#good thing my aunt is a nurse but he's 70 so it's hard for him

[hudush]

please pray for my uncle. he has covid and is in the icu in a bad condition

[thejoeisthejoe]

70s HB - Post Soul Survivor Fic - NIGHT TERRORS

Title: Night Terrors (2019) Chapter: Possibly 1 of at least 3 Author: Robin Gurl Notes: I've been wanting to write this properly for years. I had tried 10 years ago only getting the general idea down but I think I finally have the life experiences to make this work (and google). I've done my best to keep them in character. It was fun to try and work a break down into Shaun Cassidy's Joe and I think I did it well. Parker's Frank is just so easy to write over protective brother and I absolutely adore it. Thanks boys for your help xD.

Summary: After Soul Survivor Joe has some healing to do. Involves brotherly love and over protective Frank and broken Joe. Mention of FRANCY.

Disclaimer: I own nothing or no one... just the idea that Joe couldn’t possibly be ok mentally after that episode. 

Frank had woken up only briefly to hear a soft knock on his door. He didn't even have to guess on who it was. He sat up and got off the bed opening it up. To his surprise this time it wasn't Joe.

It was their Aunt.

"Aunt Gertrude?" He asked trying not to be too loud and wake his brother from across the hall. He blinked in the bright light turning back briefly to glance at his clock. It said 2:45am.

"I'm sorry to wake you but with your father gone…."

"What is it?"

She glanced back towards his brother's room then back to him. "Follow me." She led him across the hallway into his brother's room. The lamp had been turned on but Joe hadn't awakened.

He lay there tangled in his sheets, his face contorted in a terrifying scream. Frank could see Joe's knuckles were white from clinging to the sheets.

"I-I think it's a night terror.." He whispered.

"That's what I thought, b-but I can't wake him… and I didn't know if I should or not." She stammered wringing her hands. "He cried out for a few seconds which is what woke me up then went silent and all of this happened…"

"How long has this been going on?" Frank ran a hand through his hair trying to wake up so he could think through this.

"About 10 minutes…" She sighed, "I thought the sleeping medication was supposed to stop these episodes."

"Not stop them but help them not happen as often." Frank explained walking to the side of his brother's bed. "They won't stop until Joe's fear of what happened in Hong Kong subsides."

"I knew your father leaving was a bad idea! I just knew it. Your brother is in no condition.." Their Aunt grumbled frustrated as she started to pace.

"Go back to bed, I'll help get Joe out of this."

"But Frank-"

"I've got it. I've done this many times before. I just have to pull him back to reality." He gave the most reassuring smile he could. He didn't want to tell her that waking Joe up too fast could make it worse and cause an episode of sleep paralysis as well. "Thanks for grabbing me. Joe will be ok in a few minutes."

She tsked before walking over and kissing her nephew on the head. "You promise me if you need help you'll come get me?"

"I promise."

She sighed glancing at her youngest nephew before nodding and heading out the door closing it.

The doctor had told them that getting Joe into proper REM sleep could help fight the night terrors but it wasn't 100% effective. He had explained to Frank and their Father that until Joe got over the fear of the situation, nothing would really change.

So far the medication had lowered the night terrors to only a few a week, the ones that did hit were long and exhausting for both Joe and whoever was awake to get him out of it. The other problem that came from Joe hitting REM sleep was if he was woken up too fast his body would go through sleep paralysis and make his panic even worse.

This was what Frank was afraid of happening tonight.

He sat on the edge of the bed and gently curled around his younger brother. With one arm he wrapped it around his brother, his free hand dropped to the hands clenched to the sheets and rubbed them gently trying to coax his brother to release his grip. "Joe…? Joe it's Frank. You're safe. Whatever your dreaming it's not real."

He watched for any changes in his brother's features and saw them relax a little bit. His brother looked confused now. "You're not in Hong Kong. You're at home. I'm alive. Dad's alive. You're safe. I'm right here." A few tears streamed down Joe's cheeks in response to the words Frank spoke.

It broke his heart to see his brother going through this and knowing he couldn't fix it. He could only put a bandaid on it every time the wound was ripped open. "That's it. You're ok." He squeezed one of Joe's hands gently. "Relax your hands, little brother." He felt the hand under his slowly relax.

He waited a few seconds watching his brother's body trying to see how well he was doing at pulling Joe out of it. He only just noticed how sweaty his brother was, this one must have been a big nightmare. "Come on, Joe. Open your eyes… I'm right here. It's only a nightmare."

Frank gently brushed some of the blonde hair away from his brother's sweaty face. He could feel his brother's heart beating quickly in his chest.

After a few minutes of this coaxing, he watched as his brother's eyes opened slightly still heavily lidded. "Joe? Hey..it's ok. You're home." Frank smiled looking down at him.

Joe's body didn't move as he looked around the room. When Joe's eyes settled back on him, Frank realized what had happened. "Just relax, don't panic. It's just sleep paralysis… just let it run it's course."

Joe had heard Frank's voice and could see his face but the voice didn't match up with his brother's lips that were moving. The sound garbled in his ears and his brother's face changed turning black and his eyes turning red.

He tried to scream but was unable too. Several other shadows started to appear around him. Their faces turning into the nurses and doctors from the hospital then back to shadows.

He could hear his heart beat growing louder as he started to panic. He wanted out of this haunted nightmare. He wanted his brother.

A few seconds later Joe could hear his brother calling his name. His vision started to refocus and tingling sensation ran up his body, his arms and legs. "F-Frank…" He was barely able to say. Tears blurred his eyes as he sat up shaking and crying reaching out to cling to his brother. He buried his face in Frank's shoulder sobbing.

Frank sighed and only hugged his brother as tight as he could rocking him a bit. "I know, I know…shh it's over. It's over. You're home. You're safe. I'm here. Dad's alive." He glanced up and saw their Aunt peering in through the cracked door. Frank gave her a sad smile but nodded that he was ok.

She only nodded silently and gave a sad smile before closing the door back. He knew why she was just as upset as they were. This entire mess was hard to deal with for everyone, not just Joe. Joe had never been one to cry or wear many of his emotions on his sleeve out in the open. At least not to anyone that wasn't his brother.

But now that was different.

It seemed like his brother was always on the verge of tears and the sobs always sounded so heart breaking. It was a feeling he'd tried to explain to Nancy over the phone but was having a hard time putting words to it. He had told her it felt like his heart was ripped out of his chest and thrown to his feet and someone stepped on a puppy at the same time.

Frank didn't say anything as he held his brother. He only hugged him as tight as he could not letting go. He could only imagine how he'd handle the news of his brother and father being dead for over a year and he not knowing. This was why he didn't have the heart to joke about this or make light of any of it. His brother was really hurting and was truly scared. "You're good, Joe." He finally whispered. "You're ok."

Joe didn't pull away for a full 10-15 minutes afraid if he did he'd be thrown back into the nightmare again. His memory was starting to forget the dream and the terror.

Frank could tell when Joe had started to calm down. He also knew that his brother was probably a bit confused. As soon as the panic passed it was normal for the person experiencing the night terror to forget what had happened. Sometimes Joe remembered but more recently he didn't. "Joe?"

"F-Frank…?" His brother's voice was hoarse from all the screaming and crying. "W-Where am I?"

"In your room. On your bed." He responded softly.

"D-Did it happen again?"

"Yeah, yeah it did." Frank moved and sat back against the head board petting his brother's hair gently.

Joe rested his head against his brother's chest panting out of breath. "…I-I'm sorry.."

"Don't be. It's ok. I'm here. I'm not leaving." He rubbed Joe's back exhausted himself. "Here, calm down for a few minutes then I'll get up and get you some new pajamas. You worked up quite a sweat."

"O-Ok…" The blonde responded his hug around his brother relaxed and wasn't as tight of a grip. "F-Frank will they ever stop…?"

Frank glanced down at his brother trying to figure out what to say. "One day they will. I promise. And when they do we'll go travel somewhere to celebrate, how does that sound?"

Joe nodded silently. He couldn't see them traveling anywhere for a long time. He barely got out of the house since they got back as it was. When he did go outside he couldn't stay long. He got what the doctor called "sensory overload" and would get over whelmed and start to panic if his brother wasn't by his side and even if he was it would still happen.

When he did have to go out it was planned down to the second what would happen. His brother had even started explaining the schedule to him before hand so he knew exactly what was coming.

Any other time, Joe would have hated being doted on so much and would hate himself for having this annoying thing. But right now, as the doctor had told him, he was broken and needed to accept that so that he could heal properly. Until he admitted it to himself and let himself fully break he wasn't going to be able to put himself back together.

Frank smiled and helped his brother sit up. "Before you crash on me, let's at least change your pajamas." He then reached forward and unbuttoned his brother's blue pajama shirt easing it off his brother's shoulders. He didn't like how flushed his brother's skin was. "Just think where would you like to go? Last year you wanted to go to Madi Gras remember? But dad wouldn't let us, he said you were too young? Why don't we plan on trying to go?" He continued to try and talk normally with his brother as he got up and dug through his brother's messy drawers finding a t shirt and some boxers. He threw them on the bed beside his brother and went out and into the bathroom coming back with a wet wash cloth.

Joe only sat there dazed watching his brother run around. He shivered as he was left shirtless. What was Frank doing? A few seconds later Frank reappeared and sat on the edge of the bed.

"This is going to be cold Joe. But bare with me. I'm worried you may have worked yourself into a fever." Frank explained as he gently washed his brother's chest and arms off. His brother had been prone to fevers since he was born. Anything could provoke them: from getting over heated, to being too cold, to over exhaustion, stress, fear, etc.

Frank had stopped counting the times his brother had worked himself into one and instead kept an eye on him as much as he could to try and prevent them. He was always trying to get Joe to slow down and rest to give his body a tiny break and possibly not cause oncoming fever. Sometimes he succeeded and sometimes he didn't catch it fast enough. They had spent many nights in hotel rooms with Frank helping Joe sweat off a fever.

Tonight wasn't any different.

