#I guess medical trauma?

[caleb-crow]

We didn’t get it right but, love, we did our best.

[smuby]

this be the only thing im drawing today. time to play scream fortress for 7 hours straight

[docmccoy]

I saw some MASH Pacific rim murmurings around and it may be time again for my yearly crack at my beast

[vi-enti]

school’s over so back on the fanfic grind (a grind i have not openly shared on the internet since like. 2018), unsure if this is an idea to continue but i am thinking so hard... about the difficulties of the healing process. really gotta purge that poison

. . .

“Hello, this is… Hajime Hinata. The date is… I have no idea what the date is. It’s been 14 days, 9 hours, 47 minutes and 24 seconds since we woke up from the Neo World Program.”

“…I don’t know why I said it like that. It’s been about two weeks.” 

“Uhh… I’m not sure what to say here, really. Naegi—Makoto, that is—told me this would be a good way to get my thoughts down. That way if there’s anything I forget, or anything I want everyone to know after… Well, I don’t think I can really forget anything. Even if I wanted to, I don’t think I could.”

“Sorry there are so many quiet gaps. I’m trying to think about what I want to say... I guess I’ll start with the facts, and we can go from there. I was the first person to wake up, and then Sonia. Kazuichi took a few hours longer, he was so… his limbs were so scarred. I could barely tell the healthy tissue apart from all of the burns and cuts. When he got out, he just kept screaming and crying, he just kept—“

“Akane was next, but she was barely a shell, too weak, so Makoto put her back under for a few more days before waking her up. She wasn’t in the pod though, we—they moved her to a hospital bed in a different room. This facility really has everything. You wouldn’t believe the scale of the medical equipment, Tsumiki would love it—“

“Basically, Akane woke up a week after Kazuichi, technically, and then we put her into a medical coma for a while. We as in… I didn’t do that. I mean, I did, but it didn’t feel like me.”

“Actually, I never feel like… me. I don’t know who me is supposed to be now. I’m still him—I mean, I’m still me—but I’m not me— fuck, this doesn’t make any fucking sense, I just can’t— Sonia, don’t touch me—“

“…”

“…I want my mom. I don’t remember the last time I wanted my mom. I don’t even… remember my mom, anymore.”

“…Patient 5, Kuzuryu Fuyuhiko. We plan to wake him from his induced medical coma today, following complications from his enucleation operation directly after awakening from pod sleep. There was an infection at the area of operation and I deemed it too dangerous to continue until it was cleared. Naegi had some objections, but his background is not medical, and does not always need to be taken into account. Patient 4 will simply have to wait.”

“He still has the damn thing.”

“…they all do.”

“Alter Ego, end recording.” Hajime slumped back against his chair, bringing a hand up to push his hair back. It was a newly acquired habit, one always accompanied by the feeling of missing something, like there wasn’t enough hair to run through his fingers. He hated it. Hated thinking that it wasn’t newly acquired at all, that whoever he was in the past few years did it all the time. 

That hadn’t gone nearly as well as he’d liked. These voice diaries were supposed to be records so they could explain things easier to the others once they all woke up, something to jog their memories. Privately, he was sure that Makoto had asked him to make them more for his own sake, as if they’d help somehow with all of the different thoughts running through his brain all of the time. If he spoke them out loud, then somehow they’d disappear. It was the compromise they’d settled on after Hajime had refused to attend Future Foundation-provided therapy. Most of the time they turned out exactly like this, not suitable for anyone’s ears except his own. 

Makoto was an idiot. Talking about it wasn’t going to stop the constant streams of thought in his brain, analyzing every thing and every action around him, picking apart the movements of his friends and their slight changes in tone, detecting every potential threat and every potential weapon for killing someone—fuck.

He was so tired of dreaming up all the ways people could die. His rare moments of sleep were already haunted by spears and giant Tetris blocks, by fire and poison and terrified faces. He didn’t need more deaths on his mind, constant echoes of terrors of his own creation. 

Sitting up properly, he stretched his arms out before standing up to examine his half of the room. At least two people kept watch in the pod room at all times, waiting for anyone to wake up next and making sure nobody died. It reminded him of the hospital in the simulation, someone always watching over Akane and Ibuki and—

An alarm beeped and Sonia, on the other end of the room, startled awake in her own chair. She had stayed on that side after Hajime shoved her away earlier, eventually drifting to sleep by Gundham’s pod. It was the one she stared at the most, blue eyes alight with grief and fury, even if she wouldn’t admit it. She was better off than Hajime, at least. One of his eyes stayed empty. Makoto had warned him that she shouldn’t be allowed to spend so much time with Gundham, but he could never bring himself to pull her away. Clearing his throat, he waited for the former princess to look up towards him. 

