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glorious-blackout · 6 months

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My Year in Gigs

Seeing as we're nearing the end of the year, I thought I'd look back on the amazing shows I've been lucky enough to attend in 2023 and resurrect my Post-Concert Depression with a definitive ranking 😅💚

Eurovision Semi Final One - Live Show: Absolute dream-come-true experience. Loved every minute, the crowd was so kind and supportive towards every act, and I got to see most of my faves steal the show and advance to the finals 🥰

Muse (Dublin) : My second Muse gig of the year was even more of a blast than the first! Absolutely nothing could have prepared me for the joy of finally seeing Butterflies and Hurricanes and Apocalypse Please live 😭

Queens of the Stone Age: Josh Homme arrived onstage, called us all crazy motherfuckers, expressed a sincere desire to get fucked in the ass by a Scottish dude, then called his guitarist a 500-year-old vampire before flirting shamelessly with him. 10/10, no notes. Oh yeah, and the music slapped too.

Käärijä: Half hilarious stand-up show, half incredible party with insanely fun, energetic songs. One of the most enjoyable gigs I’ve ever been to and I would pay good money to fly to Finland solely to see Käärijä play a gig on his home turf.

Muse (Bellahouston Park): My boys were incredible as ever and I had a genuinely great time at this gig, but it gets demoted a little due to the torrential rain cutting our setlist short and making me ill 😅 Would have been an easy third place had technical difficulties not robbed me of the chance to see Verona live...

Go_A: If you’ve never been to a Ukrainian Folk-Rave before, I can highly recommend it! Go_A were simply phenomenal with great energy that had us dancing all night. Highlight of the show was Ihor delivering a badass flute solo while Kateryna went backstage to recharge her awesomeness.

Sparks: These guys have been making consistently excellent music for decades and still have more energy and enthusiasm than most young bands could ever dream of possessing. Such a wonderful set filled with amazingly quirky songs both old and new.

Joker Out: It says a lot about the high quality of shows on this list that I’ve had to rank these guys so low. In any other year they’d be a clear contender for top three! The energy from both the band and crowd were insane, the boys were clearly in awe of having a venue full of Scots singing along with them in Slovene, and I need the Demoni scream injected directly into my veins 😈

Arctic Monkeys: This ranking has almost nothing to do with the band themselves who delivered a great show, but looking back on it I’ve just had to accept that I wasn’t having a good time during a large chunk of this gig. The crowd in my section were rowdy to the point where I couldn’t hear or see anything and I was wasting all my energy trying not to get shoved. My depression was also playing up to the point where I was struggling to get excited over songs I dearly love and I just felt unwell and burnt out all night. The second half was a definite improvement as we’d moved to a calmer area by the time they brought out The Car songs, but by the end I was just exhausted and desperate for home. Would see them again in a heartbeat in a more intimate indoor venue, but I think I’ll avoid any of their big stadium tours in future 😅

Busted: Honestly, I had a much nicer time at this gig compared to Arctic Monkeys. The nostalgia alone of singing along to ‘Thunderbirds Are Go’ at the top of my lungs is always a special moment. But I can’t pretend for a second that Busted’s music comes anywhere close to the quality of Arctic Monkeys’ recent output, so they’re a very reluctant last place on my list of generally incredible gig experiences 😅

Best Support Act: Nova Twins by a country mile. I may have fallen slightly in love with Georgia and her incredible bass skills. It was easy to see why Muse invited them on tour because they seemed so at-ease in a massive arena 😊

Here's to (hopefully) more amazing gigs in 2024! I'd love to hear about some of the great shows that you guys attended this year as well 🥰💖

#honourable mention to Lord of the Lost who I had tickets for but ultimately couldn't see because I was too sick; I'm still sad I missed them #and also to Voyager who I'm sure would have put on an amazing show - looking forward to seeing them after Danny kicks cancer's ass #my gigs #muse #muse band #queens of the stone age #käärijä #go_a #sparks #joker out #arctic monkeys #busted

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sl33py-g4m3r · 2 days

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perhaps the prentice was chosen in the gauntlet rite the years or so before Flynn and everyone else had? Or after if they were still doing The Rite in Mikado...

I have not a time frame for the samurai oc I've created, yet at least.

Given he can feel the rain in our world, would that also mean he can interact with things as well? Or could people see him? could everyone see him or just certain people?

What demons did he have on him when the incident occurred? if any.

in the game it appears that the first demon that you acquire as Flynn is a centaur.... Is this the same for all new recruits or was it a coincidence?

If the samurais spirit/soul is asleep in our world; does he have visions of his fellows in Mikado? their goings on and missions? Or what's happening to his body? I bet being an amnesiac, this deeply concerns him.... Hopefully he'll connect the dots and be like "they're wearing the same outfit/uniform as I am..... Mikado?" and hopefully try to find a way to return.

Or is he just kind of trapped here for unknown reasons? gets too interested in our world and almost forgets; but still has this deep longing of going back home to Mikado.

would him remembering bits and pieces through visions/dreams or what have you cause him distress? I mean it's cliche but probably. Headaches or illness or something else.... Would those affect his body in return?

hadn't pieced together how exactly they're keeping his body alive in Mikado yet... would the monastery and infirmary have access to modern medical technology? I doubt it... Magic?

I wanna write about my samurai oc, and I've got ideas, but still no clear idea of where I'm going with the story as I just make it up as I go...

It would be really messed up to share a copy of SMT iv with him, lol. maybe anyway.

makes me wonder what games are actually games in universe in the SMT/persona games? but that's not OC stuff that's just random musings on my end.

if anyone could see him; what would they make of his outfit? or what would he think of motorized carriages without horses? 'good heavens, what the oddity... how doth thine move without aid of a horse? is it a demon?' *possibly attacks car with magic*

wrote one post from his perspective... but i also worry its garbage in hindsight.... eh got to quit worrying about it being cringe and have fun with a dumb internet blog~~~

last I wrote, which was from his point of view; he was napping in the rain under a tree, just as the rain subsides. too tired still to do much or figure out where he is, and wondering if anyone can see him or not.

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bunnieshoneys · 2 months

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Hi! I just started reading Coanda Effect after seeing the beautiful fanart of it on my feed and I’ve been really enjoying it so far. I’ve never actually seen any kind of race before and the most exposure I’ve had to anything close is going karting (lol). I didn’t even realise there were other Fs that isn’t 1 🤦🏻‍♀️. So I spent some time googling things up while reading and I’m learning a lot of new things I love it! But I was just wondering in terms of watching races what do you look for? Do you support particular teams or people? Or do you just enjoy watching the race overall? (I’m sorry if this is a stupid question!) I want to start watching races too but I’m still too lost atm 🥲 For now, I can’t wait to catch up on all the chapters!

ive never been karting, im jealous :(

so i started by watching races with zero context, actually! they played in a bar i worked at, mostly replays but still. when there was nothing to do i just— yah. car go vroom

slowly i was like oh i wanna get into this sport (winter break 2022 ish) and spent some time looking into stuff (decided to support ferrari, which was the worst decision of my life 2023 was ROUGH) and then started watching races live where i could

so i support a team (ferrari) and a driver (leclerc). i also have other drivers i look out for: norris, piastri, tsunoda, and next year ill be looking out for hamilton (and hopefully lawson and bearman!!) too :3 hamilton is joining ferrari and bearman and lawson are currently still in the junior categories

i know people who only support indv. drivers and people who only support teams, though!! i just root for the people i like (ferrari and leclerc just happen to be at the top of that list)

i like watching races actually mainly because of strategy. the race thats just gone, Suzuka, was a really strategy heavy race. in a grand prix, the drivers have to make at least one pitstop and change the tyre compound and i loooove seeing how the teams react and conduct strategy :) also love to see some good overtaking, lol.

i think you learn a lot by just watching races, and learning as you go. theres also F1 kids for some races which explains stuff a bit more (provided by sky, idk when theyre doing it next). F1TV probably has the best commentary team in english right now, but i watch on sky sports. if you look under the bunny talks f1 tag i have a post explaining tyre strat (i cant link it because im on mobile) but i love answering qs also!! i cant like things normally bc i have adhd and statistics fascinate me:3

(everyone was a new fan once!! im still a little lost in some races, and i probably will be at china in a couple of weeks because theres not been a race at that track in five years)

my advice would be to watch races anyway, and china will be a super fun weekend because its a) a track a lot of the drivers havent driven at, or have driven at very little, and b) a sprint weekend!! join us :)

#bunny answers #bunny talks f1

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aelianated-star · 14 days

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I saw your dysautonomia post. I've been diagnosed for over a year and known for longer but my doctor keeps refusing to prescribe me a wheelchair despite the fact I can't walk further than down the hall without one. They keep trying to send me to physical therapy (only for one body part at a time due to insurance despite also having chronic pain evenly in my whole body and experiencing post-exertional malaise even from light physical therapy). Other than just finding a new doc, which I've been working on, do you have any advice for how to get a doc to actually prescribe the mobility aids you need?

