance of recovery. She said that even if I didn’t have a perforation, that this surgery was inevitable in my case. I cried and cried and cried. I asked her if I would still be able to have children and she said yes and that she would put extra tissue around my ovaries to protect them. A lot of people said I should get a second opinion but I wasn’t in that state of mind. All I could think about was being able to have children. I also did not want to be on medicine for the rest of my life.

On May 6th 2017, I decided to have the surgery. I had a total abdominal colectomy and an ileostomy surgery. My entire larger intestines was removed and they pulled my small intestines outside my stomach wall and created what’s called a stoma. The stoma is covered with a bag that has adhesive on it to stick to my skin. I essentially poop in a bag. I wish I remember more from this time. I can’t remember what it was like waking up to this. I do remember emptying my bag into the toilet though when I was finally able to walk. I couldn’t go alone though. I had to call the nurse every time I wanted to use the bathroom and there was an alarm on the bed if I tried to get up. One time I let it go off and went anyway because I had called them saying I need to go to the bathroom and they took too long. I don’t blame them. Each nurse had way too many patients to care for. At this point, my arms were completely black from all of the blood draws and IVs I received. Each nurse that came to draw my blood was so confident that they could get it even though I told them they wouldn’t be able to without the ultra sound machine. I had a nurse poke me 3 times and one of those times was in my thumb. Every time, they always had to call the team with the ultra sound to draw my blood. I had a Russian nurse for a few days and she was really hard to understand as her accent was strong. My issue with her was that she wouldn’t listen to me and would disagree with everything I said. I had been in the hospital for a few weeks so I knew what to do and I knew what my body could handle. I also had a male nurse who led me to ask my case manager if I could only have female nurses. I didn’t have a problem with the fact that he was a man. My problem was that he was too rough and he probably didn’t know it. I didn’t blame him for that but it was hurting me unnecessarily. He also forced me to walk to the bathroom on my own without help when I wasn’t supposed to be alone. I started taking walks with a walker through the halls after getting pt. Everyone who passed me cheered me on. It was extremely hard. They say every day you spend in bed is 3 days off of your life expectancy. I had been in bed for basically a month or so. After this surgery, I was on a morphine pump which I controlled and Oxycodone. The oxy kept me loopy. I was on 15 mg every dose. I hated taking it. I didn’t worry as much with the morphine as it didn’t really work for me. It helped give me relief for a few minutes but then faded. I pushed that pump button every time I was able to though. It was every 15 minutes. On May 12th, I finally went home.

Through the next couple of weeks, I had follow up appointments with my GI doctor and my surgeon. When I went to see my GI doctor, I told her about some pain I was having on my bottom. The pain from it made it very hard to walk or move or even sleep. She said it looked like an abscess but to confirm with my surgeon. So I went to see my surgeon and for some reason on that day I was pain free and happy so she didn’t think it was concerning. On May 26th I went to the er for the 12th time. I had a fever and was in so much pain. The er took me back immediately since I had just had surgery and they feared I was septic. It turned out to be an abscess and they took me into surgery to drain it. I was given anesthesia because of how much pain I was in. Thankfully I wasn’t septic and this turned out better than they originally thought. I guess since I was on steroids for so long, my body wasn’t able to fight off an infection so the abscess was very large and inflamed. I received another unit of blood and I still had a fever for a few days. The antibiotics were making me sick and I was really struggling to eat. Between the beginning of April and it now being the end of May, I had lost 30 pounds unintentionally. May 31 2017, I was released from the hospital for the third and final time.

Over the next few weeks, I was walking around the neighborhood and family and friends were coming to help care for me so Issaac could go back to work. I started to taper off the Oxy and that was not fun. I was taking such a high dose that I would nod off mid conversation. When I would wake, I would feel like I slept for hours when it was really only minutes and I would get upset because I was so tired and never really got rest. Even though I was high, I remember how I felt and the things I did. I remember trying to dance with Issaac in the kitchen when he was walking me through the house. I remember contacting people on fb that I hadn’t talked to in a long time. All I wanted to do was talk. I was oddly cheerful and accepted my situation. Anyone who really knows me knows that I am a half glass empty kind of person so this was unusual for me. I didn’t realize all of this until after I tapered off the oxy. My Dad was the only person who told me he was worried that when I came down, I would not feel the same. He knew that it wasn’t really me. I remember going to the ball park to watch a softball game with family and I ended up having to leave because I was in pain and I didn’t bring the Oxy with me. I started to cry because I was so embarrassed and sad that I wasn’t strong enough yet to be at one of my favorite places in the world. On June 18th, I was tapering and I had to have Issaac come home because I was feeling horrible and I couldn’t stop crying about it. I called him because I was home alone at this point because I could finally walk to the bathroom alone and make my own food. So I had to call in another order of Oxy to taper down slower because I was trying to go too fast and I was having withdrawal symptoms. I really don’t know why anyone would want to go through that. Eventually, I was completely off the Oxy and I was so happy to not have any withdrawal symptoms.

So Issaac went back to work after spending every single day with me in the hospital. I didn’t have short term disability because there was some confusion when we signed up for insurance together. I tried to appeal and it was denied Mid June, people from work hosted a bake sale at work to raise money for me. Just thinking about it brings tears to my eyes. I never felt that I had people in my life who cared enough to do something like this. Someone also created a go fund me page as well. I was overcome with shame, shock, and most importantly gratitude for such amazing acts of kindness. Issaac handed me the money that was raised and I just lost it. I was so emotional and just couldn’t believe that this was real life. I feel like this whole ordeal is something you hear about happening but never think that it’ll happen to you. Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who contributed to raising money and helping me get better and for all of the continuous prayers during this time.

July 4th 2017, I finally returned to work. You can see through all of the photos around this time and the rest of the year that I was enjoying life the best I could. In October 2017, I started to have issues with my skin under my bag. This became an issue off and on for over a year. I had been using the same brand of products since surgery for a year and then all of a sudden I couldn’t use it anymore without having an allergic reaction. My skin would start weeping and oozing and was extremely itchy. It also burned badly which over powered the itchiness. Throughout the year of 2018 I struggled with this a lot but I still went on living. The photos I provided are to show how one day I’m very low spirited and the next day I’m blissful. And I was. I was very blessed to enjoy time with family and to go on vacation with Issaac to the Niagara Falls and to go Gen Con. Gen Con was really hard. There was so much walking and I was so weak and still hadn’t built muscles back up. If I stood on my tippy toes, I would fall over from the pain in my calves. Standing outside in the food truck lines was the worst. The heat was making me sweat and interfering with the adhesive of my ostomy bag. Little did I know that this incident would make my skin worse than it ever was before. The photos are a reminder to me of what I’ve overcome. I wanted to create a timeline and show myself how strong our bodies really are. If you’ve read this far, thank you. Part 2 will be posted soon.

