#The doctor took X-rays and said that it was not as juggled about in there as I thought it was. I knew I kept that bag of peas in the freezer

[theveryworstthing]

I Live.

Gonna give y’all a little life update copy-pasted from patreon since I’ve been gone for a thousand years. I don't really want to get deep into everything because sharing too many private details about my life/family on the internet feels a little icky even when people are nice but a quick rundown is:

1. My mom was helping my aunt through the legal proceedings of a messy divorce from her abusive ex husband and had to fly to her place like every 2 weeks. During her stays there she sensed something was wrong and after a few doctor's visits we found out that my aunt has early onset dementia. She's being taken care of by family and her shitty ex will never see her again if we have any say so but it's been Rough. She doesn't deserve this shit.

2. Surgery Bonanza! Mom has to get a giant mysterious fatty mass schlorped out of her back and my Grandma Lou' s thyroid gland went insaneo style and blew up into two huge masses that had to be cut out of her throat before they completely cut off her breathing. Then she had a bonus surgery to help with her failing eyesight. On the bright side, there was no cancer found in the weird lumps harvested from my kin.

3. My cat developed a weird lump full of cancer. I spotted a small lump on his right back leg over a month ago and after begging his former vet for an appointment sooner than 2 weeks away we finally got him in. Within seconds she said that it was probably cancer and that if it is he probably won't survive the treatment for it because he's 15 so do I really want to know? Because if I know then maybe I'll want to treat this expensive thing  but if I wanted to let it ride it might be easier I guess? Because letting my weird little son die without trying to save him or give him proper end of life care is cool as long as it's cheaper and I don't have to think about it as much???? This was before any sort of intensive check on him or the tumor was done btw. The little dude was pretty much either a dead man walking or he had some mysterious swelling that time would take care of as far as she was concerned. Either way there was the vibe that she kind of wrote him off.

I ordered tests for him anyway, waited 2 weeks to get inconclusive answers, ordered an x-ray (which should have been done with the other test but whatever), waited a week and a half to learn that yeah, he probably does have cancer maybe and thank god it's not spreading too fast because uh oh! It's been almost a month and that bad boy has been growing this whole time!!!! Also it took weeks for them to bother scheduling any kind of re-check. At this point they say that there's nothing they can do and offer to get me in contact with what seems to be the only animal cancer specialist around. Who's like 2 and a half hours away. And has a crazy wait list. Did I mention that Coup hates being stuck in his carrier and will stress out and cry constantly every time he's forced to travel anywhere? So after reaching out to friends and family I found another much closer vet who could give me a second opinion first and thank god I found that place because not only did they actually judge him by his actual level of health instead of just his age when it comes to treatment (besides the cancer Coup is healthy as an ox, stellar scores in bloodwork and overall cat-ness, vet said that judging from his behavior/usage of the leg that we're probably more concerned about the situation than he is) but they also had a treatment plan rolled out and ready by the end of the visit. The boy is almost done with his chemo injections now and even though the shrinking is slow he's still in great health so we're daring to dream.

Fuck The Haters.

Other things happened but I don't want to talk about those things. The bottom line is that I'm not juggling a hell schedule or crying every day now so I want to get back in the drawing saddle. Thanks again to everyone on patreon who stuck around and basically threw their money in this mysterious pit, Y'all helped pay my bills when I was literally too mentally wrecked to work. And thanks to everyone else who sent me random good vibes, hoped I was okay, said nice things about my art, and were generally pretty cool even though I fled social media. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

[themedicalstate]

A Nurse Made a Fatal Mistake. Should She Go to Prison for It? 

We all carry the memory of our mistakes. For health care workers like me, these memories surface in the early morning when we cannot sleep or at a bedside where, in some way, we are reminded of a patient who came before. Most were errors in judgment or near misses: a procedure we thought could wait, a subtle abnormality in vital signs that didn’t register as a harbinger of serious illness, an X-ray finding missed, a central line nearly placed in the wrong blood vessel. Even the best of us have stories of missteps, close calls that are caught before they ever cause patient harm.

But some are more devastating. RaDonda Vaught, a former Tennessee nurse, is awaiting sentencing for one particularly catastrophic case that took place in 2017. She administered a paralyzing medication to a patient before a scan instead of the sedative she intended to give to quell anxiety. The patient stopped breathing and ultimately died.

Precisely where all the blame for this tragedy lies remains debated. Ms. Vaught’s attorney argued his client made an honest mistake and faulted the mechanized medication dispensing system at the hospital where she worked. The prosecution maintained, however, that she “overlooked many obvious signs that she’d withdrawn the wrong drug” and failed to monitor her patient after the injection.

Criminal prosecutions for medical errors are rare, but Ms. Vaught was convicted in criminal court of two felonies and now faces up to eight years in prison. This outcome has been met with outrage by doctors and nurses across the country. Many worry that her case creates a dangerous precedent, a chilling effect that will discourage health care workers from reporting errors or close calls. Some nurses are even leaving the profession and citing this case as the final straw after years of caring for patients with Covid-19.

From my vantage point, it is not useful to speculate about where malpractice ends and criminal liability begins. The pandemic has brought the health care system to the brink, and the Vaught case is not unimaginable, especially with current staffing shortages. That is, perhaps, the most troubling fact of all.

It has been more than 20 years since the Institute of Medicine released a groundbreaking report on preventable medical errors, arguing that errors are due not solely to individual health care providers but also to systems that need to be made safer. The authors called for a 50 percent reduction in errors over five years. Even so, there is still no mandatory, nationwide system for reporting adverse events from medical errors.

When patient safety experts talk about medical errors in the abstract, in lecture halls and classrooms, they talk about a culture of patient safety, which means an openness to discussing mistakes and safety concerns without shifting to individual blame. In reality, however, conversations around errors often have a different tone. Early in my intern year, a senior cardiologist gathered our team one morning, after one of my fellow interns failed to start antibiotics on a septic patient overnight. The intern had been busy with a sick new admission and had missed subtle changes in the now septic patient, who had spiraled into shock by the morning.

“You must never stop being terrified,” the attending doctor would tell us. Even after decades of practice, she remained in a constant state of high alert. When you allow yourself to neglect your usual compulsiveness, she said, that’s when mistakes happen. Not because of imperfect systems, overwork and divided attention but because an intern was not appropriately terrified.

And there is a truth here: The cost of distraction on our job can be life or death, and we cannot forget that. But no one should have to maintain constant terror. Mistakes happen, even to the most vigilant, particularly when we are juggling multiple high-stress tasks. And that is why we need robust systems, to make sure that the inevitable human errors and missteps are caught before they result in patient harm.

The electronic health records we use now prompt doctors and nurses when patients’ combinations of vital signs and lab results suggest that they might be septic. This can be frustrating when we are fatigued by alarms and alerts, but it helps us recognize and react to patterns that a busy medical team might otherwise miss. When it comes to administering medications, they must generally be approved by a pharmacist before they can become available to a nurse to administer. Some hospitals create a no-talk zone where nurses withdraw these medications, because that process requires a focus that is often impossible in the frenzy of today’s hospitals.

Once the medication is in hand, nurses use a system to scan the drug along with the patient’s wristband to help ensure that the correct medication is given to the correct patient. None of these systems are perfect. But each serves to acknowledge that no individual can hold full responsibility for every step that leads to a patient outcome. Just being vigilant is not enough.

What’s needed alongside these systems is a culture in which doctors and nurses are empowered to speak up and ask questions when they are uncertain or when they suspect that one of their colleagues is making a mistake. This could mean that a nurse questions a doctor’s medication order and discovers it was intended for a different patient. Or that a junior doctor admits she is out of her depth when faced with a procedure that she should know how to do.

Stories in medicine so often celebrate an individual hero. We valorize the surgeon who performs the groundbreaking surgery but rarely acknowledge the layers of teamwork and checklists that made that win possible. Similarly, when a patient is harmed, it is natural to look for a person to blame, a bad apple who can be punished so that everything will feel safe again. It is far easier and more palatable to tell a story about a flawed doctor or a nurse than a flawed system of medication delivery and vital sign management.

But when it comes to medical errors, that is rarely the reality. Health care workers and the public must acknowledge that catastrophic outcomes can happen even to well-intentioned but overworked doctors and nurses who are practicing medicine in an imperfect system. Punishing one nurse does not ensure that a similar tragedy won’t occur in a different hospital on a different day. And regardless of the sentence that Ms. Vaught receives in May and whether it is fair, her case must be viewed as a story not just about individual responsibility but also about the failure of multiple systems and safeguards. That is a harder narrative to accept, but it is a necessary one, without which medicine will never change. And that, too, would be a tragic error but one that is still in our power to prevent.

Source: By Dr. Daniela J. Lamas, pulmonary & critical-care physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (The New York Times). Image: Eleni Kalorkoti. 

[yongtxt]

one summer’s day [yuta]

word count: 6.5k words

characters: parent!yuta x parent!reader ft. 95 line and a child

genre: angst. just suffering

warnings: mentions of illnesses, hospitals, and deaths. includes a bit of smoking, too. a ton of inaccurate medical information.  yuta has self-deprecating and self-destructive tendencies

author’s note: this is my third (and last!!!) hospital-based fic and i’m running out of ways to describe a hospital. this is emotionally taxing but this was so fun to write! also i tried out a new format so i hope it looks okay? (unedited but not rlly)

Nakamoto Mai’s summers were always spent basking in the white heat of the sun with the salty water of the ocean’s waves splashing against her skin. Your husband would hold her up by her arms, wading them ashore to where you were watching them over, lounging on a beach towel with your knees hugged to your chest.

Yuta would set his daughter on the sand, allowing her to run off to where her short limbs could take her—chasing off the seagulls that would land near her vicinity. He would make his way to you, dripping with water, and he would tackle you onto the ground just to tease you and hear your sweet laugh that was filled with nothing but love.

It wouldn’t take long before Mai would scurry back to her parents, out of breath and her plump cheeks glowing a shade of red you were already too familiar with. She’d crawl into Yuta’s arms while you’d carefully smear on a thick glob of aloe vera gel on her face, poking the tip of her nose and making her giggle.

For a family that resided in the urban city, you always appreciated the time you got to spend in the beaches of Daecheon with the most important people in your life; Yuta, your high school sweetheart that you got to marry two years after your first child was born, and Mai, the physical proof of the love you shared with him.

You had Mai at a time that was least expected. At the early age of twenty-one, bearing a child was the curveball that threw your and Yuta’s life into disarray. Your wishes of traveling outside the country were put to a halt and Yuta’s plans of dabbling into his long-time hobby of soccer were withheld; you were both forced into joining the workforce to afford to raise a child that you weren’t even sure you wanted to have in the first place.

But it was in the way you heard her steady heartbeats at your first ultrasound, how it immediately made your resolve waver. The look of pure adoration Yuta held the first time he’d felt her kicking in your stomach, it was a look you’ve never seen before—a look that made it feel like it was all worth it.

The day came when she was finally born into the world, holding onto your thumb as you held the newborn baby onto your chest. You knew right then and there that all of the doubts and worries you’ve had coming into your pregnancy, it didn’t matter anymore as long as you had Mai and Yuta with you.

It wasn’t easy to be parents at such a young age. To be able to juggle parenthood and your respective careers, you and Yuta wouldn’t dare say that you’ve come close to mastering the skill but you were sure close to it. Mai had a wonderful upbringing despite the many hardships you and Yuta have gone through. She managed to grow up in an environment that emanated warmth and affection, unaware of her parents’ sacrifices of their young adulthood to be able to give her the life she deserved.

Spoiled, as others may think, but she was her parents' pride and joy. Neither of you wouldn’t want her to be treated anything less than a princess should. The smile Mai always had on, you would do everything in your power to keep it.

-

As pampered as she was, most of it came from a place of having to treat her especially with care and attention more than a normal child would need because Mai was a chronically ill child. Born with a weak heart, it was a miracle that she even survived the delivery to start with.

She had always been sickly therefore trips to her many pediatricians weren’t unusual for your family, already having familiarized with most of the doctors and nurses who usually took care of her at your local hospital.

Mai had a lively personality, leading an active lifestyle spent running and playing around all day, but her heart defect caused her to be easily tired. Her constant shortness of breath put her in danger thus her pediatricians had made it a note to always keep an out for her.

When Mai fell into a continuous fever after your family’s trip to the beach, you didn’t think anything of it because of how frequently it happened. Yuta made you go to work and leave Mai in his care while he still had another day of his paid leave, reassuring that she would be fine as long as he was there to take care of her.

That same morning, Mai clambered off her bed—a little too early than her usual wake-up—and waddled into her parents’ bedroom, still burning high off her fever. She reached out for her father’s sleeping form on the bed, tugging on the sleeves of his shirt.

“Papa, it hurts.” She said once Yuta had groggily sat up to properly tend to his child’s cries, seeing the clumps of tears forming at the corner of her eyes. The sight was enough to jostle him awake, alarmed.

He pulled her off the ground and plopped the five-year-old onto his lap, worry growing in the pit of his stomach. It was only in rare cases when Mai’s pain would bring her to tears, indicating how much she was hurting. She looked worse than what he remembered the night before; her breathing still irregular as it always was, but her skin was paler than normal and sweat formed in her temple—it didn’t look like she was suffering her regular lapses.

Yuta asked, “Where is it hurting, Mai?”