He sighed inwardly. Only it was. His little brother was hunched over with red eyes from crying, face pale and shoulders shaking broken into pieces mentally from a horrible plan to get information out of him.

He patted Joe's head gently and helped him pull the clean shirt over his head. He then handed his brother his boxers. "I'll let you do that honor."

Joe took them and stood unsteadily dropping his pajama pants before putting his boxers on. While Joe was up Frank quickly changed the sheets as well leaving new ones on the bed. The sweaty ones in the corner. He'd take care of them tomorrow. Right now he wanted to get Joe into bed and back to sleep.

Frank walked over and guided his brother back to the bed. Joe's hands held his brothers as he sat down on the bed. Frank kept one hand holding Joe's and the other helped his brother lay down in the now clean sheets. "Do you want me to stay?"

"P-Please?" Came Joe's barely audible response.

"Of course." Frank slid in beside his brother and placed the wash cloth on Joe's forehead. "Keep that there for a bit. Let it lower your fever." He lay on his side after turning off the lamp by the bed. He heard Joe's breathing relax a bit, his brother still holding one of his hands. "That's it, Joe. Just relax. I'm here. I'm not leaving." He watched in the dark as his brother closed his eyes and drifted off into sleep. He waited for a few minutes before scooting down a bit and pulling the covers up over them. He reached up feeling his brother's temperature. It was only a low grade fever, Joe would be able to sleep this one off.

Nestling the covers around his brother's small frame, Frank got comfortable as well falling asleep quickly just as exhausted curled up around his brother.

[invisibleanonymousmonsters]

Heritage - Part 3

Description: Steve Rogers wakes up in the 21st century to learn that he missed more than he could ever realize.

Pairing: Steve Rogers & Y/N [Platonic]; Bucky x Reader … eventually

Word Count: 2,703

Previously On...

Y/N was speed-walking through the halls of SHIELD. She'd got the call from Nat in the middle of the night.

Nick Fury was dead.

She didn't get many details. Nat was short on the phone.

Y/N was on her way to Secretary Pierce's office. She knew Steve was there talking to him.

But Y/N came to a halt when she saw someone walking in her direction.

"Sharon?" Y/N gaped at the woman who immediately looked guilty. "I thought you were in London. When did you get back to DC?"

"I'm sorry, Y/N. I was undercover. You know the rules." Sharon struggled to make eye contact.

Then Y/N narrowed her eyes, slowly putting it together. "You were there when Fury was hit at Steve's apartment. You're the cute nurse next door." 


Sharon didn't say anything. 


"God damn it, Sharon! We're family! You couldn't tell me that you were assigned to watch Steve?!"


Sharon was Y/N's cousin. Well... second cousin, technically. Peggy was Sharon's great aunt. Sharon was a few years older than Y/N and convinced her to join SHIELD after she did. 


"I didn't want you to have to keep it a secret from him. You know I would've been compromised." Sharon urged. 


"Who ordered this? Pierce?" Y/N sighed, rubbing her face. 


Sharon frowned and looked at the ground. "Fury did." Then she studied Y/N's face carefully. "He didn't ask you for obvious reasons."

Before Y/N could say anything else, Steve was walking out of Pierce's office. He glared at Sharon. She took that as her cue to disappear down the hallway. Her family relation to Y/N would be a discussion for another time. 


Steve walked to Y/N, but glared after Sharon. 


"So you heard?" He finally asked Y/N. 


"I came as soon as I did. You okay?" She asked gently. 


He nodded.

Y/N's eyes flickered around them. "Something's not right, Steve. This doesn't add up." Her voice was barely a whisper. She knew his superhearing could pick it up. But she needed to make sure no one else heard.

Suddenly she saw Rumlow walking toward them with a couple other STRIKE members. He eyed the two of them.

"Meet me tonight. I'm doing some digging." She muttered before gripping his arm and walking past Rumlow.

Steve pushed the elevator button and was joined by Rumlow.

"So you and Agent Ainsley, huh?" Rumlow stated with a little bitterness.

Steve's jaw clenched at the comment. He'd seen the way Rumlow looked at Y/N. His interest in her was rather obvious. Steve didn't appreciate his lingering gazes or how his eyes focused on certain parts of her body. He assumed Y/N wasn't oblivious to it either, but she was too focused and professional to ever bring it up.

"We're friends," Steve replied curtly, making it obvious he didn't want to talk about it further.

But suddenly Steve's senses caught on to something. He started looking around the elevator as more and more people piled in. Something wasn't right. 

-----

Y/N was hacking into a computer system at SHIELD when she heard the alarm go off. She brought up the video footage to see that they were locking down the bridge and a quinjet was going up.

"Steve..." She muttered in quiet panic when she saw the video of him racing down the bridge on his motorcycle.

Y/N saved the files she was hacking on her hard drive and jumped up. She had to find Natasha immediately. More importantly, she had to get out of SHIELD. They were on the hunt for Captain America now and she wanted no part of it.

-----

THE NEXT DAY

Steve was staring into the floor of the van as his hands were cuffed together.

“It was him.” Steve muttered. “He looked right at me. He didn’t even know me.”

“How is that even possible?” Sam questioned. “It was like 70 years ago.”

“Zola.” Steve explained darkly. “Bucky’s whole unit was captured in ’43. Zola experimented on him. Whatever he did helped Bucky survive the fall.” His eyes finally met Sam’s as he came to a realization. “They must have found him.”

“None of that’s your fault, Steve.” Nat managed to urge as she continued losing blood.

“Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky.”

Sam looked over at Nat’s bleeding. “We need to get a doctor here. We don’t put pressure on that wound, she’s gonna bleed out right here in the - ” He was cut off by one of the agents in the riot control suits as they surged some electricity into their baton.

But to everyone’s surprise, she knocked out her comrade with it instead. A third guard took off her helmet at the same time as the first.

“Y/N?” Steve’s eyes widened.

“Ugh. That thing was squeezing my brain.” Agent Hill groaned as she took off her helmet too.

“Don’t look so surprised, Steve.” Y/N said. “You really think you were on your own?”

Nat smirked, but they could still tell she was in a lot of pain.

Then Maria eyed Sam.

“Who’s this guy?”

“He’s a friend.” Steve stated firmly.

Steve watched as Y/N’s face lit up. “A friend? Hi, I’m Agent Ainsley.” She shoved her hand forward to shake. Then she realized that Sam was still handcuffed. “Oh, right.” With one pull of her hands, she broke the metal.

Sam’s eyes widened. “Did - Did you just break those with your barehands?”

She cringed at her exposure. “Yep. It appears so.”

“Sam, this is my granddaughter, Y/N.” Steve nudged. But everyone could tell he was still jolted by the realization that his best friend was alive.

“Granddaughter?” Maria and Sam said in unison.

“We can explain later. We’re about to hit our jump point.” Y/N announced as she used keys to unlock Steve’s high-powered cuffs.

-----

Y/N watched Steve carefully as Maria and Fury explained the situation with the hellicarriers. She didn’t see Bucky herself, but she heard enough in the van to understand what had happened. Steve was doing a good job at hiding it, but Y/N could see that he was struggling.

It wasn’t until after his outburst with Fury that Y/N found him standing on the bridge outside, staring out into nothing.

“I’m sorry… about Bucky.” Y/N said quietly as she stood beside him.

“I let him fall and I never even looked for his body.” Steve mumbled.

“Don’t go down that road, Steve. You’re not going to find anything good. There was no way you could’ve known. You can’t blame yourself.”

“I …I can’t help but think about how different things could’ve gone if I found him. He would’ve been alive. Maybe…maybe I wouldn’t have gone under.”

“Yeah. Yeah, things could be very different, Steve. But you’ll make yourself crazy getting lost in all the what-ifs. You can’t change the past. It’s about time you accepted the present.”

Steve nodded, knowing she was right. He still found it amazing how wise Y/N was for her age. Wasn’t the grandpa supposed to be the one giving all the advice?

He finally turned away from the view and looked at Y/N before sighing. “I can’t talk you out of going with us, can I?”

“Nope.” Y/N smiled.

“That thing in the car. I didn’t realize… You never said my serum effected you and Grant.” Steve looked a little guilty, like he had turned the two of them into some kind of freaks.

“We’re not as strong as you.” Y/N shrugged like it was no big deal. “But I can definitely do more than the average man.”

Steve nodded his head slowly. “I told your dad and Peggy I’d keep you safe.”

“Steve, you’ve been with SHIELD for a couple of years. This has been my life. Peggy help build it. And now Hydra is trying to ruin everything it stood for. I can’t let that happen…and you know it. I can handle myself. You know that too.”

“I had a feeling your going to say that.” Steve sighed. “Be careful.”

Then they saw Sam walking towards them. Y/N decided to give them a moment alone while she went to change into her stealth gear.

Sam looked over his shoulder at Y/N’s retreating figure.

“Granddaughter, huh?”

“Don’t even think about it.” Steve warned.

“Right.” Sam nodded and cleared his throat.

-----

Y/N was racing out of SHIELD’s hangar and onto the platform.

“Sharon’s rallying the loyalists. That speech of yours really did the trick.” Y/N joked. “Guess I should’ve paid attention in my public speaking class.” Then she saw the fleet of quintets appearing in front of her. “I’m getting you two air support.” She screamed into her comms and she continued sprinting.

“Roger that.” Steve replied.

“Hey, Cap… How do we know the good guys from the bad?” Y/N heard Sam ask.

“If they’re shooting at you, they’re bad.”

Y/N chuckled at his response.

“Be careful, Y/N.” Steve told her through the comms.

“Yes, grandpa.” She teased just as she started getting shot at. But she easily dodged their bullets, serpentining and doing an aerial flip when she got closer to confuse their aim.

She shot at the people who she once called comrades. Everything had been a lie. Her greatest enemy had been hiding right next to her, disguising themselves as friends. But she couldn’t think about that now. It was kill or be killed; save the world or let it fall into to hands of Hydra.

