#and in the meantime my home is not wheelchair accessible so i have to just. suffer in tremendous pain walking up and down stairs when i can

[lalalychee]

i would give anything to not be disabled anymore

[cecilspeaks]

153 - The Heist, part 1

Constellations are fan art depicting ancient gods.   Welcome to Night Vale.

I’ve said many times that science is neat. But sometimes it is also messy. Carlos converted one of our guest rooms into a laboratory so he can spend more time at home and get some needed renovations done on his laboratory downtown. Which seemed like a great idea, until I realized that it’s impossible to contain chemical odors and stains from getting all over the rest of the house. Not only did acid eat through our new Egyptian-tiled backsplash, but also a petri dish grew feet and walked outside, only to walk back inside tracking mud all over my new handwoven Svitzian rug. The last straw was when Carlos stained all of his shirt sleeves, not to mention his hands and, somehow, even the (cords) countertops a dull green, which completely threw off my kitchen color palette. I told Carlos he had to stop, but he insisted he had made a major breakthrough in his doorless fridge invention. “Cecil, this is so exciting,” he said, bouncing up and down like a child who wants a toy or needs to pee. “The problem with refrigerators is the door. In order to put food in or take food out, you have to open the door, and that’s totally  bad because it lets all the cool air out, raising the temperature of the other food inside. I told him that’s not that big of a problem, but his face darkened and he said, “Baking is an exact science, Cecil. If the butter is off my a couple of degrees, my croissants are ruined.”

I understood, but I asked that he find another place to conduct that particular experiment. He’s turning everything in our home a dull green, including his own skin. Fortunately, my sister Abby and her husband Steve Carlsberg just bought a new house. Ever since his promotion to vice president of the Last Bank of Night Vale, Steve has been saving up to buy a larger home for his family, one with a yard for dogs, no stairs and wider doors for his daughter Janice’s wheelchair, and even his own man cave, where he can raise bats and cultivate rare crystals. And they finally closed on their dream home this summer. They bought Janice a car too, complete with accessible hand controls, a state of the art sound system, and a moon roof that closes automatically at night so you never have to see that awful moon. Anyway, there is also a giant empty storage shed out back of their new home, and Steve and Abby told Carlos he can work in the shed until his laboratory downtown is ready to use again. So far, it sounds like everything is working out fine for Carlos, although he did accidentally leave a large green handprint on Janice’s new car. The good news is, she thought it looked really cool, so she decided to leave it.

Listeners, I’m getting word that there’s a robbery taking place in downtown Night Vale. Three people have entered the Last Bank of Night Vale and are demanding money from the tellers. The robbers are wearing masks of former US presidents Richard Nixon, William Henry Harrison, and Emma Goldman. The Sheriff’s Secret Police, as well as the Sheriff’s Overt Police, are on the scene but the perpetrators have begun to take hostages and the police are trying to negotiate. The robbers have not stated any demands yet, so the police are left to guess what they want. One officer suggested giving them a million dollars, which was (-) [0:05:52] accepted by the fellow officers as a great idea. Because, while human lives cannot be distilled down to a monetary value, a million dollars is pretty cool. But this idea was shot down by Sheriff Sam, who pointed out that the department does not have a million dollars. “What if we got them a puppy?” another officer offered up. “My basset just had a litter and I thought we’d be able to sell them, but it’s definitely a buyer’s market out there for hounds,” the officer continued. “Anyway I’ve got a brown one with white spots and two white ones with brown stops. I’ve named the Chutney, Footstool and Bob Ross. Footstool is the runt, let’s give them Footstool.” “We’re not giving them puppies,” Sheriff Sam shouted. “Oo, what about an Applebee’s gift card?” another officer said. “Worth a million dollars.” “Or a coupon book for free favors,” another said, “like repainting the guest room or raking leaves or – oh, wait, we’re the police right? A free crime day! They, they could use that coupon today, and we don’t have to arrest them and file all the paperwork, and the hostages get to go free. We could even have a coupon for a 15 minute backrub.”

All of the officers clapped for this idea, not just a win-win but a win-win-win, for the hostages, the robbers and the police. All except Sheriff Sam, who silenced them all with a loud whistle. More like a pan flute, really. It’s an enchanted whistle that causes vocal cords to stop working. “We are police,” the Sheriff scolded. “It is clearly stated in our oath of office to never give backrubs to bank robbers.” They then set to work trying to devise a plan to stop the robbery and free the hostages in the bank. Oh dear. Uh, listeners, I was just talking about my brother-in-law Steve, and here comes this terrible news. Um, I have no further information about Steve’s condition right now, nor the other citizens who are being held at gunpoint inside the bank. I will update you as events progress.

In the meantime, let’s go to sports. The Night Vale high school Scorpions opened their season this Friday against the Whispering Forest Wood Dogs. Scorpion’s head coach Latrice Beaumont said this will be a tough match up. The Wood Dogs, a team entirely comprised of trees, are roundly regarded as one of the toughest defenses in the state, with their tactic of whispering compliments to opposing players, until those players themselves turn into trees. Last season, Whispering Forest dealt to Night Vale its only loss, as nine of the Scorpions starting offensive players, including quarterback Junius Duncan, were won over by the Wood Dogs’ pleasant cooing. By the end of the game, the field was covered in trees, many of them former Night Vale high school student athletes. And Whispering Forest snuck out with a 3-to nothing win on the late field goal, that was somehow kicked by a tree. Coach Beaumont says she plans to give her players ear plugs to help dampen the whispers from the Wood Dogs’ defense. She also has uglied up the Scorpions’ uniforms adding mustard yellow and hot pink argyle atop the dark purple jerseys, hoping that the arborial defenders will find little good to say. The Scorpions are starting a new quarterback this season, sophomore (phenome) [0:09:20] Julie Dobbs, who won the job because of her prophetic dreams. Her slumbering subconscious is able to see the future, most notably other teams’ defensive strategies. She also uses her dream journals to develop a nearly unstoppable offensive game plan. She also owns her own football, which was a huge plus for the coaches. Good luck this weekend, Scorpions! We’re pulling for you.

I now have the names of the hostages being hold at the Last Bank of Night Vale. Jesse McNeil, a security guard who has worked at the bank for nearly 50 years, oh Jesse. What a sweet old man. He says hi to me every time I go there, always has a smile and a compliment. Why, just the other day he said to me, “Heard you on the radio, Cecil, and I was beaming with pride.” Another hostage, bank teller Genevieve Daly, who started at the bank this week. Oh Genevieve, what a tough break. Just now that we’re pulling for you. Bank customer and dinosaur expert Joel Isenberg. Oh Joel, I know Joel! He’s such a smart guy. And the last of the hostages: staff supervisor of the bank, Susan Willman. OK well, tough.

Unfortunately, after several grueling minutes, negotiations between the sheriff and the robbers have broken down. So the police have decided that the only way to break the stalemate is with physical force. While this makes sense in chess, I don’t know if this is such a good idea for hostage negotiations, listeners. But the police have advanced into the building to engage the thieves directly.

Witnesses reported hearing several gunshots, but they said the noises could also be fireworks, part of the day long celebration of Lee Marvin’s 31st birthday, which was back in June. Oh. Happy late birthday, Mr. Marvin. You don’t look a day over 30.

We cannot see inside the bank and no one has emerged yet. I will have to report back later as soon as I have – oh no wait, wait. I’ve been told that the bank is on fire now. The west wall of the bank is engulfed in flames and the Night Vale fire department is already on the scene. They are shouting at the fire to stop being such a nuisance, but the fire does not appear to be listening.

Oh, this isn’t good. And even more frightening for me, I did not see Steve Carlsber’s name on the list of hostages. Abby told me he was at work today, but why was he not taken hostage? I can only hope he had gone to lunch when the robbery began. Steve, if you hear this and you’re at lunch, don’t go back to work, it’s on fire. I feel so powerless. All I can do is hope And bring you the weather.

[My Friend” by Dominique Chantel Worthing with Barrett Ward, https://soundcloud.com/dominique-worthing ]

First, the good news. The hostages have been freed. Inside the bank, the police drew their weapons on the robbers, but could not get off a clean shot because of the hostages blocking their line of fire. The robbers fired back, forcing the police to retreat behind a Coinstar machine and a full sized promotional cardboard cutout featuring a hooded man, his jagged smile just barely visible in shadow, holding a raw slab of red meat with the bold tex below him reading: “Great mortgage rates are inside of you”. But the second wave of officers blocked the thieves’ escape from the front entrance. Then, and Sheriff Sam did not see how this happened, but a fire began in the bank lobby. It spread quickly and the room filled with smoke. In the confusion, the hostages broke free from their captors and the robbers ran from the police. Fire engines sprayed water and broadcasted loud admonishments at the fire to knock it off already.

Susan, Joel, Genevieve and Jesse ran out into the street covering their faces, choking on the black air. As Jesse emerged, his 75-year-old body was knocked backwards by one of he fire engines’ hoses. Jesse was soak head to foot. The firefighters apologized, but Jesse merely brushed himself off and then generously complimented their work by saying, “I see you’re fighting a fire.” What a gentleman. The three perpetrators of the bank robbery also fled through the front of the building, but the police quickly halted and arrested them. As the fire finally subsided, amidst the damp charred masonry and broken glass, came another figure. Steve Carlsberg emerged from the bank, sweating and limping, but safe. An ambulance arrived to take the survivors to the hospital, but they all declined, except Steve who had a broken foot and gladly took the EMTs up on their offer. The bank robbers were transported to the abandoned mine shaft outside of town for questioning. It’s an open and shut case. The bad people lose and the good people win, and every single person, even the people who own Applebee’s, is glad no one had to purchase a one million dollar Applebee’s gift card. My brother-in-law is safe, as are his employees and customers. No one died and not a single dollar was taken from the bank registers at the front counter, nor the ATMs, nor the Coinstar. Even the fire didn’t damage those bills.

That was the good news. The bad news: as the police did a final sweep of the bank, searching for anyone else inside, whether they be customers or criminals, they reached the bank’s vault in the back of the building. Before he left the hospital, the police asked Steve Carlsberg to open the vault for them. “We’re sure everything’s fine, “they said. “It’s routine in a bank robbery,” they said. “I understand,” Steve said. He opened the vault, they looked inside, and they saw nothing. Millions of dollars in bills and gold were gone. Sheriff Sam said there’s a conspiracy here, and they’re going to really put the screws to the people they arrested. “No HBO until they explain where the money from the vault,” the Sheriff declared. And that’s a big deal, because a black lady’s sketch show just premiered last month and is crazy good. The Sheriff said they have no clues yet as to where the money in the vault went, but they did discover the robbers’ names are Richard, William, and Emma. Which is interesting because those are the names of the presidents whose masks they wore. “I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” the Sheriff said confidently. The bank lost a great deal of money today and some innocent people lost their sense of comfort, but we are all still alive. At least those in this story are, and I’m so happy to know my brother-in-law is safe, as are Jesse and Joel and Genevieve, whom I’ve never even met. I’m glad those specific people are OK as well as anyone else who was taken hostage today.

Stay tuned next for an unedited recording from two years ago of you talking to a kitten. You sound ridiculous.

Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: Don’t go writing metaphors. Please stick to the similes and literal descriptions that you’re used to.

[rahirah]