#ileostomy #colectomy #surgery #daily life #health #poopinabag #nocolonstillrollin #nofilter #life is brutal #my life #my story #my photos #ostomyawareness #ostomybag #ostomy #crohns #autoimmunewarrior #inflammatory bowel disease #ulcerativecolitissurvivor #ulcerativecolitisfighter #ulcerativecolitis #hiddenillness #mental health #positive mental attitude #pma #ibd #indiana #indianapolis #stoma #innerstrength

[whumpqhs]

Whumptober alt #6: Lost

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

"Looks like he's going to make it."

The words shouldn't have made her happy. Looking down at the guard as his eyes started to blink open, she should have felt like a failure, but the shame just wouldn't come. She shifted over a little so that, still kneeling at his side, she could ease one of his heavy arms over her shoulders. Across from her, another medic did the same. They counted together, and lifted together, voices in unison: "One, two, three." Suddenly the dead body on the floor was standing and stumbling, with a lot of help, over to the nearest medical bed. Assessing him and hanging his fluids from something other than her shoulder was a fantastic way not to have to think. She knew what to do for this patient, and right now, that was all that was important.

"We need labs. CBC, CMP, and troponin and creatinine levels. Whatever you have on the formulary for an NSAID, too, in case I'm right. Looks like an MI but we need the tests to know for sure..." She helped them as they repositioned him in bed, moving him up and covering him with blankets, giving orders as if she were still back home. He was hazy, out of it. She patted his shoulder. "We've got you, man, we're doing everything possible to help you. How's your pain?"

"Re... really bad..."

"Yeah? Like what number?" She looked across the bed to the one who'd been helping her lift and transfer. "Hey, I need morpha, and a syringe."

"Here."

The way they just handed it to her should've made her uneasy. It should've signaled something, the way they trusted her. It didn't. All it signaled in that moment was that she could help her patient not hurt so much. "Pushing two units and hanging the rest as a driver, as soon as I draw off these labs—you got vials?"

"Here."

“Thanks. They don’t let me put stuff in my pockets… I don’t even know if I can chart on him, he’s a guard.”

“I’ll get it. Next time, we’ll trade, and I’ll be on his IV side, okay?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Next time.

The effect was almost instantaneous: as she pushed the first dose, her patient started to relax, settling down. His heart rate dropped into normal limits. Sonora couldn’t contain a smile as she hung the remainder of the syringe and keyed the flow rate into his IV pump. Her mind was calm and, despite her moral objections, awash with the familiar, soft, effervescent feeling of a good code winding down. Stepping away to scrub out brought her right in front of Keeper, and she expected some kind of harsh correction as he reached toward her.

His hand settled on her shoulder, soft pressure, no pain. “Good job, Epi.”

Epi.

This was bad.

But it didn’t feel bad… it felt good. She felt like she was flying, veins rushing with adrenaline, like she was doing what she was always meant to do. Who cared about a guard? He’d finish his career in this place, especially after what looked like a massive heart attack. That was a life, wasn’t it? She saved a life.

A Republic life.

Who was he before he was a prison guard? Did he see active duty? Did he kill Imperials, like her? Whose revenge could it have been if she’d let him go? But even as they walked her down to the break room and let her get crappy junk food out of the vending machine, like a real person, she couldn’t make herself feel bad. Bad wasn’t the right word. Even later, when it started to change from a good feeling to a bad one, it wasn’t guilt that crept in. It wasn’t shame, either; it was something cold and empty.

Loneliness. She’d never felt so far from other people, so directionless and utterly lost. Who was she? She couldn’t be Republic. She couldn’t bring herself to defect, not even after saving one of theirs. Was she really Imperial anymore, after today? Did living here as a prisoner count as being under duress? Even if it did count, would Intelligence believe her that she hadn’t wanted to do it? Would they believe her when she said she regretted those compressions? How could they, when she didn’t even believe the words herself? She walked to the door of her cell and knocked, determined to get her mind off of this.

“Yeah?” It was one of the other medics this time, not a guard or an SIS agent. She recognized him: he’d been in on the code. Perfect.

“I forgot to chart something. Can I borrow a datapad?” “Forgot” was the pleasant word for how Keeper had dragged her off the floor and insisted on her getting some rest. Although, she’d slept another ten hours after he forced her to drop her charting and go, so she had to admit he was a little bit right.

“I have to watch you,” he warned.

“Yeah, of course.” She nodded, and took it when it was handed over. But as she settled down, she noticed that he wasn’t insisting on being able to see the screen. She typed in the guard’s name from before, and sighed dramatically at the lockout screen that popped up.

“What’s going on?”

“Oh, you know. Access denied, all that. This is so frustrating, I forgot to get any of my documentation in… and now…”

“Here, let me see.” She handed it over to him, watching as he typed in some kind of override code and passed it back. “There you go, should work fine now.”

The guard’s chart came up without a problem. She grinned. “Thanks!”

“Yeah, no problem.”

Unfortunately, charting didn’t take that long, and the loneliness came right back as soon as her mind was free. She signed off on the note, checked the lab values—the most recent round wasn’t back yet, but the initial set pointed to cardiac arrest—and was about to log out and hand it back when she noticed the treatment team listed.

Her name was there, but so were his nurses from the previous shift… his attending provider… and Keeper’s face, next to his designation, Rongeur, and a string of abbreviations. She clicked on it, and his file opened up instead. It took a lot of restraint not to gasp. Sonora carefully scrolled down, looking through the notes, commendations, letters. It all looked regular, legitimate… seamless. A little too seamless. She finally found the clue under his history, in a list of previous meds.

Dimallium 6. 

Sonora frowned. Only one use for that: Castellan restraints. Conditioning. She paused, reaching out to touch the word with a fingertip. When she did, a dialogue box popped up.

Open previous encounter for this med?

She hesitated at first, but then reached out again, tapping the screen.

Yes.

Enter override code:_____________

Sonora frowned, then looked up and took a chance. “Hey, can you put that code in again? It won’t let me in the MAR.”

For one terrifying moment, as she handed him the datapad and let him put in the code, she realized what a terrible mistake she’d made. It could all be over, her entire life, and for what?—to look up his records? Why, when he was the enemy?