She hesitantly pointed to her chest, to where her heart was. Without another question asked, he hurriedly grabbed his car keys from the bedside table. Her pediatricians told you and Yuta of her risk of chest pains and how they shouldn’t treat it lightly considering that she was merely a child. If it goes beyond what Mai could handle, she should immediately see the professionals to get treated.

In his sleepwear, Yuta drove to the hospital as fast—but safely—as he could. Anxious fingers drummed against the steering wheel while Mai sat at the back in her booster seat, her stuffed toy of a dolphin enveloped in her arms.

Briefly checking themselves in the emergency ward, some of the nurses who were already familiar with the Nakamotos ushered them towards the waiting room the moment they had spotted Yuta carrying Mai into the entrance.

He always sat near the decorative fish tank, knowing how much Mai loved watching the fishes swim around. It distracted her from the dread that came with the never-ending blood tests and x-rays she was required to take. It was effective almost every time, but it seemed like that day wasn’t like any normal day.

Mai stilled in her father’s arms in the time they spent in the waiting room, her eyes sewn shut and her lips clamped together. Watching her choking in her sobs and unable to do anything about it, it only broke Yuta’s heart more than it already has.

He let out a shaky breath, wanting the day to be over with already.

-

You entered Mai’s room in haste, slamming the door open as you heaved heavy pants. Still in your work attire, you dropped your bags onto the tiled floor and hurried to your child’s side.

“Mama!” Mai exclaimed, still the cheery child that she was. Yuta, who sat on a chair beside the bed, jumped at her sudden yell and whipped his head to his side to find you already reaching out to her.

You carefully cradled her into the crook of your neck, stroking her hair. She donned a hospital gown and she was hooked onto several machines, patches on her chest for the cardiac monitor and a nasal cannula in her nose; the situation seemed worse than what she let on, how her eyes lit up at your arrival, happy and enthusiastic, opposed how grave of a situation it looked.

“How are you feeling, Mai?” You asked in hopes that your worry wasn’t evident in your tone, holding onto her comparatively smaller hands in yours. “Are you still hurt anywhere?”

She shook her head fervently, a wide grin adorning her beautiful features, “No, no! I feel much better now!”

You let out a breathy laugh, pinching her cheek and making her whine at your doting. Ease washed over you, the tension you had on your shoulders released almost in an instant at the assurance that Mai wasn’t hurting anymore and she was okay.

“I told you that you should never lie about what you’re feeling, Mai.” Yuta spoke up beside you and for a second you’ve forgotten that he was there at all, how quiet he’s been since you came. He looked exhausted, pieces of hair sticking out in different directions and a frown etched on his face.

“But it’s the truth!” Mai pouted her lips, glaring at her father who could only let out a faint chuckle.

You turned to Yuta and leaned over to place a kiss on his forehead, lingering for a moment longer. You wanted to apologize to him for leaving him to deal with it alone, but you knew he would just brush it off with him as the type of person who’d bottle in his stress to not worry those around him.

“Was it really necessary to confine her?” You asked, wrapping an arm around Yuta’s head and pulling him to your side in an attempt to console him—yourself, too, in his touch.

Of all the times you had to run Mai to the emergency ward, it has never come to a point where she needed to stay a day longer in the hospital. The machines she was hooked up on were usually used, but her tests and x-rays were possible to accomplish within the day. There usually was no need to confine her.

“They found an anomaly in one of her tests, her doctors wanted her to stay the night while they made sure that everything’s alright.” Yuta said as quietly as he could, wanting the conversation to be kept strictly between the two of you. He doubted Mai would even understand, but he didn’t want to take his chances of scaring his own child.

You bit the insides of your cheek, the return of the panicked thuds in your heart almost deafening. You replied, “It’s probably a mistake on their part, it’s gonna be fine.”

Yuta wasn’t quite sure if you meant to say it to him or to yourself. Either way, he appreciated it nonetheless. Having you beside him was already a weight lifted off him, he had less to worry about now that you were with him.

Mai, sensing the heavy tension in the room like the smart and sensible girl that she was, shuffled closer to her parents’ side of the bed but Yuta was quick to stop her from doing so. He wouldn’t want to risk snapping off her tubes, a lesson they had to learn the hard way before. She frowned, grabbing her father’s arm instead.

“Really, I’m okay now!” Mai was persistent even against the helpless expressions her parents wore, determined to make them believe so. She added, “Papa said that we can go home once mama comes so we can leave now, right?”

“We have to make sure that you’re actually fine, Mai. We have to stay a little longer.” You tried to smile at her, to make it seem like nothing was wrong. You cupped her face into the palm of your hand, caressing her skin with your thumb. “Is that okay?”

“I guess so.” She huffed, but her grimace was gone as soon as it appeared when you attacked her with a claw to tickle her stomach.

Yuta joined in eventually, hesitant still, but he relented just to hear Mai’s laughter—her hearty laughs that never failed to light up the room and make them feel better. He wondered just how much pain she was actually in to be able to hide it this well or was she even in pain at all like she had claimed.

She was acting as if she was perfectly fine but then again, Mai was a child who never liked to see people worrying. Much like him, he realized.

It took hours before one of Mai’s main pediatricians came knocking on the door, hours of agonizing torture on your and Yuta’s end. When you let Doctor Kang into the room, Mai was in the middle of eating dinner that his Uncle Taeyong had kindly cooked and dropped off at the hospital at the news of his niece’s confinement.

Mai visibly perked at the familiar man, waving her hand wildly to greet the doctor she had known for as long as she could remember. If she thought about it hard enough, almost all of her early memories included Doctor Kang, having been to hospitals so much to the extent that doctors no longer feared her unlike most children would.

“I assume you feel better now?” Doctor Kang asked in a playful tone, making his way to the side of Mai’s bed while you followed suit behind him. With her mouth full of chicken, she could only give him a high-spirited thumbs up. He chuckled, “That’s great to hear, Mai.”

“Us adults are going to talk for a bit so just continue eating what Uncle Taeyong gave you.” Yuta said, ruffling Mai’s hair. She nodded, too engrossed in her seahorse-shaped nuggets to be defiant that she wasn’t included.

Doctor Kang led you and Yuta to the corner of the room where there was a couch you could sit on. Yuta’s hand found yours subconsciously as you braced yourself for what Mai’s pediatrician had to say.

“Based on Mai’s medical records, she was born with a congenital heart defect, yes?” Doctor Kang asked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his white coat.

“Yes, but other doctors told us that it wasn’t life-threatening.” You remarked, already defensive. You were about to rise in your seat if it wasn’t for Yuta’s hold on you. Doctor Kang’s expression remained calm despite your reaction that you assumed he already anticipated. With a smaller voice, you said, “She’s been completely fine ever since.”

Doctor Kang nodded, “That is true but there’s a sudden spike in one of her tests, Mrs. Nakamoto. We’ve run it multiple times already to make sure but it looks like Mai is now prone to convulsions and epilepsy-like symptoms.”

“Convulsions? Epilepsy?” You trailed off, disliking the taste it left on your tongue. You felt Yuta’s grip on you tighten. “Isn’t this a bit too unexpected? What caused this?”

“These things just happen if you were born with a heart defect, we can never tell when it occurs. The most we can do is treat it accordingly.” Doctor Kang said, and you didn’t bother hiding the breath of relief you released. It was treatable, at least. “Expect that her health will be unstable as we’re yet to find out how her body will react so I’m advising that Mai should stay here for the meantime so we could monitor her closely.”

“She’ll be okay, right?” Yuta spoke for the first time since Doctor Kang arrived, his voice quiet and unsure. “Mai will get better?”

Doctor Kang sighed through his nose, pushing up his glasses, “We will do everything in our power to take care of her but you have nothing to be worried about, Mr. and Mrs. Nakamoto. Your daughter is a strong girl.”

The said girl sat on her hospital bed, clueless to her parents’ slow descent to their anxieties they kept suppressed for so long.

-

Yuta stared at Mai’s serene face, her figure curled into a fetal position as she let out snores without care. He stood from a distance, leaning against the wall while you sat on a stool beside him. You shared the same worn-out appearance as your husband, dark circles and all.

A week has passed since Mai was confined in the hospital and it hasn’t gotten any better since. Her temperature kept fluctuating and she spent most of her nights switching her nasal cannula to an oxygen mask for a higher dosage of oxygen, unable to breathe properly anymore whenever she tried to fall asleep. She was also coughing a lot more, swelling in the most random parts.

Mai’s condition was getting worse by the day; unfortunately, it was taking its toll on you and Yuta as well, and you hated how much it showed.

“I’m killing her.” Yuta managed to choke out in the midst of his cries, his unkempt nails digging into the palm of his hands.

“You’re not killing her.” You snapped, incapable of even bringing yourself to rise from your seat to embrace him as much as your mind wanted to. Your body felt too exhausted, emotionally and physically too drained to function. You settled on holding his hand instead, to keep him from hurting himself as you’ve already instinctively known of his mechanisms. “You’re just panicking.”

“My father died because of the same illness, it’s hereditary. I passed the curse onto my child.” He wept, finding his solace in the way your thumb was rubbing circles onto the back of his hand.

“Mai is not gonna fucking die, Yuta.” You said, much more sternly this time with a tiny hint of aggravation seeping through in your rise of tone. You didn’t even want to think of the possibility of your daughter’s death, the thought alone brought tears to your eyes. You clicked your tongue, “Please, you have to trust your daughter a little more.”

Burying his face into his free hand, he let out shallow breaths. You sighed, but it didn’t bear animosity nor ill will, you were just tired—tired of pretending that you weren’t as in equal distress as he was. You couldn’t let anybody know of your vulnerabilities, especially not to your husband who was already suffering as it is.

Forcing yourself of energy, you pushed yourself up from your stool and took Yuta in your arms. You let him cry onto your shoulder that night, your own tears damping the back of your hand.

Despite that you were just human with the same capacity for emotions as much as the next person, you needed to be strong for your family. You didn’t know who else could take care of them if not you. 

-

There were days Yuta thought it was gonna get better. A fool that he was, truly.

Days when Mai’s uncles would come to visit their favorite niece, Taeyong with his arms full of newly bought toys for them to play with and Johnny with his shoulders carrying bags and bags of children’s books he wanted to read to her, and days when he’s able to leave work early and she’s gets to spend time with both of her parents by her side.

Those were the days Yuta never wanted to end because only in those times would he see again the glint in Mai’s eyes that she had lost, the glow she radiated in her elation. She’d be talkative, she had so many stories to tell and Yuta would never get tired of hearing all of it. So full of life and childlike charisma, it was as if everything was back to normal—except it wasn’t.

Days like those would always end in nights of suffering and agony for your family. Mai would lay on the hospital bed in a cold sweat, fighting a battle she wasn’t winning and there was nothing he could do to help alleviate the pain she was feeling. The monotonous beeping of her machines had become her lullabies, it would drown out your storytelling that used to lull her asleep.

Yuta was in a bad headspace, that he knew. Whenever he looked at you, he was reminded of it; how reliant he was of you for emotional support. The guilt he felt was overwhelming, it almost threatened to pour. He hears your desperate cries at night and your silent prayers, he knew how exhausted you were and there would be times he wanted to just say that you didn’t have to put up a tough and optimistic persona for Mai, for him.

But he would be lying if he did so. He was crumbling, he wasn’t in the clearest of mindset.

There would be instances so extreme that he would wish that he could just stay in his office and never return to the hospital, to never face his harsh reality and pretend that this wasn’t his.

Yuta would think to himself, who am I kidding?

He shouldn’t have ever met you and gotten you pregnant, Mai wouldn’t have to endure the pain he had caused her by being his child, but he was selfish. He had to sow what he reaped, to see through his curse that he jinxed his family with.

-

“Papa, look!” Mai called from where she splayed across the hospital bed, Yuta looked over his shoulder to see her proudly presenting her finished work of the LEGO set of a beach house that you had bought for her. She had a toothy grin on her face, showing off the pieces that came with it. “It’s me, papa, and mama! Look!”

“You’re already done with it?” He chuckled, walking over to see what she had been working on diligently for hours. His heart squeezed, noticing how she purposely customized the pieces to resemble your family’s own beach house in Daecheon; from the missing panels of the fences that he ruined and the placements of the flower pots you tended.

“Is this supposed to be me?” He asked, picking up a figurine that she had messily painted its hair with black acrylic to match his. She nodded enthusiastically. He laughed, “Mai, this is really good!”

“Yeah, I worked really hard on it!” She giggles, stifling a cough. Yuta rubbed his hand over her back to soothe her, kissing the top of her head to make her know of his appreciation of her hard work. A genuine smile on his face for once.

He always wondered how Mai made it so easy to melt all of his troubles and anxieties away. Her tiny body was capable of so much love, she lit up his darkest days so effortlessly. It made him feel so loved to know how much his daughter thought of him.

Yuta wanted to curse himself for all the times that he thought of himself badly. Regardless of his desperate pleads and regrets, he knew full well that he loved Mai too much to not wish her into existence. 

He had to work on negating his thoughts that fantasized about his own destruction. If Mai had known how badly he spoke of himself, he knew she wouldn’t like it—perhaps it would even shatter her image of him of the always optimistic, always confident father that he built.

His self-deprecation will not get the best of him again, for his mental stability and his family’s.

-

With his phone pressed against his ear with one hand, Yuta held up a lit cigarette in the other. The pungent smell of tobacco lingered in the air, he inhaled its remnants deeply like a depraved man would.