Y/N saw SHIELD loyalist pilots walking onto the platform. They were the only air support Steve and Sam could get. Y/N made sure to shoot down any Hydra agents that were aiming their weapons at them.

Suddenly a grenade launcher was shot, destroying a quinjet and killing a few pilots.

That’s when Y/N saw him appearing out of the smoke.

“Bucky,” Y/N whispered. “Everyone get to the jets!” She yelled the order to the pilots.

“Cap, he’s here.” She stated into her comms.

“Y/N, stay away from him. He’ll kill you.” Steve barked.

Just as he said it, Bucky turned his attention to Y/N.

“Ugh… not an option.” Y/N started walking backwards, but shooting bullet after bullet at Bucky. A part of her was purposely aiming wrong. Y/N couldn’t kill him. Bucky was Steve’s best friend. He was everything to him. Y/N couldn’t take that away from him. There was still a chance that Bucky could be saved.

Y/N skimmed his thigh with a bullet. But that didn’t even slow him down.

“Y/N, run!” Steve yelled.

She turned off her comms. There was no way she was going to win a fight against a brainwashed weapon, no matter how strong of a fighter she was. She didn’t want Steve listening to her die.

Bucky still calmly marched to her. Why didn’t he just shoot her?

Y/N had backed into a quinjet.

“Bucky,” Her voice was gentle and calm. “This isn’t you. I like to think you’re in there somewhere.” She said slowly. “Please, Bucky. Don’t make me kill you.”

He blinked rapidly at her when she kept saying his name. Then it seemed like he had caught something in her eyes.

Their stand-off was interrupted when a Hydra agent shot Y/N in her right shoulder. She cried out in pain and gripped her shoulder as blood started pouring out. She felt the warmth of it on her left hand.

To Y/N’s shock, Bucky whipped around and fired his gun at the agent, landing a bullet in the middle of their forehead.

Y/N watched him with shocked andl wide eyes.

Bucky stared at her, his eyes flickering over her body as if he were looking for other injuries beside her shoulder. His eyes looked frantic and torn. Then his face changed and Y/N knew someone was saying something to him in his earpiece.

Y/N was breathing heavily as she clutched her injury. She was completely at his mercy.

With one final look, Bucky ran away and jumped onto a quinjet, shooting the pilot and then ripping them out of the cockpit to replace them.

Y/N’s eyes flickered as she tried to process what had just happened. The Winter Soldier had saved her life and then spared her. She smirked: Bucky was still in there.

Groaning in pain, Y/N moved to one of the final quintets that was left in tact.

Other Hydra agents had grabbed quinjets and it was now her job to shoot them down before they could get to Sam and Steve. Y/N was one of SHIELD’s finest pilots. She twisted and turned with a grace that other’s envied. The Hydra pilots didn’t have a chance.

But when Y/N finally shot down the final airborne Hydra agent, she relaxed against her seat. Y/N had been running on adrenaline that she hadn’t realized how much blood she’d lost from her wound. The bullet was still lodged into her shoulder, making it impossible for her to stop the bleeding or put pressure on it.

Suddenly Y/N’s vision was getting blurry and her grip on the steering loosened. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head and she could hardly hear the panicked alarms of the quintet losing altitude. It started spinning out of control.

Y/N blacked out before her jet crashed into the Potomac River. 

-----

Y/N somehow heard the soft breathing of someone next to him over the sound of the Trouble Man soundtrack playing.

She winced as her eyes opened. The hospital light burned her eyes and she was instantly met with a raging migraine. She glanced over to see Steve sleeping in the bed next to her. He looked worse than she expected she did. He had stitches on his face and more tiny cuts than she could count.

“You trying to brainwash the poor man, Sam?” Her voice was dry and raspy.

Sam, who was sitting in a chair between their two hospital beds, jolted in his seat at the sound of Y/N’s voice.

“Oh, thank god.” Sam sighed. “Cap would’ve killed me if you died.”

“Don’t worry.” Y/N practically groaned in pain as she tried to sit up. Sam rushed over to her to help. “I’m very much alive. But wishing I wasn’t with how much pain I’m feeling right now.”

“Let me call the nurse to get you some pain medication.” Sam panicked.

“Don’t bother. My metabolism will burn it off before it does me any good.” Y/N said.

Sam squinted in confusion.

Y/N smirked at him. “One of the side effects from being related to Captain America.”

“I…I didn’t realize… how much it affected you too.” Sam stuttered.

“I’m not as enhanced as he is,” She pointed in Steve’s direction. “But it’s enough to still be advantage in the field.”

Then her eyes saddened at the sight of Steve all beat up.

“Sam, what happened?” He explained everything she missed while she had been shooting down Hydra jets left and right, said they succeeded and the hellicarriers were now sitting at the bottom of the Potomac River. Fury and Natasha had thankfully saw Y/N’s quintet spiraling out of control and were able to scoop her out of the aircraft before her unconscious body could drown in the river.

“He pulled him out of the river.” Sam said darkly.

Y/N didn’t need for him to clarify who.

“He’s still in there, Sam.” She whispered. Then she continued to tell him what had occurred between her and the deadly Winter Solider.

“Why didn’t he kill me?” Y/N thought aloud in a whisper.

“Maybe he knew somehow.” Sam shrugged. “Knew that you were his family.”

Y/N sighed and rubbed her face. “Did they find him?”

Sam shook his head. “I just hope Hydra didn’t get him back.”

But there conversation was interrupted by Steve stirring slightly.

“On your left.” He managed to mumble. Y/N looked at Sam, who was smirking. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Inside joke.”

——

Part 4

Sooooo I called this a min-series, but I think I’ve lost control and it’s gonna be way longer. LMAO

[thelazyenvironmentalist]

Why I’m Organizing for a Green New Deal in Canada

When I was little, I spent my summers at my grandma’s house. She lived with my grandpa in a ranch-style bungalow a few hundred meters up from the shores of Lake Huron. The house had an immaculately kept garden, mint shag carpet, and a blue porcelain bathtub. It was perfect. When the weather was good, my grandma would spend hours outside with me, collecting Queen Anne’s Lace in the meadow across the road, walking under the cool green canopy of the forest nearby, or splashing in the waves at the beach for so long that when she brought me inside she would immediately place me in the bathtub to wash the sand off. If I sit quietly I can still hear the sound of the grains of sand settling at the bottom of the blue porcelain as she washed the day out of my hair. It was during this time outside that I first learned what it felt like to feel at home in what we refer to as “nature”. I learned that I could eat apples right off the trees in the woods, scrub myself clean- and then get hopelessly dirty again- at the lake, or sit in our secret spot and nap in the shade of a pine tree with the person I loved the most. On days that were cold and rainy, my grandma and I would stay inside, flipping through a Reader’s Digest encyclopaedia of North American Wildlife, or watching TVO. On those days spent inside, every Saturday or Sunday morning (I can’t remember which) I would park myself in front of the old tube TV to watch the same two mid-nineties infomercials each week. The first, a classic in Canadian Millennial cannon- was from the Humane Society- the one with Sarah McLachlan playing in the background, while sad kittens stared into the camera. The second, slightly more scarring, was produced by the World Wildlife Fund, and this one broke my heart. Every weekend I’d sit on that mint shag carpet and sob watching images of Amazon Rainforest being clear cut, or Bengal Tigers being poached and separated from their cubs. Silly as it might seem, it was these early morning infomercials that taught me the devastation and heartbreak of losing nature. They taught me empathy for creatures I will never see or touch in real life, a sadness and longing for places and times I will never live in. They taught me that if I wanted to see things change, I would have to take action myself. My grandma echoed these lessons in her care of me, and those around her. Her compassion for all creatures-humans and animals alike- sticks with me even now, years after her passing. Anyone in our family could tell you about the time that Grandma nursed an abandoned baby mouse back to health, or when we hand fed a litter of baby bunnies for weeks when the mother was scared away by my Aunt Pauline’s dog, or when she brought our Cat, Mr. Tibb’s back from the brink when he was sick and my parents’ had already booked us a trip to Mexico. What I’m trying to say is my grandmother taught me that even if you can’t immediately relate to someone, or something, even if you’re a different species, when help is needed, you offer it. She taught me that there was beauty in the world and that it was worth saving. I haven’t mentioned my Grandpa yet, but he was the love of my Grandma’s life. They met when she was 17 and living in Florida with her parents. He saw her singing in the church choir when he was on vacation with his family, and three months later she had moved up to Canada, they were married, and soon my Aunt Debbie was on the way. My Grandpa’s brother’s made their way owning car dealerships and racehorses, and lived well into their 80s and 90s- my Grandpa got into the oil industry. First in Sarnia, then Nova Scotia, the United States, Calgary, and, for a short period of time, Saudi Arabia, among numerous other towns and cities. My Grandpa managed oil refineries for decades- and was proud of his work and all it afforded his family. Both he and my Grandma had jackets and hats stitched with the Turbo Canada logo (a now defunct petroleum company) and somewhere in my closet at my parent’s house, I still have one of his old jackets tucked away, with a decades old cigarette hidden in the pocket. My Grandpa was in insanely good health, for his entire life. Due to his health, and love of his job, he didn’t retire until he was in his early 60s. When I was about 11 his health abruptly changed. He got very sick, very quickly, and for the first time in his life, he was admitted to a hospital overnight, and for the next 6 months or so, he didn’t really leave. My Grandpa died of Leukaemia in his early 70s, due to, what the family believed, was from a lifetime of benzene exposure from working in the oil and gas industry. Much of the generational wealth I still benefit from, is due to the Canadian oil industry; this makes me uncomfortable. But this same industry, the one that allowed my grandparents to raise 4 daughters comfortably, and retire on the shores of Lake Huron, in a house that they built, is the same industry that ultimately cost him his life- it’s the reason I no longer have a Grandpa. It’s also why when my grandma had a series of mini-strokes resulting in dementia, she spent the last few really difficult years of her life alone, without the comfort of her lifelong partner by her side. I’m not going to say that my Grandfather dying is the reason I work with other young people for climate justice- that fate was sealed over two decades ago, when I first started crying in front of the TV seeing the harm we have the capacity to inflict. But what my Grandpa’s leukaemia does compel me to do is work for a world where no one else has to leave this world too soon in order to provide for their family. The oil and gas industry in Canada has given so many of us so much, and it has also taken so much away. Not just from those like my family who lost a single loved one too soon, and too painfully, but from the communities like the Aamjiwnaang First Nation in Chemical Valley, downstream from the refineries my Grandfather worked at in Sarnia, where miscarriages are frequent because of exposure to chemicals like cadmium and mercury. The weight of our affluence shouldn’t be borne by those who have had their land stolen from them, or by the workers who risk their health and livelihood working in mines and refineries because our government can’t be bothered to subsidize job training programs for low-carbon work, or support an energy economy that doesn’t make a few influential people exorbitant amounts of wealth. The greed of the Canadian petro-state is devastating. It is so easy to give into the heartbreak, the malaise, to wallow in the understanding that we are already losing, that we have lost so much, and so many to climate change, and the fossil fuel industry. What’s hard is hope. What’s hard is to continue to love, to continue to plough ahead despite the odds, to demand better of our leaders; of ourselves. The Green New Deal is the first thing that has offered me real hope in a very long time. The Green New Deal and it’s “no one left behind” attitude offer us a chance to build the world we want to live in- a world without catastrophic climate change, a world where workers are respected and valued to a higher degree than the resources they’re extracting. A world where having the energy to power our lives doesn’t mean sacrificing entire communities like the Aamjiwnaang, and their children. Where, in order to provide for your family, you don’t first have to sign away your red blood cell count. My heart was first broken in front of that TV when I was little. I’m so ready to put it back together. And I’m going to do that the only way I know how: by working with those I love to try to save my home. We can do that with a Green New Deal, but we need your help, we need your hope, and we need your hands. We need to get to work.