...but was he really the enemy? She had to know.

“Here, should work, it looked like it took the code.” She had to stifle a sigh of relief as he handed it back without really looking.

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“I thought I saw the dose in the MAR already,” he said.

“I charted against the override. Had to fix it.”

A little sound of acknowledgement and a half-said “Ah yeah that’s annoying” was the extent of his protest. She peered into the encounter, eyes scanning, fingertips tapping to make it look like she was working on the MAR. But when she finally found the notes from the conditioning, her hand slowed. The notes were in reverse order, working backwards into the past with the most recent ones first: progress updates following his rehabilitation, implantation of new memories… and down at the bottom, she found a brief AAR about his capture… but nothing about him defecting. Frowning, Sonora worked back up from the AAR, going over everything again. Had she missed one?

She finally found the answer that she was terrified of, in the transcript from his last interrogation.

---

SIS: Last chance, Vael. You can tell us everything you know, or we’ll start cutting off fingers.

PRISONER: Do it. I don’t care.

SIS: You know you’re the sole survivor, right? All the other agents, they’re gone.

PRISONER: Like I believe that.

[Electroshock applied. Several deep cuts made to abdomen. No new information.]

SIS: What’s so special about them that you won’t talk? Even when you’re here for life, even with them dead?

PRISONER: That’s… my team… I’m… the medic… gotta take care of them.

SIS: They’re gone, Vael! They’re dead. What’s stopping you?

PRISONER: Because… th-they’re my… family. I love… them… and even... even if they’re gone, I... I... I’m not gonna l-let them down.

SIS: Oh, you’re gonna let them down, Vael. You just don’t know it yet.

[Session terminated. Will begin selective treatment with dimallium immediately. Keyword to reverse conditioning in case of emergency: Aurek Five System Yellow Seventeen.]

---

For a little while, she sat quietly, rereading the note. Then rereading it again. Memorizing the code. Finally, she backed out of the chart and handed it to the man at the door. 

“Hey, it freaked out on me or something. Started opening a bunch of other pages, I had to shut it off. I’ll finish charting tomorrow.”

He nodded, tucking the datapad away as she turned back to her bed, stretching out. As she drifted to sleep, the words from the code echoed in her mind:

What could I have done to save one of mine?

#whumptober2019 #altno.6 #lost #emotional whump #torture mention #Bitter Medicine #swtor #imperial agent

[reedtoknowbasis]

I’m so overwhelmed right now. I had to stay in the hospital at the beginning of the month because stress + medication changes made me suicidal. While I was there, there was a mix up with the pharmacy and I didn’t get my NSAID, so I was in the most pain I’d ever been in. The nurses said that it’s ridiculous that I’m not on SSDI yet. I have to agree with them because if I could afford physical therapy things would be much better!

When I got home, our housemate had left a big mess, and he flushed paper towels, so our toilet wasn’t working. I had to stay at my mom’s because our landlord wouldn’t send a plumber right away.

When we got home, my fiancé cleaned the bathroom, which is good because I’ve been having panic attacks lately and don’t think I could have handled that. But the rest of our house is really messy since we haven’t been home much. But, for some reason my left knee is in really bad shape. Like, I started crying when I rolled over in bed because of it. So I don’t know how I’m going to get things cleaned up, even with my fiancé’s help.

I’ve gained 40 pounds in the last two years and I want to be able to go for walks and clean and do things so I lost that weight again. Part of the reason my med changes were so drastic was because one of my doctors wants me to go off any med that causes weight gain (I’m always taking 4-5 meds at a time for my various illnesses).

My mom keeps telling me my house is messy too. The reason she was at my house is that I almost killed myself, so clearly that wasn’t a normal week for me. And she wasn’t offering to help me clean or anything either. She just keeps saying how messy it is. What am I supposed to do? I can barely get to the bathroom with my knee like this. I almost fell several times.

I also want to go back to work, but I don’t see that happening. I think I’m going to just go in and meet with my manager and try to explain what’s been happening. Maybe she’ll talk to the social security people on my behalf that I can’t work for long stretches at a time. I’m also lonely. I’m always sick, so I don’t see friends often. Most of my friends live in the next town over, so it’s a painful 45 minute car ride to get to them.

Oh, and on top of everything, I think I’m coming down with the flu.

#rants #suicide tw #medication tw

[kaylaknetzer-blog]

No One Is Talking About IT!