“Papa, when are you coming home? Mama sucks at doing the fishes’ voices!” Mai’s voice pierced in his ear, and Yuta heard you laughing from the background. His daughter’s voice sounded hoarse, but he didn’t let it sway him from souring her mood.

Tapping the ash off his stick, he said, “I’m almost done with work, okay? I’ll come home soon.”

Home, it was an odd term to call the bleak white-walled room that confined his child. As the days dragged on, Yuta has grown to accept it for what it is. While it was a prison to most, Mai treated the hospital room as she would to her own bedroom and the people who surrounded her were mostly to blame for it.

Because for Mai, it felt just like home whenever Uncle Taeyong would come and visit. He’d pull out papers and paints from his bag and encourage her to be creative. They would pin up their artworks on the walls for everybody to see, and she would giggle when she’ll overhear her uncle getting scolded by you for making a mess of the splatters they made, but he would always be forgiven for most of their works was of their family (uncles included; Uncle Taeyong wouldn’t allow them to be excluded).

It felt like home whenever Uncle Johnny would sneak around past visiting hours to bring Mai a new stuffed toy to add to her ever-growing collection. He would excuse himself that it was urgent, that the toys helped her sleep better at night, but they all knew that he was just too excited to see his niece’s reaction to waste a day. A wide variety of different water animals piled up near the bed, all courtesy of her uncle’s wallet and his tendency to spoil her.

Even on Mai’s worst days, it still felt like home. When she would curl into a position with her small fists digging into her chest that felt too constricted, completely unable to lift another finger because her body would be in too much pain, Yuta would be there to hold her hand. You would place her head on your lap, running your fingers through her hair to quietly soothe her until Mai would begin to forget that she was ever in pain.

Yuta hated the hospital, he hated how dreary it was. But it was home. As long as he had his family with him, it didn’t matter where home was—home was never just a place, it was a feeling he felt whenever he was with you and Mai. The hospital he had associated with nothing but misery for so long, Room 345 had become a place he could now look forward to coming home to.

Yuta dropped his cigarette and crushed it with the sole of his shoe, eager to wrap things up for the day so he could see his family again.

-

On her twenty-first day in the hospital, Mai had still shown no signs of recovery. Yuta was so sure that his nightmare was coming to life.

“We did everything we could, but her health is deteriorating every day and we’re running out of ways to keep her symptoms at bay.” Doctor Kang bowed his head, his guilty apologies falling on deaf ears.

Yuta’s fist collided with the wall, a loud crack resonating from its sheer impact.

“It’s unfortunate but for now the machines are keeping her alive.” Doctor Kang added, his voice lost in the midst of your inconsolable hysterics and Yuta’s fit of rage. “We’re still doing the best we could, but I’m so sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Nakamoto…”

The voice in Yuta’s head grew louder and louder, screaming that it was his fault, his fault, his fault. This time, he wasn’t able to shut it out.

-

When you were still carrying Mai in your womb—only three months into your pregnancy with barely a bump to show off—Yuta made a promise to give his unborn child the entire world.

He wanted to be the best father, the kind of father who would be capable of protecting them from all the harsh reality and the kind of father who would be by their side for all of their ups and downs. He would not miss a moment of his child’s life, he would watch them grow in front of his very eyes to be a person he’d be proud to call his child.

But now he couldn’t believe his eyes, Mai at five years old was lying on a hospital bed. He was looking at her so intently as if he was trying to commit her appearance into his mind—how the curve of her nose bore a resemblance to yours, how her lips reminded him of his own, and even how her eyes were similar to her grandmother’s; all of it, he instilled all of it.

Yuta found it painfully cruel how not a single feature of his late father was passed down to Mai. Nakamoto Tatsuo, the kind father that he was, had an appeal to his appearance and was a sight to behold but none of his traits could be distinguished from Mai’s face, it was just his weak heart that he passed unto her.

“Are you okay, papa?” Mai asked after a while of just observing her silent father, tilting her head confusedly at the sudden outburst of tears streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t like seeing papa cry.”

He nodded, wiping his cheeks rather aggressively, “You don’t have to worry about me, Mai. I’m alright.”

“Okay, I trust you… I love you, papa.” Mai smiled at him, and he burned the image into memory.

-

It happened on a day that felt too normal. Soft waves of laughter filled the room, accompanying it was Mai’s favorite movie soundtrack playing its pleasing tunes.

Mai was engrossed in a game of UNO with you, her small hands doing its best to carry a deck of The Little Mermaid themed cards. She had her tongue sticking out from focus, oblivious that you have been purposely making her win since the round had started.

Yuta, on the other hand, was tidying up the mess her uncles left when they had visited in the morning. He swore they coddled their niece too much.

Everything seemed so normal, it was just like any other day in the hospital. Mai was about to call her win, placing her final card in the pile, when her arm suddenly stiffened. She lurched over into a violent spasmodic fit, accidentally knocking off the stack of cards and snapping off the tubes she had in her nose that provided her oxygen.

You yelped in your startle, shaky fingers easing Mai into a position where she could breathe. For a moment, Yuta was frozen on his spot—utterly paralyzed by fear and panic as they had never seen their daughter have a seizure. He snapped back to reality soon after, forcing his legs to run out of the room and call for help.

Mai was still convulsing when Doctor Kang had finally arrived inside the room, he saw the condition she was in and he turned to Yuta who stood by the foot of the bed, watching the scene unfold with pure horror painted on his face.

“Both of you, get out now!” Doctor Kang’s voice bellowed, rushing to where Mai’s bed would pop its wheel. “I said, out!”

A horde of nurses barged into the room, ushering you and Yuta out of their way before either of you could’ve begun comprehending the situation. You were too stricken by shock, falling to the tiled floor as strangled sobs left your lips—desperate and helpless, while your husband stood by the door, gaping as he watched them wheel out his daughter to the direction of the emergency ward.

Yuta made his way to where the hospital bed used to be, kneeling down on the scattered mess they made of the playing cards. His vision blurred, he didn’t know where else he could find hope. It was as if he was merely just clawing at the seams that were threatening to pull apart any second.

He pressed his palms together, uttering a silent cry to a god he wasn’t quite sure he believed in anymore.

-

Yuta could not imagine living in a world where Mai was no longer.

A world where he would no longer wake up to her small hands shaking him awake, a world where he would no longer have to pick the peas off her dinner plate when you weren’t looking, a world where he would no longer need to take her to the beach just to satisfy her thirst of the ocean waves—he just couldn’t.

The world was robbing Yuta off witnessing the many firsts Mai was yet to experience, and he didn’t know if it was selfish of him that he couldn’t even think of accepting it. He wanted to see his daughter on her first day of school, to see her grow up and achieve her dreams and goals.

There was so much he had to know about her, to see her accomplish, but her clock was ticking. At age five, Mai was already laying on her deathbed. Unfairly so.

“She won’t be able to make it through the night.” Doctor Kang said, his head down low. “I’m so sorry.”

Hooked onto too many tubes to count, Mai rested on the hospital bed in her most peaceful slumber yet. She was unconscious to her mother’s cries, the first time Yuta had seen you crack in the eyes of others; you held onto her small frame for dear life, clutching onto her small pale hands as you laid beside her.

“What did we do wrong?” He heard you mutter to no one in particular, left it trembling in the suffocating air. “What the fuck did we do wrong?”

Yuta sat on the foot of the bed, unable to even look at Mai. He was scared, so terrified. In her final hours, he didn’t want to face her with a look that was sorrowful and guilt-ridden. He racked his brain of what to say, but he overwhelmed himself with his gazillion unsaid thoughts and it left ultimately him blank.

“Mai, are you listening?” He asked after a while, his voice hesitant and wavering. His throat felt dry as if he hasn’t spoken in years. When he received no reply, he let out a mirthless chuckle. He added, “Do you remember the first time we went to the beach?”

You craned your neck to meet Yuta’s eyes, bloodshot as yours were, and he didn't look away. He continued, “You were so little back then but you were rambunctious as ever. You loved the beach so much that I had to pretend that I got sick so we could go home.”

He saw your hand snake out of Mai’s blanket, holding it out for him to take. He caught it with his shaky fingers, tears tumbling out of his cheeks as he relished in the warmth you provided. Gripping on your hand with a tightness he couldn’t believe he was capable of in his state, you held on his even firmer; to assure him that you were there, that he was not alone.

“Mai,” You whispered in between hiccups, gazing at your daughter with such a tenderness Yuta knew was only reserved for Mai. “Mermaids and mermen don’t exist. It was only your papa who was swimming in the water when I pointed one to you.”

It was the crack in your voice that got him. You were letting yourself be vulnerable, and it pained him that it took you this long to finally allow yourself to be. The strong woman he was so in love with, falling apart right in front of him—somehow, you were still so beautiful. An absolute goddess that you were.

Tugging onto Yuta’s hand, he swallowed his reluctance and inched himself closer. He said on his way, “Mai, Uncle Johnny wasn’t the one who broke your favorite pail and shovel, it was me. I accidentally stepped on it and I blamed it all on your uncle because I didn’t want you to be mad at me.”

It went on for a while, your family’s exchange of apologies and truths. It was all either of you could say, but Yuta wished this moment could last forever. You were being honest with your feelings and he was braving against his insecurities as a father, but he knew no matter how much tears he’d shed, Mai was still dying.

“Mai,” Tone a little softer, Yuta called out to his daughter once more. “You and your mama are the reasons why my life is worth living. You’ve both brought out a side of me that I never once imagined I was capable of having. But Mai, you especially are my strength.”

You burrowed your nose into the small of Mai’s neck, muffling your cries at your husband’s confession. He carried on, baring his soul out, “You are the light of my life and of so many others and Mai, we need you to stay alive… I need you to keep on living.”

Mai coughed, and Yuta’s eyes shot open. You drew back, in equal shock at her sudden awakening. She smiled at the sight of her parents, barely having the strength and energy to flutter open her lids all the way, “Papa, if I promise to, can we go back to the beach?”

A gasp ripped off your throat, fresh tears welling in your eyes as if you hadn’t already exhausted yourself from crying. While you latched yourself onto Mai’s fragile form, Yuta’s limbs moved before he could even process what was happening. He scrambled towards the both of you, throwing his arms around his family in a dogpile, clinging with all of his strength.

“Mama, your hair. It tickles.” Mai delicately giggled, scrunching her nose to evade your locks. She couldn’t move in either of your holds, allowing your and Yuta’s combined warmth and coziness to envelop her whole, almost soothing her to a state of tranquility she was never truly accustomed to all her life.

“I’m sorry, Mai.” You laughed breathlessly, a sense of relief washing over you, and you looked at her with a certain yearning. It was an apology that encapsulated everything—to your faults and shortcomings, you poured it all. “Let us make it up to you, okay?”

Yuta gently placed his palm against the side of her head, pressing his cheek against her head of hair and he didn't move an inch. He found comfort at the beating of her heart, faint but it was still there. He mumbled, “Tell us how can we make it up to you, Mai.”

“I want a new pail and shovel.” Mai hummed after a while of silence, letting you pepper her face with hurried kisses—sloppy kisses that would last her a lifetime—and ignoring the damp feeling on her scalp as she nestled into his father’s touch.

Home, Yuta thought once more, this is home. He savored the feeling for what he didn’t know would be the last time because on the night of August 5th of 2023, an hour after she had woken up from her heavily painkiller-induced condition, Nakamoto Mai died of heart failure.

Unknowingly, a little piece of her broken parents died with her. To fill the emptiness that she had left hollow in your hearts, you and your husband would turn to the beach for a taste of peace that neither of you wouldn’t ever fully attain again.

Life wasn’t fair, and Yuta doesn’t think it would ever be when it had already robbed him of his life’s purpose.

[tickletastic]

Everything’s Growing In Our Garden

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Ship: Thiam

Summary: Theo learns what it's like to finally have a family, and Jenna, David, and Liam are more than happy to help him along the way.

Living with the Dunbar-Geyers was… different for Theo, to say the absolute least.

Before the dread doctors, he was always coming second to his sister. He was sick, and asthmatic, and terrible at sports. Tara was the star of her middle school’s soccer team, and in the off-seasons she juggled piano lessons and debate team. Theo had things of his own: he did dance when his asthma wasn’t acting up, and he could write circles around the other kids thanks to his reading addiction, but it was never enough for his parents. They wanted trophies and medals to show off, and cute pictures in uniforms, and Theo could just never give them that. He didn’t really understand it as a kid. He thought that most kids were vying for the attention of their parents and Tara was just an exception. He wanted to feel special too.

When the dread doctors enticed him to join them, they had made him feel special. They said that he was so unique for being chosen by them, and once he gave them what they needed he could have everything he ever wanted.

The doctors never fulfilled their promises. Instead, Theo was threatened on a daily basis, and prodded with needles and x-rays until he was blue in the face.

Theo never did feel special. At least, not until he started living with Liam and his parents.

Liam was constantly around, bubbly and jumpy as always, making sure Theo was comfortable. Liam spent two days trying to figure out the perfect plan to convince Theo to move in when he found out that Theo was homeless. In the end, he took the easy way out and stole Theo’s truck. He refused to return the keys until Theo promised he would take the Dunbar-Geyers’ guest bedroom.

Liam’s parents welcomed him with open arms. They both did everything they could to make sure that Theo would be comfortable after Liam described the older boy’s flighty nature to them. It wasn’t hard for either of them, they both took a liking to the boy instantly, and Jenna found it easier than Liam had described to read Theo’s emotions. Mothering a teenage boy will do that to you.