[hachama]

Making space to feel sadness

I’ve been wanting to write this post since Saturday or Sunday, but haven’t had the time or energy to do it until now.  Sometimes I think better when I write, and can better process things that are otherwise difficult to manage.  I’m going to put the rest of this under a cut, because I expect it’s going to get long.

Thursday evening I got a message from my brother: “Call me when you get the chance.” Our grandfather was in the hospital, acute renal failure.  Our first cousin was already on the way to Mississippi.  Grandpa had been in poor health for a while, so no one was expecting him to pull through.  We immediately started working out a plan to get to Mississippi as quickly as possible.

Because of the holiday weekend, my brother didn’t have work that Friday.  My husband did.  My brother and sister-in-law drove from their home in North Carolina to the airport in Birmingham, Alabama, to pick us up.  My mother paid for my husband’s and my plane tickets, and our roommate drove us from my husband’s office to the airport. 

While we were all still traveling, Grandpa requested that he be discharged from the hospital and referred to home hospice care.  Between 8 and 9 Friday night he returned home, with some extra equipment and pain medication.

We arrived in Mississippi at 2 AM Saturday, checked into a hotel (also paid for by my mother), and got some sleep.  We had breakfast and contacted the home health aide.  She recommended we wait until about 11 AM to come over.

While we were still at the hotel, Grandpa had gotten out of bed, eaten a few bites of breakfast, and gone back to bed.  By the time we got to the house, he was delirious.  He didn’t recognize me.  He looked up at me and said “I’ve lost you.”  Mercifully, my grandmother, who has dementia, did recognize me.  After lunch, we went back to the hotel for a few hours to wait for our cousin, the oldest of our grandparents’ three grandchildren, to get into town.  He had requested that we go with him, as his wife couldn’t make the trip and he didn’t want to be alone.

While at the hotel, we played a card game, a distraction we all needed.  My husband took a nap.  Our cousin arrived as we were getting started, so we dealt him in.  My brother won.  I woke my husband and we went back to the house. 

Grandpa hadn’t moved in hours.  While we were there the hospice nurse arrived.  She got authorization from a doctor to increase Grandpa’s pain medication and noticed that he had a fever.  She recommended acetaminophen suppositories, since he wasn’t swallowing effectively.  My sister-in-law and I went to try to find an open pharmacy that carried them.  Small town Mississippi pharmacists done keep long business hours on Saturday evenings.  We were advised to bring back ice since the Tylenol wasn’t an option.  My brother helped get Grandpa positioned to prevent bed sores and rolled some towels into supports.  Grandma said she was tired and went to bed.

My cousin wanted to say Kaddish.  I said it was premature and felt wrong.  We returned to the hotel and tried to get some sleep.

Sunday morning, our cousin had requested that we coordinate to try to arrive back at the house at the same time.  My brother, sister-in-law, husband and I had to start the drive back home.  We had obligations on Monday.  Our cousin was planning on staying another couple of days.

By the time we got to the house, Grandpa was gone.  Grandma had been watching church services in the living room, a live broadcast from their local church.  With the door open, I like to think Grandpa could hear the TV.  Services were ending when he died.

I noticed that we were all breathing in sighs and long, measured exhalations designed to maintain composure.  I got the impression that we were all inhaling each other’s sighs, trying to find ways to offer comfort without endangering the other’s barely maintained composure.  When the hospice nurse arrived to confirm that Grandpa was gone and start the paperwork and legal phone calls, she circulated through with quick, sincere, professional “I’m so sorry”s for everyone.  Even that was enough to bring tears, both the confirmation of what we already knew and the implied “it’s ok, I know it’s hard” in her words. 

Strangers came and went, the machinery of managing death.  Grandma asked for some privacy to sit at Grandpa’s bedside, the last time she’d be able to sit with her husband of nearly 70 years.  We honored her request.  Of course we did. 

Then there were questions to be answered, arrangements.  The entire time, Grandpa’s dog, Bella, was whining and crying in a closed off back bedroom.  Of all of us, the dog was the most free to be honest.

My brother and I retreated to opposite sides of the kitchen.  I could hear his breath catching as he kept his sobs private.  I think my breathing sounded much the same.  We both pretended not to notice.

It was freezing outside.  Our cousin, again, wanted to say Kaddish.  This time it wasn’t premature, but I couldn’t say it in the room where Grandpa died.  I don’t know what makes a person uniquely themself, but whatever it is, Grandpa’s was gone.  I didn’t want to see my grandfather empty like that.  I couldn’t force myself to see him that way.  So we stood in the driveway, the three grandchildren, the two spouses who could make the trip, and three cell phones with the text of the Kaddish displayed in Aramaic and English.  Our cousin asked me to lead.  Grandma came outside.  I chose to say Kaddish in English, to spare my grandmother’s confusion.  We left.

As if to confuse my emotional state further, my first cousin on my mother’s side of the family gave birth to her second child, a baby girl, the same morning in Australia.

The entire drive from Mississippi to North Carolina we played Cards Against Humanity with a variation of the rules I dubbed “Cars Against Humanity.”  The driver is always the judge.  The backseat controls the white card draw and discard piles.  The front passenger has the black card draw pile and reads all the cards.  It works well, especially if everyone gets a turn as driver and judge.  We stopped for lunch at an Israeli restaurant in Birmingham.  If you’re ever in Birmingham, and you see a restaurant claiming to be a “Jerusalem Grill”?  Trust it.

We stopped in North Carolina for the night, and the next day drove home.  I kept dozing off and dreaming that one or both of my grandfathers was alive and well in Australia, and that the car I was still aware of being in was about to drive off a cliff.

When we finally got home, I lay down and cried.  My cat bit me for not petting him.  My husband held me and got me a cup of tea when I asked for it.  My friends, in response to my complaint that the cat bit me while I was crying, said he was trying to distract me.

But I don’t need to be distracted.  I need to feel my grief, and process it.  It’s not going to go away if I ignore it.  My grandfather is not going to be not-dead if I refuse to confront the reality of his death.  So this is part of making space to feel grief.  I am sad that he is gone because he was a good man who loved his family and treasured his only granddaughter, even though he tried to call me by my aunt’s name at least once in every conversation I ever had with him.  It is only right that I be sad, and there is no reason to deny that sadness or limit the space it needs.

I was reminded of something that some adults said when I was 12 and crying at my Zaide’s funeral.  They said they envied the lack of inhibition in crying children, that we were free to fully express and inhabit our feelings like that, while adults struggle with it.  I think, from the perspective of 23 years later, that it had less to do with a lack of inhibition than they thought.  I struggled not to cry while my grandmother was around because she did not need to carry my grief along with her own.  She needed to feel free to make space for her own sadness, the same as I did when I finally got home. 

[emarywalkermedia]

IN MEMORY OF MY MOTHER (10.05.1915 – 03.06.1992)

She was a retiring sort of person who preferred to stay at home. Yet she was always interested in people, and nothing pleased her more than being in the company of those she cared about and was interested in. What struck most who knew her was that she was a true listener. Some said this of her: that when you were in her company it was as if you were the only person in the world that mattered.

Elfrida Mary (Moore) Walker was born on 10 May 1915 in Bloemfontein, and once the nursing home pronounced the baby and her mother fit to leave, they journeyed home by ox wagon, traveling for two full days, outspanning overnight on the banks of the Modder River.

My mother and I in the mid 70s.

Her parents were British immigrants who had sailed to South Africa only five years earlier. Randal Moore, a sheep farmer and a Scot, had been farming in southern England when he met his wife, Elizabeth Visger (Visscher), daughter of a medical doctor whose father and grandfather were Dutch American immigrants to Britain. My mother was the youngest of five children. Betty, Colin and Helena were British born, but Maurice had been born on their South African farm, Oubrakfontein, three years before my mother’s birth.

My mother’s parents, Elizabeth nee Visger (Visscher) and Randal Moore.

A farm some miles north of the dorpie Dealesville, about 45 miles west of Bloemfontein on the road to Kimberley, Oubrakfontein is where my mother spent the first ten years of her life. She always spoke of Dealesville and Oubrakfontein, right to the very end – and those names, and the images they conjured up in me, were as familiar to me as were my own life’s names and images.