(I am lucky enough to have a decently fitted one that I cannot self propel but can be pushed in, but my partner also has POTS so that's rarely an option and only for short trips (which only because in her own words hers is "better managed" than mine currently). But I really do need probably a motorized one at this point and I know other disabled people often know how exactly to get through to a doc so even if I can't convince my current doc I can hopefully use any tips when I find a new one.)

I wish I had better advice, but I would definitely look for educated physicians who are familiar with dysautonomia and fiddle around with medications (Corlanor/Ivabravine and infusions are the only things that has even helped remotely with mine). I had the same issue with a lot of doctors and was gaslit about not having EDS until my neurologist, shortly after diagnosing me with 3 types of dysautonomia, also diagnosed me with EDS (it was glaringly obvious apparently. I’m extremely hypermobile, can dislocate things on command and experience daily dislocations/subluxations, history of heart issues that he now escalated to four regurgitating valves, stretchy, velvety skin, strophic scarring, gastroparesis, at the time pending MCAS diagnosis, etc). If you can, there are organizations that will loan out wheelchairs for relatively cheap or free for people who need them, the difficulty is just finding one that’s near you or will ship to you! Also, I would definitely recommend a lightweight, motorized wheelchair or a regular wheelchair with motorized attachments like a smart drive or motorized wheels. The weight is going to be a big factor, especially if your partner is also disabled/chronically ill and you guys need to be able to transfer it into the car. I’m kinda in the same boat right now where even in a normal lightweight wheelchair (without motorization), my heart rate will get up to 200 and I can’t push myself for more than a minute really. I’ve been stuck using my forearm crutches to get around everywhere, but since that doesn’t do anything for my heart rate or blood pressure, I’m limited to doing anything (albeit not very much) to extremely good days. I’ll link some cheaper models below, and please feel free to dm me for more advice, I’m always happy to help other people out 🩵

#dysautonomia #inappropriate sinus tachycardia #orthostatic hypotension #rare disease #pots #postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome #ist #disabilties #severe disability #rare disability #ehlers danlos awareness #disabled #important #viralpost #information #advice

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theblotsays · 2 months

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“We’re all just doing our best, threaded to a hospital bed” Timed Edition Screen Print by Daniel Danger x Bottleneck Gallery

Yesterday, Bottleneck Gallery put together an epic new release to aid the lost boy-king of Ghost Island, Daniel Danger, with all proceeds from the sale of this print going to the beloved artist to help with the health issues his family has been dealing with lately. This is an art print of a gig poster for a recent Primus concert designed by Danger. “We’re all just doing our best, threaded to a hospital bed” by Daniel Danger is a 24”x36” signed and numbered 7 color screen print. The run size for Version A and Version B will be set by the number of prints purchased at BottleneckGallery.com from now through 11:59pm ET on Thursday, April 18th. Each print will retail for $75 or you can purchase a matching number set for $145. As BNG explained, “Daniel Danger is a legend. Initially beginning as collectors before creating Bottleneck, we’ve been mesmerized and drawn into Daniel’s brilliantly melancholic art for almost two decades. Daniel’s long-spanning print career has always orbited around gig posters, and despite having one of the most riveting and successful years of his artistic career recently, Daniel and his family have also been dealing with serious and severe health issues. It’s been a genuine dream working together with Daniel, and we want to give back to an artist that gives this corner of the art world so much of himself. We’re teaming up with Daniel to release an art print edition of his recent Primus gig poster – an absolute stunner, we should add – and 100% of the proceeds from this release will go directly to Daniel and his family.” From the artist, Daniel Danger: “I’ll avoid getting into specifics, but my wife Rebecca has been very sick the last few months. 48 hours after I was discharged from the hospital from my own two month battle with septic level post-covid pneumonia and the discovery of a pulmonary embolism, I was suddenly carrying her into the ER one Sunday night. Our life since has just been hospital stays, a half dozen ERs, a couple ambulances, endless specialists, and a confused five year old. She’s currently a quarter step above outright disabled, unable to do much of anything, and it’s been an intense, engulfing and terrifying experience for our family. My wife and I are both small business owners; she’s a freaking saint and works with people largely on the autism spectrum, and I obsessively draw weird houses and ghosts because of the autism spectrum. We’re by no means financially doomed by this, but back-to-back completely debilitating illnesses have pretty much annihilated our savings, as being sick in America is very very expensive, and two businesses were left hemorrhaging money in our absence. Simply put, if you can, now would be an extremely good time to pick up a Daniel Danger print. There’s an old house in Florence, MA on the way to our doctor’s office that someone’s been slowly gutting, and I’ve been watching this play out in real time as we pass it, which has been a regular thing since I was near death a few months back. I’ve been thinking about our failing medical system, about Hygieia the goddess of health, angry about prayer, about the fun trip to CA we were supposed to take with our 5 year old daughter, about the fast food I stress eat in the car, about this beautiful person in my life threaded to a hospital bed, to an ambulance, to a failing house that hopefully gets rebuilt, and all I can do is stand atop it all and try and do my best to keep it together. A looming forgetting of being carefree, of youth; existing in the shadow of the happiest place and feeling overwhelmed by its absence. This started as a gig poster for PRIMUS, I was sketching but I didn’t even really think about the band, other than knowing Primus of all bands would be OK with me doing what I *needed to* creatively, what my brain had to get out. The band would be the temporary carrier of these feelings. I spent the last few days reworking the piece to a larger format, expanding the colors, and doing a lot of cleanup work on this bizarre illustration I did while deliriously tired, and… http://dlvr.it/T5qWGf

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hekkoto · 4 months

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BIG life update + ANNOUNCEMENTS!!!

Hi my little darklings <3

Here I come with this big life update and some announcements!

So first - Im feeling way better and I can say I will be truly active and post a lot <3 Im so excited!

Important thing - I drew those Patreon prints I owed some people: I will send mail in March and it will have prints for November, December, January and February [+ for March if you will still be my Patron]. Im sorry it took me eternity to catch up on those but finally I can send you those <3 Im super super grateful for your support and understanding that my health was killing me

Print for February will be sent to everyone who are my Patron before 10th of March! Plus then you also will get March one ;p

I gonna focus a lot on my YT this year, I wanna post there artistic stuff but also life vlogs and some gaming. And I will be posting speedpaints where I talk in background ;p My goal is to post 3 videos per week at some point. I also hope to maybe do weekly livestreams?

My other focus will be my Patreon, I wanna go back to posting all planned stuff :> I might do little changes to Patreon tiers but I will let you know!

Oh, about that Gorenuary challenge... Yes, I failed it ;p But I gonna draw arts for every prompt anyway ^^ Hopefully I will finish it to the end of a year hahah >XD

I have idea for some bigger projects for this year, like I wanna start making new game and work on some horror ARG :> I wanna also come back to working a lot on my universe Terroether ^^ Hopefully I will make big progress in designing/redesigning my ocs! I also hope to come back to making lil animations and animatics :>

My health still isnt perfect, also some of illnesses will be present for a rest of my life. I decided to live my life with accepting this as I cant do anything about this. So there will be days I wont do anything. My meds and doctors are super expensive, thankfully right now my parents support us a lot financially. If you wanna donate to help me go through it here is my fundraiser: https://pomagam.pl/nhg96m I will be updating it when it comes to my health

Also, great news - my parents said I dont owe them money I borrowed to upgrade my graphic card. They gave my brother money for car so Im not in debt ;p daaaaaaaaaaaamn, Im so happy about this!