Dr. Geyer loved talking biology with Theo. He even offered Theo an internship at the hospital before the Geyers had found out that Theo needed to graduate high school. The second the doctor came home, he would often talk with Theo while helping Jenna with what was left of dinner. The two of them got along very well, and Dr. Geyer found it refreshing discussing medicine with someone who wasn’t a colleague.

Jenna and Theo had many, many things in common: they both loved to read, they both loved to cook, and they both loved to annoy Liam to wit’s end. Jenna was actually one of Theo’s favourite contemporary authors before the two had even met, and he would be embarrassed to admit to the fanboy moment he had when they first met. Jenna had written a popular fantasy children’s series under her maiden name, Tate, before transitioning into adult fiction under her current name. Liam hadn’t even known that Theo was a fan of his mom until Theo met her. Jenna barely had time to introduce herself before Theo was turning bright red and gushing: “I have read Noire Kingdom seven times!” Jenna laughed, and Liam swore that he would never let Theo live it down. Liam quickly learned not to mention it when his mom and his new housemate had started to gang up on him with the teasing.

It was really strange to Theo to be treated like he was part of the family. It was weird to have two parent-figures that had grown to love him. Theo didn’t really know what he imagined parents to be like. He couldn’t remember much of his own, and fake parents never quite fit the bill.

Dr. Geyer was understanding and pensive. He would check in on Liam and Theo when the security bell would alert his phone of their homecoming, and he would bring home sweets from the bakery near the hospital once a week. When Theo first arrived he had believed it was already a tradition: Dr. Geyer would bring home an assortment of treats every week; tarts for Liam, muffins for Jenna, cookies for himself, and an assortment of others. One week, Dr. Geyer’s usual box of goodies changed from an assortment to just four. The tarts, muffins, and cookies remained the same, but instead of the usual variety of extra sweets, there were sprinkled donuts. Dr. Geyer never mentioned it, so Theo never did figure out how the doctor had realized they were his favourite. It wasn’t until months after that Liam let it slip that the sweets hadn’t been tradition before Theo’s arrival, but his dad had instead decided to create new traditions to include Theo.

Dr. Geyer showed his affections through small, silent acts of kindness, and even that was a bit overwhelming for Theo.

Jenna? Well.. some of her maternal habits were kind of strange, Liam was completely willing to admit it. He had filled Theo in on a few of them:

- Simply for her own peace of mind, Jenna would try to make Liam smile at least once a day - Jenna called Liam by his first name only when she was angry, otherwise, it would always be some variation or nickname, and last but not least; - Jenna packs Liam’s lunch, always slipping a little note into it

Theo didn’t really see what the point was in Liam telling him all of this, after all, Theo was definitely not planning on passing judgement on the woman who had given him a home.

Theo didn’t understand until he had been helping Jenna cook dinner one day.

“Baby face, could you pass me the flour?”

Theo hadn’t heard Liam, or even smelled Liam enter the house, so he turned to the entrance of the kitchen, his brow furrowed. When he turned around, the entrance was empty, the house only occupied by Theo and Jenna, as expected.

Theo’s brow furrowed, and he looked over at Jenna, who was humming peacefully as she mixed the dough in front of her. She looked up at Theo when she realized he had yet to pass her the ingredient.

“Theo, sweetheart: the flour?”

Even Theo’s crazy ability to hide his emotions couldn’t help the furious blush that made its way over his face. He nodded frantically before turning around and handing Jenna the bag of flour.

“Are you okay, honey? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Theo nods frantically again, “yup, perfectly fine, Mrs. Geyer.”

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Jenna?” She tuts before continuing dinner.

Some of the nicknames do get absurd, but others are so cute and fond that they force a blush to rise over Theo’s cheeks no matter how many times he’s called them.

Theo finally understands why Liam felt the need to fill him in on all of the strange maternal habits that Jenna has developed when Theo opens his backpack one morning, finding a brown paper bag in it. He eyes it strangely, but it doesn’t smell suspicious... In fact, it smells delicious.

Three periods later, Theo sits down for lunch with Liam and the puppy pack, taking out the bag and placing it on the cafeteria table in front of him, eyeing it with suspicion. He’s so deep in wonder that he doesn’t even notice when Liam stops his conversation with Alec mid-sentence, eyeing Theo with the same suspicious look that Theo is giving the bag.

“Dude, it’s just the lunch my mom packed for you, I promise she didn’t lace it with wolfsbane or anything.”

Theo scowls, looking down in an attempt to hide his embarrassment. When he finally does open the bag, the effort to hide is rendered completely worthless as he reads out the note written on a heart-shaped sticky note stuck to the container of his sandwich.

The rest of the table certainly notices, and Corey, the little shit that he is, grabs for the note, tearing it straight from the container.

“Have an amazing day at school, sweet boy. I know you’ll do perfect on your biology midterm. Xoxo Jenna.”

Theo grabs for it, but of course, that doesn’t stop Corey from reading it out to everyone else present at the table. His face is bright red, and Liam jokingly leans in to pinch his cheek. Theo glares before hastily grabbing the brown paper bag, getting up and tossing his backpack over his shoulder as he grumbles under his breath.

The moment that Liam realizes that he has forgotten to fill Theo in on everything comes a moment too late, but Liam ends up being grateful in the end.

Jenna has a habit of touching her family on whatever body part happens to be closest to her. Liam thinks that she doesn’t even know that she’s doing it, it has just always been a calming ritual for her. Usually, it would be a normal body part, she would scratch Liam’s scalp while asking him about his day at school, or she would rub David’s shoulder while asking him to pick up groceries. Today, David was on a shift at the hospital and, while Jenna was actively working on her next novel, she was home for the time being. It was after school on a weekday, so she figured she could spare the night away from her office to feed her favourite boys.

When the two teens had arrived home, they had greeted Jenna in the kitchen before heading to the living room. Liam had gravitated to the floor directly in front of the TV, playing video games on his PS4, and Theo had gravitated to the couch behind the younger teen. Liam was sitting with his back against the couch, and Theo was curled up on the couch, trying his hardest to keep his eyes open despite his long day at school.

Jenna rounded the couch from the kitchen, standing next to Liam in front of the couch. She started to absentmindedly scratch Liam’s head, and he leaned into the touch, practically purring. She stopped when she realized that Theo’s eyes were closed, and she cleared her throat. Theo’s eyes squinting back open.

“Hey, kiddo, long day at school? You should head up and take a nap before dinner,” Jenna started, smiling softly at the boy that she now considered her second son. “What do you want for di-”

Jenna was interrupted by a frantic giggle from Theo, as he quickly rushed to cover his face with his hands. Liam hadn’t been paying much attention, but he starts to when the sweet sound of Theo’s laughter floats through the air.

While she had been preparing to ask Theo what he wanted for dinner, her hand had wandered down to his socked foot, pulling at his toes without even realizing.

Jenna repeats the action and smiles fondly when Theo tries to curl up, calling out through giggles, “Jenna!”

She stops when the boy tries to scramble off the couch, moving her hand to his shoulder in a calming effort to ensure that he stays comfortable. She can’t help but coo, the flush on Theo’s cheeks worsening in response. “That’s adorable.”

Liam was confused as to what had happened, his back to Theo, until Jenna had rounded the couch and leaned over to whisper in Theo’s ear, “don’t worry, Liam’s ticklish too.”

Now both Liam and Theo were blushing, Liam because his mother had revealed his secret, and Theo because Jenna’s words could confirm Liam’s suspicions of his own sensitivity. When she pulls away, she ruffles Theo’s hair. “What do you want for dinner, honey?”

Theo stammered for a moment, his brain a cloud of embarrassment and anticipation, “could we have pasta?”

“Of course, babydoll.” Jenna walks back into the kitchen, Liam sure that she would make bowtie pasta since it seemed to be Theo’s favourite, even though Liam preferred rigatoni.

As much as Theo would like to test out Liam’s ticklishness, his tired brain doesn’t even think of it until Liam is pinning him to the couch, his game abandoned completely as Brett and Alec’s voices sound out through his headset.

Theo had a nervous smile on his face, his tiredness still unceasing. Liam was grinning like he had just discovered Atlantis. “You’re ticklish? Mom’s right, that is adorable.”

Theo couldn’t prevent the blush that grew to line his cheeks. He shook his head, his voice breathy in anticipation, “I mean, not r-really?”

“‘Not really’ as in you’re not ticklish?” Liam pinched Theo’s ribs, the older boy writhing beneath him, “or ‘not really’ as in you’re not adorable? ‘Cus they both seem to be true according to my information.”

Theo had gripped Liam’s wrists and was attempting to push them further away without trying to push Liam off altogether, failing horribly. Liam had always been stronger, though the chimera was usually faster, not only on his feet but with his mind as well.

Theo groaned, a look in his eyes that Liam couldn’t quite place, a look that would’ve signaled that Theo was frustrated had he been with anybody else but Liam. “If you’re going to insist on doing this, can we just get it over with? I’m exhausted Li.”

“Sorry babe, I’m about to make it worse.”

Theo didn’t even have the time to respond to the abnormal nickname before he was trying his very best to stay silent. As good as he had always been at handling interrogation methods, the dread doctors never did teach him how to handle this. He was trying to make his brain think quicker, but his thoughts were starting to fog up. He tried to decide between masking his chemosignals and masking his heartbeat, but his heart had quickly betrayed him in its pace.

He had always found it so easy to mask his heartbeat and chemosignals, it had always come so easy to him, but trying to hold in his laughter while hiding his chemosignals felt like he was running a marathon. He thought that he was doing a pretty good job until he saw the wicked smile on Liam’s face.

He wondered what kind of chemosignals he was sending out, because the only thing that he felt was panic. Liam’s fingers poked over his toned tummy, wiggling and twitching against Theo’s skin. He couldn’t let his laughter escape him, he needed to have at least one thing under control, but he was quickly losing it beneath the younger boy.

Theo almost bucked Liam off entirely when his fingers moved to his ribs, absolute terror running through his mind. He didn’t even realize he was shaking his head until Liam’s own beautiful laugh cut through the air.

“No, Theo? No what? What is it that you don’t want me to do?”

Theo frantically reached around, managing to grab both of Liam’s wrists and pushing them away ever so slightly, forcing Liam to stop. Liam just looked amused, a hint of glee in his eyes and a soft, pleased smile on his lips with his head quirked to the side.

Theo wanted to grimace, but instead he couldn’t stop a smile from spreading across his own face, breathy giggles escaping as he tried to reason. “Liam. Li. Just leave me alone. If you keep touching me then I swear I’ll make you regret it. I will break your nose in more ways than you could even count. I will-”

Liam stretched his fingers and wiggled, the corner of his lips further quirking when Theo let out a soft giggle when Liam’s fingers barely even brushed Theo’s skin. Liam’s fingers were just barely close enough for Liam to do anything but brush Theo with the very tips of his nails, yet there were enough to get the chimera on edge. “I swehehear I will- Holy shihit Liam don’t!”

Jenna was swift with her scorn, a quick call of ‘Theodore Karl Raeken’, reminding Theo to watch his language. In a swift movement Liam had gathered both of Theo’s wrists into one of his hands and pinned them above his head. It was enough to catch Theo off guard, giving Liam time to surprise him with his newly planned attack.

Theo’s eyes crinkled at the corners, and he started to giggle despite himself. Liam was also hit with a wall of scent as Theo unknowingly lost control of his chemosignals. Liam felt something warm simmer in his chest, and he let it bloom until he found himself momentarily releasing Theo’s wrist and reaching for his phone. He opened his phone to his desired application and tasered Theo, snapping a quick photo as the chimera squeaked, his nose scrunching up in a way that made Liam’s heart skip. When the distinct snapping resounded from Liam’s phone, he was hit by the distinct scent of embarrassment from Theo.

“Delete it!”

“I really don’t think you’re in a position to be making any demands, T.”

Liam’s fingers resumed their scritchy scratching over Theo’s ribs: stuttered, carefree giggles softly flowing from the older boy.

Theo’s laughter adopted a panicked tone the higher that Liam’s fingers rose. A spot between two of his top ribs had him snorting softly, words completely dying in his throat. When Liam’s hands slipped under Theo’s arms, his eyes, which had been just barely open, shot wide, giving Liam a look similar to his own infamous puppy-dog eyes.

“Fuck, Liam stahap!” Theo’s laughter had risen an octave, and Liam was satisfied that he had been able to force the older boy to lose control. Liam hadn’t realized until now how satisfying it would be to see Theo as anything other than completely calm and collected.

Theo had gone limp for a moment when Liam had been tickling his ribs, but now his fight was back in full force. Theo had managed to pull his wrists down from Liam’s hold and was now desperately flailing his arms in defense as Liam poked and tickled wherever he could reach.

“Aww, someone’s a giggly mess.” red hot embarrassment scented through the open air once again as the colour of Theo’s cheeks began to rival that of tomatoes.

Theo had his head thrown back, his eyes shut as he blindly tried to defend himself. Could Deucalion train him on this? Liam took a moment to quickly film a video on snapchat, making a mental note to send it to Mason as proof that Theo, the big, bad chimera of death, does in fact giggle, and he looks pretty fucking cute while he’s doing it.

Liam had admittedly gotten a little carried away with tickling Theo silly, not even detecting another heartbeat near him until there was nimble, knowing fingers poking him in the tummy from behind.

“H-hey!” Liam fell backwards onto his back on the couch, bringing his knees up in an attempt to curl up while his mother hovered over him, rapidly poking him in one of his most sensitive areas.