Her reminiscing always included the pepper tree. It stood towards the rear of the house, and appeared to have functions associated with the kitchen. My mother spoke of various items that would be hung from its inner branches in a makeshift gauze and wooden cooler box, such provisions gaining benefit from the shade and breeze. The rear side of the house, facing south and away from the sun, brought relief to the family, their British constitutions unacclimatized to the hot Highveld summers, and a deep veranda with inelegant recliners often featured in her recollections.

The family at Oubrakfontein. Betty, the oldest, had already left for boarding school in England.

Indoor life centered around a handsome marble fireplace, and a piano. The house was softened and cheered by treasured furnishings and heirlooms shipped from England. My mother talked of evenings filled with singing, as the family gathered round their cherished piano, my grandmother playing.

In the early years, before my mother’s birth, relatives had visited from England. After their return, in a letter to another relative, there was the remark, “They live too close to the earth. And Betty is acquiring a Colonial accent.” So Betty, having attended St Michaels School in Bloemfontein till then, was sent away to boarding school in England, and Colin to St Andrews in Grahamstown. During Betty’s schooling, World War I broke out, and she did not return for many years. My mother was five years old when she first met her sister.

An illustration of the farmhouse, done by Betty before she left for boarding school in England.

Education was difficult for the younger three, Dealesville being too far away for daily travel. So a live-in governess was employed. Her name was Miss Paton. Her nephew was to become one of South Africa’s most celebrated authors, Alan Paton, of Cry The Beloved Country fame. My mother told me of their endless efforts to find a way to be outside rather than in Miss Paton’s classes.

She told me about their clambering up the wild olive trees on the ridge, to look across the salt pans that went on to the horizon; about their swimming in the small river pools after rains, where once she nearly drowned; about her horse who’d wait, when she had fallen off, so that she could mount again. She talked about the sheep pens, dry stone walled, where she took refuge after quarrels with her brother; and her sorrow on the day her brother ‘killed’ her doll and she, in lonely grief and ignorance, believed that it was dead, and buried it.

Maurice, my mother, and Helena, at the wild olive trees along the ridge.

Life was not easy on the farm. Droughts and locust swarms depleted grazing and, although sheep are tough and hardy animals, my grandfather had learnt his trade in the soft and fertile pastures of southern England. The harsh and dry conditions of the western Free State took their toll. Finally it became necessary for my grandmother to live in Dealesville with the children, so that she could supplement their income by dressmaking, and the children could attend the school. In 1925, ten years after my mother’s birth, they concluded a deal to lease out the farm.

After 15 years at Oubrakfontein, they packed up their life on the farm, and left.

*****

Sezela is a small seaside village alongside a sugar mill on the Natal south coast. My grandfather had found employment as a bookkeeper at the mill. There the three youngest children lived with him in a small house, the older children having married and moved on.

Three sisters, from left to right. My mother, Betty, and Helena.

My grandmother had returned to England for a spell. During her stay an aunt had fallen ill and she remained to nurse her, only returning a year later. An inheritance enabled her to fund my mother’s high school years as a boarder at St. Mary’s, Kloof, near Durban.

I do believe this was a Godsend for my mother. She spoke wearily and with little enthusiasm of her Sezela years. It was a hard thing for an eleven year old girl to lose her mother for a year, while her older sister was preoccupied with the courting of her future husband. Directly after school she trained as a nurse at Durban’s Addington Hospital.

Her nursing years number amongst her happiest times. Her mother’s family produced several in the medical profession. Her grandfather was a doctor as was her great grandfather. Her mother, while not a trained nurse, learnt alongside her own father in his surgery annexed to their home. Betty trained as a nurse on her return to South Africa, and their mother’s brother was a doctor in England. So it was a natural vocation for her to fall into, and she thrived.

My father, Graeme Walker, at the time my mother met him.

After a spell of nursing at the Harrismith Hospital in the Free State, she moved to the Piet Retief Hospital during which time World War II broke out. This resulted in a move to the Transvaal, to the Middelburg Military Hospital where, in due course, she met my father. After his return from North Africa in 1941, they had a hasty wedding on the Berea in Durban, then both took up military positions, she at the Wynberg Military Hospital in Cape Town, and he at Sonderwater in the Transvaal. They lived apart for the first two years of their marriage.

My mother, a lieutenant, in military nursing uniform.

My sister, Helen, was born late in the war and at five years old there was a relocation to Bloemfontein.  Once they had bought and moved into a spacious suburban home on the northern outskirts, John and I were born, less than a year and a half apart.

*****

All five together for the last time, in the mid sixties, a year or so after their mother died. From left to right, Betty, Colin, Helena, Maurice, and my mother, at Helena’s home in Sezela, Natal South Coast.

For me there will always be one real home in my life, and that home was the one I grew up in, and my mother was central to that home, and she remains central to my memory of it. I have hosts of memories of her, too many to begin sharing, during the first two and a half decades of my life while that home was still our family home. Instead I’ll pay three tributes to her:

She had a sense of humour that is memorable. Somewhat subtle, often quirky, always gracious, she never minded at all if she became the object of the joke. And her good heartedness, her consideration, and her kindness would never permit offense to others.

She loved foot tapping music. It was in her blood. Her mother and her sister, Betty, were classical pianists. But my mother was a syncopation player. Both her brothers played in a dance band, one the guitar and banjo, the other the concertina and, during the breaks, my mother would fill in on the piano. Her sister, Helena, was known for her ear for vocal harmony, and would simply take up the harmony line on anything. So we grew up with music in our ears. We all took lessons, and someone was always at the piano, practising. But when my mother went to the piano, and lifted the lid, and sat down, there was a particularly good feeling in the house; and invariably it would start with her old favourite: Happy days are here again.

My parents on a day out in the Free State countryside.

Over the years, long after giving up nursing as a career, she used her skills to alleviate family suffering: she nursed her father until he died, then her mother some years later, and then her sister, Betty, enabling them to live in dignity at home until the end. During my father’s several serious illnesses, she was always there with that same untiring commitment – to nurse and to alleviate suffering. It was one of those extraordinary blessings we had as a family. I have never felt in safer hands as I felt in my mother’s care when I was sick.

*****

The last eight years of my mother’s life were in Maritzburg. She had been suffering from several conditions and her health was declining, but the move enabled Helen and me to see both her and my father more regularly. Family gatherings with my brother down from Joburg were not infrequent, and my sister was a stalwart in her final years.

In the winter of 1991 my father was struck by a speeding car outside their flat and suffered serious injuries, but he made sufficient progress in his recovery to enable them together, towards the end of that year, to enjoy their 50th wedding anniversary, in the company of a large crowd of relatives on both sides of the family.

During her final years in Maritzburg. From left to right, my sister Helen with daughter Liz, Helena with son Elliott, my mother and me (front).

Just less than seven months later, very early one morning in mid winter, my mother left us.

*****

My father lived another three years after she had gone.

Betty lived for many years in Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). Colin lived for many years in Kenya. Both returned late in life. Maurice always lived in Durban. Helena married in Sezela and never left the Natal south coast, and was the last of them to die. Not one of them ever left Africa.

*****

In the fourth year after the passing of my mother I had a serendipitous opportunity to visit Oubrakfontein for the first time. I booked a night in the Olien Hotel in Dealesville, where my mother and other family members had stayed over 60 years before, having traveled there for the purpose of concluding the final sale of the farm, ten years after they had left.

It was a blustery afternoon in early summer, a dry forlorn wind blowing from the west. Thin grey clouds moved in steady trails across the sky, the dry veld grass hunched and knotted, the distant windmills chopping endlessly.

I stood in the yard of the farm. Assaulted with insensitive outer renovations, the house stood sad and squat, its character quite changed. I went inside and found the living room. I had a sense I knew it from my mother’s words. Abandoned for many years, almost derelict in parts, I sensed it held an element of its former character. I ran my finger along the mantelpiece above the fireplace and, from beneath the dust, the marble came up smooth, unharmed. I stood a while. It was there the piano had stood. In my mind I heard the tinkle of soft notes, the chorus of young voices. The walls were thick, uneven. I stood beside the doorway to the back, the sides worn from countless shoulders brushing past, and I could almost hear their voices, sense their ghosts, returned.

Outside, I wandered to the pepper tree, gnarled and ancient, its inner branches reaching out, resigned and empty. I walked to the ridge where the olive trees grew, and saw the salt pans that went on to the horizon. I found the sheep pens, veld grass long established where the sheep had stood, their dry stone walls still standing nearly eighty years after my mother touched them. And I touched them too. And there I sensed the comfort of the sheep, the softness of their wool, the warmth, the scent of lanolin.

A bleak and windswept day, not without a touch of sadness, and yet I felt a profound connection to the place. An empathy of coming home. A sacred reverence and respect for souls long gone, yet remaining, forever rooted in this place.

Perhaps my last thought on that day, a thought that lingers still, was this: where in this lonely place, left so long abandoned and forgotten, lies a perished broken doll, forever in its shallow grave.

[scriptmedic]

What's the most commonly accepted verbal exchange between paramedics and ER staff during handover? TV usually begins it with 'RTC, patient is 23, diabetic... BP etc.' What would you consider the most realistic dialogue in a script?

Hey there nonny! Good question. I have absolutely no idea what “RTC” means and have never heard it in the field (or in the TV shows I’ve seen). 

This depends on the handover. If the patient is in for something routine, like a cough or a broken leg, and they can wait, the first thing that happens is that EMS will bring the information to registration and give things like name, date of birth, etc. to the clerk. 

Next they’ll wait to be triaged by the nurse. They’ll already have the demographics in the computer, so they’ll ask more pertinent questions: “What happened?” “Any history?” “Allergies?” “Medications?” EMS will answer, but actually if you tell a triage nurse “This is a 23 year old male, history of diabetes, ….” you’ll get looked at funny. The nurse needs specific answers for the computer question, not the patient’s life story.

