fairyfawm

[fairyfawm]

Comic about my weird old dog

[fairyfawm]

today is myalgic encephalomyelitis awareness day if you want to read a little about it. this date was chosen bc it’s florence nightingale’s birthday and she was bedridden for a long period by what is thought to have been ME.

ME was originally understood as a post-viral condition with features similar to MS & polio which generally improved after a few months of rest, but in the late 20th century, figures with vested interests began to claim that ME was a psychosomatic fatigue-based syndrome and that the best treatments were cognitive therapy, graded exercise, and ‘believing’ you will get better, despite this approach causing many patients to decline. under this model, patients are blamed for not getting better and are told that if they’re still unwell, it’s only because they didn’t believe enough or exercise enough. children are told this, patients are told this when they’re bedbound, unable to speak, unable to swallow, tube fed, etc.

gradually the guidelines are being changed to reflect the fact that exercise beyond one’s individual limits causes profound damage to ME patients, but it’s a slow process and the decades of (ongoing!) harm are unforgivable. the care ME patients receive is of such a wilfully poor standard that ive foregone the ER in the past because i would rather die than go there again and be treated as less than human. bear in mind this is under free nationalised healthcare. i skipped free healthcare because that’s how bad it is. ME patients frequently slip through the cracks—after becoming severely disabled from harmful medical advice or forced treatment, many patients are too fearful to ever see a doctor again. it’s pretty common to hear of a patient who has been bedbound for over a decade and hasn’t seen a doctor since their first year of illness. home visits are often denied and hospitals often refuse to accommodate our basic needs (e.g. a dim environment, since light can cause long-term symptom crashes).

the diagnosis of ME has been stigmatised, minimised, and watered down, and patients face neglect and iatrogenic harm on such a scale that at least half the ME patients i encounter have been made permanently and PREVENTABLY worse by inappropriate treatment early in their illness, like i was as a kid. most patients are women, especially the patients who become severe or die; misogyny is a factor, and frequently the patients who face significant medical harm are children or young people who are trusting and can’t stand up for themselves. being traumatised on a systemic scale by the medical establishment also means that these people do not report back to doctors afterwards so the harm goes unreported much of the time. ME charities try their best to document these cases.

25% of patients are severely affected like me. basically, the body struggles to maintain normal homeostasis so any activity can cause symptom worsening (aka post exertional neuroimmune exhaustion) including the activities of daily living like brushing your teeth, speaking, digesting food, being exposed to minor sensory stimuli like light and ambient noise etc.

various links if you want to take a look:

caring for the patient with severe ME

life threatening malnutrition in severe ME

who cares for ME?

25% ME group

severe ME in children

the death, mistreatment, and starvation of maeve boothby o’niell

three cases of ME

about severe ME

why patients with ME are housebound or bedbound

graded exercise does not restore ability to work

patients remain severely disabled after specialist cognitive behavioural therapy

(note: ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’ is an alternative name for ME, but i don’t use it due to the large-scale harm and damage done under that name)

[fairyfawm]

「わんこのひとこと🐾」 ("Comments by Doggies!🐾")

[fairyfawm]

[fairyfawm]

kinda fucked up that im not a tv show character or like a 14 year old's oc Because i would've been really really good at that

[fairyfawm]

kittens conversation:

hey we are all really small do you want to sleep in a pile

other kittens: yeah

[fairyfawm]

[image description: a photo of a cat, sleepily sprawled out on a pink duvet. the cat is laying on their back with both front legs stretched to either side (potentially due to getting a claw caught in the bedding?); their half closed eyes and forward, relaxed ears indicate that they are comfortable with this situation. end description.]

[fairyfawm]

Everyone on tumblr has Conditions. maladies. I log onto tumblr and my mutuals are unwellposting. Conditions I didn't even know existed and sound like dark curses but I will see a post from friend like "died about 60% today, fine now. Made egg on toast #yummytoast". There are so many people in this world with life experiences

[fairyfawm]

[image description: first photo is of a black and tan sheltie lying curled up on a blanket, limbs folded over one another. next are two gifs, which shows her legs twitching/almost flapping a little in her sleep. end description.]

This is my woolly pile of sticks

[fairyfawm]

“A sleeping mother snow leopard curled up in a doughnut shape, front paws resting against her back, while her tiny, eyes-and-ears-closed kitten nuzzles into the fur of her belly and wraps their arm around her”

[fairyfawm]

Before being condescendingly transmisogynistic it's just worth taking a moment to consider why calling a cis woman "dude" has different connotations and implications to calling a trans woman "dude"?

[fairyfawm]

Mr. J, how did you get so handsome?

Eat enough, sleep enough, and getting love enough

[fairyfawm]

Fawn

[fairyfawm]

mahou shoujo goddess hydrangea ☁️🎀✨️🩷

[fairyfawm]

spring colours make him look even more like a forest sprite than he usually does

[fairyfawm]

{A new initiative from the Ever Mile Charity Foundation}...

Today, the Ever Mile Foundation distributed meals to hungry children in Gaza All this is thanks to your donations... I want to tell you that your donation is the most important thing in the lives of people in Gaza. In fact, your donation is life for the people of Gaza, as through it they get some food and drink in Gaza.

Today, we distributed approximately 160A meal for the displaced, and this number is not enough for anything due to the large number of hungry people in Gaza. Therefore, we appeal to you to donate to this organization and its owner, Ayad, who suffers the same suffering as the people in Gaza.

Please do not ignore the post and reshare it.

[fairyfawm]

[image description: two images of a pet bunny with long floppy ears. the first photo shows the bunny sitting idly. the second is identical to the first but with the edition of white digital doodles giving the bunny antennae and a large shell over their back, making them look like a snail. end description.]

Interesting….