“I think it’s time that you let Theo get his nap, don’t you think?” Jenna threw a wink Theo’s way that he just barely caught as he curled in on himself, still giggling softly.

Liam nodded frantically as a cacophony of sounds spilled from his lips: snorts, squeals, and cackles. To Theo, he resembled a turtle stuck on its back, desperately trying to flip over, as Liam flailed his arms in an attempt to protect himself. “Okahahay, mom! I’ll leave Theo alone!”

“That’s more like it!” Jenna exclaimed, blowing a raspberry to Liam’s neck before backing away. “Dinner will be ready soon boys, hope you’re hungry.”

Jenna walked back into the kitchen while Liam recovered, scratching and swatting at himself as if he could still feel his mother’s fingers. When he finally sat up, a small smile breached his face. Theo was curled up in a ball, facing the inside of the couch, fast asleep.

His breathing was slow, and his expression was soft and worry-free. Liam could once again feel the familiar flutter in his chest as he reached for the throw blanket folded on the arm of the couch, softly placing it over Theo as the boy softly snored.

A year ago, Theo barely felt safe sleeping in Beacon Hills at all, but now, Liam was glad that he finally had a place to call home, and that he finally had people he could call family.

[augustmoon259]

For I shall already have forgotten you CHAPTER 2: AN END AND A BEGINNING

When Madeline was seventeen, her life began to go downhill.

Her father was a former smoker. He smoked often before meeting her mother. After meeting Madeline’s mother, and subsequently falling in love with her, he vowed not to smoke again.

He didn’t keep his promise.

Following the death of Madeline’s mother, her father picked up smoking again, but it was far worse. He drowned his sorrows in a bottle of alcohol and a pack of cigarettes daily. It took much effort from concerned friends to make him see the error of his ways. More than that, it was the guilt. The guilt that his daughter would grow up without a father. With the loss of his wife, and no other immediate family, he was the only one who could take care of his child.

So Madeline’s father quit smoking, for good this time. Unfortunately, no matter how much you try to outrun your past, sometimes it catches up to you.

Madeline’s father began experiencing a persistent cough that worsened as time passed. Sometimes he would have trouble breathing; other times he would cough up blood. After these continued bouts of coughing and chest pain, Madeline’s father scheduled an appointment with his doctor. The diagnosis confirmed the worst case scenario.

It was lung cancer. Specifically, small cell lung cancer. The x-ray scans revealed that the cancer was now in its extensive stage, meaning that the tumor had grown and the cancer had spread to other parts of the body. Treatment was possible, but Madeline’s father had a low chance of survival.

When her father broke the news to her, Madeline was devastated. Her kind and dependable father, the one who was always there for her, had cancer? Not just any cancer, but lung cancer, the deadliest of all.

Madeline’s father wanted his daughter to focus on her last year of secondary school. So she did, albeit with great reluctance. Madeline juggled school and sports while monitoring her father’s health. Her father would be in and out of the hospital frequently for his chemotherapy treatment.

Madeline tasked her magical friends with observing and taking care of her father while he was in the hospital, and she could not be there for him. Inkblot flew to and from the hospital, updating Madeline about her father’s current condition. Susan stayed with her father and made sure that he was sleeping or eating well.

Madeline was grateful for the presence of her friends during these troubled times. Ever since the first night she met him, Woodstock kept a constant vigil beside her while she slept. He made her feel less lonely on the nights when her father was at the hospital. Oggy was wrapped around her neck, as always, while she was at school. Sneak reminded Madeline to take care of herself and to not be overwhelmed by her emotions. She meditated and joined a support group for family members of cancer patients.

Months passed. It seemed that Madeline’s father was doing better after chemotherapy. His symptoms were less severe and he was discharged from the hospital.

The best gift Madeline could ask for was having her father at home with her on Christmas day. That was all she needed. Instead, Madeline’s father surprised her with a polar bear cub.

Not an actual polar bear cub. A stuffed one. It fit in her arms perfectly, with the softest fur and black marble eyes.

Madeline felt that something was still missing though. She wasn’t sure what until she saw her reflection. Madeline usually kept her hair tied into two pigtails, with a maple leaf clip on each side of her head.

The thing that was missing was an accessory for her new polar bear cub. With this realization, Madeline went to her room to search in her drawers. She found the object she was looking for: a pink flower-shaped hairpin. Madeline attached the pin next to the stuffed bear’s right ear.

There! A flower fit for a princess. Now you look the part, but what will your name be?

Madeline thought for a while.

Princess. Are there any names that mean princess? Hime? Miki? No...It’ll have to be-

“Kumarie!”

The name felt right for Madeline. She felt strangely nostalgic, as if the name (or something similar to it) felt familiar.

Madeline was grateful for her father’s gift. He knew that she had a love of animals, particularly birds, polar bears, and turtles.

The remainder of Madeline’s Christmas break progressed peacefully. She would remember those pleasant days, the calm before the storm.

The new year brought the cancer back with a vengeance. The same symptoms, along with a host of others.

To Madeline’s distress, chemotherapy had failed her father. Madeline’s father chose to undergo other forms of treatment, and when those didn’t work, he participated in clinical trials.

So the cycle repeated itself again. Winter turned to spring. February turned into March, which turned into April.

Madeline found herself alone more often at home. She found herself clinging to Kumarie as she fell asleep.

Eventually, treatment was no longer an option. Madeline knew that since her father was in the later stages of his cancer, he had little to no chance of surviving, but to hear her worst fears confirmed was heartbreaking. After Christmas, she had thought that things would get better.

Madeline could do nothing as her father deteriorated. All she could do was make sure her father’s last months were spent with no pain. Madeline made sure her father took his medication. She worked with medical and healthcare professionals to provide her father with the best hospice care. Madeline watched as her father began to lose interest in things that he used to enjoy: gardening, watching documentaries, bird watching. He slept more often and for longer periods each time. He had difficulty eating and drinking.

Her graduation came and went. Madeline was envious of her classmates whose family came to support them. She was alone once the ceremony ended.

In the last week of June, Madeline’s father became confused and delirious. When he looked at her, she could see in his eyes that he didn’t know who she was. The ache in her heart remained until the first day of July.

When Madeline was eighteen, her father died.

The two weeks following her father’s death were hectic. It felt like she was in a bubble, her mind elsewhere as her body focused on doing what was needed. Madeline contacted her father’s friends and told them about his death. She made arrangements for a funeral and proper burial. Madeline took care of the will, met with an attorney, and made a list of bills that needed to be paid.

As soon as all of this was done, the bubble popped. Reality set in for Madeline. Her father was gone. She would never hear his laughter again, or eat his cooking. No more hikes, or campfire stories, or stargazing. Gone was that consistent presence throughout her life, he who had always reassured her.

Madeline was lost. She was unsure what to do with herself, where to go from here. So she fell back into old habits. Madeline shopped, she did the laundry, she cleaned the house. Everything she did only served to remind her of her father’s passing: the foods he liked to eat, his clothes that were strewn about, antiques and other collectibles her father acquired during his life.

The garden was beginning to grow weeds. Madeline had taken care of it when her father was unable to. Now, she could not bring herself to do the same.

She distracted herself by watching movies, TV shows, anime, and Korean dramas. The thought of going outside and seeing happy people made her queasy. Why should the world not mourn with her? It was unfair.

Inkblot, Sneak, Susan, Oggy, and Woodstock. All of them were worried about Madeline. They wanted her to go out, talk with a therapist, and process her emotions. They knew that the way she was handling herself now did no one good, least of all her. Madeline rejected them. She said she was fine. She could handle it. They were overexaggerating.

Madeline continued like this for another month. It was August. By now, the weeds had completely overtaken the garden. Madeline felt guilty. Day by day she had watched as the weeds grew inch by inch. If her poor father could see his garden, he would be disappointed in her. After her father died, Madeline had also neglected to clean his room. The room might be dusty, but it was the memories it held that threatened to overtake her.

Madeline was cleaning the house as per usual, when she came to the door of her father’s bedroom. Madeline hesitated before opening it. The curtains were open, letting the sunlight spill in. She was correct in assuming the room would be dusty. Madeline vacuumed the floor, packed her father’s old clothes into boxes, and dusted everything else.

As she looked underneath her father’s bed, she found a chest. The chest was locked. Madeline searched her father’s desk drawers for a key. When she found it, she opened the chest. Inside of the chest was an old journal. It’s brown leather cover displayed signs of wear and tear.

Madeline opened the journal. Its pages were completely filled out. She flipped to the last page. The date of the last entry was the day of her seventeenth birthday, before things started to go wrong. Her eyes scanned the final journal entry:

MY DEAR MADELINE,

IF YOU ARE READING THIS, THEN I HAVE GONE.

I WISH I COULD HAVE STAYED WITH YOU LONGER.

BUT IT WAS NOT MEANT TO BE.

SO LIVE ON.

LIVE TO SEE THE JOYS THAT LIFE CAN BRING.

FOR SORROW DOES NOT LAST FOREVER.

Tears fell from Madeline’s eyes. The salty liquid stained the pages of the journal. Madeline hugged the journal close to her chest before her legs gave way beneath her. She sat on the floor in a crouched position, the journal lying discarded as her hands made her way to her face to wipe her tears.

The guilt came back full force. What was she doing spending her life like this when there was so much more out there for her to explore? In the wake of her father’s death, Madeline’s career as a photographer had been temporarily put on halt. She still earned money from her online store, photo prints, etc., but she had not been posting on her blog or social media.

It was in that moment that Madeline hardened her resolve to live her life the way she wanted to. She would travel the world and meet new people, just as she always dreamed of.

The pain would linger, for it never truly goes away, but it was no longer the only feeling in her heart. Madeline’s newfound determination fueled her.

The rest of the day was spent taming her father’s garden. Madeline did what she could to tame it for the day, but the weed killer would do the rest.

That night, Madeline rested in her bed, with Kumarie in her arms. Woodstock and Inkblot was perched on the headboard of her bed. Sneak and Oggy were hiding underneath the bed, while Susan was lying on the floor in a spare sleeping bag. The atmosphere was quiet and serene.

Madeline dozed off with a smile on her face.

Eyes fluttering open, Madeline yawned as her eyes blinked blearily. Her mind adjusted itself to the sight of her room and she saw all her friends wide awake and by her bedside. They were staring at her, or rather what she still held in her hold. Madeline shot them a questioning look until she felt the object of their focus move.

A startled gasp left her mouth as Madeline laid her eyes on a living, breathing polar bear cub. What?! What is this?! Kumarie is a stuffed toy! One that’s not supposed to be moving!

“Kumarie?!”

The bear gazed at Madeline.

“Who?”

“Kumarie, that’s your name, isn’t it?”

The redubbed Kumarie peered at Madeline before squinting down at its paws. After a pause, it concluded, “Yeah! My name is Kumarie.”

In the back of her mind, Madeline noted that Kumarie had a cute, high pitched voice.

There was nothing left to do but to take this new development in stride.

“Kumarie, do you like pancakes?”

“Yes!”

“Kumari” means “princess” in Indian, although it also means “cloudy” in Japanese. 

For anyone who is a family member, friend, or themself going through a tough time due to cancer, my condolences. If you have lost a loved one due to cancer, my heart goes out to you. I tried researching and making the symptoms and stages of lung cancer accurate. Everyone has a different way of mourning or grieving, so I hope Madeline’s behavior does not come across as odd.

[greenhanded-redthumbed]

Mr Appleigus

The men of the Appleigus family had a strict motto. Mr Appleigus the senior, deceased at age seventy-eight and not to be confused with his son, the current Mr Appleigus, had made a point to pass on this saying when his junior was about nine years of age and sobbing over a scraped knee, albeit a rather bad one. 

The boy had fallen from the branches of the Jacaranda tree in their front yard - not hard enough to break anything - but with enough speed and awkwardness that one of his old, gnarled ladder rungs had dug its bark deep into his skin. Perhaps it wasn’t fond of being stepped on. 

Mr Appleigus, having carried his son inside, applied rubbing alcohol and a particularly large band-aid created with the intention to either be used on a child or comically plastered on an adult en route to a hospital. 

“It’ll be alright,” the senior Appleigus had assured as he smoothed down the band-aid, “It might have cut deep, but it’ll heal. You gotta be strong, deal with a little pain & you’ll be as good as new. A little patience and a few bandaids and you’ll be able to get up from anything that doesn’t kill you.”

Mr Appleigus, the junior, had remembered and applied this advice throughout his life, from the time he turned twenty right up until his current age of fifty-nine (when he was a teenager, he could see no use for such a blindly optimistic and simple metaphor so he’d chosen to ignore it until he once again saw the pertinence of simple, blind optimism shortly following the conclusion of his school years).

He was, fifty years later, now facing a different kind of band aid.

“There’s been a significant break to the hip on the right hand side,” the doctor said to him. He’d seen her puzzling over the clipboard that held his x-ray results as she hovered just outside the door to his room. So the scans would be pretty fresh in her mind. He still found it slightly disconcerting that she felt no need to glance down at the papers.

After a brief pause, presumably to let the news sink in, she continued on, “It will require surgery. For people your age, we usually recommend a replacement. Especially with your history of problems.”

Mr Appleigus nodded. It seemed fair enough - he didn’t consider himself old, as neither he nor his brother had any sons, and only his niece was continuing the Appleigus name, he still considered himself the junior Appleigus - but a hip that didn’t ache when he walked up the stairs to his apartment would be nice.