Im again happy and full of motivation; I was able to escape depressive episodes [hopefully they wont be back too often {cause of borderline}] and I found joy in creating again. Im not terrified anymore if Im not good enough or what others think about me. So I hope I will be able to draw and post again regularly :>

Okay, I guess thats all for now :> I missed you a lot guys and I hope to be truly back for real this time :>

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findinghopepdx · 8 months

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Blog Deliverable #3

As illustrated in earlier posts, the mental health crisis in Portland has far-reaching consequences. Thousands of unhoused civilians are dying in the streets, there are dozens of fatal police encounters with people experiencing mental health crises, and exponential drug use are just some of the traumatic experiences occurring every day in the city of Portland.

One stakeholder in this issue are business owners who are concerned about the effect that people living on the streets will have on their businesses. Many businesses have completely moved out of Downtown Portland in hopes of improving their business in different locations (Dooris, 2023). Jessie Burke, co-owner of the Society Hotel, commented to the New York Times that violence in and around her hotel has led her to favoring treatment methods such as encampment removals and camping bans (Corkery, 2023). While many business owners, along with the city bureaucrats of Portland, believe that camp sweeps and camping bans are the solution to this problem (Zielinski, 2023), other main stakeholders in this issue hold different beliefs.

A New York Times article discussing the challenges of the fentanyl epidemic and homelessness crisis in Portland features Irida and Kaetly Wren, a couple from Tennessee who were shunned by family members for their gender identities. They were forced to sleep in their car and saw little hope for the future (Corkery, 2023). Hoping to find community and services, they drove over 2000 miles and relocated to Portland. While living on the streets, they discovered the issue of "infighting." People on the streets were paranoid that the fentanyl supply was limited, despite its massive availability. On April 18, a man cut through their tent and stabbed Irida six times. They planned to return to Tennessee, saying, "Portland is definitely not what I expected" (Corkery, 2023). Friends and family of addicts or recovering addicts in Portland, nonprofits and community organizations, and people experiencing homelessness themselves are voices that are critical in uncovering the truth behind this issue, and hopefully, a way to redemption and recovery.

Interview

I was fortunate enough to receive a response to my interview request from Jason Renaud, the founder and convener of conferences for the Mental Health Association of Portland who also happens to be an alumnus of Portland State University.

What is your name and position at the Mental Health Association of Portland?

I'm Jason Renaud. I've been the convener of conferences for the Mental Health Association of Portland since 2003.

What inspired you to pursue this line of work and this organization specifically?

I'm a person in long-term recovery and I've been about people who help people get sober and sane for most of my life. It's an intriguing problem on several levels; the complexity of the illnesses themselves, the social stigma that is extraordinarily strong among clinical professionals, the generations-long history of discrimination and oppression, the alcohol and drug industry's stalwart maintenance of the problem, lazy and stupid legislators - the list goes on. The problem is both political and personal, and oscillates back and forth rapidly. The organization came about because other advocates in Oregon ceased advocacy work to pursue service contracts with local governments.

Will you share your insights into the current landscape of mental health and substance abuse in Portland? What are some major challenges you’ve observed?

We don't use the term substance abuse; the term addiction is more accurate. Either measured nationally or internationally, Oregon's public addiction and mental illness service system is bare and fragile. It often requires skilled navigators to find access points, which may be long distances from where the individual lives.

How do you think mental health health and substance abuse issues impact homelessness in Portland?

We'll have over the winter about 10,000 people who are homeless and unsheltered - some briefly, some for the full duration. We have under 2,000 places for them to stay - which are all already filled. About 50%-60% are addicts, some in remission because of poverty. The remainder are almost all people with trauma disorders, intellectual disorders, personality disorders, and neurodivergent disorders. Homelessness is a natural consequence of not providing effective treatment for people who have these illnesses.

What are some key barriers that individuals who are struggling with mental health or substance abuse issues face when seeking treatment?

The primary barrier is there is not sufficient or effective treatment for these illnesses available. We're short about 5000 skilled and licensed workers in Oregon. And because of a long-stalled workforce, there isn't likely to be sufficient or effective treatment in the next decade or so. The result, as it has been for decades before us with the same conditions, misery, and death.

Lastly, is there any advice you would offer to individuals looking to get involved in their community to make a positive impact?

Volunteer at St Francis Dining Hall or Blanchet House or with JOIN. If you do not have time to volunteer, write a check to any of the dozens of public mental health agencies.

Hearing from Jason was meaningful and exposed me to some of the real-world statistics and experiences that are occurring in my community due to a gross lack of resources and action by government agencies. His words highlighted the absolute necessity of advocacy groups in combating these deeply entrenched issues.

Jason’s Renaud currently manages the Mental Health Association and its projects. 37 years into his own recovery, he advocates for people experiencing addiction and homelessness. From the website of the Mental Health Association of Portland: “In 2010 he ran for Portland City Council on a police reform platform. In 2014 Renaud produced the award-winning documentary film Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse. He has been amicus curiae to US DOJ v City of Portland since 2018. He is a former Crisis Intervention Team trainer and a community engagement trainer for the Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training. Currently, he serves on the board of the Lone Fir Cemetery Foundation, Multnomah County’s Transforming Justice Steering Committee, and Portland’s Police Accountability Commission, and was an advisor to the TRANSFORM911 Project at the University of Chicago Health Lab in 2022” (Renaud, 2023).

If you’re interested in looking into his past and current projects, they are linked below. I have also attached the organizations that Jason recommended pursuing volunteer work at below.

Jason's information and projects:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonrenaud/

https://twitter.com/renaud_pdx

Recommend organizations to volunteer for:

References

Budnick, N. (2018, April 3). Assault reports spark concerns about mental health facility. PortlandTribune.com. https://www.portlandtribune.com/news/assault-reports-spark-concerns-about-mental-health-facility/article_d86e9175-9229-575a-81d1-05ff65954308.html

Corkery, M. (2023, July 29). Fighting for Anthony: The Struggle to Save Portland, Oregon. Nytimes.com; New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/29/us/portland-oregon-fentanyl-homeless.html?unlocked_article_code=dmlSM8I6Xz3QigxMt48PoRS9hs58FA91GnN81CZb6TtoShlZy3gIokXZC1x22xc-ZXHe0csS9o7ArT7XiXH4Tcref9-sp42Nto1YuBN6P3_3boItBdlDMN00ftE-r68V0AO6Qf8DZ-uORlkitfyFGGauhoOAqgtK4CLzuRON-fdDwJbJsVxPVmVk9phWJm1u53Qgg11xwjTlLnfI58YXE3NuOnTJmceLKvc3wxJAsiwkQ3GenfWjSz_OmCIqku4X8HaWjFcEAWR66BpaGrAaPdKS9HZCKUte1llWITt6sNA6O2GfnBiNPVVATs21DHjN7Lh_aaqndHxRLQHMBc6AHruNjtY06w&smid=tw-share

Dooris, P. (2023). Downtown Portland’s resemblance to a dead mall. Kgw.com. https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/the-story/downtown-portland-rei-vandalism-theft/283-87c9ac7d-fe93-40dd-b81b-7ee1688b1f0a

KOIN 6. (2020, October 2). Downtown Portland businesses: How many open, closed or empty. Www.youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlAT8GQ3SYs

Renaud, J. (2023). Jason Renaud – Background – Mental Health Association of Portland. Mentalhealthportland.org. https://www.mentalhealthportland.org/background-jason-renaud/

Zielinski, A. (2023, March 22). In enforcing Portland camping ban, Mayor Ted Wheeler wants help from people who have experienced homelessness. Opb. https://www.opb.org/article/2023/03/22/ted-wheeler-portland-oregon-camping-ban-help-from-people-who-were-homeless/