via Barb's Place So before setting out on our Grand Canyon adventure, I of course checked the weather. Supposedly it was going to be highs in the 50s and lows in the 30s. Cold and rainy, with a small chance of snow on Friday, but we'd be back home by Friday, right? Right? (Wrong!) As You Know, Bob, the Grand Canyon Railway runs twice a day: one train leaves Williams at seven-thirty in the morning and returns at two-thirty in the afternoon, and the second one leaves at eight-thirty and returns at three-thirty. We were on the later train. Since the train trip takes about two hours, that meant that we'd be leaving Williams around six in the evening, and it would take about three hours or more to get back to Phoenix. After we told Kathy's mom about that, she decided that it would be better if we spent Thursday night in Williams instead, and drove back to Phoenix on Friday. That was fine with us. Unfortunately, the GC Railway Hotel, where we were to stay Monday night, was totally booked on Thursday. During the holidays, the railway does two Polar Express (TM) runs to the "North Pole" every evening, in addition to the two runs up to the Canyon and back in the daytime. So the hotel was completely packed with families running around in matching pajama sets, with kids chanting "I believe! I believe!" No worries, though – there are lots of hotels in Williams! Except Kathy's mom, for mysterious reasons, rejected all of them, because they did not explicitly advertise a free breakfast bar. Why she needed that when all she ever wants for breakfast is oatmeal and coffee, I do not know. We ended up making a reservation at a Days Inn in Bellemont, which is a flyspeck about twenty miles north of Flagstaff. MORE OF THIS ANON. When we got to Williams on Monday afternoon, it was reallyfuckingcold. No problem, right? We'd expected this! We'd brought coats and sweaters and boots. What we hadn't expected was Kathy's mom practically collapsing in the visitor's center. Turns out that she (elderly, ex-smoker, lived in sea-level Florida for the last thirty years) reacts REALLY BADLY to high altitudes. The slightest exertion sent her into palpitations. This more or less scotched our plans of walking around Williams and window shopping, so we got her to the hotel, and... it started snowing. Not raining, snowing. WELL THEN. About this time I started getting emails from places where I'd sent resumes, wanting to set up interviews. On the one hand, yay interviews! On the other, I really hadn't expected to get any responses this week. I had to reply and ask if we could please do it after I got back to Phoenix, and hope that didn't put them off doing it altogether, and then fret about them periodically. Everyone assured us that in a day or two, the MIL would acclimatize. In a day or two we'd be heading home, but whatever. In the meantime, we managed to borrow a wheelchair from the hotel to get her to the restaurant across the parking lot for dinner, because she literally couldn't walk ten feet without gasping for breath. MIL was deeply unhappy about this, as she is very active for a woman in her eighties. Maneuvering a wheelchair with an unwilling passenger across an unfamiliar ice-slick parking lot in a snowstorm is a fun adventure, lemme tell ya. The next morning it was still snowing. We got the MIL down to the train depot, and made the cardinal error of going to watch the Wild West gunfighter show. Wild West Hijinks (TM) which would be mildly amusing when the temperature is in the 70s are merely irritating when the temperature is in the 30s. I felt sorry for the performers, who not only had to stand in the slush, but roll around in it whenever they got shot. After standing in the sleet and slush for fifteen minutes (no one wanted to sit on the snow-covered metal bleachers) we (along with about half of the rest of the meager audience) left early to make sure we got on the train. Once we got MIL on the train, the ride was mostly fine. The scenery was beautiful. There were free snacks. The minute we got to the Canyon, we were bundled off the train and onto a tour bus. Unfortunately there wasn't much to see; the Canyon was entirely invisible, just a vast white snow-cloud void, and half the stops on the tour were canceled due to the snow. When we got back to our hotel, we ran into more mobility issues. We were staying in Maswik Lodge, the budget, i.e. one-step-up-from-the-campground lodge, which is a whole bunch of separate cabins. They had a wheelchair available, and the nice desk clerk asked if we'd like to change our cabin for a more accessible one. We said "Sure!" What the nice desk clerk failed to mention was that the more accessible cabin hadn't been cleaned yet, and it would take a full two and a half hours of us shivering in the freezing cold (I am not exaggerating – every time the lobby door opened, and it opened a lot, more snow blew in) lobby to get it cleaned. If we'd known that it would take that long, we would have said to hell with it and gone with the less accessible one. Finally we got to our cabin, turned on the heat, and thawed out a bit before having dinner at the Maswik food court. The following morning, we encountered the next challenge: getting the MIL anywhere outside the vicinity of the lodge was a nightmare. Since the wheelchair belonged to the Maswik, we couldn't take it with us if we wanted to visit any of the other lodges or points of interest. So that morning, Kathy and I went out by ourselves to look around and do some exploring. It was still snowing, the forest was a magical winter wonderland which I was too cold to properly appreciate, and I slipped and fell on the ice twice. It occurred to me later that I dodged a bullet, because in my current jobless state, I have no insurance, and had I really injured myself, I would have been really screwed. Luckily the only thing really hurt was my pride. We did get to see a few sights: El Tovar, Hopi House, the art gallery, etc. A lot of the tours and whatnot had been canceled due to the weather, but we still saw a few intrepid hikers. We wanted to eat at the steakhouse at Bright Angel Lodge on Christmas Eve, so we ended up walking the MIL out to the stop for the free shuttle in very careful installments. Unfortunately, we took the shuttle driver at his word when he told us we needed to transfer from the eastbound to the westbound shuttle to get where we were going. (It turned out that we could have just stayed on and gone all the way around.) This meant walking the MIL over a couple hundred yards of icy/snowy mud to yet another shuttle stop, and then, finally, getting her up the dozen or so stairs to the steakhouse parking lot. I was absolutely terrified that she'd fall and break a hip. Still, things were going pretty well until it came time to go back to our cabin. By now it was completely dark, the wind was blowing, the snow was pelting down, and it was well below freezing. We stood at the shuttle stop...and stood, and stood, and stood, with the wind cutting right through our coats and snow building up around us. It probably wasn't more than twenty minutes before the shuttle showed up, but it felt like hours, mainly because the MIL (who has zero patience even under optimal conditions) kept proclaiming that it was never going to come and she was going to die of the cold. Under the circumstances, we were not sure she wasn't right. Finally, the shuttle showed up, and we got her back to the cabin. At that point, Kathy and I realized that we had a further problem. We had reservations at El Tovar, the super-fancy lodge, for Christmas dinner. Since we were not staying at El Tovar, we hadn't been able to make the reservations until 30 days out (as opposed to the actual El Tovar guests, who were allowed to make reservations 90 days out.) This meant that by the time we could make ours, the only one available was at 8:45. The free shuttle only ran until 9:00. You see the dilemma. Not to mention that the steps up to El Tovar from the shuttle stop were like five times as high as the ones to Bright Angel, and the MIL had barely made it up those. Plus we really, really didn't want to go through another Freezing At The Shuttle Stop experience if we could help it. Luckily, at this point we had a "D'oh!" moment and noticed the taxi service in the brochure. They picked you up right at the door of your cabin, and took you right to the doors of the other lodges! Woohoo! We were saved! So through the Christmas miracle of Grand Canyon Taxi, we got the MIL over to El Tovar for dinner, and over to Hopi House to do some shopping the next morning before we left. And for a post-Christmas miracle, it stopped snowing on the 26th, so we were finally able to see the Canyon! Double woohoo! Thursday afternoon we took the train back to Williams, and Kathy and I parked the MIL in the depot gift shop while we went through the Exciting Adventure Mark II of finding our luggage (which was not where it was supposed to be) and digging the car out from beneath about six inches of snow. It had, of course, started snowing again on the train trip back, and the roads were all black ice. Now, I am a Phoenix native, and I don't have a lot of experience driving in snow. However, as you may recall, the MIL had rejected all the hotels in Williams proper. I cursed them faintly as I drove past, with their goddamn welcoming VACANCY signs. We ended up crawling twenty-odd miles down the iced-over I-40 at 35 mph, in the dark, in the snow, along with a bunch of other people (some mad speed demons doing 50 mph) who were no happier about it than I was. By the time we got to the Chosen Hotel, my shoulders had seized up completely, I'd been gripping the steering wheel so hard. "There, that wasn't so hard, was it?" the MIL chirped as we pulled into the hotel parking lot. I did not murder her then and there, which I think speaks to my growth as a person. I may have mentioned before that my MIL, though a lovely and generous woman in many respects, is... well, look under "entitled white lady" in the dictionary and her picture will be there, and there will be a note from her under the picture complaining that the photographer got her bad side and demanding to speak to the manager. And this hotel we pull into is not a rat-infested pit or anything, but it's not the sort of place she usually goes for. It is reasonably clean, and it has free wi-fi, and that is about all you can say for it, amenities-wise. There's not even any carpet in the rooms; it's all linoleum. It is exactly the sort of hotel you'd expect to find when you say "God, I can't drive another mile, this will have to do." Kathy and I are completely underwhelmed. We have seen the MIL rip into far, FAR nicer establishments than this for failing to meet her exa The MIL LOVES it. We throw up our hands and contemplate the mysteries of the universe. There is no restaurant, only a McDonalds across the street, so we warm up the leftovers from our El Tovar dinner in the microwave. Thank God for microwaves. The next morning, we get up. The free breakfast bar, which is the entire reason the MIL insisted on this hotel, turns out to be a dozen packets of instant oatmeal; a Froot Loop dispenser; a sad rack of Wonder Bread for toasting; a warming pan which apparently once held sausages, but is now quite empty; five mini-muffins; one raisin bagel; and a waffle machine with which one can, if one can fight one's way through the throng of desperate breakfast-hunters besieging it, make waffles. The MIL (you guessed it) loved it. I grabbed the raisin bagel. There was no butter, no cream cheese, only packets of grape jelly. Grape jelly, if you are wondering, doesn't go all that well with raisin bagels. You'd think it would, but you'd be wrong. I did manage to nab a couple of sausages when they were finally replenished. They turned out to be incredibly salty, ice cold, and somewhat suspiciously soy-product-flavored. I took them and a slice of Wonder Bread back to the room to microwave them, and made a sort of sad, weird sausage sandwich. Kathy and I then went out to scrape snow off the car – for the moment, it had stopped snowing, but a couple more inches had fallen after we parked for the night. During this process, the head of the driver's side windshield wiper snapped right off. I guess the unaccustomed cold weakened the plastic. Since it was supposed to start snowing again at any moment, I was less than thrilled with this development, but there was nothing for it; I had no idea whether or not there was a mechanic in Bellemont, and I didn't want to wander randomly around trying to find one. We packed everything up and got on the road. It did indeed start snowing again shortly thereafter. Thankfully it never snowed very hard. The snow eventually turned to rain as we came down off the Rim and into the Verde Valley, and it rained all the way into Phoenix and the rest of the day. But we got home safely, I avoided being cited for driving through a rainstorm without working wipers, we picked up Bo from the vet's, I bought a replacement wiper, and the MIL got on a plane back to Florida Saturday morning. So that was my first ever white Christmas. Despite everything, it was a good trip. The scenery was absolutely spectacular. I'll try and post some pictures later. And now, back to the normal stress of job hunting. The end. comments

[lovehotelreservation]

When I’m Not With You, Nothing Ever Feels Good

Summary: Much has changed to Polnareff’s beloved France ever since he took off for his mission to Italy. Much has changed to himself at that as well.  But your love for him has not.

And thus he will be okay.

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Reader/Polnareff

YIPPIE KI YAY THE TIME HAS COME FOR US 2 RETURN TO POLNAREFFLAND!!! THIS ONE-SHOT WAS WRITTEN LAST YEAR AS MY VERY FIRST AND ONLY COMMISSION BY NONE OTHER THAN ACTUAL MRS POLNAREFF @arbokzee​!!!

THE TITLE FOR THIS FIC COMES FROM “PLACES” BY MARTIN SOLVEIG FEATURING INA WROLDSEN

I HOPE TO SOME DAY OPEN UP COMMISSIONS AGAIN BUT IN THE MEANTIME WE’RE GONNA POP THE BIGGEST CREAMPUFFS FOR MONSIEUR POLNAREFF 2DAY

I HOPE U ENJOY!!!

------------

The honeymoon phase was never over for Polnareff.

So deeply enamored with and reverent of you, he could have been exhausted to the bone from whatever mission that the Speedwagon Foundation had sent him on, but he would always have the strength and eagerness to swoop you into his arms and carry you into your chic Parisian abode. With the distance and time spent apart, his longing for you simply had to be sated the moment you were reunited. His lips yearned to meet with yours while his arms sought to embrace and retain the heat that made all those nights abroad so cold and lonesome.

When Polnareff returned to France, to you, he--in more ways than one--was home at last.

That was the mindset of his earlier adult years.

The same could not be said now, with him in his 30s, having spent the longest time away from his beloved motherland--away from his beloved wife.

His mission to hunt down Passione's mysterious leader Diavolo had seemed simple enough. This was by no means reason to let down his guard--Diavolo was far too similar to Dio if just in name alone--but he did not expect to take such an extensive amount of time away from you.

But now, here he was at his home--a humble yet chic loft in the heart of Marais--having returned from his mission at last.

The streets, the people, the Paris, the France he knew.

Changed.

Much like him.

Unlike you.

Rather than him carrying you into the house with immense joy in his heart, you were instead bringing him inside while a muted sense of happiness emanated from him.

Having been bound to a wheelchair for some time now, his eye scarred, his legs metal, he felt every bit of a stranger in his own home, which was kept mostly intact by your care, save for some renovations for easier accessibility made on his behalf--even though the Speedwagon Foundation took great care in preparing prosthetics for his use.

It was testament to how your affection, your heart, your love--they remained to be as pure as ever.

The fact alone was enough to keep him from utter despair, to bring even the smallest yet most genuine of smiles upon his face.

There was nary a moment when Polnareff did not feel absolute joy when you were around, but his expression could not help but falter in utter bafflement at the words you murmured to him.

“Please take me from behind tonight, mon chéri.”

The tone of your voice, the adoring yet yearning look in your eyes, the feel of your hand guiding his to your cheek.

You were serious.

"F-From behind...?"

He was stunned.

As your husband, he was always glad to indulge you with anything. But that position--the thought of you on your hands and knees, the sound of wanton moaning and panting escaping your parted lips, the gleam of the moonlight cascading down your body while he knelt behind you, grabbing your hips as he pounded into you with animalistic fervor--

Polnareff had to stop himself.

He almost felt ashamed for the rush of heat and throbbing ache that quickly surged towards his loins. That position was much too barbaric to subject you, his beloved queen, to.

After all...

His mouth was ready to express a gentle refusal.

The first night of lovemaking since his return and he would not be able to see your face and those gorgeous expressions of ecstasy?

He simply could not wait any longer to witness that pleasured look, the very one that tempted his dreams and taunted his desires.

Even with that hopeful neediness reflected in your eyes--

Whatever words that Polnareff was about to say fell short, however, as he recalled back to earlier in the day when you were showing him all of the new features to your home.

More particularly, he remembered the grand and ornate full-sized mirror that you had brought to the bedroom, positioned right before the bed. Polnareff felt heat blossom and spread from within his chest.

You had been grinning quite cheekily when you asked what he thought of the mirror.

The beginnings of an amused smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. Your heart remained pure but your penchant for being his sly, little minx had yet again successfully stirred and awoken his arousal.