He signed the surgical forms - if he died the doctor wasn’t responsible, he’d pay the money, in case of complication contact the other Mr Appleigus as next of kin - the usual. They kept him in the hospital for a week for the operation. The other Appleigi (a lasting family in-joke only the teller seemed to find funny) came to visit, his niece Sophie even brought him flowers. They were pretty blue ones - in a little pot so they could keep growing rather than withering in a vase.

“You can take it with you,” Sophie said practically (but not optimistically of course, she was a sweet, darling niece, but still a teenager), “When you go home.”

It seemed humans were far less cynical than hospital forms - the maths were in his favour at fifty-nine. The rising likelihood of death only kicked in during the final years of human frailty. And even then, people still expected to leave the hospital room alive.

He did manage to, of course. (It is always of course with adults in hospitals. They have too much optimism to face their own mortality. The doctors will fix it! They can fix anything!)

He had a brief recovery period and a new scar across his right side, but in return he could climb stairs without quietly nursing his ache. His perseverance could be shifted back to his work. Now he could spend perhaps a minute more shifting through financial reports than usual!

In truth, rather little changed. After a few days he stopped noticing the lack of ache. It was as if it had always been.

At the ripe old age of sixty three, Mr Appleigus decided to take up cycling again. The cause, however risky for his aging bones, was Sophie’s new habit. The darling girl had invited him to join her in cycling along the paths circling the nearby lagoons. (In truth, a series of attacks on young women had prompted her father to suggest she take a partner. He still felt honoured to be the first person she could think of willing to get up at six in the morning to cycle with a girl who kept at least one headphone in for the entire journey.)

It wasn’t the infamous attacker that caused the incident, but a rather innocent basketball. 

As the two Appleigi (Sophie smiled wryly at his nickname of Cycling Appleigings, so it seemed the family sense of humour would outlive him), had lazily made their second lap, the lull between the opening determination and final rush to the finish taking full effect, the ball had rolled across the path in the same lazy manner. The calm of the morning echoed in its slow, wobbly rolls across the uneven ground. It was easy enough to pedal around, with Mr Appleigus moving to follow Sophie’s arc with smooth, easy strokes of the leg. The clumsy child chasing it was not so predictable. They bumbled, small and quick with tunnel vision focused only on the bright orange of his plaything. While not a parent himself, Mr Appleigus had in him the same instinct found in almost every human over the age of fifteen. He saw the small, reckless child and swerved.

The bike went sideways, wheels rising violently from the tar like a wave against the coastline as his body hit the root-ridden path. The whole colossal wreck of metal and limbs fell thankfully clear of the child. Dimly he heard shouting - the cries of parents chasing their child with the same tunnel vision he had chased his ball - but it was drowned out by the sharp pain in his arm. The physical sensation tore apart any coherent sense of sound or sight beyond bright flashes of both. 

Mr Appleigus slowly regained his full ability to see and hear clearly on his route to the hospital. He found himself in a similar hospital bed to his previous visit. Though this time it was a different doctor.

“We’ve found a series of fractures up your left arm and to your shoulder,” the doctor said. This one checked the clipboard as he spoke. Perhaps he was new and nervous. Perhaps he was old to it and liked to get things right, “It needs to be reset in places. With multiple pins to keep it stable.”

Mr Appleigus nodded. He didn’t really understand anything beyond the fact that the doctor was promising him a working arm. He agreed and signed almost exact copies of the forms before. His brother and niece came to visit again - his brother apologetic that he could be injured on bike rides it was his idea he went on. (Sophie wasn’t apologetic. She would still be his favourite niece, he thought, even if he had more than one.)

While unapologetic, Sophie brought him another of the potted plants - another tiny geranium-esque flower, though this one had dark pink blooms instead of blue. 

“You can start a collection,” she shrugged, “a window box. But inside the window.” Still a teenager then, with the blunt and seemingly meaningless humour he was yet to understand. 

His arm took longer to recover from than his hip - maybe as this time it was multiple bones in multiple pieces. Still, he got back to normal eventually. And got back to his morning bike rides in no time. 

When he was sixty-five and his hands started shaking, he wondered if something went wrong with his bones. Maybe band-aid hadn’t quite covered the wound. He was surprised to learn it was Parkinson’s disease - early on-set. It always seems good to be diagnosed early, but they can’t cure it. It’s not like cancer, they can’t rip it out. All they did was medicate. 

As Mr Appleigus was coming to accept this, a doctor - this one not in a hospital room, but the office of his local practitioner - offered him a second option. A new trial surgery - one with even more forms to give the doctors deniability than usual - that will hollow out his arms, and fill them with prosthetic pieces. A few nerves replaced with tiny wires. His main joints replaced with carbon fiber copies. They said it would stop the shaking.

So he said yes.

(Sophie stopped by his apartment and brought his still-living flowers to his hospital room.) He stayed in hospital for a month, and his brother visited once a week and brought Sophie fortnightly. (She had her new university classes to juggle. Apparently first year engineering kept one very busy.)

This was the first surgery that felt different. He could not forget that his nerves were wires or joints prosthetic. He could feel them. Always. But they gave him a steady hand. He could keep working - he was reaching that ever-elusive retirement age, but he liked the money and the substance to his otherwise empty weeks. It was just a band aid that needed to stay on. But, then again, it wasn’t much different from the previous surgeries. 

He had a few more surgeries as he aged - his heart was weak, so they’d printed new arteries and added clamps to keep it’s beating stable. His lungs grew weaker, so they patched them up like sails of flesh, with the wind controlled by a sharp electric shock if they got too slow.

The doctors and their never-failing optimism kept him together with their band-aids. 

When he turned eighty-one, they told him he had Alzheimers. That he would start to forget. Not everything - and not immediately. Just that for a brief moment of time, his brother’s funeral would slip his mind. Or he might be convinced he’d eaten twice already, but actually have forgotten to all day. And of course, he’d have to stop working in the office. He didn’t really do anything there anymore apart from simple filing. But he really didn’t have much else to do.

When the doctor’s told him they could fix his brain - put his memories into a series of microchips of his most important memory and give him a RAM as stable as computers - Mr Appleigus said yes.

Despite being almost the same size as he was at fifty-nine, Mr Appleigus felt very small. Sophie still visited him when she had time - she had a job then, just like him. He learned to keep his sentences short - usually yes or no replies. She wasn’t as blunt with him as she used to be - while she pretended to understand him, he knew when she couldn’t. She might have asked him to repeat himself once or twice, but after that simply guesses.

Appleigi was too many syllables to pronounce, but after many tries Sophie smiled and he knew she understood. 

“I’ll have to bring you more flowers,” she said, noting that the old plants had finally died. He noted a niceness to her voice that hadn’t been there when she was younger - she’d started to grow up. Maybe she was already grown. His eyes were heavy. Everything dimmed. The machine memories were brighter, but the sight and sound swam past him. As if he was lying on the bicycle path again, only instead of sharp pain he was faced with a vast numbness. A letting go.

Mr Appleigus stopped noticing how his body moved. He stopped feeling the stairs beneath his feet. He stopped comprehending the files the chips in his brain and carbon fiber finger joints typed out on their own.

He didn’t notice his coworkers start to complain about a growing rancid smell. Or the putrid liquid seeping out from the gaps in his plastic skin. Or even the foul sloshing at each step. Not even the maggots wriggling between his copper nerves.

Mr Appleigus didn’t notice his niece set a pot of bright orange geraniums beside him in his favourite chair. He had no memory of turning to her, his mind sending a greeting that came out as an olid smacking of over-ripe lips.

By the time Sophie Appleigus, with a towel wrapped around her lower face and arms clad in dishwashing gloves up to her elbow, drove a screwdriver through his skull and dug through his rank, rotten brain for the chips put there when there was still something to bandage, Mr Appleigus was already long gone.

[sally-mun]

My shitty few days

Sorry just need to purge for a while.

So as I mentioned the other day, we had to put Autumn down. We’ve only had her for a couple years, and it was very, very sudden. I’m finding myself handling this loss really poorly compared to the other cats, I think because it’s so out of the blue rather than having been something we saw coming for a while.

Autumn was due for her normal annual appointment for shots and a physical, but over the last couple days we saw she’d been breathing a little heavily. I kept trying to listen to her breathing to get a sense of whether or not she was congested, but she was purring almost every time, so it was hard to hear anything at all. The one time she wasn’t, it sounded slightly stuffy, so we assumed she had a headcold, which Morrigan had dealt with before, and figured she’d need a round of antibiotics. We took her to the appointment on Saturday and explained the situation, and our vet tech took her in the back to weigh her. Everything was just... so normal.

Eventually the doctor came in with two x-rays, which was already a worrisome sign. She showed us one that she said was a normal x-ray from another cat, which already told me that something about Autumn’s was abnormal. She showed us how the lungs are supposed to be a dark spot in the front, and the heart is down here, and x-y-z, then switched over to Autumn’s chart. There was no dark spot for the lungs at all, and the trachea was pushed way up near her spine. She explained that Autumn had an enlarged heart that was pushing up on her lungs and that the cavity was full of fluid, and that she was in congestive heart failure and they had her on oxygen in the back room. From the sound of it, she probably would’ve only maybe gotten through the weekend at best had she stayed home, but the stress of riding in a car and then going to the doctor had accelerated her decline, and she really only had minutes left.

We were in utter and complete shock. I just... could not believe what I was hearing. I understood what I was being told, but part of me still just didn’t understand. I could not believe that she wasn’t coming home with us, that this would be the last time I’d ever see her. All of a sudden I could only think about how there was no ‘wind down’ period where we could make peace, and do our final iterations of our rituals, and take lots of pictures, and say our goodbyes. I realized that @fini-mun had no idea what was going on, and I called and said to get to the vet immediately because Autumn was about to die. More than anything I was haunted by a dream I’d had earlier in the week, in which Autumn was being put down and I remembered grabbing her off the table and shouting “What are you doing?! She’s so young!!” and just screaming and screaming as I felt her die in my arms.

When Deebs arrived they took her off the oxygen and brought her back to the exam room so we could see her for a few minutes, and it was clear that she was suffering and that even if we didn’t do it now it wouldn’t be long, but that the humane thing to do was to do it then. It was just all so rapid and there just wasn’t time to come to terms with it or get our proper goodbyes in. She just. disappeared. And as such I still haven’t felt yet like she died so much as I feel like she was taken away, and I’m having a lot of difficulty getting my psyche to even accept that it’s not that she’s missing, it’s that she’s gone.

Autumn’s death is almost exactly 2 months after Morrigan’s, and that is also messing with me, because I’ve never dealt with back-to-back passings like this and now Rory is the only cat. I’ve never had a single cat and the house feels so much emptier than I would’ve guessed. What’s worse is that Rory is a very social cat, and now he’s by himself. He’s had stress reactions each time one of the cats has passed (Morrigan in particular seemed to upset him), but he seems to be really urgently looking for Autumn. His entire social group is gone, and given that he’s only 5, they were all cats that were around more or less his whole life. He seems very disturbed to be the only cat and has been following us around and trying to get our attention and leading us to random places. Where’s Sally? Where’s Morrigan? Where’s Autumn? And I hate that I have no way of explaining any of this to him. All he knows is that they’re missing, and I can’t tell him where they went.

I had to work that day, too. Luckily my boss was really sympathetic to the situation and juggled the schedule around so that I’d only have to be there for 4 hours instead of a full shift, and she did that while on vacation, so that was really nice of her. Unfortunately this was a weekend where I had to work both days, so I couldn’t take Sunday to deal with it either -- but then it got even harder.

So on a Sunday, you both open and close because the mall hours are shortened, and you typically have one associate to work with, sometimes two if it’s a holiday weekend or something. This week, I only had one -- and he had texted me saying that he was feeling sick. He said he’d texted everyone on our team asking someone to take his shift and couldn’t get any takers, and he didn’t know what to do. This guy is generally honest and reliable, so I didn’t have any reason not to trust him. I told him if he could just make it in, I’d have him only do cashiering and I’d take care of the rest, but he said he hurt to even get out of bed, so I told him I’d figure it out. When I got to my store, the first thing I did was call some neighboring stores to see if they could send someone over. I was sure that out of 3 other stores, SOMEONE had to be able to help, but, no. No one could (or would) come help.

This was a huge, huge problem for several reasons. First and foremost, you’re not only not supposed to work alone on a Sunday, but you’re not allowed to close alone, period at the end. When we leave the store we do bag and pocket checks on each other, so if I’m not working with anyone, there’s no one to check me. It gets worse, though, because my boss is on vacation right now, so I’m responsible for doing the “Monday Madness” (aka a shiiiitton of administrative stuff), buuut I’m not able to work on Monday, so I had to do it Sunday. Furthermore, my company holds contests among the stores to see who can sell the most push items, and in my district we’re divided into teams of 5 to report on how much we’ve sold, aaand in this instance our store was a team leader, which means we have to call the other stores to check on them and record how they’re doing. On top of it all, this just happened to be a VERY busy Sunday; my store (or rather, I) did over $1,800 in sales, which is outrageously high for that day of the week.