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doverjazzghost · 1 year

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wow it's the 2022 new year's post' [[MORE]] 2022 really sucked. It was the worst year for me in a while. I was seriously ill 3 separate times and I was even hospitalized for covid for a day. Also I was in a car accident :( all of that compounded and made me really backslide on my mental health which made doing things a lot more difficult. my goals from the 2021 post: -learn how to relax more and just do things for the sake of doing them instead of a goal uhhhh not really! I still can't really relax and have to be goal oriented in stuff that I do -edit and finish finish my novel no! I really fell off on this. I started a first edit read through last winter and just got tired and didn't finish it RIP -(if possible) start going to cons/doing cosplay more consistently I am actually doing this one! I finished like 4 cosplays this year and I am going to Magfest next weekend and probably Colossalcon East in the fall. -(if possible) take more time off to travel no! Travel still makes me really uncomfortable (covid and anxiety-wise). This past year, I think I've been to, like, DC, Philly, and Western Maryland but that's it . . . .I had plans to go to MA but those got covid'd. But I did use all my PTO this year at least -make some long term goals no!! I still have no idea what I'm doing even tho this year sucked, I still have some stuff to be grateful for: -I am still in a relationship with my beautiful gf!! -I made a lot of new friends! Especially people from my orchestra! -I started arranging music and finished my first symphonic arrangement -I started DMing and kept a campaign going for 6 months and I am better at DMing I think -I am still working out! I kind of have ab lines even when I'm not flexing! -I have done 2 live concerts (including 1 with a solo) and I didn't die! -My job doesn't make me want to fucking kill myself lmao -my pie and cake placed at the state fair -I learned how to crochet! goals for 2023 that hopefully I can actually manifest lol: -have a symphonic arrangement I've made be performed live -actually do it, actually travel this time -go back to working on my anxiety and agoraphobia -finish this Dnd campaign lol -be more proactive in reaching out to people -focus on craftsmanship in the things that I make happy new bear everyone ᕦʕ •`ᴥ•´ʔᕤ

#new years #2 feels 2 furious #using these tags so I can find it in a year

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onlyherefortheshowmances · 2 years

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*disclaimer: this was originally a tweet thread, so if the transitions/etc. are weird, I apologize in advance

The state/county still hasn't approved my medical assistance and food stamps even though they have everything they said they needed. In 7 days it will be 30 days since my application which is all the state call center will ever tell me. "They have 30 days."

So, hopefully that means that next week, they will actually get around to doing their jobs. I know they have a large caseload; hire more caseworkers then; pay them better so people actually want to do the job. I just need to see the fucking doctor.

I had to cancel appointments with both of my most important specialists last week because of this. (Granted I want to find a new Rheumatologist anyway, so I'm less upset about that one.) Lord knows how far out I'm gonna have to schedule once I finally have the insurance.

I'm probably going to end up getting evicted next month, because there is no way I'm going to have the money to pay rent. Which is going to make it even more impossible to find housing later and I'll have no where to go in the mean time.

Because of my disabilities, my best option is going to be sleeping in my car probably, but it's going to get cold soon, so I don't know how long that's going to last.

Everywhere I look, trying to find assistance, they only want to provide assistance to pregnant women, families with children, or domestic violence victims. I'm none of those things. I'm just a chronically ill; disabled; neurodivergent; single woman with no resources.

I feel like I'm being punished for not being irresponsible enough to get pregnant with or have a child that I couldn't take care of financially, physically, or emotionally. That I'm being punished for having a body where, even if I were to get pregnant it would likely kill me.

I don't have family or friends to help me. I don't have someone with an extra bedroom (that I would feel comfortable and safe in). I don't have anyone that can help me. But yet, somehow I'm not disabled enough. I should just suck it up and get a job.

I should just magically not be in near constant debilitating amounts of pain. I should just magically not be autistic with ADHD. I should just magically have an immune system that functions like its supposed to. I'm sorry, but I don't have that capability.

I understand why the chronically ill in Canada are choosing physician assisted dignified death as their best option. If that were possible here, it's something I would consider, because everywhere I look, there is nothing and no one to help me.

I don't want to die, but I also literally cannot survive in my current situation.

Not to mention the fact that I feel literally invisible because any time I post/tweet/etc. anything remotely serious/personal, it's just radio silence. It makes me feel like I'm being used, honestly. Like the people I consider friends, are really just using me for my humor or my fanfic.

[adding here: If feels as if my mask is all anyone cares about and the real me, the disabled one, doesn’t actually matter. Hey, your ableism is showing again.]

Like, I'm aware yinz (my twitter/tumblr followers, people on fb) can't actually DO anything about any of it, but when there's just complete radio silence it leaves me wondering if any one even CARES at all. No one has asked if there's something they can do.

Maybe it's my brain being broken. Maybe it's my direct communication offending the neurotypicals again. Whatever it is, it feels insanely isolating and only makes this whole situation feel that much worse.

[adding here: I’ve spent the past couple hours crying as all of his has crashed down on me hard today because I was stupid enough to attempt to do a singular thing last night so my body is very angry with me. It my high school’s homecoming football game; it was alumni band night; I just wanted to see my friends and make music and be normal for a few hours, but I guess I'm not allowed to do that anymore.]

#disability #chronic illness #rheumatoid arthritis #osteoarthritis #fibromyalgia #adhd #autism #actually autistic #neurodivergent #the broken american health care system #the broken american welfare system

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serahlink · 1 year

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❗❗HELP A HOMELESS ARTIST FEED AND HOUSE HIS FAMILY ❗❗

emergency commissions open!!

Reblogs are greatly appreciated!

Remaking this post since times have gotten tougher than normal and we need the extra help. Hi, my name is Link and my family and I (younger sibling and father) have been homeless since November 2021. It's a long story but a very shortened version is that my father used to do freight hauling work across the country and would sometimes take me and my sibling along (I lived at a friend's home and my sibling lived with a family member). In the middle of a job, my father fell into a diabetic coma and ended up losing his job in the process. Due to no family support and my sibling having to leave the place they were staying, they were both homeless. At the same time, I was having to leave soon myself since my friend's grandmother fell very ill and things looked bad; they had a lot of things to take care of and I was told I had to find somewhere else.

So, my friend I was living with drove us to the lowest cost motel they could find after I opened my commissions for the first time and we were on our own(none of us could work since my dad lost his liscenese during all the chaos, we also dont have our documents or ids and trying to get something now is impossible without a car and we never have room to just save money since we need to both have somewhere to stay and something to eat). We've been doing so ever since.

We already struggle alot with paying for the room daily (most of the time we're having to stay up all night/morning just to have the room paid that day) and nowadays we can barely afford food to last us a week, let alone a couple days. My father also recently dealt with bad tremor episodes due to his blood sugar going high, causing the left side of his body to turn numb and he couldn't control it. We were able to get most of his medications except for insulin (which turned out to be over 400$) and he's recently run out, so if something happens then there's not alot we can do. We've been trying to save up for it but it's been difficult to have a place to live or eat this week, let alone make even a bit of the cost for the insulin. It's alot of things to try and take care of for someone who has little to no resources/family or friend support 🥲

So, I'm opening my commissions to hopefully get us something to pay for at least today with since we dont even have enough to be good for right now and we also need some food for tonight since that's our immediate need. If you're interested in getting a commission, you can look at my prices below and email me ([email protected]) or pm me here. Or if you have questions about my services, you can also ask me those! I'll be happy to answer them for you :)

If you can't support financially (please don't feel bad if you can't btw, I understand completely) reblogging would help us out immensely since itd open up new opportunities for us to feed ourselves or house ourselves another day. Thank you for your help if you do, it really means the most to us and makes a big happy difference in our lives, thank you for brightening it :)) 💚

~Prices~

Sketch (price depending on type of sketch) - base price of 10$

Sketch page - 10$ per sketch

Headshot - 20$ (+10$ if shaded)

Bust - 30$ (+10$ if shaded)

Half body - 45$ (+10$ if shaded)

Full body - 60$ (+10$ if shaded)

Couples Commission (a commission that includes two people) - 80$ (+15$ if shaded)

Group commissions (commission that includes more than two people, price dependant on the details) - 100$+ (30$+ if shaded)

Paintings (price depending on the details) - 100$+

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mcmansionhell · 3 years

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Underground, Part 1

[Author’s Note: A year ago, when waiting for the DC Metro, I came up with an idea for a short story involving two realtors and the infamous Las Vegas Underground House, typed up an outline, and shoved it away in my documents where it sat neglected until this month. The house recently resurfaced on Twitter, and combined with almost a year of quarantine, the story quickly materialized. Though I rarely write fiction, I decided I’d give it a shot as a kind of novelty McMansion Hell post. I’ve peppered the story with photos from the house to break up the walls of text. Hopefully you find it entertaining. I look forward to returning next month with the second installment of this as well as our regularly scheduled McMansion content. Happy New Year!