“Shift change. You should go sleep in an actual bed, I can wait for Kazuichi and Makoto if you want to go on ahead.” She shook her head, fingers trailing over the glass coffin holding the Ultimate Breeder. 

“No, that’s alright. You’ve been here long enough, you need to rest before Fuyuhiko. It’s only a few more hours away. Besides, I…” Sonia trailed off, gaze shifting to the pod next to Gundham’s, covered with a sheet. Everyone had to be checked on, but there was just one person Hajime couldn’t stand to see. The only person in the room that caused his dead eye to come to life. 

He couldn’t identify the emotion, but it had to be hate. It had to be, right?

At least he knew he wouldn’t be judged for it. Everyone had someone they couldn’t look at in this room, couldn’t face directly. Hajime was just the only one weak enough to require a sheet covering the pod. The only one who couldn’t be controlled if he had a fit of anger, or worse—one of despair. 

Swallowing back bile, he nodded, making a quick exit from the room to the quarters right next door. A large room had been set up with beds and necessities for them, the six that were here and constantly switching out. Kyoko had suggested separate rooms, but after multiple nights of Kazuichi sneaking into his room or Sonia screaming in her sleep from across the hall, Hajime had fought for them to all be together. Makoto, almost with a child-like excitement, had insisted that he, Kyoko, and Aoi stay there too. 

The lucky student in question had been sitting on the floor cross-legged when he walked in, laptop resting on a knee while he glared down at the screen. A glare from Makoto wasn’t usually all that effective, but whatever he was seeing seemed to be genuinely pissing him off. If Hajime had been anyone else, he wouldn’t have bothered disturbing the younger. Still, someone had to go fill in for him with Sonia until Kazuichi took over for her. The mechanic was nowhere to be seen—probably sitting at Akane’s bedside, as usual. Tapping Makoto gently on the shoulder, Hajime waited for him to look up from the email he had been so focused on. 

“Oh, you’re back! Has it been six hours already? I didn’t even notice.” It wasn’t a long time to spend watching the pods, but Aoi had insisted. They had three pairs switching out, and she didn’t want anyone spending more time in the pod room than they did outside of it, in the fresh air and the real world—or so she said. Hajime was sure it had more to do with her growing concern for the five of them, Kyoko and Makoto included. While they hadn’t been in the program nearly as long, they still seemed just a bit too pale to her. As for himself, Sonia, and Kazuichi… Aoi had never known them before, but worried nonetheless about irreparable damage. 

“Yes, I’m back. Will you find Kazuichi and tag Sonia out? She’s just finishing check-ups.” The shorter nodded, shutting his laptop and standing from his seat on the floor. “Everything alright?”

“It’s just Byakuya, he’s facing some problems bringing the medical equipment we need over to the island. The Future Foundation doesn’t see the need to care for some of the pre-existing conditions your class has, they’re just barely allotting enough supplies for taking care of the… last bits of Junko. It’s like you aren’t even humans to them, they just have no empathy!” Makoto rubbed his temples, forcing a weak smile onto his face. It hadn’t escaped Hajime that the bright-eyed boy that they had met in the final trial and the tired man before him right now seemed so far apart from each other. Because of us—because of me. 

“We aren’t human to them.” He placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to offer some comfort. “But we are to you. You’re the best of them, Makoto. I know you’ll work things out.” The younger’s smile twisted, not exactly happy, and he nodded in response. 

“Right. The Ultimate Hope, that’s me. I have to be able to fix this.” Hajime raised an eyebrow, not meaning that at all, but Makoto was already walking out of the room to take over watch duties. That had gone… stunningly bad. Whatever part of his soul had been able to produce hope for the others in the Neo World Program had been hiding, his mind and body too used to the actions and words of another. Another who had no idea how to give someone hope for the future, much less comfort someone just the slightest bit. All Hajime seemed to be good at these days was making things worse. 

A warmth squeezed around his hand, like someone urging him to stop thinking, and he yanked it away from—from nothing. There was nobody there. He just needed to get some rest before Fuyuhiko’s surgery today. 

Two beds remained empty, waiting for their last members. Akane was awake, but still too weak to leave her hospital bed, and Fuyuhiko would join them today. Hopefully. Sitting on his own perfectly made bed, he wondered if all of the remnants would end up sharing a room for the rest of time. The three of them awake so far had their nightmares, some worse than others, and it was impossible to imagine the rest being able to sleep easy after all that had happened. It was too easy to imagine everyone around the room, as if their spaces were already there waiting for them. Glancing around, Hajime could imagine each and every one of them smiling at him, if he could just bring them all back, if he could just wake them up. 

A flash of pink and white hair danced at the corner of his eyes, a gentle smile and a false one, and he slammed his head down on the bed, covering his vision with a pillow. Sleep now, hypotheticals later. Hypotheticals that could never, ever be reality anyways. It was dangerous to get lost in thoughts of a happy ending. 