That’s for routine cases. 

Critical cases come straight into the resus room, and the character might have two life-saving procedures before they get registered. So in that case, handoff is a whole different story. 

This is where your medic will give the shortest and best version of the story they can. Here’s an example, one that I might give on handoff: 

“Hi everybody. This is Billy, he’s a 53 year old male status-post pedestrian struck at unknown speed, he went up and over the windshield with spider-cracking and landed behind the vehicle. He’s got a depressed fracture of the left parietal skull and trauma to the left leg. Positive LOC on scene, awake, now unconscious again, GCS 3T. He was intubated in the field for airway protection with roc and etomidate, with midazolam for sedation. He’s got an 18 in the left AC, and the tube is a 7.5, 23 at the lip.Last set of vitals was 170 over 70, pulse 60 and NSR, GCS of 8 prior to intubation. He was intubated with roc and etomidate and he’s gotten 4 of midazolam IV so far. The period of lucidity makes me think epidural but I can’t be a hundred percent. ” 

History is diabetes, hypertension and one MI in 2006, per the wife, she’s in the waiting room. NKDA, insulin-dependent. He’s all yours.” 

Every single piece of that handoff is important. The name isn’t always given, but I always do (it’s a reminder that this is a person.) The age isn’t exactly crucial unless you’re fine-cutting kids by their ages, but what the hell, it’s tradition. The injury -- pedestrian struck (the car is implied) -- predicts injury patterns, as does the more specific “up and over” trajectory, and  the fact that the windshield spider-cracked implies that that much force was also applied to the body. The skull fracture and leg trauma -- vagueness is fine here, it’s secondary -- give the specific injuries, but the mechanisms tell the staff what else to predict.

LOC means loss of consciousness and is important. The fact that the character lost consciousness, regained it, and lost it again, is pretty much pathognomonic -- a sure sign -- of an epidural bleed. (I qualify this later to make room for diagnostic errors and “edge cases,” but this pattern is well-known.) 

Next is what I did for him: I intubated poor Billy (placed a breathing tube), and say why -- there are lots of reasons to tube a patient (respiratory failure being chief among them, but in this case it was to keep him from vomiting). The pharmacological agents are important -- the rocuronium is a long-acting paralytic, where another (succinylcholine, or “sux”) might be short-acting (60 vs 5 minutes). 

Last is his history -- which is mostly (not entirely) irrelevant -- and where to get more info, finished off with a “good luck with that” and a swift exit from the trauma room. 

One thing to realize is how much slang is in here: we have a mechanism (”pedestrian struck”), medication names (”roc”) and doses (”4″, the milligrams is implied), mental status (”GCS”, for Glasgow Coma Score), tube size and placement (”7.5″ would me 7.5mm internal diameter and “23 at the lip” means the tube is 23 cm deep, measured at the lip line), heart rhythm (”NSR”), suspected condition (”epidural”, the “hemorrhage” is implied), history (”MI” means “heart attack”), allergies (”NKDA” is short for “No known drug allergies”). It’s a specialty with its own lingo, and this handoff isn’t even lingo-heavy. It’s all shorthand for getting t he most information across in as little time as possible, but damn if it isn’t hard to learn at first. 

However, that’s my personal style. Afterwards there will be questions -- was he a difficult tube? Did he get any other meds in the field? How long ago did this happen? 

One format is called MIST. A nurse or doc will call an “EMS Time-Out,” and then EMS will proceed with their report like so: 

That’s.... roughly what that might look like. 

If you are willing to PM me your case and the situation I’ll reblog this with a customized handoff for your situation, and will keep your anonymity. 

xoxo, Aunt Scripty

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[eyesonworldcultures]

Review by Mónica Flores Correa

One may say that Buenos Aires is a secondary character in “Operation Finale.” The film about Adolph Eichmann’s capture by Mossad agents in 1960, shows the city and its suburbs in a minimalist way. The local color appears in the occasional porteño (Buenos Aires resident) voices with the Italian cadence of their Spanish. It appears at the ‘café’ where the agents surreptitiously exchange information, in a glance at tango dancers, and in the well chosen “El Choclo,” a very agile, intense tango as the scene’s background music. The longing of the Israelis for a meal with fish while they are eating the Argentine diet of beef and more beef, gives the audience a recognizable link with the place as well.

Revealing Buenos Aires atmosphere more than its sightseeing, was a clever decision by director Chris Weitz. The audience is not watching this movie for touristic reasons. They are there to see reenacted one of the most crucial moments in the pursuit of justice after the Holocaust genocide. A superb Ben Kingsley as Eichmann, playing the Nazi’s slippery personality with glimpses of his cruelty and, yes, of his eventual humanity, and Oscar Isaac as agent Peter Malkin, are the stars of the also well selected cast.

Eichmann’s capture saga is not in the recollections of my childhood in the 60s.  I only remember two international breaking news stories that took place around a couple of years later: the deaths of Marilyn Monroe and of President John F. Kennedy. It was in my adulthood when I came to learn about the case that transfixed the world.  I did it mainly through the unquestionably brilliant, though controversial, Hannah Arendt’s reporting on Eichmann’s trial in Israel.

I do remember, however, the adults I my family speaking with disgust of “Tacuara,” a group of nationalist, anti-Semitic youth who were carrying out brutal attacks against the Jewish community. My mother and aunts were Christians in the good sense of the word. They taught me to reject any expression of racial or ethnic hate. The ultra right nationalist “Tacuara” was one of the extreme right/extreme left violent offsprings of the proscribed Justicialist party, a.k.a. Peronist party, one of the two major political organizations in the country.

One review of the movie stated that when the spy operation took place, Argentina was ruled by a Nazi sympathizer government. It was not so. President Arturo Frondizi was far from being pro-Nazi. Still, conditioned by the military and by the fact that the Peronist party had been proscribed, his administration was deplorably weak. It is said that Frondizi learned about Eichmann’s capture through the newspapers. That may not be totally far fetched. A military coup ousted Frondizi in 1963.

For the plot’s sake, the film indulges in some poetic licenses, fictionalization that is recognized in the credits. There is a romantic relationship between two agents that never happened, a female doctor in charge of drugging Eichman to keep him quiet was, in the real case a male doctor. The ultra right wingers’ hunt for Eichmann and his captors’ whereabouts has been somewhat over dramatized. An example: an Argentine Nazi leader, policemen, and young Nazis in motorbikes, arrive at the airport just as the El Al plane with its Nazi charge takes off. The scene is very good, yet it’s possible to suspect that it hasn’t been completely faithful to the facts.      

Like many societies in the Western Christian world, Argentina nursed a veiled anti- Semitism which, depending on the political climate, could surface and be fairly obvious. Moreover, Argentina and other South American countries protected Eichmann, Mengele, and less prominent Nazis. They were allowed to settle with new identities in those countries. Also well known are the fascist sympathies of Juan Perón, a general, founder of the “Justicialismo.” Three times president, two of them as dictator, he acquiescently opened the door to the hush-hush settlement of the war criminals.

Perón had the cooperation of people like Carlos Fuldner (played by Portuguese actor Pepe Rapazote).  We see Fuldner in the movie leading  Klaus, Eichmann’s son, in the frantic search to free the architect of the Final Solution.  Fuldner had a double political affiliation: he was member of the Nazi party in Germany and of the Justicialist party in Argentina. This German-Argentine business and military man fought with the pro- Germanic “División Azul” in Spain. Years later he received a military rank with the Schustztaffel (the SS). This man was highly instrumental in the relocation of several mass murderers, as Klaus Eichmann points out in the movie. “He helped my family to establish in this country,” he says to his love interest.

I felt very disturbed by a scene in which the Argentine-Nazi group tortures a young Argentine Jewish woman. They were trying to extract information about the Mossad’s safe house where Eichmann was held. Her tormentors carve a swastika on her chest with a knife and  burn her skin with cigarette butts. Historically, there was a case as this one depicted  but it happened two years later, not during the Eichmann saga. In any event, the scene reminded me that twenty five years later, during the “dirty war” that began in the 70s with the last and bloodiest dictatorship, the military torturers tormented Jewish activists with particular viciousness at the detention camps where the “disappeared” were confined.

Auspiciously, much water has gone under the bridge since then. Despite highs and lows, despite its ever recurrent economic, and eventually political, crisis, Argentina has been a democracy for thirty five years.

Learning its lesson the hard way, the Argentine society has stopped knocking at the military barracks demanding a coup d’état when times are difficult.

Although it’s hard to know for certain if anti-Semitism is a thing of the past, the younger generations, more open and also freer from biased educational baggage, don’t adhere to the prejudices that decades ago were so entrenched in the culture. It is possible to perceive a widespread disposition to condemn any racial or ethnic bigotry, especially among the young.

A turning point in the long road to overcome these prejudices occurred, I think, in the 90s. The Jewish community was the target of two international terrorist attacks in Buenos Aires. Both were allegedly masterminded by Iran, the second one with the help of Hezbollah. A suicide bombing attack on the building of the Israeli embassy left 30 people dead in 1992. Another suicide attack in 1994 against Amia, a Jewish cultural center, killed 85 people and hundreds were wounded. After the latter, a huge demonstration in solidarity with the victims was immediately organized. It was estimated that around 200.000 Argentines marched three days later to convey their condemnation. People from all walks of life, young and old, walked the streets of Buenos Aires, most carrying posters conveying a simple, moving message: “Today I am also a Jew.”  

Mónica Flores Correa

Is a writer living in New York. She was a correspondent for Página 12 a newspaper in Buenos Aires, her city of origin.

For her work as a journalist, she was awarded the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University. Monica has published two short story collections and she is currently working on a novel. This year, she has published a new translation into Spanish of “The Dead”, a short story by James Joyce. This work has been done in collaboration with Cristóbal Williams, her husband.