Warning: there’s lots of swearing in this.]

Underground

Back in 1997, Mathieu Rino, the son of two Finnish mechanical engineers who may or may not have worked intimately with the US State Department, changed his name to Jay Renault in order to sell more houses. It worked wonders.

He gets out of the car, shuts the door harder than he should. Renault wrinkles his nose. It’s a miserable Las Vegas afternoon - a sizzling, dry heat pools in ripples above the asphalt. The desert is a place that is full of interesting and diverse forms of life, but Jay’s the kind of American who sees it all as empty square-footage. He frowns at the dirt dusting up his alligator-skin loafers but then remembers that every lot, after all, has potential. Renault wipes the sweat from his leathery face, slicks back his stringy blond hair and adjusts the aviators on the bridge of his nose. The Breitling diving watch crowding his wrist looks especially big in the afternoon glare. He glances at it.

“Shit,” he says. The door on the other side of the car closes, as though in response.

If Jay Renault is the consummate rich, out-of-touch Gen-Xer trying to sell houses to other rich, out-of-touch Gen-Xers, then Robert Little is his millennial counterpart. Both are very good at their jobs. Robert adjusts his tie in the reflection of the Porsche window, purses his lips. He’s Vegas-showman attractive, with dark hair, a decent tan, and a too-bright smile - the kind of attractive that ruins marriages but makes for an excellent divorcee. Mildly sleazy.

“Help me with these platters, will you?” Renault gestures, popping the trunk. Robert does not want to sweat too much before an open house, but he obliges anyway. They’re both wearing suits. The heat is unbearable. A spread of charcuterie in one hand, Jay double-checks his pockets for the house keys, presses the button that locks his car.

Both men sigh, and their eyes slowly trail up to the little stucco house sitting smack dab in the center of an enormous lot, a sea of gravel punctuated by a few sickly palms. The house has the distinct appearance of being made of cardboard, ticky-tacky, a show prop. Burnt orange awnings don its narrow windows, which somehow makes it look even more fake.

“Here we go again,” Jay mutters, fishing the keys out of his pocket. He jiggles them until the splintered plywood door opens with a croak, revealing a dark and drab interior – dusty, even though the cleaners were here yesterday. Robert kicks the door shut with his foot behind him.

“Christ,” he swears, eyes trailing over the terrible ecru sponge paint adorning the walls. “This shit is so bleak.”

The surface-level house is mostly empty. There’s nothing for them to see or attend to there, and so the men step through a narrow hallway at the end of which is an elevator. They could take the stairs, but don’t want to risk it with the platters. After all, they were quite expensive. Renault elbows the button and the doors part.

“Let’s just get this over with,” he says as they step inside. The fluorescent lights above them buzz something awful. A cheery metal sign welcomes them to “Tex’s Hideaway.” Beneath it is an eldritch image of a cave, foreboding. Robert’s stomach’s in knots. Ever since the company assigned him to this property, he’s been terrified of it. He tells himself that the house is, in fact, creepy, that it is completely normal for him to be ill at ease. The elevator’s ding is harsh and mechanical. They step out. Jay flips a switch and the basement is flooded with eerie light.

It’s famous, this house - The Las Vegas Underground House. The two realtors refer to it simply as “the bunker.” Built by an eccentric millionaire at the height of Cold War hysteria, it’s six-thousand square feet of paranoid, aspirational fantasy. The first thing anyone notices is the carpet – too-green, meant to resemble grass, sprawling out lawn-like, bookmarked by fake trees, each a front for a steel beam. Nothing can grow here. It imitates life, unable to sustain it. The leaves of the ficuses seem particularly plastic.

Bistro sets scatter the ‘yard’ (if one can call it that), and there’s plenty of outdoor activities – a parquet dance floor complete with pole and disco ball, a putt putt course, an outdoor grill made to look like it’s nestled in a rock, but in reality better resembles a baked potato. The pool and hot tub, both sculpted in concrete and fiberglass mimicking a natural rock formation, are less Playboy grotto and more Fred Flintstone. It’s a very seventies idea of fun.

Then, of course, there’s the house. That fucking house.

A house built underground in 1978 was always meant to be a mansard – the mansard roof was a historical inevitability. The only other option was International Style modernism, but the millionaire and his wife were red-blooded anti-Communists. Hence, the mansard. Robert thinks the house looks like a fast-food restaurant. Jay thinks it looks like a lawn and tennis club he once attended as a child where he took badminton lessons from a swarthy Czech man named Jan. It’s drab and squat, made more open by big floor-to-ceiling windows nestled under fresh-looking cedar shingles. There’s no weather down here to shrivel them up.

“Shall we?” Jay drawls. The two make their way into the kitchen and set the platters down on the white tile countertop. Robert leans up against the island, careful of the oversized hood looming over the electric stovetop. He eyes the white cabinets, accented with Barbie pink trim. The matching linoleum floor squeaks under his Italian loafers.

“I don’t understand why we bother doing this,” Robert complains. “Nobody’s seriously going to buy this shit, and the company’s out a hundred bucks for party platters.”

“It’s the same every time,” Renault agrees. “The only people who show up are Instagram kids and the crazies - you know, the same kind of freaks who’d pay money to see Chernobyl.”

“Dark tourism, they call it.”

Jay checks his watch again. Being in here makes him nervous.

“Still an hour until open house,” he mutters. “I wish we could get drunk.”

Robert exhales deeply. He also wishes he could get drunk, but still, a job’s a job.

“I guess we should check to see if everything’s good to go.”

The men head into the living room. The beamed, slanted ceiling gives it a mid-century vibe, but the staging muddles the aura. Jay remembers making the call to the staging company. “Give us your spares,” he told them, “Whatever it is you’re not gonna miss. Nobody’ll ever buy this house anyway.”

The result is eclectic – a mix of office furniture, neo-Tuscan McMansion garb, and stuffy waiting-room lamps, all scattered atop popcorn-butter shag carpeting. Hideous, Robert thinks. Then there’s the ‘entertaining’ room, which is a particular pain in the ass to them, because the carpet was so disgusting, they had to replace it with that fake wood floor just to be able to stand being in there for more than five minutes. There’s a heady stone fireplace on one wall, the kind they don’t make anymore, a hearth. Next to it, equally hedonistic, a full bar. Through some doors, a red-painted room with a pool table and paintings of girls in fedoras on the wall. It’s all so cheap, really. Jay pulls out a folded piece of paper out of his jacket pocket along with a pen. He ticks some boxes and moves on.

The dining room’s the worst to Robert. Somehow the ugly floral pattern on the curtains stretches up in bloomer-like into a frilly cornice, carried through to the wallpaper and the ceiling, inescapable, suffocating. It smells like mothballs and old fabric. The whole house smells like that.

The master bedroom’s the most normal – if anything in this house could be called normal. Mismatched art and staging furniture crowd blank walls. When someone comes into a house, Jay told Robert all those years ago, they should be able to picture themselves living in it. That’s the goal of staging.

There’s two more bedrooms. The men go through them quickly. The first isn’t so bad – claustrophobic, but acceptable – but the saccharine pink tuille wallpaper of the second gives Renault a sympathetic toothache. The pair return to the kitchen to wait.

Both men are itching to check their phones, but there’s no point – there’s no signal in here, none whatsoever. Renault, cynical to the core, thinks about marketing the house to the anti-5G people. It’s unsettlingly quiet. The two men have no choice but to entertain themselves the old-fashioned way, through small talk.

“It’s really fucked up, when you think about it,” Renault muses.

“What is?”

“The house, Bob.”

Robert hates being called Bob. He’s told Jay that hundreds of times, and yet…

“Yeah,” Robert mutters, annoyed.

“No, really. Like, imagine. You’re rich, you founded a major multinational company marketing hairbrushes to stay-at-home moms, and what do you decide to do with your money? Move to Vegas and build a fucking bunker. Like, imagine thinking the end of the world is just around the corner, forcing your poor wife to live there for ten, fifteen years, and then dying, a paranoid old man.” Renault finds the whole thing rather poetic.