After all, you were more than familiar with how thrilling he found personal exhibitionism.

There was much for Polnareff to adjust to upon his return home, but so long as you were here, staring at him with the very same yearning look that he was always prone to expressing--at this very moment or for the rest of time, there was no need for fear or insecurity.

Just the enduring and earnest love that continued to thrive so splendidly between the two of you.

Gently stroking over your cheek with his thumb, Polnareff proceeded to give you his answer.

First, his eyes shut then opened, the cerulean hue of his irises having gone from expressing hesitation to a passion that had been bottled up far too long. Then he spoke, his words tinged with a husky tone, "What a way to commemorate my return, mon ange. You are in need of well-deserved release, non?"

And, at last, to truly seal this night between you both, he did not wait a moment to claim your mouth with his—to finally satisfy the cravings that had tormented him so.

While getting to lay upon his own bed once more was a true comfort in itself, there was no place he would rather be than situated between your thighs while he had you sit upon his face. The slickness of your heat left him enamored and his self-restraint in tatters while he feasted upon your center. 

Manners and proper etiquette were always becoming of a true romantic--or so his younger self always proclaimed--but his hunger for you incited noisy licks and suckles, his hands planted firmly on your ass to keep you within reach of his mouth, squeezing and kneading your flesh with glee.

As he satisfied the hunger that plagued him during the years separated from you, the same was being reciprocated on your end. While he could never have enough of the feel of your lips pressing against his, paradise once lost was rediscovered by the glorious wet heat of your mouth engulfing his cock while your fingertips tenderly massaged and touched over his inner thighs.

Your touch was always welcomed by him, but the loving stroke of your fingers around his legs was truly among the most genuine displays of affection. His appearance had changed drastically but you still adored his body with the same amount of love as you always held for him, if not more.

A man who prided himself on being the shining paragon of the ideal lover, he genuinely felt nervous and afraid during his initial recovery after his fight with Diavolo, worried that you would leave him over his injuries. However, as you had tearfully expressed to him at the hospital to how sweetly you handled his body now, he knew that there was no reason to fear any longer.

Rather, all Polnareff needed to concern himself with was catering to your pleasure as much as he possibly could.

Still, to stand behind you by the edge of the bed upon his prosthetic legs felt surreal in every way, especially since he always preferred any position that allowed for him to look at your face during intimacy.

There was reason to the near timidness of his hands resting upon your hips. But the sight of your nude body positioned so seductively exquisite before him, with the reflection of that anticipating and tender expression on your face shown clearly on the bedroom mirror--he had all the reassurance he needed.

And by the teasing swivel of your hips, he had all the drive he needed, as though those nights of intense, burning desire spent to be sated alone were not enough already.

"Chaton," he called out hoarsely, followed by the low hum of your name. You turned back to face him, responding with the soft chime of "Jean--?", only to be interrupted by him swooping down to steal a kiss right as he eased his cock inside your core from behind.

The gasp you let out was matched by the hiss that slipped from his lips, a noticeable shudder coursing through his body upon the sopping wet heat that squeezed around his cock at long last. As much as the ecstasy nearly caused him to shut his eyes, he strained to keep them open to catch the expression on your face, both by gazing directly towards you and then--once your mouths parted fully--by the mirror itself.

There was truly no better sight than the reflection before him, the both of you shown intertwined in your own personal eroticism. As he did find thrills in subtle exhibitionism with you on date nights, it was an eternal mystery as to why he never thought to introduce a full-sized mirror to your bedroom--in more ways than one.

But there was no time to contemplate the whys of the past—rather, it was time to focus on the beautiful tremors coursing through your body, watching your face contort with pleasure as you wantonly called out to him for more of his touch.

No matter the years that had passed, Polnareff always insisted on carrying himself as a true gentleman. And though he could never even begin to think of being selfish in bed with you, he quickly crumbled to the passionate man he was, possessed and bewitched by your affection. With his body hunched over yours, one hand squeezing your hip while a thick, muscled arm curled around your body in a warm yet protective embrace, he strained to keep you still as he ravaged you with the thundering rhythm of his thrusts.

His breathing ragged, he could not find it in himself to shift his gaze away from the mirror, the very object that at first left him in despair, but now was a reassurance of his future with you, "It's as though I'm gazing upon a wall in the Louvre. And yet-- and yet...! There is no masterpiece on this Earth that could ever compare to you, mon ange, ma reine."

Feeling as invigorated as ever, Polnareff did not cease in his passion for you as his lips kissed over your skin, minding himself to not mar your complexion but to instead give his praising touch.

Truly, he was looking forward to re-familiarizing himself with every inch of your body.

His lips trailed from your shoulder blades up to your ear, a sultry but loving whisper uttered, "I've spent much too long away from you, ma reine. Please..." He kissed against nape of your neck. "...let this love-struck fool of yours make it up to you."

You expressed your approval by the mewl of his name and your hips grinding back against his.

Your name was called out once more, your lips claimed by his near immediately after.

Smoldering, open-mouthed, needy.

How he hated ever having to end a kiss with you.

Still, as your gazes returned to staring towards the mirror, the sight before you both was something he would always cherish, the reunion he sought to have for so long here at last.

He released your hip to instead now have both arms embracing you warmly, squeezing you tight against his chest as he groaned out, "This body of mine could be shattered to pieces, but the only one who could break this heart of mine is you, mon amour."

Your hands slipped over the backs of his, gently holding them all while you gazed at him sweetly through your reflections, "And I will always do my best to protect and cherish that heart, Jean. I swear this to you."

Another shiver went along his spine, just one of many for this glorious night of reunion that was only at its start.

Here in your shared bedroom in the comforts of the humble abode that the both of you looked forward to sharing your lives together in, with you right in his arms and the sound of your name uttered so distinct and lovingly, it was without doubt that Polnareff was home at last.

[prettybrowneees-blog]

Please Help me I am a Disabled Veteran who is stuck in a Nursing Home! I need to raise funds to get an apartment to go to and live my life again!

I Am A Disabled Veteran abandoned by the VA! I serve my country and got treated like trash by the Veterans Medical Center! I was staying at the VA Medical Center’s Community living Center aka nursing home where it was horrible! For me as I am still realitively young. I spent two in a half years there where I was not treated very well at all. There was never an effort to put me in the shower even though there was a shower in my room.I pleased for a shower but none one wanted to take the time to do it. I got sick in 2014 initially with kidney failure when I was taken to the ER I was told that had I not gotten to the ER that day I would have been dead in 3 days. Thanks to the excellent Doctors and nurses at Inova Fair Oaks Hospital my life was spared. I was put ondialysis right away and because I was a Veteran Iwas entitled to free Healthcare so within a few days I was transferred to the closest VA Medical Center in Washington, DC where a 5 year nightmare began with the worst VA Medical Center in the country! Look it up for proof of that! I was there it was horrible! The way they treat some Veterans is shameful! SoI Spent two years in the VA Medical and another 3 in the VA Community living Center where my condition was allowed to deteriorate some what. Let me explain. When I initially got sick I was having mobility issues but I could still walk a little. Being in bed due to my illness for long periods of time I lost most of my mobility. I could stand and pivot and get into my wheelchair. But over time and due to the lack of physical therapyI lost my ability to stand and walk. But God willing I am determined to get my mobility back. I will fight with all that I have because I cannot live the rest of my life ina nursing home! One should have to live in a place like this! The VA abandoned me here offered me two months of physical therapy. But when Inleft the VA they did me dirty because I got seriously ill with a condition I have called Hidradinitis which is a very dibitatating Disease. I did not want to leave the My new room at the CLCthat I had just moved into. I was assured that I would be able to return. Once they said I was to be discharged from the VA Medical Center the nasty assistant director of the VA came into my room and told me thatI could not return and my social worker was ordered find a nursing home in two days or they were going to put me out in the streets! I still to this day do not understand the cruel treat meant that I received. I was devestated 😢Here I am still sick and in pain and they are throwing me out of the VA hospital dumping me into a nursing home not given me or anyone to visit the facility to see if it is suitable. SoI was shipped off to a nursing home in Maryland.I know nothing about Maryland, I am from Virginia. The A only paid for 60 days and only two months of physical therapy, it the first month I was still recovering from my illiness I wasn’t eating and was in serious pain and hardly could move then when I got better. It was a slow go. So by the next month when I was just starting to make some progress the A refused to pay for any more physical therapy stating that I had not made enough progress.Not taking in account how sick I was upon arriving here at all.this is a small facility and they have a very limited physical therapy program. I was then forced by the VA to get Medicaid to pay for my stay here! The VA has done me wrong. I want to life my life not be stuck in a small room stuck in a bed watching other residents walking back and forth all day long I need to get my mobility back as much as I can and get back into the real world because this place is trying to suck the life out of me😢 so I Am asking the world out there for help! I need to raise a lot of money to be able to get out of here and move into a handicapped accessible apartment. I am tired of just existing I want to live however much time I have left on earth living my life! This is not living it is existing and I want to live again. So if you could find it in your heart to make a Donation or if you can please share!

I will be setting up a go fund me page but in the meantime Donations can be made via my Cash App $DisabledVetDiva

[thepineapplejuicer]

Know It All: Xmen evolution fanfic Chapter Two

Title: Know It All

Chapter two

Nightcrawler fanfic (I do not own the X-men or the gif, I do not claim to own any Marvel characters ).

Violet Ashbourne is a gifted human hacker in possession of a radio, a secret device that gains her access to a large underground information network and electronics all over the world. Human and mutant coexistence has always been her goal, but will the betrayal of her mutant mother and father- once partners to her rise to power- distort her beliefs? Will the X-men be able to save her from her own pride and ambition? Or will she sacrifice everything, including the only boy she’s ever trusted, for vengeance?

He takes a moment and drinks his own tea. "It is an extreme risk having you here. A girl with no powers, but yet has complete control over all of us here. And then there is the issue of how you found us and how you know all about each of my students and myself." "I'm a girl of many talents." I simply state. "It appears so, but to the matter at hand if the wrong person were to get their hands on your technology," He points at my wrists, "We could be looking at a catastrophic event for mutants all over the world." Somehow I feel like he is talking to himself more then he is to me. I watch as his eyes begin to wander into the ripples of his tea; strangely his stern look reminds me of my own father- well Dominic to me now. I swallow hard, trying to deal with the situation step by step without melting into a pool of tears. I bring the cup to my lips in the hope the scorching water will shock my composure back into place.

Charles Xavier's eyes flick to mine, "But if you were to stay here...." I choke slightly on my tea, "I beg your pardon?" "Hear me out." He offers. "If you stay here in my school perhaps we can both achieve what we desire. I have a student here by the name of Forge, he may be able to put a dent into those bracelets of yours." "I hope you mean figuratively, I have to admit chopping my hands off are at the end of my list of attempts." I sarcastically laugh. He joins me in a laugh, "I must request that you limit your time around the students, at least when they are in training sessions." "Of course. Funny, I have a request of my own." "Oh?" "I have a... business, all handled online. As long as I have access to it from here I will comply with your rules and stay locked up here. As long as you do all you can to get these damn things off me, of course."

He ponders for a moment.

"Alright Miss, Ashbourne." he sticks out his hand for mine, "You've got a deal, welcome to the X-men."

"Woah, let's not get ahead of ourselves, I didn't even bring a resume."

He chuckles lightly and rests back in his wheelchair, "But I must ask, what is this business of yours? I must know if my students will be safe."

"I completely understand your caution and if you must know I am a hacker. I work within channels, gathering information; a keeper of secrets if you will. "

"Earlier... you said you're 16?"

"And you're the most powerful mutant of all?" I chuckle before continuing, "I have a Ph.D. in programming; my age is simply a means of a host. Point is, what I do is dangerous, but I am very careful in how I handle my network and will ensure that your students will not suffer the consequences of my business."

Xavier nods and begins to wheel away, signaling me to follow. We begin to walk into the foyer and towards the elevator, "You'll be able to set up in the commutations room down in the second sub-basement."

We step into the elevator and I feel my arm pulled gently as he examines the metal, "it is extraordinary."

"It is a means to an end," I state and walk out as soon as the doors open again.

Once down in the basement, Xavier guides me through the silver halls with doors lined with Xs. I felt an urge to discover every room, but withstood the temptation as we are greeted by a young man dressed in a sweater vest and slacks, "hey professor," He stares at me with bubbly eyes for a moment, "uh-."

"I hope you don't mind, Forge, but Violet will be setting up her station down here with you."

"Wait, what? I- hi- no offense, but this place is cramped enough as it is," he protests, trying to get in front of the professor as he wheels in front of a large circled projector in the center of the room. Behind are several monitors, a walkway with a railing and an empty room just to the left of it. "Professor, I just got these monitors installed and ready so-"

"So I will make good use of them." I smile.

Forge turns to me, annoyed that I finished his sentence without his consent. "Who the heck are you?" he asks sarcastically, easily showing he didn't actually care.

Before I am able to introduce myself Xavier wheels next to him, "This is Violet Ashbourne, she will be working with us as we help her with a personal dilemma."

"Oh, what are your powers?" The way Forge's domineer changed as he asked that question irritated me as if I had to be a mutant and nothing else. "Knowledge." I simply say as I swallow my pride.

"So, like, you're super smart?"

I roll my eyes and walk up the small stairway up to the monitors. "This will do nicely professor." He nods, "Perfect, you may take the room to your left and Forge will temporarily bunk with one of our other X-Men."