It is bewildering to think that only a little over two months has passed since I experienced my miscarriage. I have felt pain on a level that i never knew existed in that time frame and it seems like a small forever has spanned out from then to now. I have found myself feeling more sorrow in the past week or so over the baby that I long so badly, each and every day, for. I remember the very day I found out that I was pregnant. I couldn’t quite keep it to myself...or even to under a few dozen others. My husband was uncomfortable with my oversharing and many of the people I shared with urged me to keep it to myself. “It’s so early...you never know.” In my heart I knew that something wasn’t quite right...but did that make my baby any less there at the time? If I lost the baby would it mean my baby should be any less celebrated? My answer was no. It is still no honestly. I still refrained from sharing my news on social media and with anyone but close family and friends. I think I believed that the more private my pregnancy was the more painless my loss would be. That was one of the largest fallacies of my life. The day that baby was “lost” the number of people aware of its existence could have been in the billions and it wouldn't have added or subtracted from my intensive pain, my anger, or my grief. That baby will forever be apart of who Jared and I are...and because he or she never made it to our arms doesn't mean they will ever vanish from our hearts, our minds, or our lips. In actuality all of the people I withheld my pregnancy from still were told of my loss. I watched on the news yesterday about a celebrity that was sharing her pregnancy loss to end the stigma of miscarriage and it was as if God was trying to slap me to grab the attention my sadness as of late failed to. I felt my head nodding in agreement with this woman. Why is miscarriage so taboo? Even more so why is pregnancy a secret until miscarriage seems almost impossible? I felt like no one on this earth had gone through what I was going through because NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT! No one is telling anyone that your paper work is going to have the word abortion written all over it as they use miscarriage and abortion as synonyms in the medical field. No one is telling anyone that you have to make a HUGE decision on how you are going to “complete your loss”, which means how you are going to have your baby exit your body in a condition you never in your most gruesome nightmares expected he or she to. I remember telling Jared on the way to see my Dr. that I would absolutely not take the medication that speeds up the process (known to some as the abortion pill). I was in between letting it happen naturally or having a D&C (practically an abortion). Looking back I’m not sure why I was so dead set against it...I would imagine my obsessive research. I did not want a D&C. I didn’t want to have surgery...I didn’t want to force nature. I truly wanted nature to just take its course so I could mourn fully. I had been told my Dr. was going to strongly encourage that I have the D&C. He examined me and performed something “to save me from a surgery” that felt similar to someone pulling my insides out with a pair of tongs...it must have looked similar to that also as Jared started to lose consciousness. I remember trembling in such pain that I couldn’t even focus on the fact that he was being laid on the floor beneath what probably looked like a murder scene on my exam chair. Immediately my doctor performed an ultrasound on a portable machine. My eyes felt like they would pop out of their sockets...because for the very first time I saw the profile of my baby on the screen. I felt like I was being tricked either then or that I had been tricked at the last ultrasound that confirmed my baby was measuring at five weeks when it should be at least ten weeks. I immediately felt hope rush into my heart as I told my Doctor that I had never seen the baby more clear and that this image was in no way similar to any that I had seen before. He assured me that it didn’t change the prognosis. He circled where my baby’s heart should be beating and i sat almost lifeless focusing on the area begging God for it to flutter even slightly...It didn’t. My Dr. Told me how much pain was ahead of me and I shrugged it off and even told Jared as he regained his color that there was no possible way anything was going to be more painful that what I had just gone through in that office...this being another great fallacy. He sent in an Rx for misoprostol and hydrocodone. I mocked the hydrocodone because I took it maybe once for my wisdom teeth surgery and switched to a heavy NSAID because It was unnecessarily strong. While the medicine was being filled I checked in at work and prepared sub plans for the next day. On the way to pick up the meds I started to feel it...something else no one is talking about...contractions. Publix pharmacy is one of the worst operations that I still give my business to and in their normal ball dropping manner told Jared that they don’t fill electronic prescriptions until the next business day. I leaned across and told the pharmacy tech that I needed the medicine five minutes ago and asked when it could be ready. His eyes widened as they met mine, swollen and raged. He told us to give him an hour. The plan was for Jared to help me into the bath and go back to publix to get a rotisserie chicken and my medicine. I was in the bath for maybe ten minutes when I came to the realization that I was going to die and should probably get down stairs so that my mother could pay witness to my death. I glanced at my reflection as I pulled myself from the bath. Every single vein that the lord placed behind my face was bulging in a way that assured me they would bust. I somehow got dressed and down most of the stairs before another contraction hit and I sat down on a step and started screaming. My mother, who is on 24 hour oxygen, made it to the stairway in record time and I could see it all over her face...fear. She laid me on the couch and I screamed out in not only agony but in anger too. “Why God? Why even allow me to become pregnant to have it end this way? “ were only a couple of exerts from the conversation I was having in my head with my maker. My mother had to wrap our couch in plastic because my bleeding was beyond the capabilities of one of those huge mattress sized maxi pads that you could assume are used for diapers. I eventually just moved to our downstairs bathroom because it was easier than changing them every two minutes (that is an exact amount of time not to be confused with an exaggerated time frame at all). Jared was home shortly after that and was nervously shredding the rotisserie chicken at an almost robotic like speed. My mother was trying to feed me peanut butter toast so that I could take the medicine without it making me sick. Jared told me later that I was screaming, “I don’t want to die! Somethings wrong! I’m going to die!” He had moved into the bathroom at this point and was preparing to take me to the hospital as he wasn’t sure that I was not in fact dying. Then it happened. The Euphoria that you hear about after labor and delivery washed over me. I realized that I needed it to happen the way that It did. That sonogram would have haunted me more than it already does if I had taken the medicine. I would have felt like i forced my loss and its difficult enough without those feelings of responsibility. That is something else no one is talking about...feeling guilty over something you would have given anything to prevent. I called the emergency line at my OB and they told me to still take both medications to hopefully bring the bleeding to an end. It didn’t. I remember laying in bed exhausted and crying to Jared that I was terrified to go to sleep because I believed with all of my heart that I had lost too much blood and that I wouldn’t wake up. He caressed my head until I fell out of consciousness. I had an entirely different conversation with God when I woke up the next morning. I was overjoyed that I would be able to hold my husband and my boys again. I was so grateful for the opportunity to be able to see my mom again. I don’t know that I would have made it through the most agonizing 45 minutes of my life without her. No one is going to tell you that you have to go back to the Dr. for them to confirm you aren't pregnant anymore and that even though it was never a question after what you went through it is still terribly difficult to hear. My body is just now starting to get back to the way it was pre pregnancy. No one is talking about the fact that just because you aren't rocking your sweet blessing you are still very much postpartum and there will be many reminders of that in the coming weeks. NO ONE IS TALKING ABOUT MISCARRIAGE! So I’m talking to you out there...the moms who feel alone in your grief because you feel no one understands or surely you would have heard their story. You are loved and you are anything but alone! Tell your story to anyone that will listen. You will never know if you are talking to a woman who will need that story someday in her moment of profound grief. I so wish someone had told me their story before I lived out mine. This is my story...It isn’t pretty and some parts are grotesque, even, but they happened and they happen to so many other woman just no one is talking about IT!   

The day I lost my baby. 

A little over a month later during our reset trip, wearing the ring I purchased with the babies peridot birthstone. 

[thatsnicebutimmarried]

A rather unexpected difference between (cis) men and women came to my attention recently: knowledge about common painkillers.

Last week I was at my boyfriend’s apartment when the need for painkillers arose. I don’t remember exactly why, probably the weather triggering a migraine, but anyway I didn’t have any with me and asked my boyfriend what he had. The following is my approximation of the conversation that followed between me, a 25-year-old woman, and my boyfriend, a 25-year-old man:

Bf: (looking through his medicine cabinet) Ummm, I’ve got Advil and ibuprofen.

Me: Tylenol would be better but that’s fine. Give me either, they’re the same thing.

Bf: I know they’re both NSAIDs but I think they might be a little differ—

Me: No, they’re literally the same thing, one is just the brand name. (Holding out hand at this point for the pill bottle.)

At this point my boyfriend takes one of the bottles down and starts reading the dosage instructions.

Bf: I’m checking to see how many you can take.

Me: Two. (still holding out hand)

Bf: Well it says you’re supposed to take one, but you can take two if—

Me: You can take two. It’s fine. (My head is really starting to hurt so I pretty much straight up grab the pill bottle out of his hand.)  

Bf: Are you sure—

Me: Darling, I’m a girl. I have been regularly taking painkillers once a month since I was 12. I know how the dosage works.