“The Russkies really got to poor ol’ Henderson, didn’t they?” Robert snickers.

“The wife’s more tragic if you ask me,” Renault drawls. “The second that batshit old coot died, she called a guy to build a front house on top of this one, since she already owned the lot. Poor woman probably hadn’t seen sunlight in God knows how long.”

“Surely they had to get groceries.”

Jay frowns. Robert has no sense of drama, he thinks. Bad trait for a realtor.

“Still,” he murmurs. “It’s sad.”

“I would have gotten a divorce, if I were her,” the younger man says, as though it were obvious. It’s Jay’s turn to laugh.

“I’ve had three of those, and trust me, it’s not as easy as you think.”

“You’re seeing some new girl now, aren’t you?” Robert doesn’t really care, he just knows Jay likes to talk about himself, and talking fills the time.

“Yeah. Casino girl. Twenty-six.”

“And how old are you again?”

“None of your business.”

“Did you see the renderings I emailed to you?” Robert asks briskly, not wanting to discuss Jay’s sex life any further.

“What renderings?”

“Of this house, what it could look like.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Jay has not seen the renderings.

“If it were rezoned,” Robert continues, feeling very smart, “It could be a tourist attraction - put a nice visitor’s center on the lot, make it sleek and modern. Sell trinkets. It’s a nice parcel, close to the Strip - some clever investor could make it into a Museum of Ice Cream-type thing, you know?”

“Museum of Ice Cream?”

“In New York. It’s, not, like, educational or anything. Really, it’s just a bunch of colorful rooms where kids come to take pictures of themselves.”

“Instagram,” Jay mutters. “You know, I just sold a penthouse the other week to an Instagram influencer. Takes pictures of herself on the beach to sell face cream or some shit. Eight-point-two million dollars.”

“Jesus,” Robert whistles. “Fat commission.”

“You’re telling me. My oldest daughter turns sixteen this year. She’s getting a Mazda for Christmas.”

“You ever see that show, My Super Sweet Sixteen? On MTV? Where rich kids got, like, rappers to perform at their birthday parties? Every time at the end, some guy would pull up in, like, an Escalade with a big pink bow on it and all the kids would scream.”

“Sounds stupid,” Jay says.

“It was stupid.”

It’s Robert’s turn to check his watch, a dainty gold Rolex.

“Fuck, still thirty minutes.”

“Time really does stand still in here, doesn’t it?” Jay remarks.

“We should have left the office a little later,” Robert complains. “The charcuterie is going to get –“

A deafening sound roars through the house and a violent, explosive tremor throws both men on the ground, shakes the walls and everything between them. The power’s out for a few seconds before there’s a flicker, and light fills the room again. Two backup generators, reads Jay’s description in the listing - an appeal to the prepper demographic, which trends higher in income than non-preppers. For a moment, the only things either are conscious of are the harsh flourescent lighting and the ringing in their ears. Time slows, everything seems muted and too bright. Robert rubs the side of his face, pulls back his hand and sees blood.

“Christ,” he chokes out. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” Jay breathes, looking at his hands, trying to determine if he’s got a concussion. The results are inconclusive – everything’s slow and fuzzy, but after a moment, he thinks it might just be shock.

“It sounded like a fucking 747 just nosedived on top of us.”

“Yeah, Jesus.” Jay’s still staring at his fingers in a daze. “You okay?”

“I think so,” Robert grumbles. Jay gives him a cursory examination.

“Nothing that needs stitches,” he reports bluntly. Robert’s relieved. His face sells a lot of houses to a lot of lonely women and a few lonely men. There’s a muffled whine, which the two men soon recognize as a throng of sirens. Both of them try to calm the panic rising in their chests, to no avail.

“Whatever the fuck happened,” Jay says, trying to make light of the situation, “At least we’re in here. The bunker.”

Fear forms in the whites of Robert’s eyes.

“What if we’re stuck in here,” he whispers, afraid to speak such a thing into the world. The fear spreads to his companion.

“Try the elevator,” Jay urges, and Robert gets up, wobbles a little as his head sorts itself out, and leaves. A moment later, Jay hears him swear a blue streak, and from the kitchen window, sees him standing before the closed metal doors, staring at his feet. His pulse racing, Renault jogs out to see for himself.

“It’s dead,” Robert murmurs.

“Whatever happened,” Jay says cautiously, rubbing the back of his still-sore neck, “It must have been pretty bad. Like, I don’t think we should go up yet. Besides, surely the office knows we’re still down here.”

“Right, right,” the younger man breathes, trying to reassure himself.

“Let’s just wait it out. I’m sure everything’s fine.” The way Jay says it does not make Robert feel any better.

“Okay,” the younger man grumbles. “I’m getting a fucking drink, though.”

“Yeah, Jesus. That’s the best idea you’ve had all day.” Renault shoves his hands in his suit pocket to keep them from trembling.

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#architecture #design #fiction #las vegas #underground house

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appalachiananarchist · 3 years

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1. Vaccine data on preventing disease

I will start this post by summarizing (hopefully as simply as I can) a handful of studies pertaining to how well the vaccines work at preventing disease. I will start by looking at some of the early vaccine studies for the mRNA vaccines (as these are the ones I have researched most heavily). These are older studies done back before vaccine distribution really got big. In fact, I remember doing a journal club meeting on one of these articles sometime late last fall.

The first is one of the Pfizer studies. This one excluded people with compromised immunity which I understand, but angered me greatly when it came out (as a person with compromised immunity). Note that it was designed and funded by Pfizer, though when you look at the protocol and stats it appears well-designed. Like other studies discussed here, infection with COVID-19 used the FDA definition which is a positive test with at least one symptom (which can be basically anything). However, in summary, they found that a 2-dose regimen offered 95% protection against COVID-19 infection per the above definition. (SOURCE)

The second study (on Moderna) was funded by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the study protocol was designed by Moderna with their assistance. This study also used the FDA definition of COVID-19 as a positive test with a symptom and excluded the immune compromised. However, it found that a vaccination was 94.1% efficacious in preventing COVID-19 infection. (SOURCE)

Now that that part is out of the way I wanted to go over some more real-world data; that is, how are these vaccines actually functioning out there? Are they working on a population level like these studies suggest they ought to? Well...

The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from April through July of 2021 shows that vaccination reduces chances of catching COVID 5 fold. This report was important in examining how the vaccines are responding since the delta variant of COVID-19 has started to surge. (SOURCE)

A study out of California found in July of 2021 that COVID-19 infection rates in unvaccinated people are ~5X higher than in vaccinated people. (SOURCE) They do raise the concerns that more studies are needed on how long immunity lasts and whether it will wane.

Another study examined COVID-19 vaccination effectiveness among health care workers, a group that is heavily exposed to COVID-19. They looked at whether the vaccines would prevent disease (in their study, defined as a positive test with at least one symptom). They specifically looked at the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna). The study found "a single dose...to be 82% effective against symptomatic COVID-19 and 2 doses to be 94% effective." (SOURCE)

And before you say "but those were only symptomatic cases!" here is another study also looking at health care workers. This study spanning December 2020-March 2021 basically tested all of their enrollees for 13 weeks and found that those who received 1 vaccine dose had 80% lower chances of getting COVID, while those with 2 doses had a 90% lower chance of getting COVID. This testing was done regardless of symptom burden. (SOURCE)

There is ongoing data collection on how long immunity lasts with some new reports (warning - following study is not yet peer reviewed) suggests that vaccine efficacy may drop to ~85% after 6 months in preventing disease, but efficacy in preventing severe disease remains very high, at 97%. Still, though, 85% is pretty good. (SOURCE)

So here are just a TEENY TINY number of the many studies coming out regarding the vaccines. I could sit here and list so many more, but then this post would be way too bloated and repetitive because they all say the same thing: the vaccine works. This conclusion is both consistent and reproducible, which when talking about scientific studies, means there is some good research backing it up. And before anyone says anything--YES, you can still catch COVID after getting a vaccine. Nothing works 100% of the time. Just because my car has an air bag and I use seat belts doesn't mean I won't get injured if I crash my car. But based on the available data, it works well in preventing infection in a lot of people, and furthermore, there is one other MAJOR benefit to the vaccine which I will discuss below.