"Do I not get a say in this?" Forge stares at me.  I couldn't tell if he was angry or shy. I lean over the railing, the blue, transparent light of the circle projector highlighting my face, "I will be as quiet as I wish you were, do not worry."

"Huh, that's comforting, I think."

Xavier spoke up, "The others will be here soon-"

"I'm not an X-Man, introducing me to them will not be necessary," I state plainly, looking back at the monitors.

"We do not know how long you will be here and I would rather them be aware of a power neutralizing girl in our basement. Plus, you said you would abide by my rules."

I sigh, remembering what I had said,"Yes, the boys especially, I assume, will be the most interested."

Xavier chuckled as he noticed Forge staring at me with goo-goo eyes. "Ehem."

"W-what?" Forge asks hazily.

"Catch him up on your problem, will you? I must contact a friend."

"Is it Logan?" I ask hoping for a reaction.

As he wheels out of the room, he stops in the doorframe, "you outta be a telepath."

I grin and look back at Forge who is still stuck between annoyance and boyish hormones. "So, you're not a mutant?"

I sigh and begin to explain in a quick, simplified matter, "A bad man kidnaped me and attached these metal bands to my skin. These bands neutralize mutant powers with a kind of interference, I do not understand the complete technology considering I was in pain for the entire process. Point being: I need you to get them off."

"Why did he do that to you?"

I thought for a moment, "That will remain my business."

"Oh, uh okay. Let me just finish some stuff and I will take a look."

I agreed and went to the monitors to pull up my mobile access to Sanctuary. I immediately see a message from Nisha, 'Moriarty has gone underground, we can't find much of his whereabouts.'

I reply harshly, 'I want him found at any costs I don't care how many of his men you need to kill.'

I lock my messages, not caring whether or not she had answered.

I need to find him before he can find me.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The information running across my monitors prove extremely interesting. I hear Forge's muttering as he tinkers on the other side of the room, next to the door, on his workbench, cramped between the boxes of my things. I glance behind me to see his back to me, hunched over. I stare at his arm that switched from one form to the next as he constantly blew his shoulder-length hair to the side. I watch the brief video of him appearing from a room in Bayville high, accompanied by a blue figure. I tap on my keyboard to the next X-Men and find Katherine- Kitty- Pride, Jean Grey, Scott Summers, Evan Daniels, Anna Marie (goes by rogue, I'll have to remember that) and Kurt Wagner-

"Will all X-Men please meet me in my office." Professor Xavier's voice blasts through the speakers of the mansion, interrupting Forge and I. The door opens and closes as Forge walks out, but I scramble to take the opportunity of privacy and call Nisha and Bronco.

I use my free hand to sneak a small bug into the mansion's system, locking the door at my will to ensure no one interrupts me.

"Boss, what's going on we were waiting for your call." Nisha says as Bronco tries to squeeze into the frame.

"Looks like I will be bunking with the X-Men for a while. In the meantime follow my experimental instructions and send me the information on how our newest citizens are adjusting."

"Are you sure being in a house full of mutants is a good idea, especially because of your situation?"

"I have a plan."

"Don't you always?" Nisha smiles, siding with me. Bronco steps toward the camera, "The subjects responded well to the training and setting of the city so far. To be honest I think they are just glad to have warm sheets and good food."

"Glad to hear it. Sanctuary is to be a place for the people, not tyrants, make sure you use our funds wisely and feed as many mouths as you can."

"I have to ask- how are you raising all this money, boss?"

"Information is as valuable as a life and there are those who offer their souls for it."

Nisha speaks up, " Be careful, boss, you have enough enemies at the moment."

Before I am able to answer Bronco sighs, "Speaking of offering up your soul- how is the search for the Admiral?"

I frown, "Unfortunately, I've had to put it on hold. The information I acquired from the commander is enough to keep our heads above water for now. We will continue the search once the matter with Moriarty are dealt with and I can return home." They look at each other with concern as I finish my sentence as if hiding something. "The radio, is it safe?" Bronco asks.

I fiddle with the chain of my necklace, "Completely."

"And what of your father? You think he will let you back into Purgatory after what happened?"

I hear the door behind me beep, "Huh? Did she lock the door?- Professor!" I hear Forge whine after he attempted to open the door.

I turn back to Nisha and Bronco, "I have to go, my lock isn't going to hold for long. Contact me through my computers, not via cell phone. Nisha I want Moriarty found and tabs on my father. Bronco, I want Sanctuary filled with new subjects."

"She locked the door." I hear Forge whine again.

"Boss, don't you think one of us should be there-" I cut Bronco off and shut down the call as soon as I hear the door unlock and slide open. I turn to see the professor followed by a group of teenagers, "Something wrong with the door?" he asks sarcastically. I make my way around the ramp and step in front of all of them.

"Must have gotten stuck," I answered coyly. The professor smirks and I look at the X-Men, mostly at the fuzzy faces of the boys. "Nice." Evan simply whispers to the blue-haired boy- the only one I didn't recognize, but my, was he handsome. A red-headed girl steps in front of the others, "Nice to meet you I'm-"

"Jean Grey." I finish rudely, leaving her in shock. "Do we know each other?-"

I begin to point at each of them, obviously bored, "Scott, Kitty, Evan, Rogue-" I stop as they all stare at me, "Forgive me, I just hate introductions."

I glance at the unknown boy, "But I must admit, I do not know your name." My voice is more flirty then intended. He just stared at me, slack-jawed until Scott elbowed him, "Ah! Ja, My name is Wagner- Kurt. Vell Kurt is my first name."

As he rambles my eyes widen and I glance back at my monitors, "You can change your form?"

He seems to get a bit fidgety and uncomfortably embarrassed, "You know how I look?" He said it so quietly that I could hear my heart break from how self-conscious he sounded.

"Only from what I've seen in cameras."

"Cameras?" Kitty perked up.

"I can gain entrance into a lot of city cameras, even personal ones if I want."

"No way!" Evan smiled, moving Kurt to the side a bit.

A long sigh comes from the professor as he reels in their attention, "This is Violet Ashbourne."

"How do you know who we are?" Scott asks as he towers over me. I smile, "Trust me, just assume I know everything."

"Okay, what is my power?" Kitty asks.

"You have the ability to phase through solid matter."

"Are you sure you're not just a telepath?" Jean asks.

Uncontrollably, I glare at her, "Some people have to work to gain information."

Jean is taken by my sudden hostility and Xavier quickly notices, changing the subject almost immediately, "Violet is a human, skilled in hacking and other talents."

I stand up straight, trying to look proud of my humanity. "Violet I was hoping to convince you to go to a summer camp with the students, perhaps bond a bit."

Xavier took me by surprise, "I'm sorry, come again? I told you I have no interest in being anyone's friend. The sooner you get these things off the sooner you can be rid of me."

He is silent and motions for Forge to come forward. He examines my wrists, "man these are wedged on here pretty good."

"I'd be disappointed if they weren't, considering all the pain I had to go through."

Forge holds out his hand, I didn't understand what he was doing. he looks at his arm and chuckles uncomfortable, "oh yeah, no powers."

"Makes you feel vulnerable, doesn't it?" Part of me regrets how I said that as soon as the others look a bit hurt.

The professor took the others back upstairs after seeing my reactions and Forge spent hours examining and writing notes. Soon after midnight, he had receded upstairs to sleep and left me alone.

I can't sleep, I can barely breathe easily without thinking of how much betrayal I had recently endured over a course of these past days.  The black Monitors are the only thing keeping me company. The more I keep analyzing it the more I feel like a knife is stabbing me in the stomach. Finally, I get up and make my way upstairs, trying to find the kitchen based on the blueprints I hacked a few hours ago. Soon after finding the kitchen I quietly rummage through the cupboards and find a kettle and bagged earl grey. Not my favorite, but under circumstances is doable.

I sit alone until the stove and microwave clocks read 1:43. Dozing off became easier the later it became until I got startled by a gust of wind and cloud of black dust, followed by an overpowering scent of brimstone. Kurt, the real Kurt, yawns lazily in front of me, unaware of my presence. Payback came quickly as I spoke, scaring him out of his fur. "So that's how you look, the cameras only show so much." His embarrassment bounces off the silence, "Violet, You're still up?"

I nod, looking into the murky water in my mug.

"Can't sleep?" his accent becomes sweeter. 

"There's a lot on my mind," I say, receding into my antisocial bubble.

It was so quiet after a few minutes I thought he had left until a cup was set down next to me. Kurt hopped onto the stool and swiveled a bit to adjust himself, "Zhen it is lucky you don't need beauty sleep."

I raised my brow and look at him, amused.

The fur around his cheeks turns a slight tint of pink as he sips his tea. "You know what would go good with this?" he gets up before I can guess and reaches into a cabinet, pulling out a package of untouched cookies. "I managed to hide them from Evan." he places them between our mugs as he returns to his stool. After a while I give in and take one, munching on it as I listen to Kurt swallowing his third one. "You know everything about me?" He asks.

"As much as the cameras can show. Creepy I'm sure." I admitted.

"Have you seen how I look?" he laughed self deprecatingly.

I really didn't know what to say, or how to lighten the moment, I've never spent so much time engaged in a conversation with someone my age.

So instead I said nothing.

"How did you become so powerful?"

My head snapped to him, "Trust me, I'm not even close, but one day I will be."

"I hope so."

"Why?"

He stares at the cookie in his three-fingered hand, "because humans are just as powerful as mutants."

My chest begins to heat up, amazement running up the thin hairs of my arms.

"Are you coming with us to camp tomorrow?" Kurt asks completely changing the subject.

"I don't think it is my place," I say truthfully.

"It might help you clear your head if you take a step back."

I thought for a moment.

He has a point.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The next morning I can't believe what I am doing. With a duffle bag and fading nostalgia from last night, I am facing a grinning Xavier and a loading bus. "I am so glad you changed your mind about the camping trip."

"That makes one of us." I groan as my eyes meet Kurt who is helping to load the bus. Xavier, without turning smiles smugly, "Or two." he mutters, referring to Kurt. "I am just going on this trip because I need to clear my head. The moment I get back I expect Forge to be making progress."

"It is our top priority."

I stutter angrily, "yeah, in case you forgot."

Gripping my duffle bag I carefully hand it to Kurt who gently lays in with the other bags. I can't help but stare at how the maroon shirt complements his skin tone, not to mention his toned arms. While he is in his human form I feel less comfortable, like it isn't him from last night.

The moment the bus begins to leave the school grounds I am reminded of how much I missed from high school. I spent most of the time studying and learning, because of my family's low social status I had to ensure my financial aid and scholarships paid for my degrees. I never went on field trips or sat with a boy on a bus. That was, of course, before I found The 'Commander' and the radio.

The X-men are considerably accepting towards me and converse the entire time, well, all except for Jean.

(Chapter three will be posted on Monday, June 17,2019)

[nataliesnews]

Violence in Jerusalem 25.4.2021

This is a message from Tag maier  on Sunday 25.4.2021

 Jerusalem is burning.

Words from our Chair Gadi Gvaryahu on the situation:

"On Thursday night Tag Meir called Jerusalemites to go out to the hot spots of friction and to calmly appeal to the residents not to partake in the violence in response to Jewish extremists' call for a hate march from Safra Square to the Nablus Gate that same evening.

At 20:00, we arrived at Zion Square and were met by a mob of around 100 youths from the "Lehava" extremist movement, who were chanting "Death to Arabs" and "May your village burn"

The police were out with increased force, including the horseback and dog unit.

No Arab residents were seen in the vicinity, and around 21:30, the mob started to walk to IDF Square and Nablus Gate. Police tried to stop the crowd without success and then used riot control measures to disperse demonstrations.

We could only but imagine what 1000 Lehavah / Kahana activists or even small groups of them would get up to later in the night and in the early hours of the morning when they manage to reach the Old City.

At the same time, we received a heartwarming report from a group of 25 people from various Jerusalem communities who together kept a neighbourhood watch team going in the Mesila Park area.

Early in the day one of our prominent activists wrote to us: "I am afraid that there will be bloodshed tonight in Jerusalem. I do not think it is responsible for calling on activists to come downtown."

It is totally possible however that our call in the morning for activists to patrol the points of friction, in parallel with announcements and interviews to the media, caused the police to intensify its forces; It is possible that our presence saved some Arabs residents.

And even if not: it is impossible for us to abandon 40% of the residents of Jerusalem, who are at the mercy of of Lehava and Kahana activists just because they are Arab.

It is important for them to know in East Jerusalem that on the evening that hundreds of Lehava activists chanted "Death to the Arabs," hundreds of Jews stood shoulder to shoulder in Zion Square, Safra Square, Hatulim Square, IDF Square and Mesila Park - we did not lose hope for peace and will never abandon them

   24.4.2021

When I got up in the morning after having been to the Damascus gate to monitor what was happening there….the important Friday prayer on Ramadan I did not feel so well.  The problem is the heat and I am nervous to drink while there as there are no toilets. Anyhow I stayed home and had seven people from Nofim for tea in the morning. I always get so nervous before and wonder why I do it and then it turns out well. It must have as they came at 11 am and left at one. But before that I sat there looking at my full tea table and thinking what is no one comes.

 Then I stayed home until the evening when one of the young men who used to join us at the demonstrations gave me a lift to the Knesset……and also brought me a ton of bottles.