Even as I was taking the pills my sweet boy was still reading over the dosage and safety information. And it occurred to me that he has never had to use painkillers enough to know that sometimes you can just skip straight to two, instead of taking one and then taking another later if the first doesn’t help.

Looking further back, I shouldn’t be surprised. In my senior year of high school we had a semester long health class that was taught by a P.E. teacher who, looking back, was probably younger than I am now. He was a woefully adequate example of the old joke “Those who can’t do, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach gym.”  He did the best he could with that class, and teaching in general, and a couple years later left teaching to go to seminary. One day in this class we were talking about different types of painkillers and what each kind is best for.

Teacher: So things like acetaminophen (Tylenol), are good for things like headache or backache, whereas things like advil, aleve (ibuprofen, naproxen sodium) are good for pain related to inflammation or muscle pain, so muscle cramps.

At this point I helpfully pointed out in case any were unaware that while you could take Tylenol and advil together, you couldn’t take two different NSAIDs at the same time. So you could mix tylenol and advil, but not advil and aleve.

The teacher then gave me a confused look, and asked why anyone would want to mix them in the first place. “You just take Tylenol if you have a backache and Advil if you have stomach cramps.”

He said this to a classroom full of 17-18 year old girls. No one else in the room required an explanation as to why someone might want to take a painkiller that was good for backache at the same time as a painkiller that was good for muscle cramps.

I was unable to respond. I was too dumbfounded by the realization that this grown man inhabited a world where it had never occurred to him that anyone might have need to take painkillers that specialized in two different types of pain at once. The idea that someone might need to treat backache and muscle cramps at the same time, with enough urgency to start mixing painkillers, was a foreign concept to him.

It occurs to me that most men I know who are young enough not to have developed old-people pains (joint pain, arthritis, all that jazz) have to read dosage instructions, they have to ask or check how often they can take a painkiller. How many hours until another one of these?

Most women I know are a little more knowledgeable about painkillers. I can tell you how many hours between Tylenol doses, how many between Advil, how many between Aleve. When to go for Excedrin or aspirin.  What you can take at the same time. Why?

Periods.

[letterstocora-blog]

My Battle with Endometriosis

“Hope Runs Deep for a World Without Endometriosis”

Besides Cora’s birth story, this is probably the most emotional blog post I’ll write, and to be honest I am not sure where to begin. I guess I will literally start at the beginning, in order to understand my battle you have to know everything. Even the years leading up to my diagnosis that doesn’t seem like it has anything to do with it, it does. All the doctor’s visits trying to write me off & hand me prescriptions for something I didn’t need. I had never heard about Endometriosis until I was 14. My older sister had had surgery to remove either lesions or cysts off of her fallopian tubes. Now that I think about it I remember having to take trips to the ER when I was younger, for my sister because her periods were so bad prior to her finding out about Endometriosis. I remember getting the information from my mom about my sister suffering from this disease, and they had not had a lot of further information about it, only that she may not be able to have children.

I remember thinking at 14, well if she can’t have kids if she ever wanted me to, I would carry for her, not knowing I would be suffering the same fate eventually.

From the time I started my period I remember it being so bad that I would miss school for days on end every month for the heaviness of my cycle, and the amount of pain I would be in, that I just assumed were the normal cramps. Among other reasons, when I was 15 I went on birth control because of the way I would bleed and the pain I would be in. I went on the pill and was on it up until the time I was 21. During the time I was on birth control I would be going back and forth to my General Practitioner for side effects I didn’t realize until after, the birth control was giving me. I can’t really explain the symptoms, but I just didn’t feel “right.” I was always feeling a little off. I would suffer from these panic attacks that would be brought on by literally NOTHING. I was having chest pains, thought I was having a heart attack, I was anxious all of the time and my attitude was on a new level. My sleeping was getting screwed up, my eating habits changed for the worse, I was losing weight. I went from 130lbs to 98 quickly. My doctors just told me I was depressed and gave me anti-depressants.

It was very hard to deal with the fact I was “depressed” because I would hear constantly, “what do you have to be depressed about?’ ‘Oh, you have such a hard life’” It literally made me feel worse than I already did. I didn’t know why I was depressed; I didn’t want to be depressed at 18. Seeing everyone going out and being social and putting themselves out there and all I wanted to do was lay in my bed and isolate myself from everyone, so that’s what I did.

During that time, in 2008, I had an unfortunate emergency surgery because my appendix was leaking toxins into my system. I remember the pain being so onset and excruciating that it woke me up from my sleep. I literally thought it was cramps since I was going to get my period later on that week. My appendix was so inflamed that it was in the middle of my abdomen and needed to come out right away. At the time, there was no evidence of the endometriosis at all. I didn’t know until years after that because I was on birth control for so long, it actually kept the endometriosis from progressing which is why during that surgery there were no signs of it, only the inflamed appendix.

After that surgery, I stopped taking the anti-depressants because I was getting side effects from them also. After stopping those, I actually felt better. I felt like myself again. I want to say it was maybe 7 months until I was back at the doctors for the same anxiety attacks, same sleeplessness, and same symptoms all over again. They tried giving me a different anti-depressant, I lasted 3 days. I refused to believe it was depression, I knew something else was wrong I just didn’t know what.

It wasn’t until I really started to do my research about the birth control pills I was on that I realized; maybe I am having a hormone imbalance because of the extra hormones the birth control had been pumping into me the past 7 years. So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and I stopped the birth control. My boyfriend at the time (husband now) wasn’t happy about me going off the birth control because we didn’t want to be expecting a baby any time soon, but he had seen firsthand the struggles I was going through because of the doctors giving me the run around, but agreed it was what was best for me.

When I got off the birth control, the first year & half I really don’t have any complaints about. My periods were definitely heavier than when I was on the birth control, but not as bad as they had been prior. My mood seemed to have been better and I felt so much happier. Slowly, I felt like I was getting my life back together. I was going to cosmetology school, I was so motivated, I felt like I could take on the world and I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt like that. Then history started to repeat itself on me…

I remember one day being at work and feeling that same excruciating pain I felt when my appendix was leaking. I had to leave work and was rushed to the ER. They did scans and all types of tests to find nothing; they just gave me some pain killers through my IV and sent me on my way, and told me to follow up with my GYN. I followed up with my GYN and he told me most likely it was a ruptured cyst because those were all of the symptoms. I explained to him my sisters’ history of endometriosis and all of the symptoms and he told me, since I have a sister that has it, there was a possibility but the only way to tell was surgery, which I wasn’t going to have for no reason.

