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One of the worst things you can do is to make a purchase that isn't very good. There's very little way to recover from something like that

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all for the game:

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2006

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forgor

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honestly i think im good without that thanks

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in the club begging strangers for forgiveness and proving incapable of articulating what for when asked

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wtfffff

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hey. does anyone know what the fuck is going on

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One of the awesome things about chronic pain is that stress and exertion almost always exacerbate it, which means you will consistently get flare ups when you need to be locking in. a second awesome thing is then trying to convince yourself, while doubled over in pain, that you are not faking it to get out of work

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Our Japanese class found it funny that in common terminology "food" isn't very distinguished from specifically "rice" until it was pointed out to us that in English "meal" is "loose roughly ground grain"

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Binkey the teddy bear's story

Binkey’s is the first of a small series of stories where I’m going to quote a bit more heavily from my patients’ people, because they wrote such interesting/nice letters that I wanted to share those as well as the patients’ transformations.

Binkey is a bear, a brown bear, a traditionally sized and shaped teddy bear. His person initially wrote to the hospital:

I am reaching out because my best friend for the last 35 years deeply needs your help. He is a teddy bear named Binkey, who unfortunately had a terrible run in with a roommate's cat a several years ago. I had always tried to take great care of him, but unfortunately since that time he has seriously deteriorated. He had gone through several at home operations by my mom over the years, and my very inept hands made their own attempts as I got older, however this is completely outside of our abilities, and I fear that at this point any attempts I have made created more damage than help.

I have been really anxious and scared of sending him out as I fear him getting lost or something happening to him.

Some background about Binkey: He is from Czechoslovakia before it became Czech Republic. My father was a Czech dissident, who escaped when the Russians invaded. Right after communism ended my family was finally able to communicate with us and send us letters and gifts for the first time. Binkey is the only gift I received from them as a little girl. We were immediately inseparable. My childhood was a bit complicated, and we moved around often, so Binkey has always been the one stable constant. He is the only thing I have left from my childhood and means the world to me. He even survived being left at a hotel when I was 6, and I freaked out and thankfully the hotel was able to get him back to me. Ever since then I made sure that he was always safe. Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, a roommate's cat managed to get into my room when I was not home one day, attacked him and heavily injured him.

I would like to keep him as close to himself and original as possible, while understanding that he has some serious damage. I do not want to change his eyes, nose or anything like that since thankfully that is not necessary.

So here are some of Binkey’s diagnosis photos:

We agreed on a treatment plan for Binkey, which originally consisted of stitching his wounds, minimizing his scars, and fur transplants on the bald areas. An appointment was made with this tentative treatment in mind.

Unfortunately for Binkey, shortly before he was scheduled to come to the hospital, his person wrote:

I wasn't originally planning on it, but I think he might need to have new stuffing. There was an unfortunate incident with a younger relative pulling out some of his stuffing from his holes last week. Not a lot, but it was from his face. I will wait for you to evaluate and determine if it is necessary.

He flew into the hospital wearing a new onesie to protect his skin. He also had a companion to keep him company and a tracker so his person knew exactly where he was. :-)

After an in person examination, we had a new treatment plan:

Stitch wounds and minimize scars

Fur transplants for his larger bald areas, including the entire tan areas of his front and face, but just bald parts on his back and back of head

A new yellow ribbon (because he once had one) and,

possibly a new white shirt.

First, he needed his wounds sewn up, so his skin would be able to take the pressure of new stitches, then his person had to choose which brown fur she wanted for transplants. Here were the options:

After some consideration, she made a selection and surgery proceeded. Here he is with all the brown areas treated and his new yellow bow:

There was still the question of whether to treat his white areas. His person opted not to. They weren’t structural issues and kept him as original as possible. Then there was a decision for his shirt. Did she want one? If so what kind? After a short delay, his person wrote:

For shirts I honestly can't decide. I got used to seeing him in white but also have favorite colors of green, orange, brown.

My mom had a great idea. She said, why don't I just let you pick the style and fabric, and let you have fun with it. I agree with her if you're up for it. My only preference is softer fabrics, so velour as you suggested would work for me (or anything else you're in the mood to use). Since it's also removable, I will be happy with whatever color, fabric, and style you decide to go with.

Well, I had an idea and was very excited to proceed with it. Here’s Binkey in his new hoodie:

His person wrote: Love the hoodie!

So Binkey and his buddy got ready to fly home to Texas:

He made it home safe and sound and his person wrote:

Thank you again!!! :) You truly have no idea how much I appreciate you and how glad I am that I found you. I was worried before that he would fall completely apart, and I would permanently lose him. You do amazing work.

I am forever grateful.

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If you enjoyed this post, you may be interested in my substack newsletter, doctorbeth.substack.com. It’s free, and you get the stories straight to your inbox. I also do occassional retro posts from the backlog through the newsletter. But don’t worry, I’ll keep posting everything new here too. :-)

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[staggering to my feet and wiping a single perfect drip of blood from my mouth] i have to get back on my bullshit. no matter the cost

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