 Already in the afternoon police were carrying out the orders of the Balfour Mafia family and two buses were stopped in the city and people hauled off and  arrested while still on the bus.  Now if this happened in Iran I can imagine who our media here would have to say about it. But we are the traitors…the leftists. So there is open hunting on us

 I walked to Balfour…..it is much easier now as the walk is shorter than when we used to come from the entrance to the city and also the ascent is more gradual. And I had two meetings which are so strange in their way. One of the women who told me she had given me a lift back to Nofim after a demonstration was walking with her mother who was in a wheelchair. It turns out that Zelda Katz studied at the School of Social work at the university …she was part of a course for new immigrants and her daughter had told her that we had met. So we walked together reminiscing. I did not remember her and said that she must have returned her books always on time as I remember those who gave me problems. Also that they used to call me the bitch on the fifth floor because I was tough on them. But they always got their books on time even if a professor had it out. I guess we never thought though that we who had come as Zionists would be protesting one day against such a corrupt government.

 Then at Kikar Zion a woman sitting next to me said that she had just come from Balfour and her sister asked “Where is Natanya” and so she phoned her sister and said that I was there . And the worse is that 99  % of these people I don’t have a clue what their names are and even if they tell me I don’t remember the next time

  After that we walked to Zion Square where there was a protest against the young fascists of Lahava which caused great havoc on Thursday evening and such violence. There are less and less people. One almost feels as if the country is holding its breath to see what happens next. It is so possible that Netanyahu will exacerbate the situation so as to bring us to a case of war. In the meantime the latest rocket attacks

Came in response to this….which much of the media ignores. The police chief has been trying to cover up by saying that the ban on sitting on the steps has been going on for years but in facebook one sees how untrue this is. There are photos of previous years with hundreds sitting on the steps.

 “There have been nightly disturbances in Jerusalem since the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan on April 13, amid Palestinian anger over police blocking off access to a square surrounded by broad steps outside the Old City’s Damascus Gate, where, in an unofficial Jerusalem tradition, thousands of Palestinians would congregate following nighttime prayers during Ramadan”.

 While at Balfour I was told that Women make peace are going to go to the South on Thursday to identify with them which is not the word I am looking for. Anyhow I do not go out with them a lot as Machsomwatch is enough for me but last night I was photographed with them  and even before had been thinking that if they go down I will join them. I wish I did not have such fat cheeks

  Today also I have not gone out and except for morning exercise here at Nofim and an Arabic lesson I think the world will have to go on without me for today or at least until the next weekend.

 I am thinking of how I enjoyed the picnics in summer but we always do them in the late afternoon and night. As Fagin said I guess I have to think it out again

Natanya

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

How not to medical professional

I ended up in the emergency room last night. It was the kind of thing where if it had hit while I was at home, I’d just have curled up in my bed and been miserable until it passed, but it hit on my commute home and I was fortunate enough to be cared for by some amazing bystanders who ended up opting to call 911. Anyway, I just need to complain about how bad that emergency room experience was.

So first of all I showed up from the ambulance and  they brought me to a bed and took my vitals. A nurse then told me to put on a gown but that I only needed to take of the clothes on the upper half of my body. I asked if I could keep my undergarments on and she said yes. Another nurse walked in and said I davka needed to take my undergarments off. So I did. She then looked down and said, “No, you need to take off the lower half too, I need access to your leg.” How hard is it to give correct instructions on what I need to be wearing??

She then proceeded to do an EKG without in any way explaining what she was doing or why. It happens to be I’ve had one before, but she didn’t know that. The nurse who tested my blood sugar also didn’t explain what she was doing or why and I just figured it out by guesswork.

Then, a nurse brought a cup for a urine sample. I told her I was too dehydrated to give one. She said, “Ok, I’ll just leave this here in case you’re ready later. Do you want some water in the meantime?” She got me a cup of water. I was given an anti-nausea drug and told “we’ll see what happens with this” and left alone with the friend who came to the hospital to be with me.

We waited. And waited. And waited. No one came to check in. I was so freaking thirsty but every time I took even a small sip of water I felt massively more nauseous. I was wondering why I didn’t have an IV since the last time I was in the emergency room for a similar issue, 6 years ago, that was the main thing they did for me. Finally my friend went to get a nurse, who came in and said, “I hear you want fluids...but you don’t even have an IV in your arm,” and proceeded to explain that “young healthy people” can generally bounce back from dehydration on their own even though it feels bad at the time so they don’t like to give an IV if fluids are the only reason. I have no idea if that’s standard medical protocol or not (like I said, I got fluids 6 years ago and I was both younger and healthier then), but I shouldn’t have had to ask in the first place, it should have been explained to me, and also, it should have been explained better. She then told us she thought they were getting ready to discharge us but, “I don’t know, I’m not your nurse.”

Substantially later, that same nurse came back and told us that the only reason I hadn’t been discharged yet was that they were waiting on the urine sample. Which like. If you had TOLD me that about 50 years ago, I would have just gone and tried, but no one told me my leaving was contingent upon giving a urine sample (which no one ever explained to me why they needed it in the first place, then or later). She told me where the bathroom was and I shuffled over to it only to find an “out of order” sign. I went back to her and she told me about another one, which was ALSO out of order. I went back again and finally another nurse showed me to one that was a lot further away that was open. Mind you, I came into that room in a wheelchair and was still very shaky, but hey, just make me wander all over the place, no big deal. We then had to wait 20 minutes for them to process the sample.

The person who came to discharge me gave me this packet of information, skimmed through it, and said “your urine sample looks fine” during the course of that. Meanwhile, once I got out of there, I saw that multiple numbers on the tests they ran on it were in fact out of the normal range, and then obviously had to google a bunch of things to see whether I was dying since no one bothered to point these things out and explain what the deal was with them. Also, as part of that, they apparently ran a pregnancy test, but no one ever bothered to just ask me if I was pregnant? I can see running the test anyway as long as they were taking a sample, because sometimes people are stupid or lie about the possibility of them being pregnant, but the urine test was the last thing that was completed and if I had been pregnant I think they should have tried to find out that information right away while treating me?? Additionally, they had asked me about medications, but. For a very short time almost 2 years ago I went to an endocrinologist affiliated with that hospital, so they had old medication info. While they did add my synthroid that I told them about this time, they left on the methimazole that I haven’t been on in a year (and I probably wasn’t even on that dose a year ago). Which anyone with half a brain in the medical profession should realize that taking methimazole and synthroid at the same time would make no sense and that taking methimazole at all when you don’t have a thyroid, like I told them I don’t, wouldn’t do anything.

So anyway, shout out to the random bystander who happened to be a paramedic who helped me before I went to the hospital, because he actually explained everything he was doing and everything my body was doing really clearly, and that hospital should get training from him.

[numbuh-7-knd]

So I just read this great fanfic about what the batfam does during a thunderstorm (found here), and it reminded me of an idea that's been floating around in my head for some time. Namely, what if somehow Bruce wound up taking in Barbra Gordon, either temporarily, or permanently. Anyway I can see this happening in a few different ways, like Barbara's father, commissioner Gordon, going missing/undercover/leaving Gotham for a case, and Bruce offers to take her in and keep her safe while he's away. Similarly Gordon could also be hurt on a case, leaving him in the hospital or temporarily too disabled to look after Barbra. More below the cut because this is super long.

Gordon could also somehow decide to abandon barbara, either because he suffered some kind of mental breakdown and couldn't bare to have her around anymore, or maybe because of Batgirl killing his son. I know that happens when Barbara is an adult, but maybe here it happens younger, and Gordon is either paranoid and thinks Babs would be safer with someone else as her legal guardian, or she reminds him of Batgirl (hint hint) so he doesn't want to be near her anymore. He also could discover her identity, and decide that while he can't bear to arrest his own daughter and have her tried for the death of his son, especially when he comes to understand that said death probably couldn't be helped, he also doesn't want her living with him anymore. Here Bruce would probably step in at some point and take Barbra in. There's also of course the possibility of Gordon dying, leaving Barbra an orphan. In this case he would probably fall victim to some supervillain, (maybe the Joker) and be killed on the job. My thoughts on this are that Commissioner Jim Gordon almost definitely knew raising Barbra that there was a chance he could be killed on the job, and probably kept a plan in place for who would care for her should something happen to him, especially with him seeing how many bad things tend to happen to kids in Gotham, and how horrible the system for protecting and caring for said children is. He'd especially want to insure that she wouldn't end up on the street, or worse in a abusive foster home or orphanage (or the detention center, seeing as that's where they sent Dick Grayson when the orphanage was full). I'm going to say that in this he and Bruce are good friend, and he trusts Bruce enough that Bruce would be on the list of people he would want to raise Babs if something happened to him. Of course that list would also include her Mother, as well as any extended family the Gordon's have, and possibly some other people involved with the police force. Assuming in this case that anyone ‘higher’ on the list than Bruce either isn't available/doesn't want to raise Barbara (or maybe they do take her in for a bit but it doesn't work out.) Bruce eventually decides to take her in making her and even more official member of the bat clan.

It would also be cute though for no angst to be involved and for Bruce and Commish Gordon to just fall in love and decide to raise their kids together though. Especially with the interesting family dynamics of the entire family trying to hide the fact that they're all superheroes from their “step” dad lol. (All the while Gordon totally already knows and is secretly laughing as the kids fumble to hide evidence and Bruce makes up excuses as to why he's not home or why he's up so late, and Alfred is so totally in on it, it being that Jim actually knows exactly what's going on with his family. We also get to see Jason (and the rest of the family) teasing Dick for his crush on their newest “sister”. Or maybe there are no secrets and Gordon knows that they're superheroes, and they know that he knows. Either way it would be adorable and they could refer to Bruce and James as “Bat-Dad” and “Cop-Dad” (or commish Dad, or non-bat Dad, or “the only non super besides Alfred in this family”) lol Also a lot of these could take place after Babs become Batgirl, or even before she becomes Batgirl, maybe even being an alternate origin story where she becomes Batgirl to help her Dad on a case that’s resulted in him sending her to live with Bruce, or to take down the people who either hurt or killed Commish Gordon. Or just because she learned that Bruce was Batman and that Dick was Robin, and she wanted to help them her new family and keep them from getting them from getting hurt or killed out there. Sorry for the long winded post, I just got all these ideas in my head and really needed to write them down. I might extend upon any of these in the future, but in the meantime feel free to use the ideas yourself or extend upon them, just please link back to this post and mention me so I can see it, because I'd love to read/see any of these ideas brought to life. Also feel free to send me any links for fanfics you see/know of where Bruce does adopt/take in Barbra, because I would love to read anything along those lines lol.

[kacydeneen]

One Immigration System, Two Outcomes for Cuban Couple Seeking Asylum

A caress and a kiss.

That’s all Angela Mairielys Lazo Torres had time for before guards escorted her from her husband’s hospital room after less than a minute. It had been seven months since she last traveled to Louisiana to see José Antonio Hernández Viera, 40, in detention, and she wasn’t even given the time to tell him, “I love you.”

“They didn’t let me see him," Lazo Torres, 36, said of the brief interaction. "They didn’t let me speak to him. They didn’t let me do anything."

That was on Wednesday, June 19. Then, radio silence for the next two days. When she and an outreach paralegal from the Southern Poverty Law Center returned to Acadia General Hospital in Louisiana on Thursday, they were told Hernández Viera no longer appeared in the system. Attorneys contacted the hospital and an assistant warden at Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center, but no one gave them any information about his condition after hip replacement surgery.

“I didn’t know how he was, or where he was, or what was happening to him,” Lazo Torres said.

On Friday, Hernández Viera was transported back to Pine Prairie in handcuffs and chains, he said, his body pushed and jostled into a vehicle with no wheelchair ramp. As he lay across the seat during the roughly hour-long drive, his head painfully bumped into plastic on one of the doors. He was then whisked back to the hospital for more drugs, only to return to Pine Prairie in the early hours of the morning, he and his lawyer said.

Around 3 a.m. Saturday, June 22, Hernández Viera was finally allowed to call Lazo Torres.

“I told my wife that I felt so bad, in such a bad condition, that I wouldn’t live,” he told NBC.

His suffering was nowhere near over, according to his account. Back at Pine Prairie, he was left in his wheelchair overnight, he said, from 3 a.m. until around 9 a.m. And during the days after his surgery, he tried not to eat much because he feared if he had to use the toilet, no one would help him.

He was treated like an animal, he felt — ”like a person without rights, totally helpless.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesperson Bryan Cox told NBC that ICE could not give specifics about the medical treatment of a particular detainee without his or her written consent, but added that “ICE is committed to ensuring the welfare of all those in the agency’s custody, including providing access to necessary and appropriate medical care.”

Hernández Viera is an asylum seeker from Cuba, where he faced economic and political persecution because of his family’s opposition to the Castro government. He says he was detained multiple times there and beaten in front of his family once. He has never been convicted of a crime, according to attorneys from the SPLC, and ICE in a document from December did not designate him as a security risk.

“These are not people who should be looked at as demons,” said Martin High, a Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative volunteer attorney. “They’re just regular people that have been in a really bad situation that has nothing to do with their choices in life.”

In May 2018, Hernández Viera applied for admission into the United States in Hidalgo, Texas, at a port of entry— as asylum seekers are supposed to do. During his credible fear interview the following month, a first hurdle in the asylum process, the interviewer checked boxes indicating that he had established a credible fear of persecution based on his "political opinion."