It was just... such an enormous amount of work. Managing the store is a huge amount of work even on a normal day, but on this day I was both opening and closing, running the contest, performing Monday Madness duties, and still intermittently trying to get someone to come in and help me, all in the midst of an $1,800 sales day -- plus all the little responsibilities I have, such as trying to get add-ons for certain products (which I’m scored on) or trying to ensure that I sell contest items in at least sets of 2 (which I’m also scored on) and filling in the day planner (which typically takes the better part of an hour), plus just simply -cleaning- the store and getting jewelry out of the locked cases and greeting people that come in while I’m in the midst of a transaction and getting product down from high shelves on a ladder and trying to watch out for and deter shoplifters. It was just so, so, so much to handle on my own in 6 hours. By the end of the day I was so spent that I kept pausing because my brain couldn’t keep up with what I was supposed to say at check-out. Quite frankly I’m amazed that my drawer was only off 10 cents. Plus somewhere in there I was supposed to get a lunch and a 10 minute break, but obviously neither of those happened. The only thing I was able to consume over the course of the day was half a bottle of water.

Today I’m off, but it’s still no time for rest or relaxation. The only reason I’m off today is because my mother needed to have surgery done and I requested the day off because I needed to be able to drive her, get her medicine, and look after her once we got home. Had to be up at 6:00 this morning because we had to be to the hospital by 7:45, but we were aiming for 7:15 in case we ran into problems. For some reason I talked myself out of bringing a bottle of coffee to substitute for breakfast. What can I say, I don’t eat terribly well when I’m not in a great place emotionally. I finally had an opportunity to find something to eat around 11:00.

Anyway, I can at least say that the hospital staff was great and hanging out with my mom for a couple hours before they took her off to surgery was nice, but I was just so, so tired. And even though it was a relatively minor surgery (to fix her deviated septum so she could breathe and sleep better), there’s always that bit of stress with knowing that your family member is being put under and their well-being (or even their life) is in someone else’s hands and things do go wrong sometimes, and even following the successful surgery this is a procedure that needs particularly high guards against infection and I still need to be on my toes even though she’s home. My mom is doing okay but she’s still in some pain and there are a lot of things she can’t do for herself right now, so I’m having a hard time really letting myself settle down and relax because I don’t want her to fail to rouse me and try to do something herself instead and start bleeding or get an infection or otherwise get hurt because she’s woozy from the drugs.

I’m off tomorrow too so I can continue looking after my mom, so maybe in that time I’ll finally be able to take a deep breath, but who knows honestly. It’s just been. a lot over the last 3 days. I feel emotionally shot and even though I’m constantly tired I feel like I haven’t slept even when I have. After tomorrow I work 4 days in a row at my job, which isn’t necessarily bad but it’s always tougher when my boss is on vacation because invariably SOME shit goes down and I’m stuck mopping it up and trying to make it better before she gets back. Hopefully Sunday already fulfills that, but at this store, you never know.

So yeah, tldr: my life is a mess and I have no idea when I’ll be feeling better.

[nurfhurdur]

Life’s Highway Ch. 53 - Heartbreak

AN: I was going to link it but figure I’ll post the whole thing, why not. This one is rough….on me anyway. 

Request on AO3, Lightning dealing with the loss of Doc. Part 1 of ?

Also! Everything I’ve ever written is humanized.

He’d never dealt with death before, it was something he had just never thought of, surprising when his career revolved around driving a vehicle at incredibly high and dangerous speeds. So because he’d never dealt with death and had never given the topic much thought, he’d therefor never given the causes of death much thought either.

Of course it wasn’t like he didn’t know it happened. No one lived forever and to think otherwise was both naive and idiotic, but the closest it had ever reached him had been headlines in the tabloids. Other celebrities. So and so passed at 81 due to complications of surgery, car accidents, plane accidents, illness, he understood that, but somehow when he was forced to face it for the first time he just couldn’t get a grasp on it, or when he thought he did he’d suddenly be left juggling the notion awkwardly until he was mentally and emotionally exhausted.

Why did his first experience with loss have to be Doc.

He supposed he should be thankful that it wasn’t so sudden. Well it had been sudden, but not blink of an eye sudden. He should be thankful it wasn’t that drunk driver that jumped the curb in front of the hotel down in Concord last fall, who’d hit two people before careening in to a street light only ten feet from where they’d been standing in an attempt to get some air after a long day of press conferences and signing autographs. Lightning had barely realized what was happening when he felt a rough hand yank him backwards, heard tires squealing, people screaming, and in .001 seconds witnessed Doc shift from crew chief to medical professional. He remembered standing awkwardly near one of the pedestrians, holding the phone in a shaky hand and speaking to a 911 dispatcher as he parroted whatever Doc told him. He’d had no idea what half of it meant but it had helped the responders who arrived on scene.

In that moment he’d actually forgotten Doc was ill.

He’d forgotten it rather frequently in the course of those seventeen months.

Had it really only been seventeen months?

Lightning would get so caught up in their usual routine that for days or weeks at a time he would forget there was anything wrong. Or maybe he’d been forcing himself to forget, because there were times when that knowledge would crash through the wall he’d worked so hard to put in place. With blinding force, that fear and anticipation of the worst would jump that barrier and slam in to those weak defenses, scrape across his senses like metal on pavement, send chills down his spine and leave deep grooves and gouges, raw and open and bleeding. It had and still left him with an unexplainable sense of detachment from the rest of the world. How could they keep going when they all knew nothing was ever going to be the same. How do you live day to day knowing that the hands on the clock were slowing down. How could you just wait for them to stop.

In those days when he could forget, though, those blissfully ignorant afternoons at the Butte, he would forget the large brown envelope he’d found on the desk and took the liberty to open. It had looked official enough to pertain to the upcoming season, and everything sent to Doc was always addressed Jesse A. Hudson M.D.

Except it had nothing to do with Piston Cup.

The forms he’d glanced at before shoving them back in to the folder had been filled with terms he didn’t understand, didn’t want to understand, but he’d spent enough time hanging around in the clinic in the off seasons to recognize some of it. He could only sit around so long before he’d pull those text books off the shelves in boredom. One of his favorite pass times had been flipping to random pages, finding the most ridiculous and bizarre medical facts and try to stump Doc, which of course never worked. In doing so, it was hard not to pick up a few things here or there…

He’d stomped through to the garage, intent on throwing a tantrum that would put his rookie year to shame but when he finally did find his mentor, his crew chief, his father, he’d only thrown the envelope on the old desk and glared at him with tear filled eyes.

Doc, for his part, had only regarded the offending parcel in silence from where he stood at the work bench.

“You weren’t going to tell me, were you? You weren’t going to tell anyone.”

Doc had allowed him to rant and rave and vent his frustration over being kept in the dark and Lightning couldn’t tell in that moment whether he was angry at Doc’s silence or that expression of calm that had refused to break in the face of his verbal assault.

One of his most vivid memories of the whole ordeal was how much his fingers hurt when he’d held on to the back of Doc’s shirt, how hot his face felt and the painful sting in his eyes when the tears had finally spilled over, of how there didn’t seem to be anything wrong, there was no sign of frailness or illness when Doc had finally cut off his tirade with a crushing embrace and a muttered I’m sorry, Kiddo.

It had all started after the race in New York. Wet and cold and raining for the majority of the weekend, minus the race somehow, just about everyone had come down with some form of bronchitis or the flu. With Radiator Springs back on the map, the population had been steadily growing and so had the amount of patients at the clinic. Lightning remembered being wowed with some of the new equipment and despite his own heavy chest cold, he’d asked a thousand questions about the mobile x-ray machine.

“Yeah, it’s great.” Doc hadn’t exactly sounded thrilled, but it might have been because while he was being granted the latest and greatest equipment, he still didn’t have the technicians to use the equipment, at least in the case where he’d needed it for himself.

“You could always walk me through it.” Lightning had provided. “It can’t be that hard.” The very idea that an x-ray machine could send images to a tablet wasn’t exactly science fiction to him. It was more the fact that Doc could use a tablet that was the strange part.

“This thing costs more than you make in a year. Don’t even look at it.”

“Why do we need x-rays?”

“You don’t. You have a cold.”

“Then who needs it?”

“It’s illegal to share that kind of information.”

Through process of elimination, Lightning had figured out it was Sarge, who had actually come down with pneumonia.

Because the clinic had no technicians, Doc had been forced to travel for his own diagnosis, which Lightning had just looked at as a field trip, complaining both ways that if Doc had just allowed him to use the mobile machine they would have saved an entire day’s worth of driving. He’d been a little surprised when Doc mentioned going back a month or so later, he hadn’t been nearly as bad off as some of them but only shrugged when Lightning questioned him and offered a vague explanation that they only wanted a follow up.

It was more than a follow up.

What little Lightning had gathered from the forms he’d mistakenly opened, told him that something far more serious had been discovered through the course of the illness that had swept it’s way through the pit crew.

It wasn’t pneumonia or bronchitis, he hadn’t even been able to bring himself to say it, let alone think it. It was a zodiac sign you looked up in the paper to read your horoscope, it was a constellation, the Latin word for crab. It was harmless when considered in that context…

But in those moments he couldn’t just forget, when he was forced to face the facts in those lonely hours at night, when the shadows crept in and his defenses were at their weakest, he’d sway dangerously between fear and anger. Fear of the unknown, fear of knowing that eventually there’d come a time when he’d look up at that pit box and Doc wouldn’t be there.

He wasn’t real sure on how the grieving process worked and he wasn’t desperate enough to google it yet, but he did know that he’d then get angry, because his crew chief (father) was such a walking contradiction that Lightning sometimes couldn’t even come close to understanding his logic. How could someone finally open up and tell such fond stories of people they’d abandoned for fifty years but then make no attempt to return to old stomping grounds. How could a Medical Doctor completely ignore their own failing health but badger him over his own.

How could Doc refuse treatment.

That’s what had hurt him the most, when his ranting and crying and confusion had finally mellowed and he’d gotten himself under control (days later) he’d asked in a conversational tone when treatments would start, because he’d planned to be part of it all.

“Season starts in two months, there’s no time for that.”

Doc had replied in a tone that suggested the conversation was over and of course Lightning had other thoughts on the matter. He’d put up a fight at times in the past, usually coming across more as banter with a suggestive edge behind it but this had turned in to a full blown argument, two hard headed individuals facing off and colliding head on, the way only extremely egotistical Piston Cup Champions could.

Doc had refused to back down, in the same way he refused to back down on anything. “I’ve seen what that does to a person, Hot Rod, and I am not spending whatever time left putting myself through that.”

That had been the end of it, and Lightning never brought it up again.

Web MD was not his friend, and if Doc ever noticed any of his text books missing at any given time he never said anything.

It was months after that argument that he would forget. When the season started they had fallen in to the usual routine and everything seemed to have returned to normal. Or maybe it was just a new normal. It would only creep up on Lightning at random, in the middle of a conversation with the guys or after getting settled in to whatever hotel room he was put up in. Most often it was in those moments where he was able to spend too much time in his own head.

He’d gotten in to the habit of checking his phone, even more frequently than he used to. He’d started sending text messages more often, even if Doc was only in the room across the hall. He could almost feel the initial irritation seeping through the phone the first half of that year, and he was sure those replies that didn't come back until 4:00 AM and caused him to dig around for his phone blearily were more out of spite than anything else.

But then, after about six months, it had almost become an unspoken agreement between them. Instead of his constant harping and questioning on his crew chief’s well being, he’d simply send a text, it was Lightning’s way of checking in without checking in.

(6:42 AM) Press conference at 8?

Generally meant Ok?

Doc (6:45 AM) 7:30 Don’t be late.

Always meant Doing fine, Kiddo.

It had become the new normal and while he hadn’t been sure how long that normal would last, he’d made sure to make the best of it.

[myalinemoe]

Killer Cleaning or Who invented gravity...

Killer Cleaning or Who invented gravity…

AND why do they hate me! All of my life I seem to be a victim of gravity. I remember even at a young age that Gravity had it our for me. I tried to ride on the handle bars of a neighbors bike. Well, gravity had other ideas. I was trying to sit still but gravity took my little ankle and stuck it through the spokes of said bike!

Yep, just one more example of GRAVITY working against me. 

I know…

[rheasunshine]

Greetings fellow travelers,

I hope that wherever you’re reading this from, you are safe.

I haven’t been safe in awhile.

Yes, I have a roof over my head. (A new, expensive one at that; first year home-ownership can be stressful).

Yes, I have food and water.  (Well, sometimes there’s food – usually the fridge is empty-ish and even when it’s not, I’m not really into eating it.)  This fact alone makes me safer than millions and millions of people.

I am – generally speaking – not in danger.

Except last week.  Last week,  I was in a lot of danger.  And it wasn’t the first time.

It comes as no surprise to anyone following my story that as a “Professional Patient” I spend most of my days balancing doctors appointments and symptom-tracking and medications. To be honest (and you should always be honest, right Justin?), I’ve been doing a truly shitty job managing my illnesses.  It starts simply enough – one bad day.  That bad day leads to two, and by then I’ve decided nothing I could do matters and I let go of the controls.  Sounds healthy, right?

So a couple of weeks ago, as I was juggling my annual OBGYN visit, IUD discussions, a urology referral, a visit to UNC to discuss my constant nausea and further testing, a mammogram, vision testing for new glasses and contacts (and WAY more money than we have), my therapy visits and then 3 or 4 “normal” appointments, I kind of lost my mind.

The thing is, it wasn’t even beyond the scope of normal; that’s a pretty average week in my life.  Where things started to go sideways was in the creeping, slinking, insidious feeling that an MS relapse – or something worse – was coming on.  I’ve described this enough times that I feel we are all comfortable with what this looks like, so I’ll just summarize by saying that at this point in the story I was no longer in control of my motions, thoughts, words or feelings.