I started getting chronic lower back pain that I never experienced before along with my periods becoming HEAVY. I was popping more than the recommended amount of any and every type of NSAIDS along with Midol’s for the pain which did absolutely nothing, not even take the edge off. The back pain started to linger even when I wasn’t on my period, started noticing it during ovulation and a week before my period. Which brings me to another point – I wasn’t on birth control & yet, I wasn’t getting pregnant.

I wasn’t trying to get pregnant, but honestly my boyfriend and I were NOT taking the precautions we should have been in order to stop me from getting pregnant. I would have sex before I ovulated, during ovulation & nothing; never even had a pregnancy scare. My periods would come on time I could almost calculate it. If I was due for my period I would be getting it the morning of right when I woke up. I know I had been on birth control for 7 years, but I was also off of it for almost 2 years and it was like I never had to worry about the possibly thought of me getting pregnant. At the time, of course who wouldn’t be thankful for something like that, but there was always that thought in the back of my head that something was definitely wrong. Around the same time, the pain with sex had started. Sometimes during sex I had to stop because of the excruciating pain I felt all of a sudden; my boyfriend had no idea what was going on and would panic that he did something which made me feel even worse. Most times it wouldn’t happen until after, that I would be in fetal position crying in pain in my pelvic region. Along with the ridiculous amount of bleeding and pain I started to get during and before my periods, I started getting a rectal pain that I could only describe as a feeling of a Charlie Horse in my rectum. I would wake up screaming in agony, I would pop pain killers and it wouldn’t help it. I just had to wait for the pain to pass. I started calling out of work because the pain wouldn’t subside in a reasonable amount of time that I would never make it there.

I started to see a new GYN because my old GYN was impossible to get in touch with to make an appointment. During my very first visit with this doctor, I explained to him all of my symptoms and my history and my sisters history and he flat out told me, you don’t have endometriosis, don’t worry about it. Safe to say: I NEVER WENT BACK TO HIM after he dismissed me like that.

In 2013 was when my life changed. I went to a new GYN who to this day I am so thankful I found,  that it makes me emotional. He did an ultrasound on me and found a HUGE cyst the size of a grapefruit sitting on one of my ovaries. He wanted to see me back in 3 weeks to see if it was still there because they usually would go away on their own. 3 weeks later another Ultrasound was done to find the cyst had not gotten any smaller and found even more cysts on my other ovary. I explained to him how the other GYN brushed my symptoms off, brushed the fact that my sister suffered from Endo and instead of giving me a prescription to shrink the cyst (since I was very sensitive to the side effects of) told me were going to get the answers I needed and he scheduled me for surgery to remove the cyst and find out once and for all if I had Endometriosis.

April 2, 2013 I was diagnosed with Stage 2 Endometriosis. He said he was able to remove the cyst from my ovary without doing any damage to it, which we weren’t sure was possible. He also told me he burned any lesions he saw, but the Endo had completely plastered my right ovary to my back wall which is why I was suffering from the back pain. He wanted to treat me with birth control pills after the surgery, which I wound up being so back and forth about because I knew now I had Endo, I knew the infertility risks and I didn’t want anything to prevent me from getting pregnant and birth control was not so kind to me in the past. So I didn’t go on it. I don’t know if that was part of my downfall to come but I refuse to dwell on it because it was the decision my fiancé and I had agreed on.

For the next year, I could feel with every period it getting worse. The pain was now ALL of the time, it was in my lower back, in my abdomen and pelvis, in my hips radiating down to my knees, the pain with sex was unbearable where I couldn’t even bother trying anymore. I had never been so depressed in my life. I had isolated myself so much that I refused to answer texts, I refused to go out. I was in pain 99% of the time so what was the point. I quit my job because the 45min to 1hr commute was too much stress on my body. All I wanted to do was lye in bed and stare into space. I had hit rock bottom. The pain had gotten so bad I hate to admit this, but I didn’t want to live anymore. I had pushed everyone away from me and felt so alone because no one understood. I felt so bad about myself. I hated myself; I would cry to my fiancé and ask him continuously why he loved me. I was damaged goods. I would never be able to give him a family. The fight I was fighting didn’t seem worth it in the end. Was I just going to lay there and let myself waste away? I wanted to. I had gone to cosmetology school and I had nothing to show for it because the pain I was in had stopped me from pursuing what I wanted. I felt worthless, why would it matter if I was here or not. I didn’t even want to have my wedding. Once I started planning my wedding, it gave me some initiative to push through slowly.

During that time a family friend who had suffered from Stage 4 Endometriosis reached out to me and gave me her Pelvic Pain surgeons’ number and told me to go see him. I went there and he had me fill out literally a packet of papers with all of my history, including a questionnaire asking if I had any of these symptoms and if any of these daily activities brought me happiness on a scale of 1-10. When he brought me into his office I wasn’t sure what to expect, and he explained to me that he worked with a bunch of different specialist including Gastroenterology, Radiologists, and Psychiatrists etc. He said due to my responses on the paper I was depressed. Obviously I hadn’t moved or had an initiative to do anything. He made me feel very comfortable in telling me that it’s expected that I am “depressed” because how could someone be in an immense amount of pain the way Endometriosis patients experience and not feel depressed and defeated. He gave me a prescription for an anti-depressant that I again would not take; if he was going to remove the Endo in his special way wouldn’t I feel better and not depressed, so why would I take the meds? He did an ultrasound just to see if there was anything else going on, which there wasn’t. He set me up to have an MRI done of my pelvis with contrast at NYU Hospital where there was a radiologist who specialized in Endometriosis that would be able to see some type of formation of it on the MRI. (Don’t know if that is true or they just wanted the money from the MRI, but in any case – they did see things) I was set up for surgery after.

Within a year my Endometriosis had gone from Stage II to Stage IV. He removed the Endometriosis lesions by “Radical Resection of Endometriosis” which means he removed the lesions from the root so it would take them longer to return. He also would have removed my appendix if it hadn’t already been removed because the appendix is usually the first place the Endometriosis will attach itself to on your GI system. He cut some nerves that would help minimize the pain sensation when using the bathroom and cramping in general. He also used dye to shoot up into my fallopian tubes to check for any type of blockage which there was none.