More than a year later, he is still in a facility run by the Florida-based detention company GEO Group — despite the fact that asylum seekers who establish a credible fear are supposed to be eligible for parole, where they await their immigration hearings outside detention. He has a sponsor. Both his wife and 3-year-old daughter are waiting for him. Instead, he is being held in Louisiana, where a hip problem that was once manageable quickly deteriorated so that he could not even walk.

Now, he is staring down deportation. ICE says he is unlawfully present and "received all appropriate legal process" before being ordered removed in December and denied an appeal in May. 

Two weeks after surgery, he was not granted a stay of removal, which means he could be deported any day and his wife believes this is imminent.

“I think, if he were returned to Cuba right now,” said High, “I think he’d be headed to prison right away and he’d never get out.”

Hernández Viera has two chances to remain stateside: a petition for review in the fifth circuit court of appeals, where he is represented by High, and a habeas petition. Petitions for review are usually tough to win, said High.

Which leaves the petition for a writ of habeas corpus claiming that his detention is unlawful. Ironically, one of Hernández Viera’s last chances to stay with his family hinges on the facts of the hellish treatment he says he has lived through since surgery left him at the discretion of ICE’s care.

STUCK Lazo Torres has the same asylum claim as her husband. But though they say they were persecuted together in their home country, America’s immigration system has treated them differently.

She came to the U.S. with her two daughters in February 2018, while her husband lagged behind. When she and the girls arrived here, they were held for 20 days at a family detention center in Texas and then released, she said.

She is now applying for a green card based on a provision in the Cuban Adjustment Act that says Cubans who have lived in the U.S. for at least a year can become lawful permanent residents. Meanwhile, he is detained “pending removal” to Cuba, according to ICE. 

During a recent call with Hernández Viera, Lazo Torres said their 3-year-old daughter “started to cry because she wanted to see him.”

“She asks for him every day,” Lazo Torres said.

In November, after six months in custody, the SPLC submitted a parole request for Hernández Viera (he had previously been denied parole). Attorney Laura Rivera wrote how Hernández Viera’s 7-year-old daughter in Cuba had an often terminal strain of cancer, and how Hernández Viera would be more able to actively communicate with her and help to support her from outside of detention. She also mentioned his toddler in the U.S., who had begun to suffer from asthma and bronchitis that her physician said was due to the “emotional distress from not having her father around.”

Hernández Viera would not begin to accrue time in the U.S. until he was released from detention. To be able to apply for a green card like his wife, he had to be granted parole.

In December, Hernández Viera represented himself in his asylum hearing. It can be difficult to access counsel while detained, especially in more remote facilities such as Pine Prairie, and migrants are not guaranteed representation in civil cases. The judge in his case, who had a recent 83.8% asylum denial rate, compared to 65% nationwide in 2018, ruled that he had not met the burden of proof to establish that he would be persecuted or tortured if he returned to Cuba. Then, ICE denied his parole request — not because he was a flight risk or a danger to the community, but because he had been ordered removed. That meant he was confined at Pine Prairie during his appeal, which was denied months later.

“They’re owners of him and they’re not going to let him leave for any reason,” said Lazo Torres.

Hernández Viera’s experience coincides with other detainees under the purview of the New Orleans ICE field office, which in 2018 approved fewer than 2% of parole requests. “It’s awesome power to deprive people of their physical liberty,” Rivera said, adding that who gets out and who stays in is “arbitrary.”

“I think that Jose Antonio’s mistreatment and prolonged detention is just an extreme example of what happens to immigrants in ICE custody day in, day out,” she said. 

‘UNBEARABLE PAIN’ In Cuba, Hernández Viera had hip problems, but he could still walk. 

Then, he came to the U.S. and was detained by ICE.

Hernández Viera wrote on a GEO Group request for health services dated to January: “I would like to know what they are going to do with me as I can no longer tolerate the pain in my hip and they don’t attend to me. Please I need an answer. Thank you.”

A month later, he again requested health services: “I have problems with the medicine that they’re giving me, it gives me nausea and drowsiness...”

And in March, he wrote this: “I have an unbearable pain, every time that I go to the doctor or the attorney visits me when I get there the pain is stronger… Moreover, I can no longer take the medicine that relieves me some.”

Progress notes from March indicate that Hernández Viera was diagnosed with severe osteoarthritis in his left hip and that he was already waiting for surgery, which would not be performed for three more months. In the meantime, he was doled out a cocktail of drugs — including opioids — that discombobulated him so much he had to clutch the walls to walk.

When asked about Hernández Viera's medical treatment, GEO Group Executive Vice President Pablo E. Paez referred questions to ICE. 

Finally, doctors scheduled Hernández Viera’s surgery for June 19. 

Lazo Torres flew to Louisiana from Tampa, Florida, for the surgery, but she was not allowed to see her husband. The outreach paralegal who went with her, Jaclyn Cole, was also denied access to Hernández Viera at the hospital, even though she needed for him to sign urgent documents.

On June 21, attorneys from the SPLC received a letter from an associate general counsel for the Lafayette General Health System, which includes Acadia General Hospital. The letter claimed that the hospital had been told Hernández Viera was a security risk and could not have any visitors, including counsel. It noted that two guards were posted to his room, and that the hospital had been told not to share any information about him.

“Our hospital is in the middle of an issue between SPLC and ICE. In this situation, we must defer to law enforcement while Mr. Viera is in our hospital for the safety of Mr. Viera, the other patients, our staff and the ICE officers,” the associate general counsel wrote. 

Once Hernández Viera returned to Pine Prairie, the compression socks that were meant to keep him from getting blood clots were taken from him for days, said CJ Sandley, one of the attorneys working on his habeas petition. Both Sandley and Lazo Torres said Hernández Viera has gone for physical therapy only once since his surgery. There are no grab bars for toilets and showers to keep him from further injury, Sandley said, and she heard reports that there were bugs in his infirmary cell.

Dr. Allen Keller, an associate professor of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine and director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture, said Hernández Viera is suffering from post-traumatic stress and depression as a result of trauma in Cuba and prolonged detention in the U.S. After visiting Pine Prairie, he is concerned Hernández Viera is not getting adequate physical therapy and said immigrant detention does not lend itself to recovery from hip surgery.

“This is a real important window right now, these next few weeks following the surgery,” Keller said. “In my professional opinion, it’s essential to his physical and mental well-being that he be released immediately.”

It’s these conditions on which Hernández Viera’s second legal option, the habeas petition, relies. His attorneys are arguing that he should be released from custody or provided adequate medical care at Pine Prairie. Otherwise, they have reason to fear that deportation could be imminent. On Friday in the early morning, Lazo Torres said she heard her husband was removed from detention and being sent back to Cuba; attorneys could not immediately confirm that. 

“Sending him back to Cuba,” said Keller, “especially as he is recovering from hip replacement, could be the equivalent of a death sentence.”

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the SPLC This story uses functionality that may not work in our app. Click here to open the story in your web browser. One Immigration System, Two Outcomes for Cuban Couple Seeking Asylum published first on Miami News

[blockheadbrands]

Buzzes & Bummers: 2018 Was a Wild Ride in the World of Cannabis

David Bienenstock of Leafly Reports:

It took a whole lot of rolling (joints) and scrolling (old news feeds) to complete a thorough review of the most important, inspiring and infuriating stories about cannabis from the past year—and no doubt I still missed a few along the way. In my defense, 2018 has been a wild ride in the world of weed, a 12-month timespan which truly could be called “the best of times and the worst of times,” or perhaps just the highest and lowest of times.

My personal year in cannabis began on New Year’s Day, when I waited in line along with countless other Californians to buy some cannabis on the first day of legal adult-use sales. The fact that I was already stoned before I made my purchase would seem to indicate that it wasn’t exactly difficult to find cannabis in the Golden State prior to this momentous occasion, but that’s kind of besides the point.

And cannabis just kept getting legal-er and legal-er all year, including in Vermont, Michigan, Missouri, Utah, and the entire nation of Canada (see more below). Election Night also ushered in new, pro-legalization governors in so-far not legalized Illinois, Connecticut, Maine, Minnesota, and New Mexico, and also saw the defeat of staunch cannabis opponent Pete Sessions, who’s been blocking cannabis legislation for years.

And then you scroll a little further down and discover that the new Farm Bill is going to legalize hemp farming in the United States for the first time in eighty years (huzzah!). Or that Big Tobacco just invested $2.4 billion dollars in the weed business (fuck!). Or that Thailand is blazing a trail in Asia—where cannabis laws are often draconian and harshly enforced—by legalizing medical use (yes!). Or assholes like recently retired Speaker of the House John Boehner think that after decades of pushing prohibition they deserved to get rich off cannabis (oh, hell no!).

It’s honestly hard to know what to think these days. Perhaps my new year’s resolution for 2019 will be more rolling, less scrolling! But until then, here are the buzzes and bummers 2018 had to offer.

Buzz: Vermont Legalizes Adult-Use Cannabis

Less than two weeks into 2018, Vermont lawmakers gave final approval to a bill legalizing adult-use cannabis, and the governor subsequently signed it into law, making it the first state to end prohibition through the legislature rather than a direct vote of citizens.

Bummer: Big Tobacco Makes Moves in Cannabis

It’s no longer a question of if Big Tobacco and the booze barons will enter the cannabis market, but rather how aggressively they’ll move in and how much market share they’ll manage to gobble up.

Neither corporate giant lifted a finger to help legalize cannabis or bring justice to the millions of people who’ve been incarcerated or had their lives disrupted as a result of prohibition.

In August, Constellation Brands (brewers of Corona beer) spent $4 billion to massively up their stake in Canopy Growth, which in 2014 became the first publicly traded cannabis company in North America, and now lists on both the New York Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange.

And then in December, Altria (formerly Phillip Morris) made a $1.8 billion investment in Cronos, a Canadian cannabis company, which includes an option to take a controlling stake in the future. As first reported by Leafly, Altria has “over the past five years quietly patented dozens of devices that could be used to consume marijuana, a review of public documents at the US Patent and Trademark Office shows.”

Important to note: Neither corporate giant lifted a finger to help legalize cannabis or bring justice to the millions of people around the world who’ve been incarcerated or had their lives disrupted as a result of prohibition. And Altria in particular comes to the table with a long track record of corporate malfeasance, which is why they changed their name in the first place.

Buzz: Bong Wick Fighting Crime

On September 6, four men burst into the Recreational Cannabis Farmers Market in Shannonville, Canada, spraying a can of bear mace and screaming “get down.” The plan was allegedly to rob the place blind, but as they say in the action movies, these punks picked the wrong dispensary.

Despite being outnumbered and taken by surprise, John Wick—the store’s clerk—reached down below the register, pulled out a borosilicate glass bong, and prepared to defend his turf. As captured in the store’s surveillance video, the four cowardly criminals were clearly no match for a good guy with a bong.

Bummer: The Cost of Legal CBD

What would you call someone who spends $32,500 a year on cannabis that doesn’t get you high? GW Pharmaceuticals will soon call them customers, because that’s how much patients are estimated to shell out for Epidiolex, a cannabis-derived treatment for seizure disorders that was approved in June by the FDA, rescheduled by the DEA in September (though only Epidiolex was rescheduled, not CBD itself) and is currently moving rapidlythrough phase III clinical trials.

There’s nothing to justify the sky-high price (about $90 per day) beyond the cost of research and development to win FDA approval.

Marinol (synthetic THC) has been available by prescription since 1986, and other synthetic cannabinoid drugs are in the works, but Epidiolex is the first plant-derived pharmaceutical to reach the US market. It was fast tracked through the approval process in response to parents of severely epileptic children pushing for a way to legally use CBD, after seeing it work wonders for children profiled in a 2013 CNN documentary called Weed, hosted by Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Bringing pharmaceutical CBD to market will make it available to patients in every state (with a doctor’s prescription), allow it to be covered by health insurance, and guarantee a product that’s produced to high standards.

But there’s nothing to justify the sky-high price (about $90 per day) beyond the cost of research and development to win FDA approval and Big Pharma’s insatiable thirst for profits. No wonder GW has been working behind the scenes to lobby for a de-facto monopoly on legal CBD.

Because here’s the recipe, which includes nothing expensive:

EPIDIOLEX (cannabidiol) oral solution is a clear, colorless to yellow liquid containing cannabidiol at a concentration of 100 mg/mL. Inactive ingredients include dehydrated alcohol, sesame seed oil, strawberry flavor, and sucralose.

Buzz: Canada Legalizes Adult-Use Cannabis

On October 17, Canada made history by becoming the second nation (after Uruguay) to federally legalize adult-use cannabis. Leafly provided coast-to-coast coverage, and threw a party called the “Bud Drop” with a countdown to the big moment when the clock struck midnight.

We even got you ready to roll with a comprehensive list of the best Canadian cannabis strains of all time, including Island Sweet Skunk, Romulan, and Jean Guy.

Bummer: Patients Are Still Struggling for Cannabis Access

John Flickner, a 78-year-old resident of Niagara Falls, New York, was evicted from his federally subsidized housing in December of this year for using a vape pen. The facility, which has a “zero tolerance” policy on “drug use” (except alcohol and pharmaceuticals) kicked Flickner to the curb in the freezing cold despite the fact that he uses a wheelchair and has a doctor’s recommendation to consume medical cannabis per state law.