When Thommy and I went on our annual wedding anniversary trip in early October, we spent most of our time playing the previously referred to “ER or nah??” game.  I didn’t want to go to an ER out of state (we were in Tennessee) so we just assumed the worst was yet to come and tried to enjoy what we could of the Smokey Mountains.  BUT, because my brain wasn’t working properly, I forgot to pack both my cane AND my handicap placard, so we weren’t able to do much sightseeing or exploring.  In fact, we barely left the condo.  Since we’ve been married for 9 years, and together for 13, we don’t need a lot of special attractions to enjoy a trip; just being in each others’ presence is special enough.

At the Tennessee Welcome Center

So let’s catch up: we got home, the symptoms got way worse, and on Friday, October 27th, I went again to see my primary care doctor.  He took an X-Ray of my neck first to see if that could explain some of the symptoms.  Luckily, it did a little – I now have 3 herniated discs and something wrong with the curvature of my spine – and had we not had more pressing issues he said we would be discussing physical therapy, cortisone shots and possibly surgery – but since I couldn’t feel my leg or finish a complete sentence, we had bigger problems.

  He sent me over to the hospital as a direct admit. He assured me they would give me sedatives before the MRI of my brain, thoracic and cervical spine (a 2 hour procedure), but the hospital was experiencing a severe shortage of IV Valium so they gave me Ativan instead, and it did nothing, except possibly make me MORE agitated.  Over the course of my stay they tried 7 IVs.  2 blew.  One nurse cried and I did everything I could to convince her it was me, not her.

It is now Sunday, November 5th and it hurts just to type this.  But what I want to say is important; I was diagnosed as having another MS flare.

After 3 MS medications THIS YEAR ALONE.

After the hell of Ocrevus JUST TWO MONTHS AGO.

The reason MS patients put up with all the bullshit is to STAY OUT of relapses.  I tortured myself all year just to end up here anyway.  And that’s JUST the MS – never mind everything else in my body hatching plans against me.

So.  They prescribe 3 days of IV steroids (WHY, GOD, WHY?), fluids and pain management. Fine. I’m pissed but I can do this.  What’s 3 more days in the hospital?  I am safe.

Except.

Except…

I can’t do it.  I am not safe.

A psychiatrist comes to talk to me on the day of discharge.  “Are you safe at home?”

(Mental checklist: roof, food, check.)

“Yes.”

“OK,” she says, “do you have thoughts of hurting yourself or others?”

Let’s do the easy one first.  Do I want to hurt others? Like this guy – this guy here who SLEPT IN A CHAIR FOR 3 DAYS AND BARELY LEFT MY SIDE AND DECKED OUT OUR ROOM IN PENN STATE STUFF FOR THE GAME DESPITE THE FACT THAT I KEEP YELLING AT HIM AND CRY INCOHERENTLY??  No.  No, I do not want to hurt him.

(Well, I didn’t.  But now that I’m at home, in pain, miserable and riding steroid rage, ummmm…..)

But do I want to hurt myself?

Yes.  I want to find a way to trump the pain I’m in every day, I want to be the one doing the hurting, actively, so I’m no longer passively being injured, I want it to be quiet, I want it to stop, I want it to end.  Please.  Make it all stop.

“Would you allow yourself to be voluntarily committed to our behavior health unit?”

What’s left to hide from? What’s left to be scared of? I’ve seen the worst, I’ve felt the worst, I’ve been in the dark for a long time.

What it feels like she’s asking is, “Do you want to save what’s left of you?”

“Yes.”

And that’s where another story starts and ends.  The only other time I’ve been hospitalized for mental health issues since Renfrew, and this time it was only 3 days because on the chaotic and teary night of admission I signed my 72 hour release form. (They really should make you wait until morning to do that, but what do I know…)

So basically I asked to leave before I had even fully been processed.

But that’s OK because 3 days in a psych unit is a powerful time.  Every single person you meet changes you forever.  And I want to do justice to that story so we’ll save it for another day.

But what I want you to know now is that on Monday, November 6th, I will start a 6 week intensive partial hospitalization; that means from 9am to 1pm I’ll be in intensive therapy, both group and individual and I’ll meet each week with a psychiatric nurse to continue to adjust my medications and with a psychiatrist to keep this journey moving.  In addition, I can still see my normal therapist once a week, who I’ve been seeing for two years, and who has been remarkable.

There are three other things I want you to know, and they are so important to me, that I’m asking you to really hear the words in your head – and I’m asking you to remember.

1.) I would be dead right now if it wasn’t for Thommy, my mom, a handful of the best friends I actually don’t deserve, and a tribe of “Rhea Team” warriors who pray for me and send me their positive energy and their love and their notes and their gifts and who keep showing up despite the tedious repetition of my illnesses and shortcomings.  I know that I am blessed.  I do not take it for granted.  Please keep reminding me of the good things – please keep your words of love and light coming; it’s my way out of the darkness.

2.) You need to vote better.  Sorry if that’s whiplash but it’s true.  You and me both.  I am getting the most amazing, thorough and continued treatment because of insurance.  There was a time I didn’t have that.  And there were people I met in the hospital who were released before they were stable because of insurance. Cuts to mental health services, Medicare, Medicaid, etc, literally, literally, literally KILL PEOPLE.  I might be one of them. Vote in every election you can for leaders who will protect those services.  I can’t believe this country works that way but here we are.

3.) Mental health stigma needs to end.  And it can start with you.  Stop using the word “crazy” a dozen times a day when it’s not necessary.  That’s the easy one – challenge yourself today and see what happens.  Don’t use diagnoses as adjectives.  OCD, bipolar, schizophrenia, manic/mania, depressed, anorexic/bulimic, PTSD, cutting/cutters/self-harmers … all those things are real life.  They can be nightmares that people may never wake up from.  Some of us will get help and regulate it but we ALL need to stop carrying around the shame of it.  It is not a punchline to your shitty joke.  If someone trusts you enough to share their story with you: listen without judgement.  You don’t have to fix them.  You don’t have to feel their pain to help them through it.  You can hold space with love and respect and allow them to process their emotions freely.  Not everyone is ready to accept help  – it is not your job to lecture them. Memorize the number to the suicide hotline (1-800-273-8255) so that you can provide a resource to someone is crisis. (Obviously, if it’s an emergency, call 911).  But from experience, I can say that I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve had a meltdown on the phone with someone while I told them I couldn’t make it one more day – and the act of simply being heard has kept me here one more day.

One more day.

That’s what’s left.

Or, like we talked about in the hospital, one more minute.  It’s 7:31am right now.  Can I make it until 7:32am? What can bridge those 60 seconds? Breathing? Medication? A phone call?

I know I said I needed you to know 3 things, but I lied, there’s one more:

I am not ashamed.  As someone with complex mental illnesses AND complex physical illnesses, stuffing that all inside and hiding it from the world is what usually gets me into the darkest recesses of my mind and keeps me buried.  As someone with mental illness, I *DO* feel guilty, all the time, for hundreds of things, real and imaginary; but, what I don’t feel guilty about, is sharing this with you.  There is a level of self-loathing I experience that I didn’t even have words for until I was on the psych unit, but my head will not hang one inch lower after posting this and sharing it.  I hope if you read this and you want to talk, you reach out.  I hope if you read this, and you are so inclined, you share it with your circle because there might be someone who needs to read it and know help is out there and they don’t have to feel alone or ashamed.

I’m redefining myself with the pieces of what’s left; and with each new illness and test and hospitalization and med change, etc., I do feel like I lose some of the person I wanted to be.  Or at least the person I thought I was.  But there is so much power in realizing you can create someone new.  And know this: if you’ve had to do this (I mean, REALLY, do this): you are a fucking superhero.  Suit up.  Here’s your cape…

xoxo

Rhea

What’s Left. Greetings fellow travelers, I hope that wherever you're reading this from, you are safe. I haven't been safe in awhile.

[beautythroughscars]

Soli Deo gloria

It’s been a year since my shoulder surgery and I’ve been officially told it was not a successful surgery. So one of my other doctors gave me the name of respected surgeon in the area, for a second opinion. I have very little function and a ton of pain in my other shoulder, so I made an appointment to have both shoulders evaluated at the same time. When I drove up to the office of the new place, I recognized it immediately, but couldn’t place exactly why. I’ve been to so many doctors, surgeons and specialists… I just can’t keep track of them all. When the receptionist called my name, I proudly placed my completed paper work in front of him. He pushed the paper work back at me and politely said that he did not need the paper work because they had seen me just last year for my knee and hip surgery. Ahhhh… that is why this place looks so familiar. 🤦‍♀️ Well… I told him that I would be seeing a different doctor for a different body part. And, that I have had an additional surgery since then, one that they might be needing to fix… super fun. So, he might want to take another look at my paper work… it has been updated. He looked at me, wide eyed, and smiled. I excused myself to the restroom, put my legs between my knees, and began to hyperventilate. How has it only been a year since I got 3 surgeries back to back?!? And I’m facing another round again. I can’t do this again… I just can not. My thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was a sweet older woman letting me know that the receptionist needed me again and was calling my name. So, I had to pull myself together and go sit back in the waiting room. The visit with the PA was short and sweet. They typically send them in to see if your injury is serious enough see the doctor, or if you can just receive physical therapy and be sent on your merry way. She did the typical physical exam and sent me straight to the x-ray room. The doctor came in with in 5 minutes and had a concerned look on his face… one I’m all too familiar seeing. What I did not expect to hear was… “WHO did your last shoulder replacement… if you don’t mind me asking? It looks like a surgery we would have preformed in the 70’s because we didn’t know any better.” I explained to him what the previous surgeon had told me. That he had a plan A, B and C … but when he got in to do the surgery… my fragile bones would simply just not hold the prosthesis and he had to go with plan C. It was not ideal. The bottom line now is that I do not have a functional or pain free shoulder. So… now what needs to happen? Is it fixable? The biggest hurdle will be seeing if he can use the cemented implant or if they will have to saw that part out and start completely over. A CT scan will help solve this puzzle. The sheer thought of this sends a tingle down my spine. I know he can sense this. I asked him about my other shoulder. A year ago, it wasn’t quite to the place of needing surgery. Well, the x- ray shows that it is now bone on bone and my rotator cuff is non- existent. That explains all the pain that has crept up in the last year. He said he can do the surgeries 6 weeks apart. The recovery time for the right one( the one I have already had replaced) will be much longer. He said it will be a beast to recover from. I literally can’t imagine. I’m still not okay from the last surgery. Like I said, it’s been a year and I worked really hard during my physical therapy sessions. He could see the tears welling up in my eyes and came to sit down next to me… I like this guy. I told him that I needed someone to tell me what to do because so many areas of my body are not okay…right hand, my ankles. He said that he would attack the hardest areas first because your body is the strongest when your first start a battle of 4-5 surgeries back to back. The hands are the easiest to fix, so he would personally wait on those. He gave me the name of an ankle surgeon he trusts. He told to make appointment with the ankle surgeon before I leave, and then tell him how I want to proceed. He looked me dead in the eyes and said this, “I really like you. I see something in you I don’t see in a lot of my patients. I have this sense that you want to give up. No one would blame you for that. But, at the same time, I see a spark in your eye. You are a little spit- fire. You are going to kick- ass and do whatever it takes to get these things done. So, I know you are going to be just fine. I just know it.” At that, I walked out the door and made the next appointments. That doctor may say that very same thing to all his patients… who knows. But, I needed to hear it that day. Because everything in my being wanted to panic and shut down. But, I made the appointments. I took a step.

I saw my Rheumatologist yesterday. I had steroid injections and fluid removed from several joints in my hands. The needle literally popped off when the steroids were being injected in because there was too much inflammation in the joint for the medicine to even fit. This, of course is a temporary fix any way. I also got my labs drawn to see if I am a candidate for an RA drug that may help reduce my inflammation.

Today I had my CT scan of my shoulders and next week I will go for my ankle appointment. All of this health junk is just one aspect of my life… a piece of all the balls that I am trying so desperately hard to juggle. I’m dropping the balls. They are flying every which way. I feel like I’m drowning. For the first time in my life, I can truly say I’m tired of fighting. It just doesn’t seem worth it. I think it has finally set in that I’m never going to get better and I actually don’t want to any more. I just want it all to end. It’s too much pain, it’s too much fight. I’m sick of it all. Am I having a bad mental melt down and I will pull myself back together soon enough? I sure hope so. But, honestly don’t know. I know TRUTH. It feels like just head knowledge right now though. The enemy has sunk his claws into my mind and placed doubt in my heart. The only way I know to deal with my heart problem is to claim the TRUTH over myself and to admit these things out loud; to pray for a heart change and to surround myself with people who can help me move in this same direction. This world is not my home. I know I have a hope of a future. Revelation 21:4English Standard Version (ESV) 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

But, I am here for a purpose… one that I don’t fully grasp or understand… and I don’t have to. What I do know is that God is sovereign over every single thing. Whether I am in sin or not, God does what He wills do do. Nothing can stop the plans of the Lord.

Job 23:13-14 – “But He is unchangeable, and who can turn Him back? What He desires, that He does. For He will complete what He appoints for me, and many such things are in His mind.“

Job 42:2, 5-6 – “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. I had heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You, therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

So, today I pray for acceptance of His will. I pray that my life will not be a waste.

Soli Deo gloria