2. Vaccine data on preventing severe disease:

Probably the most important realization that has come out of the past few months is our understanding of how robustly these vaccines effect disease course and severity. I am from eastern KY so one of the big hospital systems in my area is Appalachian Regional Health, which spans 13 facilities. According to their latest stats, they have 213 patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Of those, 16 are vaccinated. That means a little over 92% of the COVID patients there sick enough to need hospitalized are unvaccinated. For further reference, another major hospital in the region, Pikeville Medical, today reported that 70 of their 88 hospitalized COVID patients (~80%) are unvaccinated, and 20 their 24 (83%) ICU COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated. Another regional hospital, Kings Daughters, had recently reported that 86.5% of those hospitalized with COVID are unvaccinated and 100% of COVID patients in their ICU are unvaccinated. So before I even get to national statistics, you can look at these numbers as already see a trend, and I would hope you can see that these numbers are way too high and too consistent to be coincidence. For sources on these numbers you can visit the ARH, PMC, & KDMC websites or facebook pages where they post their stats (HERE, HERE, and HERE)

Now to post a few studies backing this up:

A recent CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (we talked about this one earlier) shows that vaccination reduces chances of hospitalization due to COVID-19 by ten fold. (SOURCE) The same report shows that vaccination reduces the risk of death due to COVID-19 by ten fold, as well!

Another recent study that incorporated delta variant data into their research has found that "unvaccinated adults aged ≥18 years are 17 times more likely to be hospitalized compared with vaccinated adults." (SOURCE).

Another study coming out of California, also post-delta surge, showed similar results, with hospitalization rates ~29X higher in unvaccinated people. (SOURCE)

Another study looked at how the vaccine protects adults over age 65, which is going to be a more vulnerable group. It found that adults >65 who received 1 dose of a COVID vaccine saw a 64% reduction in hospitalization if they contracted disease, and those with 2 doses saw a 94% reduction in hospitalization with disease. (SOURCE)

To me, studies like these are really important. What we are seeing over and over again right now is that our health care system is being absolutely flooded by unvaccinated COVID patients who need to be hospitalized. This is stressing the health system in ways it was not built to endure. We do not have enough equipment or staff to manage the volume of patients we are seeing.

Sadly, this does not just affect COVID patients. When a bunch of unvaccinated people get sick and take up ICU beds, that means anyone who gets sick with non-COVID problems, like strokes and heart attacks, also suffer when there aren't beds left for them. For example, your grandmother who developed a bad bacterial pneumonia and is in respiratory distress may die because an unvaccinated COVID-19 patient got there first and took the last vent in the hospital, and there aren’t any ICU beds to transfer her to nearby because the wait lists are all so long because all the ICUs are also filled with unvaccinated COVID patients. I'd argue this is the biggest problem we are facing right now regarding the pandemic even if this problem is invisible to people who don't work in healthcare. Please believe me when I say this: we are drowning, and we are drowning because of unvaccinated COVID patients who are getting severely ill. This is completely unnecessary and avoidable when we are seeing over and over again that vaccination does wonders to prevent you from getting sick enough to need the hospital at all.

Don’t believe me still? I want each of you reading this to visit the webpage for some of your local hospitals. Most of them are posting daily or weekly COVID admission and death statistics. Just take a look at them. Take a look at who is getting admitted and who is dying.

3. Vaccine safety:

Any vaccine, medication, herbal supplement, or what have you that goes into your body carries the risk of an adverse side effect. As a result each of us has to ask ourselves, do the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks? To answer that we need to better understand the risks associated with COVID-19 vaccination, and that means turning back to the data we have available.

According to NYT Vaccine Tracker, there have been 5.73 billion vaccine doses administered worldwide since its release. This generates an abundance of data for us to work with--more than we have for most medications you take every day--in regards to understanding safety profiles of these immunizations. Given that impressive number, we are by no means seeing widespread death or disability popping up due to the vaccine, but let's get more specific. We have seen a couple common possible adverse effects:

Flu-like symptoms: Most common by far is going to be flu-like symptoms or redness/pain at the injection site. This is actually a good side effect because it means that the vaccine is doing what it is meant to do. I won't talk much more about this one because I doubt flu-like symptoms are the reason people are scared of the vaccine. But for most of you, if you have any side effects at all, this will be as bad as it gets. You are more likely to have these symptoms after dose #2.

Anaphylaxis: Anaphylaxis can occur in anyone when you encounter a substance you have a try allergy to. This is going to be a rare side effect (2 to 5 people per million, or 0.00025%), but is also why you are asked to wait 15-30 minutes to be monitored after receiving your vaccine. That way if you show any signs of distress you can be given immediate treatment. Any time you get a vaccine or start a new medicine a severe allergy is a possible reaction, but if you already KNOW that you are highly allergic to something in the vaccine, you should not receive it.

TTP: This is a disorder that causes abnormal clotting or bleeding. It seems to be associated exclusively with the J&J or AstraZeneca adenoviral-vector vaccines based on current data trends. While rare, this is going to be the most serious adverse effect from the immunization. Data suggest the highest risk is for women under 50, but it is still remarkably rare with only 45 confirmed cases of TTP after over 14 million vaccine doses given. This is an incredibly, incredibly low incidence. Of note, however, patients with the actual COVID-19 virus have a SIGNIFICANTLY increased risk of clotting, especially in severe disease. This increased risk may be due to the production of auto-antibodies in response to COVID-19 infection. Summary: your risk of a blood clot is much higher with the actual virus than the vaccine.

Myocarditis/Pericarditis: These are conditions involving inflammation around the heart tissues or heart muscle. There does appear to be an increased rate of myo/pericarditis after vaccination. This is more common in teenaged males who received an mRNA vaccine (such as Moderna or Pfizer). This is also very rare. According to VAERS, 1404 cases of possible myo/pericarditis were reported after vaccination through September of 2021, though only 817 were able to be confirmed. A CDC report from June 2021 estimated about 60 cases of myo/pericarditis may develop per 1 million vaccine series completed (if you are male aged 12-17; otherwise the rate is lower). However, that same report also estimated the prevention of 71 ICU admissions, 2 death, and 215 hospitalizations among that same group per million vaccines given. Again it is a risk-benefit discussion, but here the numbers definitely point to a benefit overall. Vaccine-induced myocarditis and/or pericarditis are generally one-time events with an excellent prognosis, so rarely represent a threat to life. As the authors of the study linked above stated, "The absolute incidence was extremely low, cases were mild, and all patients recovered. Fear of myocarditis or pericarditis should not influence COVID-19 vaccine decisions."

Guillain-Barré Syndrome: This is a disorder of the nervous system that can cause temporary weakness and paralysis. It is commonly seen after immunizations or infections with various pathogens. It has been associated with adenovirus-vector vaccines (J&J, AstraZeneca) at a very low rate (about 0.0008%) with J&J reporting ~100 cases per 12.2 million doses per VAERS data, and 227 cases out of 51.4 million doses given per EU/EEA to the EMA again through June 2021. People with a history of Guillan-barre are more likely to get it again, so your risk is probably slightly higher if you have had issues with this before, so people with this history may want to opt for an mRNA vaccine which has not been associated with this.

4. Addressing Common Concerns

If the vaccine works, why do you feel unsafe if I don't get it? A vaccinated person is more protected from you than if they were not vaccinated, but no vaccine (or medical treatment in general) works 100% of the time, so there is always a risk of spreading disease no matter what. This is true for every single vaccine in history so COVID shots aren't special in this way. The data supports indisputibly that the vaccine reduces the RISK of getting COVID, but does not protect against it perfectly, so people should still use common sense. Also, vaccine works much, much better when everyone gets them, which is why vaccinated people enourage others to get the shot too. Think about it. Most of the studies I linked said the vaccines were in the range of 90-95% effective at preventing disease. If everyone in the room is vaccinated, the chances any of them (with their 90-95% protection) are infected and spreading COVID is going to be lower than a room of unvaccinated people, who have no protection against disease. Think now of yourself as a vaccinated bystander inside each of those rooms. In room 1, there is a low rate of COVID-19 being spread around, so your vaccine-induced immunity is now bolstered by the fact that there is also low spread in the community, making your overall chances of getting sick extremely low. In room 2 there is likely moderate to high spread of COVID-19 virus, meaning that even if you are vaccinated, because your vaccine can never be 100% effective, you sadly still have a chance of getting sick (even if it is lower than it would be if you were not vaccinated). Does that make sense?