All because federal law still sees him as a wonton criminal. So he ended up in a homeless shelter. Thankfully, a public outcry led his old landlords to allow him back home.

Buzz: Utah Legalized Medical Cannabis

In October, as Utah citizens prepared to vote on Proposition 2, a statewide medical cannabis ballot initiative, Democratic state senator Jim Dabakis decided to head out on a fact-finding trip—in more ways than one. Claiming he’d never tried cannabis before in his life, Dabakis drove to Nevada, bought a cannabis-infused gummy, and then posted a live video feed of himself on social media as he ate the edible.

“I think the reefer madness crowd—you guys, you need to try it.”Sen. Jim Dabakis (D-UT)

“I think the reefer madness crowd—you guys, you need to try it,” Dabakis told the world. “It’s not that big a deal.”

On election night, Proposition 2 passed with sizable majority, but instead of enacting the law as written, lawmakers in Utah signed off on a “compromise bill” that’s more restrictive than Proposition 2 but has wider political support.

Bummer: “Just Say No to Nazi Weed”

Bethany Sherman, formerly the owner of OG Analytics, a cannabis testing lab in Oregon, filed a defamation lawsuit in October against online anti-fascist activists after they exposed her alleged ties to local white nationalists.

She claims that when Antifa activists publicized her posts to social media and message boards, they took them “out of context.” Then she hired an attorney to defend her who is a self-described white nationalist.

Allegations against Sherman included that she baked swastika-shaped cookies for a celebration of Adolf Hitler’s birthday (which is also, coincidentally, 4/20). The lawsuit is still pending, but in the meantime, just say no to Nazi weed and check out the real story of 4/20 for a highly inspiring tale that represents the best of cannabis culture.

Buzz: Cannabis Equity Programs Expand Opportunities

In late November, Blunt + Moore, the first dispensary to get permitted as part of Oakland, California’s far reaching cannabis equity program, held their grand opening in a small, sleek retail space just across the highway from Oracle Arena, home of the Golden State Warriors.

The shop’s proprietor, Alphonso T Blunt, Jr., is a 31-year-old, fourth generation Oakland resident who started selling cannabis when he was just 16. He qualified for the equity program based on a previous felony conviction, and having lived in a neighborhood disproportionately targeted for cannabis arrests.

Blunt told Leafly’s David Downs he could never have made it into the legal industry without the program’s assistance in getting licensed and attracting investors.

“Had you asked me even a year ago, I thought it wouldn’t happen. I can’t even put into words how it feels.”

But reviews of the equity program have been mixed, with critics arguing it so far has a disappointing track record for actually bringing equity-approved businesses online.

The effort has meanwhile inspired other municipalities and states to follow suit. In September, California passed a statewide Cannabis Equity Act, and undoing the damage of the War on Drugs has now become a standard part of the legalization conversation around the world.

TO READ MORE OF THIS ARTICLE ON LEAFLY, CLICK HERE.

https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/buzzes-bummers-2018-was-a-wild-ride-in-the-world-of-cannabis

[apsbicepstraining]

What it’s like to be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 25

In February of 2015, after a busy weekend, I began feeling some tingling in the bottom of my feet. I thought that I was just sore from wearing heels, but within a few days, the numbness and tingling proceeded to go up my shins and into my knees and through my thighs. Id compare the feeling to when your foot falls asleep.

Although the sensation was getting more and more intense over the course of two or three days, I wasn’t super concerned. I thought that maybe my diet had played a role. I’m a very active person and I work in health and fitness PR, so I was just thinking, “Oh, maybe I’m not getting enough magnesium or something.”

After about five days of this feeling traveling inch by inch up my legs, I went to see my primary-care physician thanks to the advice of my sister, who’s a surgical nurse. My doctor quickly ordered an electromagnetic test (EMG) and an MRI to rule out meningitis, ALS, multiple sclerosis, and lymphoma. That’s when I started to get a little nervous.

The next day I went and got those tests done. By then, the numbness and tingling had become so severe that I almost couldn’t walkI could feel the pressure of the ground beneath me, but I was forcing my leg to move. By day seven, it was almost a state of complete paralysis.

The EMG was the first test and it began with them sticking needles all over my legs and then sending electromagnetic shocks through those needles to see how my nerves reacted. I’ll never forget it. The neurologist said I had severe swelling in my spinal cord, and ordered an immediate brain and spinal cord MRI.

When I was done with the MRI they said, “Go home, get some food because you’ve been in testing all day. Your doctor will likely call you and go over the results tomorrow or they’ll bring you in. Just relax.”

But within 10 minutes of me walking out of that place, my doctor called me and said, “I don’t mean to scare you but you need to stop whatever you’re doing right now and go into the ER. I just got your preliminary images and there’s a major, major area of swelling in your spinal cord. You need to seek treatment right away.” That was exceptionally terrifying. I thought that I was going to be able to relax and see what happens, but instead it was back to the ER, where they whisked me into a wheelchair right away.

That’s when the series of diagnostic tests took place. I had two spinal taps, blood work, etc. I had four different neurologists come down to put me through strength tests, like the sharp-soft test, where they break a toothpick in half and they ask you if you can tell the sharp side from the soft side. At this point, they were trying to diagnose me through a process of elimination. 

RELATED: THE SURPRISING REASON MOST PEOPLE GET CANCER

At first, they said, “Oh, you definitely have to spend the night”, then it was two nights, then three. Every day they would come back and say, “Oh, you don’t have AIDS”, and I’d think, “Great, this is wonderful. Wasn’t hoping for AIDS.”

But in all seriousness, AIDS is an autoimmune disease, which is what MS is, so its not too far off. They would say, “Oh, you don’t have lupus. We can rule out Lyme disease.” And so on, and so on

In the meantime, my doctors were trying to reduce my spinal swelling. Every day I got a little bit more feeling back, but there was still a lot I couldn’t feel.

Then after day four or five, doctors told me that I had transverse myelitis. A neurological disorder caused by inflammation of the spinal cord, transverse myelitis can be an initial indicator of multiple sclerosis, according to Kathleen Costello, vice president of healthcare access for the National MS Society. 

There’s no one test that can determine whether or not you have MS. It was the combined results from the MRI, the spinal tap, blood work, electrical tests, etc. (not to mention, my symptoms) that led my neurologists to that conclusion. By the time I got my diagnosis, I had already figured it would be something severe based on my symptoms. Despite that, I don’t think any young woman is ready to hear that she has MS.

RELATED: DO YOU HAVE A VITAMIN B12 DEFICIENCY? ANSWER THESE 5 QUESTIONS TO FIND OUT

I’ve been told the paralysis I experienced is one of the worst ways that MS can initially present itself. To put it in perspective, when some people are diagnosed with MS, their first symptoms are blurred vision or a lack of coordination or they have a little bit of numbness in their pinky finger, says Costello.

At the worst point, the paralysis had gone all the way up to the top of my ribcage, right below my bra line, and I felt a tightness, like someone was squeezing my ribs together, making it hard to breathe and hard to walk. That, I later found out, is called the MS hug, which is a common first symptom. For me to go from a person who is boxing and doing Crossfit and yoga classes seven days a week to not knowing if Id be able to walk again, was quite shocking.

Of those who suffer transverse myelitis, around 30 percent of them are never able to walk again, another 30 percent can walk with limited mobility and residual symptoms such as spastic gait and urinary urgency, and the last 30 percent get back, for the most part, full mobility. Thankfully, at the end of my recovery, I was in that last 30 percent, and now I’m walking and moving and working out and doing most of the things I used to be able to do.

However, I now live with permanent nerve damagea common side-effect of MS. Any time it gets above 75 degrees or there’s humidity in the air, I have tingling all up and down the back of my legs and my spinal cord. I have this thing called LHermitte. It’s this weird, residual effect that happens when you put your chin to your chest, like if I’m looking down at my phone or if I’m tying my shoe. I get a weird electronic sensation from my nerves misfiring down my back. The way that I best can describe the sensation is that it feels like there’s a vibrator on your back.

Today, I tire much more quickly and I can’t do workouts that are as strenuous as what I used to do. Sometimes I can’t wear heels for too long because Ill begin feeling numbness and tingling. Im still navigating the waters of my mobility, but Im just thankful to not be confined to a wheelchair and have feeling in both my legs.

I had another attack recently, which was much less severe and less traumatizing. I lost feeling in my left arm, but this time I knew what it was and I got on steroid treatment right away. Now I have most of my feeling back with minimal permanent damage. Today, I manage my disease by adhering to a very strict, clean diet, going for MRIs every few months and blood tests every couple weeks, and taking medication and/or seeing my doctor when another attack comes on.

Theres a common misconception that MS is like ALS or that it’s this degenerative, terminal thing, that I’m just going to keep getting worse and worse and there’s nothing to stop it. It seems so much worse than it is. What I’m learning is that you can have an attack and then not have another attack for 30 years; that’s very common. On the other hand, you can have five attacks in two years, which could be really bad and result in a lot of permanent nerve damage. There is a chance that I could be in a wheelchair five or 10 years from now, but that chance is very slim. My youth and the fact that Ive led such a healthy lifestyle have both helped me recover from attacks quickly so far.

For me, the hardest part of all this is the unknown. There is no cure, so I’m waking up every morning wondering if Im going to have another attack, or if today is going to be the day where five lesions pop up into my brain and I wont walk again.

Eighty percent of people diagnosed with MS are Caucasian females in their childbearing years. Learning that statistic was shocking, but in a way, I was comforted by itI feel less alone.

RELATED: ARE YOUR PERIODS IRREGULAR? YOU COULD HAVE THIS SYNDROME AND NOT EVEN KNOW IT

The one thing I want everyone to know is that I can still live my life with this disease. A lot of people dont realize thateven my own friends.

I’ve had friends talk badly about me, saying things like, Well, if shes so sick, hows she drinking on Saturday at a rooftop brunch? and wondering why I look perfectly normal.

Its hard to be open with people because I can see how they might think Im using my disease as an excuse when its convenient. But the reality is I have bad days and I have good dayssometimes I feel ready to take on the world and other days I cant physically get out of bed.

I think thats been one of the more difficult parts for me, dealing with other peoples perceptions and judgments. Whether they think Im dying or being dramatic, its impossible for them to understand what I and other people with MS go through, which leads to misconceptions.

I dont blame people for being confused, but at the same time, I’m not going to lie down and not do things. I’m still a 25-year-old living in New York City. I’m going to have fun. I still want to date and try to find a good guyeven though that situation now comes with a plethora of complications.

At the end of the day, Im learning to appreciate every moment. Yes, it would be great to not have MS, but Im very aware of how lucky I am that my case isnt more severe. Thats been my greatest take away from this experience: Dont take anything for granted.

This article originally appeared on WomensHealthMag.com.

The post What it’s like to be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 25 appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2wQPu7f via IFTTT

[apsbicepstraining]

What it’s like to be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 25

In February of 2015, after a busy weekend, I began feeling some tingling in the bottom of my feet. I thought that I was just sore from wearing heels, but within a few days, the numbness and tingling proceeded to go up my shins and into my knees and through my thighs. Id compare the feeling to when your foot falls asleep.

Although the sensation was getting more and more intense over the course of two or three days, I wasn’t super concerned. I thought that maybe my diet had played a role. I’m a very active person and I work in health and fitness PR, so I was just thinking, “Oh, maybe I’m not getting enough magnesium or something.”

After about five days of this feeling traveling inch by inch up my legs, I went to see my primary-care physician thanks to the advice of my sister, who’s a surgical nurse. My doctor quickly ordered an electromagnetic test (EMG) and an MRI to rule out meningitis, ALS, multiple sclerosis, and lymphoma. That’s when I started to get a little nervous.

The next day I went and got those tests done. By then, the numbness and tingling had become so severe that I almost couldn’t walkI could feel the pressure of the ground beneath me, but I was forcing my leg to move. By day seven, it was almost a state of complete paralysis.

The EMG was the first test and it began with them sticking needles all over my legs and then sending electromagnetic shocks through those needles to see how my nerves reacted. I’ll never forget it. The neurologist said I had severe swelling in my spinal cord, and ordered an immediate brain and spinal cord MRI.

When I was done with the MRI they said, “Go home, get some food because you’ve been in testing all day. Your doctor will likely call you and go over the results tomorrow or they’ll bring you in. Just relax.”

But within 10 minutes of me walking out of that place, my doctor called me and said, “I don’t mean to scare you but you need to stop whatever you’re doing right now and go into the ER. I just got your preliminary images and there’s a major, major area of swelling in your spinal cord. You need to seek treatment right away.” That was exceptionally terrifying. I thought that I was going to be able to relax and see what happens, but instead it was back to the ER, where they whisked me into a wheelchair right away.

That’s when the series of diagnostic tests took place. I had two spinal taps, blood work, etc. I had four different neurologists come down to put me through strength tests, like the sharp-soft test, where they break a toothpick in half and they ask you if you can tell the sharp side from the soft side. At this point, they were trying to diagnose me through a process of elimination. 

RELATED: THE SURPRISING REASON MOST PEOPLE GET CANCER

At first, they said, “Oh, you definitely have to spend the night”, then it was two nights, then three. Every day they would come back and say, “Oh, you don’t have AIDS”, and I’d think, “Great, this is wonderful. Wasn’t hoping for AIDS.”