[jenmedsbookreviews]

So. Funny old week. Started off in a rather unspectacular fashion. Went to work. Did work type stuff. Got bored. Rinse and repeat on Tuesday. Well, Health and Safety meeting on Tuesday so I was mainly depressed by lunchtime, but still relatively uneventful. Flying visit to Dublin on Wednesday (literal as it’s a long walk from my house) in which I managed to set the Irish budget (mostly). Go me. On the plus side I got a lot of reading in at the airports and on the plane so it wasn’t all bad.

Thursday… what to say about Thursday? Well, first up, I was only in work for half a day which is always nice. I had the afternoon booked off to attend the book launch of Lloyd Otis’s debut novel, Dead Lands. Great book which I’ll be reviewing very soon and which, coincidentally, I was actually reading on my way to London. Arriving in London, me and my sister decided to treat ourselves to some wonderful Danish pastries at Ole & Steen on Haymarket. If you like Danish pastry (and I mean the real deal not the soggy stuff you find festering in the cake department fo supermarkets) then you could do worse than visit this place. I’m not being paid to say this, not at all. I just happen to think their food is lush and very reasonably priced for a central London Cafe/Restaurant.

So, one lovely toastie and cake fest later, Mandie and are are headed to the nearby (overpriced) giant sweet shop so that she can buy her friend a stick of pink rock. It’s a thing… Don’t ask. While I’m loitering in the entrance trying not to get enraged by the prices they are charging (£10 for a box of Oreo cookies!!!) I decide to check my emails. Oh my giddy Aunts. I won’t lie. I know I must have looked like a complete div. I know this as while I was reading one particular email I was stood staring out at Piccadilly Circus literally opened mouthed in shock, waiting for Mandie to join me and check that I wasn’t actually seeing things. Please note – I am getting very old and I wasn’t wearing my glasses so I could quite honestly have been reading anything. But no. I wasn’t seeing things. What I was reading was real.

I had received an e-mail from The Writer Awards, telling me that I had been named as one of the top nominated book blogs. Apparently they had been seeking nominations and from 1000+ recommendations, my little old blog had been selected as one of the best. Now, being honest, and being blind, I hadn’t read the whole email and I am always cautious about selecting links in emails as you never know if it’s a virus. I’d seen mention of top 33 so I figured number 30 wouldn’t be bad, but being the sceptical soul that I am, I googled The Writer Awards rather than followed the link. Sure enough a site showed up a the top of Google and I clicked through to find the Blogger Awards near the top of teh site. As I started clicking through the list, I really expected to be scrolling through for hours. Imagine my surprise when at No.10 I found Jen Med’s Book Reviews. No. 10!!!

I double checked the e-mail and sure enough there it was. Ranked no. 10. Of 1000+ blogs. And why – well apparently this little weekly mind melt is one of the reasons. Who knew. I thought it was just a good way to fill a gap in my blogging diary 😀

For those of you reading this on a phone, what this says is

This blog nicely weaves in the author’s own adventures through weekly recaps. It’s like you’re following a bookish journey from book tours to recaps to the reviews themselves. The creator’s personality really shines through!

Now personally I believe that they missed the word disorder out of the above statement but let’s look at the facts: Weekly adventures from book tours (Dead Lands – check), recaps (look below – check) and the reviews themselves (see the bottom of the post for links to all of last weeks posts – check). Well. Yep. That’s me then.

All joking aside, I am still rather stunned to have received the email. I’ve only been blogging for around 15/16 months, and in all honesty, only really been pushing myself to take it seriously since last November (a post a day for months now excluding Christmas) so this is absolutely amazing. Whoever it was that nominated me, thank you. It really means a lot. I knew nothing about this, can’t really understand how I got here, but at least I know that all of my hard work (well reading and occasional rambling) does mean something. I often feel that although I have a bias towards crime fiction, my blog is neither one thing or another, and so it feels like it’s harder to build a following that it might be for a dedicated crime fiction or Sci-fi/fantasy focused blog for example. And anyone who knows me will testify that being recognised for my ‘personality’ has seldom been a good thing in the past. 😉 So, for a gal without a gimmick I’m feeling kind of proud.

Enough of the fluffiness… Back to Thursday night. What an evening. So great to see Lloyd again and to be able to help him celebrate his success. I have no doubt that Dead Lands is going to do really well and that he has an amazing future in front of him. I first met Lloyd at Crimefest which seems forever ago now – long I’m sure for Lloyd – but it is so good to be able to support him on his journey, even if it’s just by way of a review. Good luck, Lloyd.

So. Back to my week. Friday was all work. Boo hiss… Any way. Moving on.

Book post wise – well Monday saw my last Mr Men Christmas book arrive so I am all set for Christmas month on the blog. Sort of. And, you know how Thursday was a pretty awesome kind of a day? Well what I didn’t mention is that when I popped home at lunch before catching my train I was greeted by the Post Man bringing me a parcel. A bookish parcel. A very exciting bookish parcel. It was only Now We Are Dead by Stuart MacBride which I’ll be reviewing for First Monday Crime in November. Stuart will be appearing alongside authors Vaseem Khan, Simon Booker and Elodie Harper, with the panel charied by Barry Forshaw. I was lucky enough to attend October’s panel and I’m sure as heck going back for the next one. Maybe I’ll see you there.

Book purchase wise – well aside from the signed copy of Dead Lands (whoop whoop), I’ve been a very good girl. I only bought 4 books. Just 4. 2 preorders, Helen Phifer’s Dying Breath and Susi Holliday’s The Deaths of December, and two books recommended in Ann Girdharry’s recent Book Love post as they sounded right up my street, LaRose by Louise Errdich and Red Blood, Yellow Skin by Linda L.T. Baer.

Netgalley saw me downloading two titles again, both for blog tours. First up Stephen Edger’s Dying Day and also Kierney Scott’s Now You See Me. I also received an ARC of Jennifer Gilmour’s new book (more on that tomorrow).

  And aside from some teeny tiny audible purchases, namely Elly Griffiths’ The Chalk Pit, Val McDermid’s Insidious Intent and B.A. Paris’s Behind Closed DoorsBehind Closed Doors that is absolutely it.

B.Reading wise, I read just the four books this week. Been busy and in schock 😉

Books I have read

Zenka by Alison Brodie

Devious, ruthless, and loyal.

Zenka is a capricious Hungarian with a dark past.

When cranky London mob boss, Jack Murray, saves her life she vows to become his guardian angel – whether he likes it or not. Happily, she now has easy access to pistols, knives and shotguns.

Jack discovers he has a son, Nicholas, a male nurse with a heart of gold. Problem is, Nicholas is a wimp.

Zenka takes charges. Using her feminine wiles and gangland contacts, she will make Nicholas into the sort of son any self-respecting crime boss would be proud of. And she succeeds!

Nicholas transforms from pussycat to mad dog, falls in love with Zenka, and finds out where the bodies are buried – because he buries them. He’s learning fast that sometimes you have to kill, or be killed.

As his life becomes more terrifying, questions have to be asked:

How do you tell a mob boss you don’t want to be his son?

And is Zenka really who she says she is?

I read Alison’s last book, Brake Failure last year and really enjoyed the blend of humour and action. Based around an East End crime boss who is trying to get to know his son for the first time, this book is packed full of laughs, action and the odd body dump. It had me chuckling all the way through at the series of mishaps and misunderstandings. And god help Olga!!! You can see my review next week and in the meantime you can order the book here.

…

Dead Lands by Lloyd Otis

The stunning debut from thriller writer Lloyd Otis. 

When a woman’s body is found a special team is called in to investigate and prime suspect Alex Troy is arrested for the murder. Desperate to remain a free man, Troy protests his innocence, but refuses to use his alibi. Trying to protect the woman he loves becomes a dangerous game – questions are asked and suspicions deepen. 

When the prime suspect completes a daring escape from custody, DI Breck and DS Kearns begin the hunt. Breck wants out of the force while Kearns has her own agenda and seeks revenge – and a right-wing march provides an explosive backdrop to their hunt for Troy. 

Lloyd Otis brings a startling account of the past back to life over a burgeoning ’70s landscape, and delivers a thrilling piece of crime fiction that will excite any fan of the genre.

What a debut. Full of suspicion, tension there is a ruthless and brutal killer on the loose but is he the man the police suspect? Set in 1970’s London I loved the freedom that this brings to the narrative as well as adding to the tension as you know that the police cannot rely on the forensics to get their man. So will justice prevail? Well – read for yourself to find out. I have and I’ll be reviewing in a little over a week for the blog tour. However, the book is available now and you can bag a copy here.

…

A Cosy Candlelit Christmas by Tilly Tennant

All singleton Isla wants for Christmas is to be left in peace, but a surprise trip to the Alps means there’s a chance for romance in every snowflake that falls…

It’s the week before Christmas and Isla McCoy has just received an unexpected gift: a letter announcing she is due a life-changing inheritance, but only if she’s willing to make amends with the father who abandoned her. 

She has absolutely no intention of forgiving him, but who could resist an all-expenses-paid trip to the French resort of St Martin-de-Belleville? 

There she meets smooth-talking Justin and nerdy glaciologist Sebastian; two very different men, with two very different agendas. Torn between her head and her heart, Isla finds herself utterly lost in a winter wonderland of her own feelings. 

Surrounded by twinkling candles and roaring log-fires, Isla’s resolve finally begins to melt. But will she learn how to reconnect, not only with a whole new family, but with herself and her heart?

A gorgeously heart-warming festive read to help spark a little romance in those long winter nights. Perfect for fans of Jane Linfoot, Debbie Johnson and Jenny Colgan.

The difficult situation of meeting her estranged father is what greets Isla this Christmas. But maybe that’s not all. In an idyllic ski-resort setting, with crisp white snow and beautiful scenery all around, could love also be on the cards. Released on 26th October, I’ll be spilling the beans on this book really soon, in the meantime you can order a copy right here.

…

The Lost Child by Patricia Gibney

They placed me in here and threw away the key. I look down at the gown they’ve put on me. I want my own clothes. I don’t know how long I’ve been here.