If vaccines work, why do I have to wear a mask? Same reason as above. We can get into masks later, but point is, both offer protection against the spread of COVID-19, but neither is 100% surefire perfect immunity. Human bodies just don't work that way, sadly. By using both, you increase your chances of preventing catching or spreading disease more than if you did either one in isolation. Bringing back the car example, a seat belt is good, an air bag is also good, but I'd definitely prefer to get a car that has both a seat belt AND an air bag.

Why is the vaccine not approved for kids? Lacking data on safety and efficacy, as young children were excluded from many of the trials that looked at these vaccines.

We don't have long term safety data. It is unprecedented for an immunization to cause new side effects years later. These shots work by activating your immune system. Any problems they are going to cause will occur surrounding that period of immune activation (meaning, at most a few weeks after you get it). That is why this vaccines typically have any side effects show up within days to weeks of administration. The idea that novel side effects will pop up YEARS later is unlikely. Now, a vaccination may have cause side effect that has long-lasting health implications, such as developing TTP and having a stroke from it, but my point is that will start within weeks of vaccination, not randomly 5 years later after the vaccine has long since left your system. As a result, any side effects from the vaccine are things we will already be seeing right now. The virus, though... I can tell you that scar tissue in lungs doesn't magically vanish, and brain damage from hypoxia doesn't vanish. I can tell you that those who develop a generalized COVID inflammatory response are dealing with symptoms months post-infection. I can tell you that the virus itself is causing irreversible health problems and disability, and we KNOW that right now without waiting another 5 years. And we know that being unvaccinated increases your risk of getting sick enough to have these permanent disabilities. We also don't have time to wait 5-10 years on more data to deal with this problem. Action has to be taken now, or a lot of people won't be alive in 5 years to talk about the long term effects. I wish none of this had ever happened, but it did, and we have to do something or it won't get any better. This is a global pandemic; we have to cooperate with each other to eradicate it.

Vaccines should not be mandated by the state or companies. I don't really disagree. I do not think authority figures should be able to tell any person that they have to put any substance into their body against their will or else face starvation or homelessness, which is a real threat if people get fired over their vaccine status. HOWEVER neither your nor my beliefs on this topic change the fact that the vaccine works and is VITAL to keeping our health system from collapsing, and you really should be choosing to get it on your own based on the available data regardless of what your boss is saying. Please don't refuse to get the vaccine just to "send a message" or take a stand against your boss or whoever, because I promise you they will fire you without a second thought, and the only person you are sending a message to is that little grandma we talked about earlier who needs intubated but can't find a free vent or ICU bed, so dies in the emergency room while unvaccinated people take up all the space in the hospital.

5. In Summary

There are risks associated with COVID-19 vaccination, as with any vaccine or medicine, but they are remarkably, remarkably low. The potential benefits of vaccination are significant, with a decreased risk of infection, hospitalization, and severe disease among those who are vaccinated. This benefit extends to the community as well, in that it means you are less likely to catch (and therefore spread) COVID-19, increase the rate of herd immunity in your area which protects everyone (especially the medically vulnerable), and reduces preventable, unnecessary COVID-19 admissions that are weighing down the health system and clogging up hospital beds. If you look at this purely from a risk-benefit standpoint there is no mathematical reason not to favor getting the vaccine, and I strongly urge everyone who can safely do so to schedule it.

I suppose my take-away statement is this: I am a physician. If you are willing to trust my advice when you show up to the hospital in respiratory distress, trust my advice now in trying to prevent you from getting to that point.

Please.

#covid-19 #pandemic #covid vaccine #covid-19 vaccination #medblr #medical #population health #preventative medicine

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nerdshrimp19 · 3 years

Text

I just need to talk about this...

This is going to be something completely different from my usual content on my blog, but I need to talk about this because I am still livid.

This is most likely going to turn into a long-winded rant, so I will provide a TLDR.

TLDR: A psychiatric nurse practitioner said it would not be worth doing diagnostic testing for Autism and ADD/ADHD because I have good grades and a healthy long term romantic relationship.

For some background, I have been doing online college for two years and with the pandemic I have been by myself a lot more. This gave me more time for self-reflection, and I have always been interested in psychology. I decided to look into ADHD for a new topic to learn about, and when researching I related to the symptoms associated with it. I found myself diving deep into this topic like I do with everything I enjoy learning about and eventually found myself researching Autism because of the comorbidity of the conditions. I also related with some, if not most, of the symptoms associated with Autism, to some degree.

So, I slowly introduced the idea to my parents and boyfriend that I thought I might have both or one of the conditions. My parents were quite dismissive, but my boyfriend thought that my suspicions held some merit. But that was enough for me to go back to getting mental health services. My anxiety and depression were/are also worsening, so I wanted to get back into it anyway. I got a therapist and told her about my suspicions, and we talked about it. She also thought that it would be worth getting me tested for the conditions. So, she got me set up with a psychiatrist to possibly get me set for testing. (Quick side note: the last time I was tested for anything was when I was around the age of twelve and I almost twenty now.)

Surprisingly, I was looking forward to this appointment because of the prospect of getting testing planned, which my therapist assured me I could set up. If you have had a psychiatric appointment, you will know that they will take your medical information like weight, height, etc. That portion went without a hitch, but I was still masking like I usually do with strangers in public.

When I was called back, I was initially encouraged by the fact he was younger than any of my previous psychiatrists hoping that he would be more open minded. I decided that I was not going to mask when I was in the room, so hopefully he can get a more accurate visual assessment. Then when my mother and I got to the room and sat down he introduced himself as a “mental health nurse practitioner.” But I was under the impression that he was a doctor, I brushed this off as a misunderstanding on my part because it is something I often do. Since it was a first visit, we went over the basics like medical history, mental health history, medications, etc. But, when I brought up the possibility of me having something else besides/alongside my current diagnoses, I was dismissed. Then I finally brought up getting testing done for ADD/ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder, and he asked me how I am doing in school. And I had good grades last semester. Next, he asked about my relationships, and of course I told him that I have a boyfriend who I have been with for almost four years. He decided that those two things alone were enough to say that he did not see a need for testing. Because according to him “it is not affecting me enough for it to be worth getting a diagnosis.” This man had the nerve to tell me that with me rocking back and forth, playing with a fidget toy to keep me calm and present, me making very little eye contact, both or one of my legs bouncing, and even after I told him that my father has diagnosed ADD and my brother has diagnosed ASD. Maybe if he looked anywhere besides my chest for a few seconds, he might have seen some of what I was doing. He attributed everything he was seeing and what I was telling him to my anxiety. Yes, I was quite anxious because I am horrible with crowds and strangers, which I told him. I also have lots of anxiety regarding medical settings because of chronic illnesses and mental issues. But of course, my people pleasing self just accepted this and did not press any further.

As soon as I was out of the building, I began telling my mom that it was not fair at all that he would not even consider letting me get testing. I also explained to her that he was going based of the typical, male associated symptoms of both conditions. “Does he not know that both ADHD and Autism present differently in women,” was what I asked my mom while trying not to cry out of anger in the car. Because I thought that I could finally get an explanation and label for why I am so different, and it was just taken from me. Even though this happened only a few days ago, I feel so much more isolated and invalidated than I did before the appointment. Having the opportunity to make sense of my life and myself being ripped away from me has effected much more than I thought it would.

I knew that it was harder for females to get a diagnosis for these things, but I was at least hoping that it would not be the case for me. It sounds naïve now, but my therapist validating me gave me hope that it would be different. My mom and I are looking into other people who might give me a chance to get tested and hopefully it will go better than that did. Although, I should not be surprised about any of this happening, mental health services in my state are a joke anyway.

Anyway, if you made it this far congrats you made it too the end of this way too long post. Thanks for reading what I had to say. This is not really adding anything to the discussion, but I just needed to tell someone, so again thank you for reading.

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