He didn’t deserve an ending just yet. There was too much to fix. 

[tanaleth]

tfw your sketch page decides to go on a dramatic monologue

[parkeryangs]

wait okay i think we're missing an opportunity with arthur post-coma; pressure-induced alopecia!!!

he's been in a hospital bed, in one position, for a long time. with pressure centered in one place on the scalp like that, hair loss often presents in patients post-surgery/patients on bed rest/etc

and another thing of interest - trauma can, more or less, change the texture of your hair. illness/injury, stress, malnutrition etc can alter your hair follicles, and cause hair to regrow "opposite" of your original texture

so - arthur who always had needle-straight hair, now with random patches of curls once his hair grows back in (or vice-versa). he has no idea why it happened but john tells him that he likes "the new look" even though arthur knows he must look incredibly awkward and mismatched now lol

[mothric]

happy new year!! I had a horrible nightmare that (check the tags before proceeding please) I had to get a surgery to release some kind of fluid buildup in my brain and the surgery involved drilling a hole into my skull and I didn't find out they weren't intending to put me under until I was on the operating table with the nurse hovering over me with a GIANT drill

she reassured me they gave me local anesthesia but i flailed and begged to go to sleep and tried to shove the drill away while the nurse basically forced me into position, and I kept tapping my skull trying to confirm that the local even did anything because I couldn't remember them administering it. before I knew it they were drilling into the side of my head and it wasn't painful, so I guess the stuff worked, but I could hear it and feel it the way you feel what the dentist is doing even when there's novocaine. eventually i stopped yelling and fell silent because the drill was so loud and what can you even do at that point.

when they were done they cheerfully showed me an x ray of the hole they made, which went ALL the way back to my spinal cord and brain stem and stopped just a millimeter short of touching them, and they acted like this was normal and they hadn't just gone within a hair's breadth of killing me, and then they gave me a flimsy paper towel and told me I'd just need to hold it over the fresh hole in my head for awhile until it healed.

bizarre and upsetting New Year's Day dreams are practically a tradition for me at this point but, genuinely, what the Fuck was that.

[whumpacabra]

19. At Anchor

Field medicine, medical treatment, implied nonconsensual drugging, implied past panic attack, bruising, needle use [IV], past trauma, referenced difficulty breathing, referenced starvation, referenced murder

AU Masterpost / Previous / Next

“That gonna happen again?”

Harrison looked up at Thomas’ question, dread sinking in his gut as the Wolf’s sobs softened and the anesthesia pulled him under. He shrugged, pulling the shock blanket around his shoulders tighter.

“It happens all the time, Tom.” Dan, for the blooming purple bruise along his jaw and throat, seemed chipper despite the disruption. With the Wolf’s bleeding stemmed and the threat of death put off by a fresh blood bag, the medic was far less intense. “Why don’t you help Mer get him into the house - she can finish cleaning him up. Might be more comfortable under, uh, a woman’s touch.”

Thomas hesitated - he had been outside on the radio for Harrison’s quiet confession. Merrill grabbed the young deputy by the shoulder and began to direct him how to hold the Wolf without aggravating his injuries.

Harrison started to stand to follow, but Dan clamped a hand on his shoulder and pushed him back to the ground.

“No you don’t - you need saline and antibiotics. He’s not going anywhere fast.” Dan’s grip eased as Harrison relaxed, cross legged on the concrete floor. The medic's inspection was brief - antiseptic and wound glue for the gash in Harrison’s hairline, an IV line full of liquids and antibiotics for his chest infection, and -

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” The old man’s eyes were shadowed, the question soft. Harrison shrugged, the mild painkillers in the IV easing the aches of his atrophied muscles. “Son, just give me an estimate.”

“A week or so.” He sighed; time in the Box was a fluid and fickle thing to keep track of. “Maybe longer. Not the longest I’ve gone. Had some saltines and water earlier and haven’t hacked it up so far.”

There was something tired in Dan’s eyes as he gestured to Harrison’s bloodstained clothes.

“That from him or you?” Harrison stared at the brown stained burgundy jacket.

“Neither. Wolf - Wolf took care of it. He - he’s dead now. He’s dead.”

“He the one that hurt you boys?”

“One of them. The worst of them.”

“I need you to be honest with me son: are there angry folk looking for you and your friend?”

“Oh, hell yeah.” Harrison nearly choked on the laugh in his throat. “They were pissed even before we - oh my god -” He shuddered, hands tangling in his matted hair to ground himself. “Oh my god they’re going to kill us.”

“Not if we have any say in it.” The deputy spoke with the weight of an older man as he couched next to Harrison’s shivering form. “I don’t know you boys or what you’ve done, but what’s been done to you ain’t right. Whoever hurt you isn’t gonna come within spitting distance without catching a .45 in their gut, I swear to you.”