At my follow up appointment we decided to put me on birth control but decided to go the Mirena route, which I cannot lie I was very skeptical about for good reason with all of the awful side effects it can hold. I wasn’t 100% on getting it but I figured it wasn’t a medication that I would take daily to get side effects of so let’s try it. I also decided to give it a shot because something I had not known before hand but birth control pills actually stop your ovulation from happening every month and there was no way with Stage IV Endo either of us were okay with stopping me from ovulating since I did want to try to have children in the future. The Mirena didn’t stop ovulation. I had the Mirena in for maybe about 2 months and HATED it. I spotted for maybe the first week which they say is normal, okay fine. After spotting I didn’t get a period at all which I wasn’t okay with, how was I still supposed to be ovulating, but didn’t have my monthly cycle? Strike 1. A Side effect I also got was this weird sharp pain right in the middle of my lower stomach near my pelvis and in my vagina just like the Endo, but sharper. Strike 2. The third Strike was when I went for a visit with my regular GYN to update him on everything and he did an ultrasound and the strings from the Mirena were knotted in my cervix so far that the Mirena was almost not in place and would have been floating around my Uterus. This probably would have cause the Mirena to perforate my uterus and causing more damage. It was in the best interest of me and my regular GYN to have it removed ASAP. Which I did, and my pelvic pain specialist wasn’t happy about it. But I didn’t care, I wasn’t happy with it and I couldn’t take the chance of more things happening with the Mirena.

Afterwards, my periods did not come back as bad as they were prior, and the pain was not as unbearable as it had been. Pain medication started to take the edge off and I didn’t have to pop as many as I once had to. There was still a lingering pain there though. It had gotten to the point that I was able to deal with the amount of pain that was left over because I had dealt with the debilitating pain for so long it didn’t seem so bad. Little did I know there were other things going on that I would soon find out about.

Less than a year after the Radical Resection of Endometriosis I was back in excruciating pain with new symptoms. The pain was still radiating down to my hips and in my back but I started getting unbearable heartburn, nausea and again not feeling “right”. I went to a NEW General Practitioner that I worked for and explained to him my past with the Endometriosis and all the new symptoms I was getting. He sent me to have a CT Scan of my abdomen and pelvis. I remember the day after going for the test, drinking a sip of beer at a party and the heartburn sensation radiated into my arms, down my legs, into my head. I knew something was wrong. The CT scan showed GALLSTONES. So many gallstones they couldn’t even count. Whether this was a part of my body the endometriosis had attached itself to and messed up, I don’t know. I will tell you my GP and GI Surgeon both told me that this did not happen overnight. These gallstones could have been present for years and it got to the point where my gallbladder was diseased and needed to be removed, which is why I got all these symptoms. Gallbladder disease also runs in my family as well as Endo.

After I had my Gallbladder removed, I seriously NEVER FELT BETTER. I had some pep back in my step and had so much more energy that I felt like a 12year old again. That was also short lived, because a month after my surgery to remove my gall bladder I found out my husband and I were expecting our first child together……..My Little Cora Noelle.

[arabellaflynn]

I remember predicting when we moved into this place that I'd spend my bad days sitting in bed, staring out the window at Dorchester Bay. Right now I'm staring at where the bay would be, were it not for the intervening fog, but otherwise my guess seems to have been rather accurate. My left hip hurts. I'm not sure if it's something in the joint or in my lower back that's objecting, but it's doing so vociferously. It has the same peculiar electric quality as the moment you bash your funny bone, or bite down on tinfoil with a metal filling. It's not the dull throbbing red ache or the sharp stab of having actually injured myself; it's the pointless pain of a nerve that is holding a grudge over something, possibly something imaginary, and doesn't want to let go. It started before Arisia, but I had a show to do, so I ignored it until I noticed it was starting to make my gait go funny on stairs. Funny thing about neuropathic pain; even if it didn't begin with you actually injuring something, your body responds as if you had, by knotting the muscles around the sore spot in order to protect it. I wanted to put my foot sideways and tip my knee in so I could pull myself up stairs with my thigh rather than push from behind, even though that did nothing to change the way anything felt. Survival instincts are odd sometimes. In any case, walking cockeyed like that will eventually do real, tangible bad things to your knee. So I made myself locomote normally until I got home from work on Friday. I made sure I had nothing to do over the weekend. I think I had a peanut butter sandwich for dinner. And then for the next two and a half days, my meals consisted of tea and painkillers, because fuck me. Certain kinds of movement help, but shockingly enough, there is a limit to how much hula hooping I can do in one go. I don't know what it is, because I make myself stop at the end of the movie, but I assume this limit exists, especially when I'm getting most of my calories from instant Thai tea mix with "cream" (read: dried milk solids and non-dairy coffee creamer powder) and sugar (amazingly, real sugar). I've spent most of the rest of the time trying to pull my left knee over my right shoulder. Me being me, I am having an unreasonable amount of success at this, but can't get anything new to pop, so as soon as I let go it goes right back to hurting. People ask me, "How much does it hurt?" I don't know. More than 'ouchie' and less than 'I can't stand up'. The standard pain scale that runs from "happy face" to "crying frowny face" isn't very useful for chronic things. It's more good for acute pain of recent onset, where you can compare how much something hurts now to how much it didn't hurt before. If you were fine 48 hours ago and now you're doubled over and begging for a morphine smoothie, that's important diagnostic information. If it's hurt the same for a week and a half... maybe that's normal? Who knows? This is more useful. It ranks pain by how much it affects your ability to function, rather than how it 'feels'. This is something I can note intellectually even when my internal monologue is mainly reminders to smile at others, interspersed with a lot of free-floating, family-unfriendly words. I have a rule that says I am allowed to think whatever I want, as long as I behave like a civilized human being. I routinely do not notice how much something hurts until I realize that, while I've been physically negotiating the T like a normal member of the herd, I have been fantasizing about kidney-punching every. single. person. in front of me until the fucking crowd fucking moves fucking faster go just go what is the fucking matter with all of you JUST GO. According to that chart, I have learned how to compensate for up to about a 6.5. I don't know how seamless it is; I can't tell from inside, because it is an altered state of mind, and it's distracting when every other thought you have is ow fuck i want to go home. Probably if you knew me well you'd notice I wasn't the zippiest I've ever been, but for people who aren't accustomed to me and my big mouth, it would be undetectable. I hit 5 regularly, usually with musculoskeletal stuff that makes moving uncomfortable. I kept putting off a trip to the supermarket, because while walking down to the T stop would be moving and therefore better, exiting both the house and the station at the other end would involve stairs, and being on the train would mean sitting or standing still for a while, both of which made things much worse. I can do certain things up to about a 7, especially if nobody bugs me to take my hat or sunglasses off. (Those are usually either from migraines or eventually bring one on, so light is my mortal enemy.) I have to be given time to make a plan, and then allowed follow through on it without any interruptions or alterations. I don't have enough capacity to recalculate if something changes, or make any new decisions, however small. If you try to force me to do either of those things, I deadlock and fall apart. Being sick will also grind me down that far. I remember a time, years ago, when I had the honest-to-God flu, and a roommate who was trying to be nice asked me if I wanted her to leave the windows open or closed when she left for work. I hauled the blankets over my head and wailed at her not to make me responsible for the state of the windows. Around 8 is when I start bowing out of plans on the grounds that I am 'sick'. At that point I am not physically capable of giving a shit about consequences anymore, so I just send out cancellation messages and go to bed. You could set the house on fire around me and I'd just curl up tighter in bed and think 'huh. fire now. okay i guess'. A guy on reddit recently illustrated how depressed he'd been in the past with the story of how a guy with a gun jumped out at him one night and demanded his wallet, and he just said, "No." The mugger was very confused and eventually went away, but the point wasn't that he was stalwart or brave or fierce; it was just that was in such a state of shutdown that he had no feelings left one way or the other about being shot, and lacked the energy to be robbed properly. [I don't recall ever hitting 10, but I may have hit a 9 when I was five and broke my forearm. The part I do remember is that they kept giving me IM Demerol, and I kept telling them it wasn't doing anything. They finally topped me out and had to set the bone no matter what. I don't recall that specific chunk of the night, which is probably a thing my brain has done on purpose. I'm told I went dead white and nearly passed out. I definitely hit a 9 the time I cracked a molar and exposed a root, which was infected by the time I could afford to go to the dentist. It is the only time I have ever seriously considered banging my head against the floor until I passed out, because the initial bottle of Vicodin and the later bottle of Percocet did not work. I coped by sleeping as much as I could, titrating myself full of NSAIDs, and knocking back DXM until I was no longer aware of having teeth.] People also ask me why I keep doing stuff, if things hurt 'that much'. Firstly, define 'that much'. Nobody ever tells you when that is, or gives you any good criteria for deciding for yourself. If you're sitting down, it doesn't hurt 'that much' and you're a lazybones who should be working like everyone else. If you're still doing things, then it's your fault for not taking care of yourself by sitting down when it hurts 'that much'. I do it for the same reason I walked home last night festooned with four bags of groceries and two hula hoops, in sleet and wind gusts of up to 40mph: There isn't another option. I was at the T stop. I needed to be at home. So I walked. It was unpleasant. Lots of things are unpleasant. You learn very quickly that your feelings do not matter. The universe is a cold sociopathic kidnapper holding a gun to your head and telling you that you will do the thing or you don't get to survive. So you do the thing, and shut the fuck up about it before worse happens. If you're incapable of doing the thing, you might get mercy the first couple of times, but it's at the whim of your captor. Someday they're going to run out of whims. You trudge home in the sleet anyway, in case that that day isn't today. I hope that didn't sound inspirational. It wasn't meant to be. I am incredibly cranky right now, and that was meant to be an illustration of my current mood, and why I have given up and decided to just spend the day in bed crying. I do not do things while I am in pain because I am strong or courageous or whatever. Don't kid yourself. I do things under duress.  from Blogger http://ift.tt/2juazKg via IFTTT -------------------- Enjoy my writing? Consider becoming a Patron, subscribing via Kindle, or just toss a little something in my tip jar. Thanks!