But in all seriousness, AIDS is an autoimmune disease, which is what MS is, so its not too far off. They would say, “Oh, you don’t have lupus. We can rule out Lyme disease.” And so on, and so on

In the meantime, my doctors were trying to reduce my spinal swelling. Every day I got a little bit more feeling back, but there was still a lot I couldn’t feel.

Then after day four or five, doctors told me that I had transverse myelitis. A neurological disorder caused by inflammation of the spinal cord, transverse myelitis can be an initial indicator of multiple sclerosis, according to Kathleen Costello, vice president of healthcare access for the National MS Society. 

There’s no one test that can determine whether or not you have MS. It was the combined results from the MRI, the spinal tap, blood work, electrical tests, etc. (not to mention, my symptoms) that led my neurologists to that conclusion. By the time I got my diagnosis, I had already figured it would be something severe based on my symptoms. Despite that, I don’t think any young woman is ready to hear that she has MS.

RELATED: DO YOU HAVE A VITAMIN B12 DEFICIENCY? ANSWER THESE 5 QUESTIONS TO FIND OUT

I’ve been told the paralysis I experienced is one of the worst ways that MS can initially present itself. To put it in perspective, when some people are diagnosed with MS, their first symptoms are blurred vision or a lack of coordination or they have a little bit of numbness in their pinky finger, says Costello.

At the worst point, the paralysis had gone all the way up to the top of my ribcage, right below my bra line, and I felt a tightness, like someone was squeezing my ribs together, making it hard to breathe and hard to walk. That, I later found out, is called the MS hug, which is a common first symptom. For me to go from a person who is boxing and doing Crossfit and yoga classes seven days a week to not knowing if Id be able to walk again, was quite shocking.

Of those who suffer transverse myelitis, around 30 percent of them are never able to walk again, another 30 percent can walk with limited mobility and residual symptoms such as spastic gait and urinary urgency, and the last 30 percent get back, for the most part, full mobility. Thankfully, at the end of my recovery, I was in that last 30 percent, and now I’m walking and moving and working out and doing most of the things I used to be able to do.

However, I now live with permanent nerve damagea common side-effect of MS. Any time it gets above 75 degrees or there’s humidity in the air, I have tingling all up and down the back of my legs and my spinal cord. I have this thing called LHermitte. It’s this weird, residual effect that happens when you put your chin to your chest, like if I’m looking down at my phone or if I’m tying my shoe. I get a weird electronic sensation from my nerves misfiring down my back. The way that I best can describe the sensation is that it feels like there’s a vibrator on your back.

Today, I tire much more quickly and I can’t do workouts that are as strenuous as what I used to do. Sometimes I can’t wear heels for too long because Ill begin feeling numbness and tingling. Im still navigating the waters of my mobility, but Im just thankful to not be confined to a wheelchair and have feeling in both my legs.

I had another attack recently, which was much less severe and less traumatizing. I lost feeling in my left arm, but this time I knew what it was and I got on steroid treatment right away. Now I have most of my feeling back with minimal permanent damage. Today, I manage my disease by adhering to a very strict, clean diet, going for MRIs every few months and blood tests every couple weeks, and taking medication and/or seeing my doctor when another attack comes on.

Theres a common misconception that MS is like ALS or that it’s this degenerative, terminal thing, that I’m just going to keep getting worse and worse and there’s nothing to stop it. It seems so much worse than it is. What I’m learning is that you can have an attack and then not have another attack for 30 years; that’s very common. On the other hand, you can have five attacks in two years, which could be really bad and result in a lot of permanent nerve damage. There is a chance that I could be in a wheelchair five or 10 years from now, but that chance is very slim. My youth and the fact that Ive led such a healthy lifestyle have both helped me recover from attacks quickly so far.

For me, the hardest part of all this is the unknown. There is no cure, so I’m waking up every morning wondering if Im going to have another attack, or if today is going to be the day where five lesions pop up into my brain and I wont walk again.

Eighty percent of people diagnosed with MS are Caucasian females in their childbearing years. Learning that statistic was shocking, but in a way, I was comforted by itI feel less alone.

RELATED: ARE YOUR PERIODS IRREGULAR? YOU COULD HAVE THIS SYNDROME AND NOT EVEN KNOW IT

The one thing I want everyone to know is that I can still live my life with this disease. A lot of people dont realize thateven my own friends.

I’ve had friends talk badly about me, saying things like, Well, if shes so sick, hows she drinking on Saturday at a rooftop brunch? and wondering why I look perfectly normal.

Its hard to be open with people because I can see how they might think Im using my disease as an excuse when its convenient. But the reality is I have bad days and I have good dayssometimes I feel ready to take on the world and other days I cant physically get out of bed.

I think thats been one of the more difficult parts for me, dealing with other peoples perceptions and judgments. Whether they think Im dying or being dramatic, its impossible for them to understand what I and other people with MS go through, which leads to misconceptions.

I dont blame people for being confused, but at the same time, I’m not going to lie down and not do things. I’m still a 25-year-old living in New York City. I’m going to have fun. I still want to date and try to find a good guyeven though that situation now comes with a plethora of complications.

At the end of the day, Im learning to appreciate every moment. Yes, it would be great to not have MS, but Im very aware of how lucky I am that my case isnt more severe. Thats been my greatest take away from this experience: Dont take anything for granted.

This article originally appeared on WomensHealthMag.com.

The post What it’s like to be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 25 appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2wQPu7f via IFTTT

[apsbicepstraining]

What it’s like to be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 25

In February of 2015, after a busy weekend, I began feeling some tingling in the bottom of my feet. I thought that I was just sore from wearing heels, but within a few days, the numbness and tingling proceeded to go up my shins and into my knees and through my thighs. Id compare the feeling to when your foot falls asleep.

Although the sensation was getting more and more intense over the course of two or three days, I wasn’t super concerned. I thought that maybe my diet had played a role. I’m a very active person and I work in health and fitness PR, so I was just thinking, “Oh, maybe I’m not getting enough magnesium or something.”

After about five days of this feeling traveling inch by inch up my legs, I went to see my primary-care physician thanks to the advice of my sister, who’s a surgical nurse. My doctor quickly ordered an electromagnetic test (EMG) and an MRI to rule out meningitis, ALS, multiple sclerosis, and lymphoma. That’s when I started to get a little nervous.

The next day I went and got those tests done. By then, the numbness and tingling had become so severe that I almost couldn’t walkI could feel the pressure of the ground beneath me, but I was forcing my leg to move. By day seven, it was almost a state of complete paralysis.

The EMG was the first test and it began with them sticking needles all over my legs and then sending electromagnetic shocks through those needles to see how my nerves reacted. I’ll never forget it. The neurologist said I had severe swelling in my spinal cord, and ordered an immediate brain and spinal cord MRI.

When I was done with the MRI they said, “Go home, get some food because you’ve been in testing all day. Your doctor will likely call you and go over the results tomorrow or they’ll bring you in. Just relax.”

But within 10 minutes of me walking out of that place, my doctor called me and said, “I don’t mean to scare you but you need to stop whatever you’re doing right now and go into the ER. I just got your preliminary images and there’s a major, major area of swelling in your spinal cord. You need to seek treatment right away.” That was exceptionally terrifying. I thought that I was going to be able to relax and see what happens, but instead it was back to the ER, where they whisked me into a wheelchair right away.

That’s when the series of diagnostic tests took place. I had two spinal taps, blood work, etc. I had four different neurologists come down to put me through strength tests, like the sharp-soft test, where they break a toothpick in half and they ask you if you can tell the sharp side from the soft side. At this point, they were trying to diagnose me through a process of elimination. 

RELATED: THE SURPRISING REASON MOST PEOPLE GET CANCER

At first, they said, “Oh, you definitely have to spend the night”, then it was two nights, then three. Every day they would come back and say, “Oh, you don’t have AIDS”, and I’d think, “Great, this is wonderful. Wasn’t hoping for AIDS.”

But in all seriousness, AIDS is an autoimmune disease, which is what MS is, so its not too far off. They would say, “Oh, you don’t have lupus. We can rule out Lyme disease.” And so on, and so on

In the meantime, my doctors were trying to reduce my spinal swelling. Every day I got a little bit more feeling back, but there was still a lot I couldn’t feel.

Then after day four or five, doctors told me that I had transverse myelitis. A neurological disorder caused by inflammation of the spinal cord, transverse myelitis can be an initial indicator of multiple sclerosis, according to Kathleen Costello, vice president of healthcare access for the National MS Society. 

There’s no one test that can determine whether or not you have MS. It was the combined results from the MRI, the spinal tap, blood work, electrical tests, etc. (not to mention, my symptoms) that led my neurologists to that conclusion. By the time I got my diagnosis, I had already figured it would be something severe based on my symptoms. Despite that, I don’t think any young woman is ready to hear that she has MS.

RELATED: DO YOU HAVE A VITAMIN B12 DEFICIENCY? ANSWER THESE 5 QUESTIONS TO FIND OUT

I’ve been told the paralysis I experienced is one of the worst ways that MS can initially present itself. To put it in perspective, when some people are diagnosed with MS, their first symptoms are blurred vision or a lack of coordination or they have a little bit of numbness in their pinky finger, says Costello.

At the worst point, the paralysis had gone all the way up to the top of my ribcage, right below my bra line, and I felt a tightness, like someone was squeezing my ribs together, making it hard to breathe and hard to walk. That, I later found out, is called the MS hug, which is a common first symptom. For me to go from a person who is boxing and doing Crossfit and yoga classes seven days a week to not knowing if Id be able to walk again, was quite shocking.

Of those who suffer transverse myelitis, around 30 percent of them are never able to walk again, another 30 percent can walk with limited mobility and residual symptoms such as spastic gait and urinary urgency, and the last 30 percent get back, for the most part, full mobility. Thankfully, at the end of my recovery, I was in that last 30 percent, and now I’m walking and moving and working out and doing most of the things I used to be able to do.

However, I now live with permanent nerve damagea common side-effect of MS. Any time it gets above 75 degrees or there’s humidity in the air, I have tingling all up and down the back of my legs and my spinal cord. I have this thing called LHermitte. It’s this weird, residual effect that happens when you put your chin to your chest, like if I’m looking down at my phone or if I’m tying my shoe. I get a weird electronic sensation from my nerves misfiring down my back. The way that I best can describe the sensation is that it feels like there’s a vibrator on your back.

Today, I tire much more quickly and I can’t do workouts that are as strenuous as what I used to do. Sometimes I can’t wear heels for too long because Ill begin feeling numbness and tingling. Im still navigating the waters of my mobility, but Im just thankful to not be confined to a wheelchair and have feeling in both my legs.

I had another attack recently, which was much less severe and less traumatizing. I lost feeling in my left arm, but this time I knew what it was and I got on steroid treatment right away. Now I have most of my feeling back with minimal permanent damage. Today, I manage my disease by adhering to a very strict, clean diet, going for MRIs every few months and blood tests every couple weeks, and taking medication and/or seeing my doctor when another attack comes on.

Theres a common misconception that MS is like ALS or that it’s this degenerative, terminal thing, that I’m just going to keep getting worse and worse and there’s nothing to stop it. It seems so much worse than it is. What I’m learning is that you can have an attack and then not have another attack for 30 years; that’s very common. On the other hand, you can have five attacks in two years, which could be really bad and result in a lot of permanent nerve damage. There is a chance that I could be in a wheelchair five or 10 years from now, but that chance is very slim. My youth and the fact that Ive led such a healthy lifestyle have both helped me recover from attacks quickly so far.

For me, the hardest part of all this is the unknown. There is no cure, so I’m waking up every morning wondering if Im going to have another attack, or if today is going to be the day where five lesions pop up into my brain and I wont walk again.

Eighty percent of people diagnosed with MS are Caucasian females in their childbearing years. Learning that statistic was shocking, but in a way, I was comforted by itI feel less alone.

RELATED: ARE YOUR PERIODS IRREGULAR? YOU COULD HAVE THIS SYNDROME AND NOT EVEN KNOW IT

The one thing I want everyone to know is that I can still live my life with this disease. A lot of people dont realize thateven my own friends.

I’ve had friends talk badly about me, saying things like, Well, if shes so sick, hows she drinking on Saturday at a rooftop brunch? and wondering why I look perfectly normal.

Its hard to be open with people because I can see how they might think Im using my disease as an excuse when its convenient. But the reality is I have bad days and I have good dayssometimes I feel ready to take on the world and other days I cant physically get out of bed.

I think thats been one of the more difficult parts for me, dealing with other peoples perceptions and judgments. Whether they think Im dying or being dramatic, its impossible for them to understand what I and other people with MS go through, which leads to misconceptions.

I dont blame people for being confused, but at the same time, I’m not going to lie down and not do things. I’m still a 25-year-old living in New York City. I’m going to have fun. I still want to date and try to find a good guyeven though that situation now comes with a plethora of complications.

At the end of the day, Im learning to appreciate every moment. Yes, it would be great to not have MS, but Im very aware of how lucky I am that my case isnt more severe. Thats been my greatest take away from this experience: Dont take anything for granted.

This article originally appeared on WomensHealthMag.com.

The post What it’s like to be diagnosed with multiple sclerosis at age 25 appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

from WordPress http://ift.tt/2wQPu7f via IFTTT