Harrison swallowed back his bitter words. For Merrill and Thomas' reassurances, it only made the terror in his gut fester. What could the deputy of a one horse town do against helos and turret mounted humvees and whatever else those fuckers would use to scrub out any evidence of their dirty work? What would they do to anyone who stood in their way?

“Okay.” Was all he could settle to say in reply. Thomas’ smile was tight as he nodded to Dan.

“Mind if I ask him some questions?”

“So long as he pipes up if that concussion of his starts getting to him.” Dan had started stripping off his bloodied apron and gloves, tossing them into the puddles of blood on the tarp. “But you, son, best get some rest afterward and let the meds do their work. Fuckin’ miracle either of you are alive let alone up and walking.”

“Yessir.” Harrison nodded, a flash of nostalgia for Merrick’s foul mouthed debriefs. The tangled dog tags in his pockets burned.

“Alrighty then - start small.” Deputy Thomas had a yellow note pad and pencil in hand.

“Who the fuck are you Harrison?”

AU Masterpost / Previous / Next

(An AU of my Freelancers series)

[homophyte]

there is a rapidly evolving rhetoric against transgender cowardice that is deeply shaming nd it worries me a lot

[crimeronan]

used to base my pain scale around how soft my adansey thoughts were but now it's started shifting toward luz and hunter. same exact scale though like to the letter. if the two of them are yelling and throwing things at each other then everything's going Great in my body. if i'm burying them under 15 weighted blankets so they can't physically move away from the other's arms though, uh..... we're......... in trouble.........

[myriad--starlings]

okay so now I probably have teeth issues because of the dehydration but I WAS NEVER ACTUALLY DEHYDRATED ACTUALLY. FUCK ME. I was just???? ???? ???? what was I doctors please explain to me what "so thirsty and desperate for liquids it felt like psychological torture" was. sorry my skin elasticity is weird and my nailbeds didn't react like you wanted them to??????

[small-strong-bookish-butch]

Airway shenanigans: more in depth/serious stuff under the cut, but everyone should enjoy this meme :)

Image description: the "woe [blank] be upon ye" meme with various smaller versions of anatomical vocal cord diagrams, including one with larynx anatomy. End description

I saw an ENT doctor last night who was kind enough to come to the hospital I was at and help me. She was half an hour away and heard about my case and wanted to help.

I was there for wheezing breathing, especially when it was through my nose, and my chest hurting when I cough, and my cough not being productive.

Basically, she had heard that I had gotten airway reconstruction surgeries in Cincinnati, and she was cautious about going too fast on my airway. Even more importantly, she said she knew of a local doctor who most likely worked under/with my Famous Airway Reconstruction doctor, and that she'd try to contact him and give him my name. (Apparently he mostly works with kids but is branching out to do adults too.)

She confirmed that the steroid had helped from my pneumonia, that she did think I had had pneumonia earlier this April, and that the steroids helped but it was still hard to breathe because my airway is just layers of bone and scar tissue, to put it bluntly. So it takes a while to come back from anything. Much like illnesses with diabetes too.

And, she said N is right, and that my trouble breathing is what stridor[ous breathing] sounds like in me, now, as an adult, apparently.

Poor N was/is really worried about me.

It's the first time they saw what my airway looks like, too. I think that was a lot of info for them, but it also helped them understand me better.

They were surprised I was just like, normal about [the flexiscope], I think, and I was like "well, yeah, it's kinda been a lot of my life so far." But they seemed impressed too, if overwhelmed.

I'm really proud of them for learning about this and doing their best to protect me. They said they can call the new doctor this week.

Oh, also, my mom and S. were there, and mostly just hanging out. Mom helped with past medical history knowledge/timelines/what was and wasn't done to me (even though she had been drinking). But it felt nice overall to have them there without it being too big of a thing.

(I'm not sure if S. really remembers me getting a scope before either? It seemed new, but he also seemed nonplussed. Hard to tell with that guy.)

[caterpillarinacave]

why have I stayed up half the night reading fanfiction

there was no reason for me to stay up half the night reading fanfiction

[mandyyvibes]

wow sometimes a medical procedure is genuinely one of the most traumatizing terrifying things you’ve ever gone through and then you’re just supposed to stand up and say thank you and not cry at them

[theygender]

*checking the tracking information for my package from under a pile of overpriced teas and vitamins* this next herbal supplement will fix me

[foldingfittedsheets]

Now that I’m an adult and I have to take myself to the doctor I just treat myself like a feral little animal afterwards. Yes, that was hard. Have a little treat. Yeah, go immerse yourself in comfort, you had a hard day, someone looked in your ears.