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[ozma914]

Nobody Wants To Probe Colons When They Grow Up, But Thankfully Someone Did

Routine medical tests often bring nasty surprises ... usually related to the test being done.

I had a colonoscopy last week. You know what that means: No need to go into details. Honestly, I don't feel as bad for people getting them as I do for people who do them.

Lots of twelve year olds probably say they want to be a doctor when they grow up. I can't imagine any of them adding, "And I want to spend all day sticking tubes up butts to check for polyps!"

I slept through the procedure. For patients, the fun stuff comes a day or two before, when they first go on a clear diet, then take a substance that, um, clears that diet. But there's more to it, and therein lies this tale. It's about the only thing that stayed therein.

A week before, I had to stop taking supplements, including vitamin D (a lack of which contributed to my wintertime depression). I also stopped taking aspirin or any kind of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug, which I never knew is what NSAID is short for. (Acetaminophen is not an NSAID, but it also doesn't work well on me.)

Soon after that I developed a sinus headache, which I didn't worry about because if I have a sinus headache, it must be Tuesday. By the end of the next day someone was driving a railroad spike through the top of my skull, from the inside. It was every bit as bad as a migraine.

But what was causing it? Sinuses? Stress? Lack of vitamin D? Rebound from having taken too much ibuprofen in the past? The idea of highly trained specialists examining my butt with an eye toward giving me--ahem--an eye full?

Still, if I could make it through another few days, I could take pain pills again, and everything would be fine ... at least until I got the results of the test.

Then, just before the procedure, a strange thing happened.

One of the techs took my blood pressure, paused, then took it again. Then she called the doctor in. He took it, then he put the BP cuff on my other arm and took it again. Then they all looked at each other.

There's no typical blood pressure for everyone, but it's generally acknowledged that the bottom number--the diastolic--should be in the high double digits, like around 70.

My diastolic was in the triple digits. And not just barely, either. The first number, systolic, was also reaching for the stars.

There's your headache.

This is what the inside of my head felt like.

My blood pressure was so high, in fact, that they almost canceled the procedure. And I did not want to go through the prep again.

They did do it, but when I woke the new problem hadn't changed. The next day, at my work clinic, I found  Doctor Donna sitting in the waiting room, as if waiting for me. "We were wondering how soon this would happen," she said (I'd been her patient for many years). She refused to tell me who won the betting pool, but she did confirm the diagnosis. She also gave me a good once over, and found that it hurt whenever she tapped on the areas near my nose.

I had high blood pressure and another massive sinus infection.

Doctor Donna told me I had to reduce my stress levels. A lot. I thought about my job and laughed. Then I laughed again. Then I cried. It seems my idea to retire, and support myself by writing full time, has become a matter of life and death. But what the heck--I'm always looking for ways to guilt readers into buying books. Meanwhile I'm on two new meds, one of which makes me pee almost as much as I was doing the other thing, the day before the colonoscopy.

Oh, and the results of the actual procedure? Clean as a whistle (figuratively), with nary a polyp in sight. But if they hadn't done it, my head may have exploded a week later. It seems I'm entering a new phase of my mid-life.

I'll call it ... the Ailment Years.

#medical stuff #medical humor #humor #colonoscopy #illness #hospitals #writing