An elderly woman is found murdered in her own home, and Detective Lottie Parker and her partner Detective Boyd are called in to investigate. When they discover that the victim’s daughter is missing as well, they start to fear for the safety of the whole family…

Two days later as a nearby house is set on fire and with the body count rising, Lottie and her team begin to unpick a web of secrets and lies, as the murders seem to link back to a case investigated by Lottie’s father before he took his own life. 

With little knowledge of what really happened to her father, Lottie knows this is a case that could give her some answers. But how much does she want to know? And how far is Lottie prepared to dig to uncover the truth?

The Lost Child is a thrilling page-turner from the bestselling author of The Missing Ones and The Stolen Girls that will have you guessing right to the very last page. Perfect for fans of Rachel Abbott, Angela Marsons and Robert Dugoni.

Book three in the Lottie Parker series sees our troubled Irish Detective investigating a murder and brutal attack which could well have links back to her own father. With her personal life as complicated as ever, can Lottie keep her head clear enough to get to the truth? You can find out when the book is released on 27th October if you preorder the book right here.

…

I’ll take that as I’ve been busy this week. Blogging wise, another really full on week of reviews and book love which you can follow right here.

The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra

#BookLove: Anne Williams

Snowflakes, Iced Cakes and Second Chances

#BookLove: Ann Girdharry

Cover Reveal: Conrad Jones

Press Release: Heywood Hill Competition

Her Last Secret by Barbara Copperthwaite

The Fallen Agent by Oliver Tidy

Snare by Lilja Sigurdardottir

The week ahead is just as busy with a mammoth number of blog tours. First up today is Zoe Sharp’s Fox Hunter; on Wednesday is The Second Son by Andy Blackman, Thursday is Lily Graham’s Christmas At Hope Cottage and Friday is Sharon Maas’ The Girl From The Sugar Plantation. I’ll also have book love posts from Joanne Robertson of My Chestnut Reading Tree and Meggy Roussel of Chocolate’n’Waffles and my second Inspector Chopra review. Busy, busy, busy – just how I like it.

Adventure wise – well nothing bookish but I’ve got to travel to Manchester and Edinburgh this week to deliver some project training so who know what I’ll listen to along the way.

Have a fabulous week of bookishness all.

JL  (award winning book bloggist  )

Rewind, recap: Weekly update w/e 15/10/17 So. Funny old week. Started off in a rather unspectacular fashion. Went to work. Did work type stuff.

[lovelyparanormalbooks]

Book Blitz: Grand Finale: The Fireman's Son by Tara Taylor Quinn (Giveaway)

On Tour with Prism Book Tours

Book Tour Grand Finale for

THE FIREMAN'S SON

By Tara Taylor Quinn

We hope you enjoyed the tour and getting a look at this author's 80th release with Harlequin! If you missed any of the stops, go check them out...

Launch - Note from the Author

The Fireman’s Son is a story particularly close to my heart. I can tell you from firsthand knowledge that women suffer as Faye did more often than you’d ever expect. I can also say, unequivocally, that with love, kindness, and the right man, women like Faye do find pure joy again. Abuse is horrible. But that doesn’t mean the other side of abuse has to be. The world is filled with survivors. Women who know and value their strengths. Who reach out to other women who’ve been where they’ve been and are struggling to get where they are. Women who care. Please, come on in to The Lemonade Stand. Join us. As a collective group, we’re going to make the world a beautiful, safe place. One heart at a time.

underneath the covers - Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE, Part 1 REESE BRISTOW WOULD not normally race to the scene of a small fire on the beach in the middle of the night. He was the newly appointed Santa Raquel Fire Chief. One truck of junior firefighters could handle the call half asleep. Still, there he was, in jeans and a T-shirt, racing up the beach behind men in full gear carrying hoses he hoped they wouldn’t need to use.

deal sharing aunt - Guest Post

In The Fireman’s Son, one particular part came from a very particular place. Faye Walker is a paramedic. I’ve never been a paramedic. I couldn’t just become one. So I married one. Ha, ha, not really. I mean, I really did marry one, but not to write Faye’s story.

Thoughts of a Blonde - Review

"Emotionally raw and gut wrenching! You feel sorry for the child for what he’s been through, and as secrets and questions unravel, you find yourself feeling so sad that such little things caused such a monumental life change for all of them. Really connectible characters who we hope can find the peace they all need."

Brooke Blogs - Guest Post

Love is the most powerful force. I’ve always known this. I believe it still. Love will be the final victor – no matter what. It’s the best part of us. The deepest and strongest part of us. If we could all just let love work its magic, trust that which we can’t see, and be able to mute the world’s interferences and cerebral messages, mute the greed and jealousy and insecurities, love would deliver us to the happiness we all crave.

EskieMama & Dragon Lady Reads - Review

"This story was far by more the most intriguing story I have read, it deals with so much of what is going on in our society then normaly does in a book.Reese Bristow is in a conundrum now, the woman who broke his heart in college is now back and is his new EMT. There are more surprises in the book that, leave you speculating how this will unfold..."

Nicole's Book Musings - Guest Post

Faye and Reese have to stay in shape to do their jobs. They have to pass physical fitness tests. And when they’re at the station, on call, they can’t get what they need by skating around the trucks. With them, I had to go back to the treadmill, the weights – the dreaded gym. It’s at the firehouse. So…I did what I had to do…I mentioned that they went there – and I left them at the door – skating off and coming back to get them when we were both done. That’s why you won’t find any scenes in this book written inside that gym. I apologize ahead of time…

Angels with Attitude Book Reviews - Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE, Part 2 “I thought you’d at least call,” she was saying. Making no sense at all. “I wouldn’t take the job until Brandt assured me that you’d seen my file and approved the employment...” Last he’d heard, Faye Browning had been in her second year of a four-year nursing program at UC Berkeley. He’d been at Southern Cal in LA. “You did know, didn’t you?” Her voice trailed off. His horror must have been showing.

Celticlady's Reviews - Guest Post

We just passed tax time and my preparer once told me, everything in my life is deductible because it all goes into my books. She reads my books. And while I don’t deduct even close to ‘everything’, her statement stuck with me because she’s right. My life goes into my books.

Becky on Books - Review

"All three of the main characters here–Faye, Reese, and Elliott, Faye’s eight-year-old son–have been through so much before the story even begins. Watching them deal with the implications of the past, not to mention the new tension and drama that their present brings them, makes for a truly engrossing read. I literally couldn’t put this one down until I’d seen them get to their HEA!"

beck valley books - Excerpt

Book Excerpt - CHAPTER ONE, Part 3 SO...THAT WENT WELL. Faye’s sarcasm rang loud and clear in her mind as she trekked across the beach with her brand-new coworkers. She was on a mission. Had a very clear plan. She’d considered every step in-depth prior to implementation. She’d allowed for every eventuality. Taken measures to ensure that nothing went wrong.

Kindle and Me - Review

"This story just breaks my heart! And I wanted a happily ever after for all of them! If you like real stories of families with abuse issues and children of those abused, shelters, fires, firemen, great counselors, second chances then this might be for you!"

Book Lover in Florida - Guest Post

In The Fireman’s Son, in a particularly difficult scene, Reese can’t take Faye inside. He has to head out to his own little paradise in his backyard. His piece of nature includes the beach and the ocean, but the physical effects to him are the same. It could be that as the author of the book, I took him out there because it was where I’d need to be. One could be a practical thinker and insist that that was the case. One might even be right. I don’t believe it, though. I think that nature is a natural healer, purposely there for all of us to draw upon.

Harlie's Books - Review

"Overall, Ms. Quinn tackles a hard subject and hits it head on. She doesn’t sugarcoat it with her characters but let’s her characters speak for themselves. This series is fast becoming one of my all time favorites. Her stories in this series just keep getting better and better. I can’t wait to see in future books how Elliot is doing and how the Lemonade Stand is and the characters that surround it. Bravo, Ms. Quinn. You did it again."

Don't forget to enter the giveaways below, if you haven't already...

Her Secret Life (Where Secrets Are Safe #11) by Tara Taylor Quinn Adult Contemporary Romance

Mass Market Paperback & ebook, 384 pages

May 1st 2017 by Harlequin Superromance

Secrets are burning out of control After she broke his heart in college, Faye Walker is the last person fire chief Reese Bristow ever expected to see again, especially as his new EMT. But that's not Reese's only surprise. Faye has an eight-year-old son, Elliott, whose counseling at The Lemonade Stand shelter is her first priority.

It's nearly impossible to accept that she had a child with another man—and married that man—right after their breakup. Trusting Faye won't be easy. Especially when she reveals a secret about the boy that might tear them apart for good.

Goodreads│Amazon│Barnes & Noble│Harlequin

Other Books in the Where Secrets Are Safe Series (Books released as of March 2017. Each can be read as a standalone.)

          About the Author

The author of more than 70 original novels, in twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA Today bestseller with over six million copies sold. A 2015 RITA finalist Tara appears frequently on bestseller lists, including #1 placement on Amazon lists, and multiple showings on the Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller list. She has appeared on national and local TV across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning.

Tara is a supporter of the National Domestic Violence Hotline. If you or someone you know might be a victim of domestic violence in the United States, please contact 1-800-799-7233.

Website│Goodreads│Amazon│Facebook│Twitter│Pinterest│Instagram│Wattpad

Domestic Violence Shelter Drive

As Tara supports speaking out against domestic violence and supporting those who have been abused, both through her books and in her community, she would love for you to join her in donating items to a shelter in your area. Find out more here.

Tour Giveaways

1ST RAFFLECOPTER: 1 winner will receive ebooks of Where Secrets are Safe series books 1 - 13 (open internationally) 1 winner (per the four tour segments) will receive a $10 Amazon eGift Card (open internationally) 2ND RAFFLECOPTER: 1 winner will receive 25,000 Harelquin My Rewards Points, equivalent to 5 books (US and CAN only) 1 winner will receive 5,000 Harelquin My Rewards Points, equivalent to 1 book (US and CAN only)

Both Rafflecopter giveaways end November 30th, 2017

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